Pier Deck Rebuild

I've spent most of the last 3 years building scenery on other peoples modules. I don't post anything on those projects here, or anywhere else either. Last week I unloaded the Waterfront modules from the trailer and assembled them in the living room. Time for some maintenance and the continuation of some projects. For maintenance, one rail in the turnout to the float apron lifted off the PC ties it was soldered to. Rather than re-solder it I hand spiked the rail as recommended by Joe Balint who built all the track for me.

Now for completing a project. There are 2 piers on this module, the large generic factory (which has existed as a paper mock-up) is on pier #12 to the North. The tail track for the large run-around is on a narrow pier (#11) to the south with the car float slip between. When I originally built the deck on pier 11, I used sheets of Bass wood and drew and painted the the planks. Afterword I allowed the sheets to dry a couple of weeks so that they wouldn't shrink after installation and leave gaps between them.
Didn't work, After about a year the sheets shrank. It looked bad enough that I removed the sheets, leaving the bare plywood deck.

The Car float office has been removed and resting on the tracks on the other side of the slip. I don't want any paint or weathering color to get on the office building, so removal is necessary. I also had to remove the guardrail in front of the office because the guardrail posts were set into the last piece of the original wood pier deck. For the new pier deck I'm using Evergreen Polystyrene sheet "Car Siding" part # 2067. The label says it's O scale 3-1/4" spacing, but it gives me something close to 7" wide planks in HO scale. I was looking to get 8"-10" planks on the deck but this will have to do.

The new styrene deck has been glued down, all the weights I used are sitting in the float slip. The styrene sheets were painted with grey automotive primer before installation. Then a wash of acrylic Raw Umber was applied, followed by a heaver wash or Burnt Umber. This gives the planks some color variation which I will add to in the next step. 

For the next step I added the last color called "Linen" (Folk Art brand) to some individual planks. The color is a dark almond. For applying the color I placed a couple of drops in an artist paint dish then added 1 drop of diluted ammonia but didn't mix it into the paint, I only used the thinner to dilute the paint already on the brush. This produces a wash of varied opacity when I applied it to the individual planks. Not all planks receive the wash, only about 30%. Also, I mostly applied the wash to only parts of a plank; for example the ends or only the middle, blending the wash into the previous color. And I would often vary the opacity of the wash on an individual plank.

So now a sheet looks more like individual planks.

I'm NOT adding nails.

The last step took me 3 hours.

Next, adding 10' long 8"x 8"s to the edge of the pier just behind the piles.