Jessop's Street Clock ~ Painting

 Painting This Model Just Like Painting Any Other Model.

Testors Paint makes a nice Metallic Copper color. And its small bottles should be about right for a small project like this.

Here are the colors I'm trying to represent:

Copper. With Gold and Black trim.  On the left is the clock looking polished and shiny after being restored and installed at Horton Plaza.  After several years it has patinaed as seen on the right.

The modified Brawa model has been masked and is ready for the paint booth.

Primered.  The Testors "rattle can" primer works just fine for this. I applied two coats within 3 hours of each other and then let it dry for over 24 hours. Testors recommends 48 hours but the weather has been warm and dry so it should be fine.

Coppered. Wow! It looks like a brand new shiny penny. The paint was thinned 15 drops thinner and 20 drops paint for the airbrush. Two coats covered nicely. The second coat was airbrushed on within 3 hours after the first coat as recommended by Testors. 

Unmasked.  The suspense was killing me as to if the masks did their job. With the spraying done, now is the time for the unmasking.

Success!  For the most part the round masks worked. As expected a little touch up paint was required.

After letting the paint dry for the recommended 48 hours it was time for the...

Golded.  This was rather difficult to paint as the gold isn't showing up so well. It's very similar to the copper color. Hopefully another coat or two will help it pop?

Birds turn.  I'm going to try something different with this bird. I'm going to dip him right into the gold paint bottle!  This could go very bad if I drop him in!

The claw pick up tool seems to have a good grip on him- so in he goes!

Golded Eagle.

Blacked.  It took me way too long to notice that the base is also black.  So I masked off the clock and airbrushed the base black.

Gold Bits.  Some of the details are impossible to model so they are represented with a dot of gold paint. This dot of paint comes way closer to the detail than anything I could model.

Painted. And thus completes the painting portion of this project.

Yes sir!

Painted!

Dandy.

Jessop's Street Clock ~ Masking

 Preparing the Model for Painting

Masking those round clock faces was a challenge!

But I figured out a reasonable way to achieve it.

This model wasn't designed to be disassembled without possibly damaging it. Otherwise I would have removed the clock faces for the painting of the body. But alas, it's not to be, so I'll have to mask them off. I also masked off the wire leads for the lighting.

The $5 solution was this K&S 7/16 brass tube that matched the size of the clock face frames.  I pressed the tube hard into the painters tape and cutting mat.  Then I carefully X-actoed around the tube.  It took some tries to get it right.

Hmm- not a round as I would like.  I'm in for some touchup painting when the masks are removed.  Getting the masks to laydown over the clock hands proved tricky. But I think I got it. As long as the paint stays off the clock faces I should be alright.

Alright- off to the paint shop. Fingers crossed.

Yes sir!

Fingers crossed.

Dandy

Jessop's Street Clock ~ Detailing

 Let's See How Close I Can Make This Look Like The Prototype Before I Paint It.

There's no need for this to be a precise model of the Jessop's clock. I would have scratch built it if I wanted that.

 This project is meant to be 'quick and dirty'.  I'll be happy with a 'reasonable facsimile'.

The birds showed up in the mail (Preiser HO Scale # 10169 - Birds (Pigeons, Seagulls, Crows and Birds of prey)) and I quickly found one that would fit the bill (beak?) and it looks great! So we are off to a very good start here! 

On the prototype the bird is on a sort of pedestal. I should be able to fashion one rather easily with styrene.

Using the telescopic abilities of Evergreen Styrene tubes, a ring was cut from a 3/16 tube and fit around a 1/8 tube and glued in place.  For ease of handling, it was then filed to the '1/4 dome' shape while still attached to the length of tube before being cut to size.

And then centered and glued to the clock.  Because of the delicacy of the parts, I'll be holding off gluing the bird on until after painting.

And that's it. I don't think there is anything more I can do before painting.  Other details (such as those arched 'Jessop's' plaques) are best put on afterwards.

Now its time to prep for painting.  Since I'm unable to disassemble this model, how the heck am I going to mask off those round clock faces for painting?!?.

Yes sir!

Round masks!

Dandy.

Jessop's Street Clock

Modeling San Diego's Historic 1907 Street Clock

by Modifying a Brawa Station Clock

Well here is a project from out of the blue.  A chance listing on eBay caught my imagination and might prove to be a good project to get things rolling again with this blog and layout.

Okay? So lets roll!

Jessop's Clock is a large outdoor pendulum clock originally located on 5th Street in San Diego.  It was commissioned in 1905 by one of the city's noted jewelers, Joseph Jessop.

In 1984 it was moved to the new Horton Plaza Shopping Center where it stood until 2012 when it was dismantled and put into storage.  

The clock is scheduled to be restored and reassembled for it's permanent installation in the San Diego History Center in the Casa de Balboa building in Balboa Park for the exhibits opening in 2028. 

Neat ol' clock.  It never occurred to me to model it, until...

...one of these Brawa "Standard Clock for the Station Forecourt" (Normaluhr für Bahnhofsvorplatz) popped up for sale.  It sure does have a family resemblance to the Jessop's clock!  Since the price couldn't be beat (especially since they seems to be out of production now) I purchased it.

While trying to determine if this model could be disassembled for painting I discovered that it is made of brass. Or at least the post is. With some plastic parts. The base is all that I was able to remove. So painting will be tricky.

I don't know what kind of bird this is (maybe a Quail?), but I got to find something similar in H.O. scale to make this work.

So I ordered Preiser HO Scale # 10169 - Birds (Pigeons, Seagulls, Crows and Birds of prey).  I would think one of these would work!

It's a good looking clock. And if I can pull off the transformation it should be a handsome addition to the streets of the layout. 

Yes sir!  A handsome addition!

Dandy.