All I really needed was just another day of work and the project would have been complete. Last night I got the balsa wood trimmed down with a sharp hobby knife. The balsa wood now runs along the diorama instead of boxing it. And I patched the gaps between the dio and the balsa, between the rocks and the balsa, and between the balsa wood gaps with paper clay. With all that dried and cured for a full day, I got back to working on the sucker after work.
The first step was to sand the edges where I had patched the paper clay between gaps in the balsa wood and the balsa wood adjoining areas. The paper clay sands very nicely and when done, I was left with seamless transitions between the balsa wood pieces.
Next, the edges that run along the balsa wood with the paper clay patching was painted with an enamel dark earth to match up with the olive drab that was used for the base ground color. The areas around the rocks were painted with the same paints and technique used on the rocks last week. With everything blended together, the bare balsa wood was next.
The balsa wood is just stained with a neutral tone that is slightly darker than the balsa wood. I applied the stain with a folded up paper towel to control the amount of stain and not over stain.
The stain done, the next item was to fill in the previously painted edges with foliage to blend everything together. White glue and various woodland scenics turf is used. The board is now left to dry. I will probably spray a clear gloss over the balsa wood to give it a final finished look. But all said and done, I only needed about one more day’s worth of work and the damn thing would have been competitive. Lessons learned.
