Since my early days in the hobby, I have been willing to create my own buildings, but laziness, not knowing where to begin, refusing to leave the so-called “comfort zone” and also and most important; being busy with my RC models, prevented me from making decent and big buildings. Along all those years I have been making some incursions in the world of constructions, like my watchtower, the MG nest with field radio, and a super cool Nissen hut among other minor buildings and I can say is, all of them look great to me. But after having such a fun and great experience with the Budai bridge, being almost finished with the RC toys while suffering the Austrian post block and having room enough to fit pretty much whatever I want, there was no place for excuses anymore. It was time to finally focus on buildings.
Years ago I wrote an “Edifices” entry where I was going to compile short info and pics of all the Stolzdorf’s buildings, and that is pretty much what I was doing ’till today, but I realized that if any crappy Aliexpress resin deserved an website entry, no doubt my very own buildings deserve one as well. And I believe this barn is too cool to not to be proudly showed and presented to you, my dear readers.
“Move ’em out! Head ’em up!… RAWHIDE!!!”
But getting the inspiration was not easy. I am a city man, most of what I have seen of the rural life was either on TV or online, I almost thought the milk was produced directly inside of the bricks with some kind of nano-technology, so, I googled for a couple of hours looking for a barn that I could like. From the many pics I saw online there were some which I really liked, but unfortunately, I realized those barns were going to be humongous, and even when cool looking, that is not what I was looking for. Then is when I decided to make my very own version and I did some drawings in a piece of paper. Later on, when looking for extra detail I took another look in Google and then is when to my astonishment I found a picture of another barn which was almost exactly what I had both in my mind and in a piece of paper. Yep, you guessed it, that is the entry’s splash picture. Seriously, my drawings were exactly like that except for the small light tower on the roof, which was absent on my drawings. That was perfect and the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. It was decided, that was going to be the old Stoldorf’s barn.
Building process.
For building the barn on the correct size, I used the Marlon Brando figure that my friend Herr Charly printed me, and a “Bruder” cow that my friend Wolfgang gave me long time ago. Due to I thought the cow was going to feel lonely and depressed and was going to produce bitter milk, I ordered a bull which I placed next to her, but I am afraid their relationship seems to not to be going very well, because they don’t breed… ☹ I considered painting both animals with a more realistic color, I love the “Milka” purple black and white cows, and the Spanish black bulls, but yet again, I got lazy, and it is hard to see them anyway, so I thought it was not worth it.
Anyway, let’s go back to the barn’s building process. I have seen that most of the people making buildings are making them with some sort of isolation foam called XPS, which, after some work and a lot of paint, looks pretty much like the real thing… but that is not what I wanted for my barn. This barn would only have sense to me if it was made of real wood, like the real barns are. So, no more excuses! I took a look at my wood spares and scrap box and I picked some sticks that were left over from the bridge build. Good! that was enough for the main structure.
Then, I bought a big plank of balsa wood and I started cutting 1cm wide 2mm thick stripes. Yeah, each stripe you see in the building has been individually cut. Then, as my friend Peter taught me, I grabbed the grinding disc and I started grinding every single piece of wood, and, after staining every single plank individually, I glued them to the main structure.
The roof brought me some headache. I did not know what to do, neither how to do it. I have seen people making nice roofs with plenty of individual roof tiles. Life is too short and I am currently mid-game, so I did not want to waste my precious time with it. Instead, I fitted and painted some corrugated cardboard which looks like fibre cement. It looks like Austrian people calls it “Eternit” while we, the Spanish guys, call it “Uralita”, not sure how it is called in other corners of the world but I hope you get the idea. It makes the job, and it is a damn old barn after all, it does not need something better, lol.
And that was pretty much the building process, but as you all know I love lights and illumination, so I had to fit a nice looking old skool incandescent bulb and a connection to an external power supply which can barely be seen on the picture. It is under development and soon will be published in the website. Oh, and at the background there is one of the lovely Herr Charly’s street lights.
As a side note, I find unbelievable and extremely annoying the differences while taking pics. Both pics were taken with the same phone at the same time, on the same place. Meanwhile the top one looks like the real thing, with that retro yellow-orange-warm white color, the lower one looks more xenon like which does not match neither the model, neither the original ancient bulbs.
Painting process.
When researching how to paint a barn, most Google pictures I found were of real old red American barns, and while they looked awesome, that was not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted it to look European in a old, brown, aged color.
I did a big mistake in all my previous wooden buildings, and that was gluing before staining the wood. I did not know it while making my first buildings, but wherever there is glue, there is no way to stain the wood and it will look awful. Hence, this time I stained every single plank individually with a mixture of some kind of petrol with white spirit in different proportions, which brought me different tones. Once I had all the planks over the desk, I mixed them, so when building the model it has a very natural look. I wish I did this on every other of my previous buildings, and hey, I might even modify my beloved bridge at some point just because of that. Well, live and learn… Of course, this takes much more time than painting the fully built and assembled building, and the nasty white spirit fumes were also hard to digest. I got nostalgic of the OMG-we-are-all-going-to-die-with-Covid times and I used a FFP2 mask and I put some extra clothes around my nose for trying to withstand it, but Jesus, I am pretty sure I lost loads of brain cells in the building process… Well, I say to myself it was worth it.
One side of the building was too flat and looked boring, but that was on purpose. Since the beginning of the build, I planned to write an advertisement of the most famous Stolzdorf restaurant on it. I always had an awesome experience with my stencils over all kind of surfaces, but in this case it ended to be a disaster. Not the stencil’s fault, there was no way to stick anything to the wall. Neither adhesives, tape or anything I had at home. I got nervous after the painful experience of painting the restaurant name, and I did a shameful rookie mistake. I did not measure with a ruler where to place the other markings, so they are offset. I don’t have words to describe how mega pissed I am, because it ruins the entire building to me. At least, thanks to Wolfgang there are no grammar mistakes on it, otherwise I’d set it in flames.
I am seriously pissed, what was going to be the building’s super highlight ended in a “Meh” result. Sigh… The restaurant will be built as well, by the way. When? Well, only God knows, when.
What comes next?
More buildings! Among other things, of course. Yeah, I have many ideas in my head. I have almost finished the Stolzdorf’s real working power supply, and I am currently working in a MG Bunker, in a concrete flak tower, in a two-tank shed and even in a super secret sci-fi “Wunderwaffe” that will finish my diorama’s industrial area. Then, it will be time to focus on the civilian part. For the future buildings I am using new (for me) materials like that XPS. I am definitely leaving the comfort zone. Time to experiment!
Not sure how long it will take me to build the other things, because I resurrected one of my oldest hobbies and passions that I had in a frozen hiatus since I left Spain… Music! Look what I got!:
YES, a new electric guitar! 😀 Yep, it is a real guitar, not a “Guitar Hero – Play Station” toy. Weird or even ugly looking for most, but mega cool to play nonetheless. Many famous guitarists played it, being Mark Knopfler, Van Halen, David Bowie, Guilmour and Armando de Castro some of the most famous.
Let’s see if I can remove the rust from my fingers…
RAD INDUSTRIES 
te ha quedado Rad, enhorabuena!!
Charly
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