A Review
Walt and I have been good friends for some time and email each other every day. Back in mid-April he sent me some early production samples of his stumps and asked if I would "review" them. I did so and posted the review a week later in another forum. Since that time, Walt has had a number of orders for his stumps as well as requests for other logging accessories. This past weekend he decided to "ramp up" production of the stumps as well as cut logs, and uncut trees.
Since some of you may be curious about these after seeing Shamus' beautiful photo of "Rusty's Stumps," I thought I would post my original review here. BTW: you don't have to be into logging to have a set of these on your layout. They look great in general scenic treatments.
The Review
I model the Missouri Ozarks. Ozarks-style logging in HO scale, to be specific. White oak. Red oak. Short leaf yellow pine. Trees that grow 50 - 80 feet in height, with trunks that are typically 18” - 24” in diameter. They’re what I grew up with, they’re what I’m surrounded by, they’re what I model on my layout. So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the package of resin stump castings Walt had sent me, and out tumbled 6 huge tree stumps that appeared to be so far out of scale I wasn’t sure what I would do with them.
But then I looked at them a second time and a third. And I realized that they really weren’t out of scale. They were, in fact, just right for HO scale western-style logging. You know... tall pines, giant sequoias, Douglas firs. Really BIG trees. None of those scrawny mid-western oaks that I was used to seeing.
Of course, the next thing I realized was that they would probably be perfect as ordinary stumps on an O scale layout. Just to be sure, though, I got out my scale ruler and measured them.
One of the things that makes them appear so large initially is that Walt modeled not just the stump but also the root structure. So I started with the base. The largest scaled in HO at a little over 24’ across the roots; in O it measured almost 13’. The rest were of similar sizes. Next, I measured height. The tallest measured 13’ at the top of the butt (about 6.5’ in O); the others were of varying sizes ranging from 7’ to 10’ in HO. The diameter of the actual butts averaged 6’ in HO and 3’ in O.
One of the more impressive things about these stumps is that not just bark texture is modeled. Walt also scribed grain, age cracks, felling breaks (with splinters), and peeling bark at the top of the butt. All in all, great detailing and some pretty darned good modeling.
Since my castings were pure white resin, straight out of the mold, the next step was to see how they looked once they were painted and all dolled up. I arbitrarily selected three for this. The first thing I did was soak the castings in a sink full of lukewarm water and dish detergent for a few minutes and then gently scrub them with a brush to remove any traces of mold release. After they were thoroughly dry, I began painting.
Two were painted with various shades of Floquil, including Earth, Rail Brown, Roof Brown, and some left-over Oak Flo-Stain. I say “painted;” actually I dabbed, freely mingling the colors and making no attempt to wait until one color had dried before starting another. The idea here was to create a mottled gray-brown appearance all over each stump. After the Floquil had dried but not cured, I flowed a black alcohol mix freely in the bark crevices.
The next step was to drybrush gray over the surface of the bark. I wound up using Ceramcoat’s Quaker Gray acrylic and Apple Barrel’s Pewter acrylic because all of my Floquil grays had apparently gone south for the winter (or maybe for all of eternity), as they eventually do once they’ve been opened.
The final step was to add some texture to the bark itself. To this end, I scraped the edge of my X-acto knife along a stick of raw umber chalk and a stick of gold ochre chalk, creating two small piles of dust. I then applied the dust to the painted castings using a soft round brush.
I followed the same steps for the third casting, the only difference being that I used Polly Scale colors instead of Floquil. I wanted to see if water-based acylics covered resin castings or adhered differently than solvent-based paints.
Does all of the above mean these castings are perfect, free of flaws? In no way. Even Walt would be the first to admit there are flaws. For one thing, I had to cut away a bit of flash and excess resin from the base of each before I painted it. For another, I noticed several several air bubbles (also called air bells) on the surfaces. But, even the most professionally cast detail parts - whether resin or styrene - typically have flash that has to be cleared away. And I didn’t even notice the air bells until I looked at the castings under my lighted 3X magnifier while painting them.
All in all, you can’t go wrong with a set of these - especially if you’re a sawdusthead. But they’d also make great scenic additions to any S or O scale layout. And one other thing: if you’re into forced perspective, these would make great scene “starters” in HO.
Contact Walt if you’d like a set.