Continuing Saga …

Thanks fellas!

 

Today I did one thing... with the weather at a wonderful 70+ degrees I sprayed Krylon gray primer on the two hoppers. My wife and I are now on kid watching duty until Sunday, but since they not that young, I may be in the shop tomorrow too and do some final painting. The Airslide is going to be Burlington Northern green with a 1980s BN logo. The covered hopper is going to be Santa Fe brown with the same tagging.  

 

It was impossible to get masking tape to stick to the sintered metal wheel treads so instead I liberally applied a coating of oil so the paint wouldn't stick. If it goes according to plan it should wipe off...famous last words.

 

I was interviewed today by the corporate communications person from ABB for inclusion of an article in their internal communications. We had a great discussion and she was frankly amazed that a person of my age could learn some much about a new topic so quickly. She asked if you always have to learn so much about a subject before modeling it. I said it helps. In this case understand how things were arranged and functioned let me make a more substantial model. Plus I had the help of many others including you two with some real-world technical experience.

 

Regarding the distillery. I found out from Andre that all the extra effort I was applying to keep the brick lines off the cutting lines was unnecessary. I made masking lines to keep a 1/32" inch buffer between the bricks .7 pt lines (engraving) and the .3 pt cutting lines. He said the laser will ignore the brick lines butting up against the cutting lines. So I'm going to go back and fix this. These drawings have taken several weeks already. The laser cutting may be fast and accurate, but the drawing creation is slow and labor intensive. The beauty, of course, is you can now cut a thousand and they're all the same.

 

I am now getting NASA Tech Briefs. In it was a new kind of 3D printer that has been prototyped. Instead of a laser drawing each layer by many, many passes to solidify the polymer, it uses a photosensitive polymer that is UV cure. An entire slice is project upwards through the bath and is focused on a specific layer which immediately solidifies. The next slice's image is projected as the now solidifying object is pulled up one layer's amount. It produces unique parts up to 100 times faster than current technology. They have a lot of work to do on the chemistry, etc., but the concept is genius. Each slice would appear like a view from a cat scan. It will be interesting to see where this all is in 10 years. I would really like a 3D printer and laser cutter in the shop. Nothing could stop me...maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh!

As planned I was able to get the first color coats on the hoppers. One is a Santa Fe brown and the other is BN green. For the second coat I will mask the green to spray on  a black undercarriage for the BN car and a coating of dirty black/brown for the Santa Fe car. When that dries I'll spray a coat of clear Future floor wax to provide a good decal base. That will followed by decals and then dull coat. Once the dull coat dries we'll be ready for weathering with airbrush and Dr. Martin's powders (from MicroMark). It's about a one week project to do this if you really want each step to fully cure before the next. Luckily I have the fire house to work on.

 

 

Speaking of the fire house, I got a lot accomplished on that front today. I fully assembled the four walls of the main structure and even plopped it on the layout to see how it looks.

 

Before putting the walls together I used a surface gauge on a smooth surface to scribe the line for the second floor. I glued some styrene strips to the building to act as a ledge for this floor. For the floor itself I'm using foam core. The LED lighting will generate very little heat so foam core should hold up pretty well.

 

 

What complicated this a bit (a for subsequent steps) was all that massive structural framing I added to straighten the warped walls. The floor level fell right onto the ones lining the long sides. Les Lewis suggested that it would have been better to use heat to straighten them, but that was after I had already CA'd enough Plastruct structural material to build a bridge capable of holding a locomotive. I know this because it was those very same plastic parts that I did use to build three railroad bridges.

 

They also go in the way when setting up the clamping for the mitered corners. I partially solved this problem by trimming them back enough for the clamps to have purchase.

 

 

Another challenge what clamping the miter clamp to the front wall bottom. There wasn't much to clamp to and the miter clamp's screw jack is in the middle where there is an opening for the door. I worked around this by using a nice stiff 6" machinist rule from my Brown and Sharp tri-square. I then put a piece of 3/16" Masonite in the opening to provide something to push against. 

 

 

This method produced a good joint so I repeated it for the other side. When the front was secure I was able to test fit the piece of flooring I cut.

 

 

I'm not going to include any detail in the second floor so it's really serving as a light block and a place to mount the LED light fixture.

 

The rear wall didn't have any additional bracing so getting the clamps on was much simpler and the wall went on straight forward.

 

With all the walls of the main building together I had to take some pictures of the overall building and then stick it on the layout. The roof and tower are just sitting there since there's some particular things you have to do to get the roof properly fitted.

 

 

It's an imposing structure and even more so when it's in place on the layout.

 

 

It really dwarfs Saulena's Tavern. I made the first floor ceiling height 16". Fire houses are not little structures. Behind it is where Bernheim Distilleries is going to go. It too will be an imposing building, almost 16" longs and about the same height as the fire station with much more ornate brickwork.

 

Here's the reverse angle view.

 

 

Next will be a combination of finishing up the cars and continuing to build the fire house.

The cars look very nice with just a coat of paste.  Also, the fire house is going to be very impressive.  The bracing will help.  Andre's fine work is great!

Trainman, I use powders a lot but have never bought DR. Martin's.  Are they superior to others or do they have any special characteristic that makes them better than others?

 

I love the firehouse, and the entire city blow you have there.  Super look to it all.

Mr. Marcovitch, I just had to take a moment to ask a question and add a few comments. First as to the question a few days ago as to "...how many people follow...". I can speak from experience that I regularly look you up at least once a week. I think the nearly 40,000 views that this thread has also speak to that. Your modeling and mechanical skills are awe-inspiring.

 

Ok, now the question. I just saw you do something that fascinated me. I regularly repaint old train cars. I like buying them cheap and making them my own. I just saw you prime and paint without covering the trucks! I once spent an hour carefully removing errant paint from a poor masking job on 1 wheel. Why did you prime and paint the trucks? I saw the post where you said you would mask the body and apply black to the underside (assuming again you will include the trucks). In my head now you have 3 layers of paint to remove from the wheels and axle (maybe the spring systems too). Did you cover those in oil as well? Please tell us as I am reaching for my turpentine bottle and q-tips to save you from yourself!

 

Thank you for the hours of enjoyment!

lol

Excellent question Mike!!  I'm sure Myles will have an exceptional answer!

Good question. I tried to mask the tires, but the tape didn't stick to the sintered metal wheels, so I chose another, albiet dubious, route. I applied lubricating oil to the threads and flanges in hopes that the paint won't stick well. We'll find out soin enough whether this idea works. It's always so critical to have clean surfaces for paint that I can't imagine it will be to hard to remove the paint. Famous last words. As for the trucks, the springs really don't do any thing so painting them like this won't hurt. The trucks are going to get more paint before this is over. Since they're screwed in from the bottom, i can always remove them if i have to. MTH trucks screw in from the car's insides so you can't remove tme without messing something up. If i need solvent to clean the paint, I'll use scetone which is great for removing dried acrylic.

Alan, not sure about dr martin's quality compared to others. I mainly like tgat it cones in a set with lots of color choices. I think that once you start using powders you will resist using paints for most typical weathering spplications. I'm still going to aurbrush the light coatings of dirt and dust on the car's bottoms, but use powders for the streaking and rust stains. Any areas of concentrated rust will be started usung heavier coats of artist tube acrylics, burnt and raw umber. This builds up some rough texture like heavy rust can do. If you look way back when I built the bridges you'll see how I did this. My Thrall all-door car is an example of WHAT NOT TO DO in freight car weathering. I tried using "dry brush" for tgat, but was way too heavy.

If you want to see the "new" style of 3d printing in action they posted a ted talk about it last week on ted.com.  A 10 minute talk and they print out something that would take hours the current way.

3D printers will, like 2D printers 20 to 30 years before them, go through a steep improvement curve: resolution and speed will both improve while cost comes down.  

 

In 1984 the first printer I bought was a dot-matrix that needed its own tabel, and slow as molasses, with poor print quality.  Now I have a high resolution color laser that fits under the desk and cost maybe $400.

 

Give 3D ten years and it will be spectacular.

I looked at the TED film. Interesting stuff. I agree with Lee...in 10 years we won't recognize what's being done by additive manufacturing. I've been following it since the mid-90s and was thinking for a time of going into that industry, but didn't pull the trigger.  The current crop of inexpensive plastic melters don't have the resolution for working in 1:48. The machines that the likes of MTH use in making their prototype shells are the high resolution laser-curing devices that cost a bundle. This new method only has one moving axis (Z). All the rest of the dimensions are created by the sequence of digital images that show each sequential cross-section. In the prototype unit, the projector lies directly below the curing chamber in the large lower section of the printer. I could very easily imagine putting the projection system along side of the curing chamber and directing the image into the bath via lenses and mirrors. This would enable the unit to be put onto a table top. I imagine it would have the resolution us modelers would need.

 

I bought the paint for the fire house today and will do some painting this week because the weather looks pretty good. I did do some work on the cars. I painted the under body of the Airslide Nato black which is a like weathered black, and did the trucks on both cars the same color.

 

And of course a calamity happened. I was looking around for a roll of Tamiya masking tape on my workbench, bumped the airslide and knocked it on the floor. Several of the CA'd parts blew off, but overall the car survived and in a few minutes it was all back together again. I hate when that happens!

 

 

I attempted to mask the upper works to air brush the black on the Airslide, but it was an exercise in futility. The handrails and other hardware on the ends didn't lend themselves to masking. I therefore, handprinted all the black. I left the wheels untouched... I'm going to do them later. On the Covered Hopper I also hand painted the trucks black, but in this case I took them off the car so I could do it more easily. Tomorrow, I'm going to take the trucks off the green car before doing the wheels. Incidentally, I did attempt to scrape the paint of the tires and although it wasn't easy, it did come off. The oil treatment did work to make it a little less paintable.

Look good.

now make them glossy apply decal, flat finish and voila!

AG.

I left the cars sit for a day and was intending on spraying Krylon primer on the fire house, but after looking at the instructions again, and studying the model, I realized that I had some more heavy work to do on it and painting would not be a good idea. It was a gorgeous day outside with the temp a balmy 73 degrees, but it was quick breezy and spraying would have been sub-par.

 

I first had to fix the broken window mullions. Lee was nice enough to include the right sized styrene stock to make those repairs. The first one was to replace all mullions in one sash on a second floor window. I made a very small cross-lap joint to fasten the pieces together and then fit them to the opening. Unfortunately, it came out a little warped. This side will be facing the back of the layout so I'm not going to mess with it.

 

The second window repair was a front window. Here just one mullion had broken out. Of course in the act of fitting this one replacement, I broke another mullion and had to replace both. In this case, it came out square, although there's some excess CA to be shaped if I so desire. That's the problem with resin, you can't use plastic solvent cement to joint, you must use CA.

 

 

I then prepared and joined the tower to the engine house. To get a good fit I had to thin down the tower's wall thickness with a coarse sanding stick. I then clamped it to the main body and applied thin CA both inside and outside of the joint. In a few minutes it was solid.

 

Lastly, I turned to the roof. Again, there was a lot of man handling the model and fitting that needed doing and if it was painted it wouldn't have been good.

 

The roof pieces were made oversized and had to be coped into the tower and front overhang adjusted. The walls are neither dead flat nor perfectly square so the cuts had to be custom measured for both roof halves. I first trimmed them so the rear roof overhang was flush. Then I took a piece of 1/8" X 5/16" plastic stock and while holding it against the tower, drew the cutting lines on the roof halves. After cutting on the jig saw and final sanding, I was left with about a 1/8" overhang on the back side, which looked good. 

 

Les Lewis shows building an attic ceiling, additional pieces with the roof pitch and long purlins that support the roof. He cut a large hole in his so the lighting would be up in the attic, but since I using those flush mount LEDs I left mine solid. Before putting the attic together I had to mount side supports that would hold it all.

 

 

Les used 1/8" styrene. I didn't have any sheet big enough so I made it out of a sturdy piece of 3/16" Masonite I had lying around. Again, the building is not dead on square so I had to custom fit and cut the final fits.

 

 

The Masonite's nice and rigid so no additional bracing was necessary.

 

Onto this floor goes too more solid roof "trusses that had to match the end pieces in pitch and height.

 

My first attempt wasn't so hot so I remade it. The second still wasn't too good and was low on the back right slope. Instead of cutting another I just packed out the low spot with some balsa sheeting and then sanded it to match the contour of the resin part. The front piece came out dead on. I arranged these two pieces equidistant from the ends and marked their location on the attic floor. Here was the pieces lined up for a fitting.

 

 

I didn't have much styrene bars lying around so I used 1/4" square for the purlins. I measured and notched one piece on the jig saw and used it as a template for the other one. After a little touch up sanding I glued all of this down to the attic floor. The attic is NOT glued to the model and probably won't be. By gluing the roof halves only to this inner assembly, the entire thing can be lifted off to get at the inside.

 

 

I was now ready to tape the roof pieces together and do the final fitting for the front and back.

 

 

The fit came out better than I expected.

 

The left half was glue to the trusses and purlins with Gorilla glue and I was able to clamp the purlins to the roof so the it cured well. 

 

 

For applications like this I like Gorilla glue since it expands as it cures and fills any irregularities.

 

I let this cure for a couple of hours and then after dinner went down to check it and it was solid so I glued up the other side. To clamp this I had to get to the purlins from the ends, but it held. Again a couple of hours later I checked and I had a complete solid roof. Before gluing the roof in place, I did have to sand the top edge of the side walls to get them to conform to the roof pitch. I also had to sand the roof peak mating surfaces so they too would join neatly.

 

The results were very satisfying.

 

 

Here's the entire roof removed to show how it hangs together.

 

 

Lastly, here's that critical back edge fit.

 

 

With the floors built and the roof fitted, I can now spray the primer and get ready for the burgundy brick-color coat. I will use sheet rock joint compound for the mortar lines after the paints dry. Unlike the chimney on my train station, where I used the water-based joint compound on water-based paint, here it will go over solvent-based Krylon.

 

The building is quite heavy. Resin is heavy and that chunk of Masonite doesn't help. But this is a good thing since it sits nice and flat on the baseplate.

While I am waiting for some glue to cure on a plastic roof, I am reading your Firehouse progress.  Size wise, its a significant building, but your layout demands significant fire protection!   As usual, your posts are very instructive, especially explaining how you solve problems that come up.  In my experience, just about everything involves problem solving, from planning a sequence strategy to figuring out a vision for a particular scene.  You do it so well.

Thank you! The building the model in my mind and playing various steps over and over is one of the great joys of the hobby, especially when it materializes into what you imagined. It's truly the joy of creating.

 

My grandsons both show this ability and are a pleasure to work and problem solve with. Grandson #2's cross bow project was the highest rated in the entire science department. While I helped a lot in some of the challenging construction steps, he designed it, researched it, wrote the entire report, tested it, and presented it. We worked the challenges together. It was as much fun for me as him.

 

Right now my biggest challenge is making the laser-cut drawing for the distillery. Just when I think it's ready to go, I go back and look at the 3D drawing and find something that I missed or misunderstood. Right now I'm in the process of revamping the intersections of the side pieces with the front, back and middle walls. It was a late pickup, but was critical and the model wouldn't have gone together properly had I not found it. One of the problems is some walls need bricks on their fronts AND backs. Laser cutting only works on one side, so I have to design thin overlays to put the bricks on the back side. This has greatly increased the parts count and complexity. Of course I had to pick a Victorian, brick, factory building. Why couldn't I have picked a clapboard one-room whistle stop station. Nope... not me. My first brass project was that substation.

I tried your methods, but I lack the imagination so critical to success.  So this was the result......

 

Seriously, that firehouse could withstand a nuclear blast.  Nicely done!

 

Bruce

 

OP by Trainman: 

My first brass project was that substation.

............................... ............ ........ wow! I feel tiny in comparison reading that          

 

 Your story is reminiscent of my own grandfathers guidance. An Artisan byproduct of the twenties. Valve and gauge maker by trade. For fun, early Michigan racing(with Allison airplane engine in a Cord), boating, woodworking, a bakers son! mmm Fancy-Cakes, oil painting, scale- "professional" doll houses & some architects models, electronics, and a bit of Rube Goldberg-ing for fun. "Honey, look what I made" (she never new if he was serious cause it always worked, and with brass work & finished wood bases, so serious looking )

Also he was ship-in the bottle guy.

Neither I, nor my Lionel-Gramps could hold a finger to his modeling. Doing things with the end of a bunch of wires never looked like funNice! but bye-bye Gramps.

 His shop & garage were like opening a 3d popular mechanics, or popular science magazine. Gadgets bought and made everywhere. He held a few patents, a couple used in chroming. Thank him for better temp control getting better lasting finishes in automotive chrome. They still use the Accurate Instrument Gauges I think. 

 I was taking off door handles as soon as I could reach them.

The toolbox got a lock at home, so my Grandfathers shop on the next block, supplied my outlet for mechanical learning most days. (he lived miles away, mom&dad bought a house, seen while visiting his shop) I was watched over as he spoke, and I acted as his hands. I did everything myself, except final mill & metal lathe clamp torques that wouldn't do well being hit with a mallet to get the clamp tight. And this was pre-school, literally. (fractions confused me later, but not decimals. I knew those already)

 He had me "master" things by hand, then machine. Wood first, then brass, copper, iron, steel, aluminum. Then came heat & dry powder hardening/pickling. I was his grease monkey, automated drill press feed, and chaser of lost check valve balls & their springs at the shop. This kid was seldom beat in pinewood derbys. It was the best when you could see the losing car was actually adult built (cause the scout was afraid to touch it, looking up to see if it was ok. Real "owners" don't do that. The "it's my car!" attitude cant be faked ) 

 Anyhow when I see or hear about a kid being taught in this fashion, it give me grins And, makes me a little jealous in a way

 Your obviously a "great" Grandpa, and "Thing #1 & Thing #2", they will likely thank you nearly daily for making time for instilling them with these great skills

 

Heck, I thank you for raising "builders" not more "store bought" children

 

 

 

 

Adriatic,

What a testimony about Gramps!  My 84-year old dad is pretty sharp at improvising.  However, he says my grandfather was better.  Unfortunately  grandpa passed away at age 56, before I was born.

The things you learn from your grandpa go striaght to your soul and become part of you for like.  These kids are lucky indeed!

I am so glad I found your journal. I now want to go back and re-do some of my work to match your standards.You make it look so easy, which I know it isn't. 

 

Cheers,

Richard

I'm glad you found the journal also, but just don't replicate what I'm about to explain in today's post.

 

I finished the primary painting on the cars yesterday, which included a gloss coat in prep for the decals. I did the Santa Fe PS-2 covered hopper first. I went smoothly and came out looking quite spiffy.

 

 

I used Solva-set to settle the decals into the car's texture. The ATSF and the designation number are single decals that drop over the car ribs so you need it especially on that.

 

With the easy car out of the way, I tackled the Airslide hopper in BN livery. The problem was that I bought a set of decals for a 50' airslide (the only one Walther's listed). It doesn't quite fit the way it's supposed to. I started with the long fully written out "Burlington Northern" lettering. I didn't realize that it was all one decal connected in odd ways (not one sheet, but with either the top row or bottom connected to each other). In order to fit it to the ribbing on the 40' car I erroneously thought that I had to cut them apart. That began the troubles. I got the B and N in the first panel, and then I forgot how to spell. DOH! I put the two Rs next to the B forgetting the U and O. Microscale decals are quite thin. I tried to detach the Rs to move them over, but they got destroyed in the process. It also messed up the B and N in the first position. 

 

So I decided to scrap the full spelling and instead put the big BN logo centered in the car body. It's big! It's Bold! It's completely wrong!

 

 

Since you can never look at both sides of a railroad car at the same time, I decided to do the reverse side correctly.

 

 

This picture was taken before the decals had dried and settled in. That BN logo is huge and was not fun to position. I also had a problem with the top "T" in the name, but since i still had part of the aborted set from the other side I found a T and installed it thus saving that installation. Today, I touched up a few of the cracked portions of the big decal and prepared to shoot it will Dullcoat. So someday this car will be worth a fortune like those Lionel mistakes that end up being super collectors items. It could happen...

 

 

With both cars decade and flat coated it was time to start weathering. Before doing this I scraped all the paint off the tire treads first with the Facto and then a final cleaning with Acetone. I painted the centers and backs with a rusty brown and then remounted the trucks on the cars.

 

First weathering step was a dusting with the airbrush of some sand-colored Model tech paint. I shot it on the bottom and let the light overspray rise up the bottom of the car. I also dusted the roof to fade them a bit. I shot some light gray from the hatches and down the sides to start the process of making it look like these cars are carrying cement or flour or something like that.

 

 

 

Next came the weathering powders. I used rusty red, ruddy brown, grimy gray, grimy black and highlight white. I dirtied up the ends, added rust and other grime to the trucks, and played around with the roof.

 

 

I dry-brushed highlight silver onto the roof walks, ladders and grab irons. Painted the couplers rust, added some color accents around the air lines, and put the cars into service.

 

 

This next shot was done with the iPhone's flash. It accentuates the rust. It's not that bright.

 

 

And with that dear readers, this little side excursion into some brass scratch-building, kit-bashing is finished.

 

I also got a nice primer coat on the fire house yesterday, but today the weather was frightening and I worked inside. Do not pay attention to the sloppy shop. I promise I'll clean it up.

  

 

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I shoot the color on the fire house. If not, I think I'll clean up the shop.

The cars came out great!  Worth something?  I envision your grandsons each taking one and treasuring it way down the road.

Thanks Mark! It makes me want to accelerate the Kadee coupler mods on all the cars and weather more of them. 

 

Yesterday was another great spring day for painting outside. I got all set to use the Krylon maroon of the fire house and did a test spray on the cardboard that was coving our trash container that is my outside spray stand. It was horrible! Way too red! So it was put everything away and head to Michael's to return it. They gave me a full refund, no questions asked. I knew that Krylon didn't have the right color so I headed to The Home Depot next door and bought Rustoleum red lead-looking primer. The painting went smoothly and the results look right.

 

 

The grouting will tone down the brightness a lot and add some more variation to the color.

 

I wanted to put some fascia trim on the roof front since the resin was not equal thickness. I made it a one-piece affair. But it didn't look right hanging out there all by itself so I decided to add fascia around the rest of the eaves. Again, since it resin, the styrene trim has to be held with CA. The fascia serves another purpose...it hides any gaps between the roof and building fit, and there are some.

 

The fascia's going to be painted the same color as the window trim. The main building is effectively complete except for add-ons (flag pole, chimney--also painted brick color--gutters and drain spouts. So I turned my attention to the interior. There could be lots of  work on the insides depending how crazy I want to get. The doors will be facing 90 degrees to the viewer so view will be limited. I'd like to put in a stairway to the 2nd floor, and maybe a pole. A station of this vintage would definitely have a pole.

 

First thing I had to do was box in the unsightly reinforcement "structural steel" parts. Bristol board did the trick held to the Plastruct with medium CA.

 

 

I may leave the 2nd floor dark which would simplify things a bit. Today was our 47th Anniversary so no shop work and a great dinner out at a very authentic German restaurant. Tomorrow I'll get some work done, but will have to pick up folks at the airport mid-day, so the next good session will be Thursday.

 

Here's how it looks so far.

 

 

Roof is supposed to be slate so I'll give it a similar treatment as I did on the chocolate shop and the Victorian train station.

really nice!

are you going to use Robert mortar?

Andre.

I think I'm going to use water-based pre-mixed joint compound. I used this for the chimney on the Victorian station and it worked well. That is after I sealed the water-based paint with dull coat. Prior to that, the joint compound was removing the paint. Les Lewis used an alcohol/india ink wash on this after grouting. I'll probably do that too.

I use indian ink too to make some moldy areas.

Andre.

Missed posting yesterday, so there's a lot of pics. I completed all the grouting. 

 

Before tackling the grout I worked more on the interior. First I thought it would look good with some structural steel columns and beams holding up the second floor. 

 

 

This didn't work! There simply wasn't enough surface area to really hold the beams since I put them on as an afterthought. Then I kept bumping them when painting the interior. Finally I bumped one off and decided that they had to go. I painted the upper floors all flat black since I'm going to black it out. You can see the hole for the fire pole. It will be supported on the top end in a simple block and a landing pad on the bottom. Since the upstairs won't be detailed I didn't have to build the upper works of the pole which can be pretty elaborate with brace railings surrounding the opening. The 2nd floor is a piece of foam core, the hole was cut with an Xacto lined with a piece of thin styrene and glued with thin CA. If I were to detail the second floor, it would have a kitchen, eating area, dormitory and bathrooms. This was modeled after a real structure in Conn., so all of that would fit in the building.

 

 

The interior is sort of sea foam green, some nice institutional, neutral color.

 

 

I have to detail the walls since there a no doors showing on the inside matching those on the outside. The stairway to the 2nd floor will be hidden behind an angled wall with the fire pole in front.

 

Grouting, as mentioned, started with the tower. It was basically the same as a 1:1 scale tiling grout job. I'd smear the material on, liberally, then using various sized scrapers I cobbled out of sheet styrene, proceed to scrape of the excess. I then dry-wiped the bricks with a paper towel. Then it got annoying. I had to use dental tools to scrape excess out of all the various level changes. 

 

 

After cleaning all the corners I took a lightly wetted rag and wiped it down again. While it still left a film, it was damped down nicely when I used the alcohol/India Ink wash. This little bit took over an hour and half.

 

Once the tower was done, the rest of the job went quickly, due both to the learning curve and big flat surfaces. I sped up the process by using a better selection of spreaders and laying on the first coat thicker so I could spread it over a larger area in one go. 

 

 

 

Remember, at this time the windows and trim are not finish painted.

 

While it looks pretty good just grouted, it's just too fresh looking.

 

 

And here's the building after two coats of alcohol/India Ink wash. I really wanted to damp down the whole deal and two coats did it. Notice, that I'm now putting the fire house on the front of the layout. It fits and gives me a better chance to detail the ground floor interior.

 

 

I think the brick looks much older and more natural with this level of wash. When the roof is finished, trim painted red, gutters and drain spouts in place, chimney (which reminds me, I have to grout that!), and the doors in place, plus the base plate finished, it will look very authentic. It's a shame that the beautiful Corgi fire trucks are 1:50 and all the other vehicles are 1:43 because they look so small. That's a big difference in scale when dealing with trucks. The Mercury convertible in front of the house is almost as long as the American LaFrance 1950s pumper.

 

Next time, I work on the interior and do the trim painting.

It looks good there, and will be very nice to view all the interior when you are done.

Nice job on the interior & exterior on these structures.

The grout information you showed couldn't have came at a better time for me.  I'm getting ready to do this to a building myself and really enjoyed the tutorial.

 

What's the name of the product you use?  

Great work and tips for brick work.

Great work on the cars and the firehouse. I'de really like to see a close up of the brick after the alcohol wash.

 

Aside, my wife and I celebrate our 45th this August. congratulations on your 47th. Life really goes by pretty quick doesn't it? Sharing it with a great gal makes it all the better.

 

Ron H 

It is a work of art.  Beautiful.

Very nice building.

Thanks all!

 

To satisfy the requests:

Here's the material I used for mortar. Remember, it will dissolve water-based paint right off the model so if you're going to use it, first seal the surface with a non-water-based flat like Dull Coat or a solvent-based fixative.

 

 

For the second request, here are some closeups of the brick work with the wash.

 

 

The hardest places to remove the excess "grout" was in the corners of the recessed areas as seen above. I may try and go back and treat them with something, possibly some red-brown weathering powders. I haven't used any let and I want to dust the bottom section with some "mud" air brushed on to simulate the accumulated dirt splashed up by rainwater.

 

The wash did 2 really good things. It made the mortar look real, and it changed the brick color by toning down the orange and giving it a really nice old brick feel. Even without the windows being painted the building almost looks finished. I'm probably going to paint the window sills a concrete color. I'm also going to spend some quality time looking at brick buildings for the nuances like where any moss would grow, any streaking, how downspouts and brick interact.

The Fire House came out spectacular. I want one too, but read this was a special deal you found.

 

Do you, or anyone else have a Fire Station kit I can get?

Really nice work!

The test piece is n the mail btw.

 

Az road, if are you interested in One bay fire station Y can offer you one.

let me know.

 

Andre.

AZ, thanks (Andre too), but it's not done yet. I still have plenty to do to screw it up.

 

It wasn't really a special deal. Les Lewis of Westport wanted to market it as a kit and made the first one from his styrene master, but it didn't come out like he wanted. Some of the problems I've had to contend with in the build (warping, varying wall thicknesses, etc.) were the specific reasons why he chose not to market it. I saw Les laying the individual styrene bricks at the '07 York show and said if was making a kit, I'd buy one. That was the deal.

 

I wanted to prime paint the drain spouts, gutters and other detail pieces including the doors. Unfortunately, I had to spend over two hours rebuilding the down spouts and gutters. Les was nice enough to construct out of brass gutters from Special Shapes U-channel plus soldered 3/32" brass tubing. Unfortunately, for the jog bends in the down spouts so they would hug close to the building, he simply butt-soldered the angled joints. All but one of them had broken in shipment. I didn't even realize this until I examined the parts closely today. I thought they were just separate pieces.

 

Butt soldering wasn't going to work so I made 1/16" brass plugs to provide more solder area. 

 

 

This was the first one I tried. I quickly realized that I needed to bend the plug too. I did this by making a razor saw slice and using the saw kerf as enough space to make an angled bend. I tinned this bend and soldered it into the previously attached angle tube. I cut the plugs very short just to create a bit of a stub. It stabilized the joint and gave much more solder area.

 

Here's the completed joints. There are two joints in each jog.

 

 

There were some gaps that I filled with CA before priming them. I said that three of four were broken in the box. Well I brought the brass upstairs fix'n to take it outside to paint it, and poof! the last joint gave way. Back to the shop to make another repair. I eventually did prime all the brass parts. The downspouts/gutters will be painted copper and then patina'd. 

 

I decided to start the detail painting on the main building while the primer dried. I'm using Model Tech's concrete gray which I really like. It's also water-based and benign so it doesn't have a problem with the Rust-o-leum primer red underneath. I have some new  Tru-Color paint, but it's acetone-based and would eat the primer.

 

 

I also painted the tower roof Nato Black and the parapet cap the concrete gray.

 

 

I'm not going to do much detailing of the interior doors. You really won't seen them. But if you do get a glimpse, I masked and painted the door's shape onto the interior wall.

 

 

I need to make some kind of shelving/cubby system for the interior walls where the firemen's garb would be stored. I did get a hold of some fireman's outer wear in 1:48 and need a place to hang it all.

 

Next session I'll build the shelves and start on the roof detailing. I also need to make/buy hinges for the four front doors. Les provided no way to hand them. I could glue them in position, but I'd like them to be working.

Trainman2001, when you solder the various brass and metal pieces you are using as downpipes, etc., what are you using now/  Resistance or a normal iron or gun?  I recall some discussion but when the pieces are as small as some pictured here, what method and what solder do you use?

Lee, I used resistance. I'm almost using all the time now unless I'm doing electronic work.

 

The only problem I have with the American Beauty is that the tweezer points cross if you put a little too much pressure on them. When they cross, they spew the part out...somewhere. I keep bending them to ensure that they're centered, but there's a lot of side play in the system so you really can only use moderate pressure at best. I'm saying that because the tweezers had a hard time holding onto the tubing pieces that make up the downspout. The job was more frustrating than it seemed it should be. I don't know how Les Lewis was able to butt solder all those pieces together.

 

Actually, the smaller the pieces the more RSU shines.

Trainman, Thanks for the detail.

 

Ron

Your welcome!

 

Today was fun since I was actually building things and not re-building them. First was more detail painting on the tower roof.  I also found an extra Grandt Line door for the entrance to the hose tower from the inside. I finished the chimney and installed it. Lastly, I started fabricating the cubbies that will hold the fireman garb.

 

I added some gloss black "tar" lines between all the rolled roofing on the tower. This really makes it look real (to me). 

 

 

The tower gutter and downspout goes just below the tar paper lip in this picture. I should dust the whole area with powders, streaking it and toning down the "newness".

 

I grouted and painted the chimney yesterday. Today I went back and painted the flues flat black, dusted the hole area with dirty black weathering powder and then made chimney flashing out of black construction paper. Many modelers leave out flashing, but again, I think it just makes it look more real.

 

This is a really closeup pic, but those bricks still look amazing. Lee, this is the 3-inch rule. Before installing the chimney, I marked out its area and scraped off the gray primer. I wanted to have raw resin so the glue would stick better especially since I wasn't going to remove the shingles themselves. I used Gorilla Glue to hold the chimney specifically for its ability to expand and fill in gaps. In some instances, the upper gap between the chimney and the roof slope should have a "cricket", which is a small triangular roof that sheds water in that V-notch so it doesn't get trapped and freeze there. Since this firehouse is in Kentucky, I probably will leave out this detail. 

 

 

I found this door and make a quick frame. To stick the door to the wall I tried a new product: Glue Dots.

 

I bought them at Michael's when I went looking for some more DAP Quick Stick contact cement strips that also work well. The glue dots are about 3/16" in diameter and are on a strip. You touch the object to be stuck to the dot which picks it up, and then press it to where you want it to be held. Bingo! Holds tight and instantly. Four dots held the door tightly. No slop, no mess.

 

 

I have these fireman's coats that need a place to hang them.

 

 

To hold them I'm making a series of 8 scale feet long by 7 scale feet high cubbies. There will be a shelf to hold their helmets, which I still have to make. I'm using scrap styrene that I have lying around so you see some differences in the textures. They won't be visualized at all, and will be painted fire engine red... appropriate, don't you think? They're not finished or fastened in this picture.

 

 

I'm making five. I guess I could make six, but frankly, it was getting boring. When done, I'll stick these to the walls with glue dots also. I have to make helmets and I think it's time for me to get into resin casting. I can get a full starter set at the LHS for under $50. I've been putting this off, but the helmet project makes sense to do it in resin. One master... many copies.

 

Tomorrow, the chimney will be cured so I can start painting the various shingles different shades of gray to make it look more like real slate. Then I'll weather it and paint the trim. I was just thinking as I'm writing this... I wanted to make the roof removable, but the gutters are attached to the roof and I will want the downspouts attached to the walls also, otherwise, they'll get broken eventually. So the roof will need to be fastened to the building. The building itself will be fixed to the base, but the base will not be glued down to the layout. I'll make a plaster socket just like the substation to blend it into the layout.

 

I have to produce hinges for the big doors. I've been doing some research and am quickly coming to the conclusion that these too will have to scratch built. Anyone have any good ideas?

I used to compete at IPMS National events and your building's 'brick and mortar' are the best I've ever saw. It's just incredible!

 

The chimney is fantastic, absolutely stunning.

Fantastic stuff.  I have never heard of glue dots.  Must get some . . . 

 

Andy yes, the chimney is incredible.  And, frankly, easy to copy, which I intend to do!

Remember, the great brickwork started with Les Lewis' great bricks! By using individual bricks Les was able to do two things that added to the realism. First, the act of gluing on individual pieces created a non-uniform look that replicated real life. Second, it made very sharp and deep mortar lines that lend themselves to my way of grouting.

 

That being said, I'm working with Andre Garcia on laser cutting the distillery. I suspect that the mortar lines will also be sharp and deep. He did a test cut for me and I'm waiting for it to arrive. It will be on MDF. From his photos, the mortar lines look pretty good. They won't have much irregularity being laid down on my computer, but I suppose I could build that in.

First of all, I got the sample cutting from Andre. It's one wall section of many for the distillery. The cutting alone will go into the hundreds. In the sample, I made the brick lintels part of the brick work, but in later revisions I re-designed them to be appliques made from 1/32" stock. The test proved that my drawing method was correct for laser cutting. Also, notice that the brick is arrayed in "Common bond" where every 6th row are bricks on end connecting to an imaginary inner row of bricks. That different row definitely caused extra drawing.

 

I immediately sprayed it with Rust-o-Leum red primer and applied some mortar to see how it worked. I didn't let the primer dry very long and definitely rushed it, but the results were promising and I just sent massive cutting files to Andre for the main distillery bldg and the "kitchen".

 

 Clearly, the Les Lewis individual brick wall looks better, but I'm pretty confident that the laser cut wall will work just fine. This was a really quick job.

 

After the experiment, I was back at work on the fire house. I put in the middle shelves on the cubbies, painted and then installed them.

 

I thought it might be interesting to see how I transfer and make precise fits in styrene. I use the digital caliper. The inside and outside jaws repeat the same exact measure, so one can measure the space between two points and use the other side of the caliper to transfer that exact distance to a work piece.

 

 

And here's where I scribe that distance to the styrene.

 

 

By dragging the point across the surface while keeping the other point in contact with the edge, the caliper works as an effective surface gauge. And don't forget to tighten the locking screw before transferring the measurement. I use the NWSL Chopper to cut the piece to length.

 

 

I taped the pieces to a piece of wood and then airbrushed a couple of coats of Vallejo bright red. 

 

And here's the cubbies installed using glue dots.

 

 

That is not the house's base. it's one of my cutting pads.

 

It was time to paint the windows. One of the advantages of having a building with the windows included in the molding is that they fit perfectly. And the drawback is that it would be very hard to airbrush them. Instead, they all have to be hand painted. I'm pretty good at the that so it wasn't a bad task. Here's the first window. The paint was still wet some what looks like misses are actually highlights reflected off wet paint.

 

 

And here's the first side complete.

 

 

To facilitate painting, kept turning the whole building 90 degrees so I was always painting on the top of the edge I was painting. This was especially valuable when attempting to line the edge between the brick and the framing.

 

Here's the front end.

 

 

I got some more of the 3rd side done. The tower will be "fun" to do. I will probably give a little alcohol wash on the finished frames to tone them down a bit. The iPhone registers the red as a little "hot". It more red than it appears in the pictures. The window painting will be done tomorrow. I made a scan of the main doors so I can import them into Illustrator and design some hinges. I also have to get to casting some resin fire helmets. I wonder if Artista has any?

I think the red windows are super.  What color red is that, please.  It might brighten up my fire house.

Edit: Ooops. Vallejo Red. 

I agree that the red is good for the firehouse windows and lockers.  It will look good with the fire engines.

My search for Vallejo bright red was unsuccessful, but I did find a Vallejo blood red on line that looks close to your window sash colors.  What are your thoughts about a folkart substitute?

Let me be more specific:

 

The actual color is Bermellon Red Vallejo Model Color #70947. I wonder if they were trying to spell vermilion? Just asking...

 

If fact, I have to go to the LHS and buy more.

Today, I finished the hand painting of all the windows. It was a careful, finicky job, but came out nicely. The tower and the back two windows were especially challenging since the building itself blocks my normal painting style. As it was, the results didn't suffer.

 

This shade of red does have a bit of orange in it.

 

After placing it on the layout for these next shots, I had my wife "inspect" it. She thinks that the building should be moved back to my original spot since its size blocks view of smaller buildings behind. I am tending to agree with her. I'm also going to get another set of LED track lights from Lowe's. I'm still not happy with the level of illumination on the front of the town.

 

I thought this would be a nice looking building, but frankly, it's exceeding my expectations. I'm still noodling the door hinges, and will probably compromise. I'll use brass tube and axles to make the actual working hinges (hidden) and make up some styrene fake hinges that will be on the door's surface. This will prevent me having to do any silly jewelry work.

 

Andre has the distillery drawings and cutting will proceed after York.

Again, I like the color and it appears to be just the right accent for the color of the brick.  It is an impressive building to be sure and a nice addition to your layout.

Thanks. I just bought more of that color. Vallajo has many shades of red in their rack at the LHS. I may have purchased this red to match some decals on an airplane kit that grandson #2 was working on four years ago.

 

Today, after buying a Alumilite resin starter kit and more paint, I painted 9 fireman's outer garb that will go into the cubbies. I want the resin to cast fireman's hats and boots. I'm sure I can sculpt at least one good one of each, but certainly couldn't do it multiple times. That's where the resin comes in.

 

 

The coats were molded in white resin.

 

Underneath them are the printouts of the fireman's helmets that I'm going to attempt to model.

 

 

And behind them is the Alumilite resin casting starter set. While the starter set is rather small, I'm really only planning on resin casting small details. Once I get into larger stuff, I'll have to get some different materials.

 

 

Tomorrow, I'll be sculpting and attempting to make some molds. The originals will be made out of Super Sculpey. It hardens at 275° so it will hold its shape when being covered in mold silicone. But... it's very friable and thin sections don't hold up very well. That's the main reason to cast the parts instead of making them all out of Sculpey. I had a lot of spoilage when using it to make the substation light fixtures.

I used some of that to make 1:350 gun turrets and all on scratch-build warships about five years ago.  It's good stuff and really the way to go when you want to make a bunch of things exactly alike.

Yesterday I started to attempt to craft a decent fire helmet and boots. I foolishly tried to model the ribs in the helmet. Why...? I have absolutely no idea since the chances of visualizing them while the helmets sit on a shelf in the cubbies buried in the firehouse are effectively nil or zero. I'm using the more stiff Sculpey, but still when working with tiny fragile items, just the act of holding the object smashes the details you just created. My first try ending up looking like this.

 

 

There are names for things that look like this and none are suitable for posting on this forum. I then created one that was passable, heated it in the toaster over, and then dropped it on the kitchen floor before I got it down to the basement and the back of the brim broke off. 

 

So today I tried for a third time and this time left off the ribs. It came out as a decent, identifiable, helmet.

 

 That wooden log in the foreground is a toothpick. I baked it, and while it was cooking I made some boots.

 

 

I looked at some YouTube vids of resin casting and decided to make the mold box out of Legos, of which I have an adequate supply. The starter kit is really small, but luckily my parts are really small too. 

 

Here's the parts nestled in the mold box.

 

 

After I took this pic I further sealed the Legos and added another row of bricks to make the mold box higher. I didn't create any air vents, and I'll do so in the cope of the silicone bottom mold after it cures. Before I poured the silicone I put a series of dents into the clay that will serve as reference keys to keep the two halves of the finished mold.

 

I mixed the silicone at the recommended ratio of 10:1 by weight using my digital scale, and poured the mold. This will be cured tomorrow and I'll pour the other half of the mold tomorrow. We're going on a trip starting Friday so you'll all have to wait (as will I) to see if this experiment in resin terror actually works. Once the mold is ready, I can make multiple copies quickly since the resin cures in minutes, not hours.

 

 

 

Clearly, using liquid silicone is more efficient than using liquid latex. It's also much more expensive and is not suitable for pouring over rocks to make rock molds. 

Your masters and mold look good.  My daughter uses Lego blocks to make her molds too.  She casts doll parts, then paints them and strings them together.  Yours should turn out good?

Great ideas.  Nice how to on it, too.  Thank you!

When I checked at 1:00 this afternoon the silicone had not completely cured. It resembled my pancakes I make that sometimes, when the batter thickens, cook on the outsides and exude uncooked batter from the inside. I put the legos back against the mold and let it cure some more. I moved it upstairs where the temperature was higher. Right now it seems like it's getting more solid, but I won't open it up until after the trip we're about to take tomorrow.

 

So to fill the time, I painted the roof, the trim, and started finishing the base board.

 

The roof is made to look more like natural slate. I do this by randomly painting shingles with a purple/gray, a green/gray and lighter gray. It's quite subtle, but kills the uniformity of the sprayed gray roof. I also used some gloss black at the chimney base to simulate more tar sealant.

 

 

I then painted the roof trim and the trim surrounding the upper edges of the main building. I used two coats and did it entirely by brush.

 

 

Here's the front trim in detail.

 

 

I masked where the building would go so I wouldn't groove under the walls. I laid out the base on 8 scale foot expansion grooves using a sharpie. 

 

 

I then used one of my many dental tools to engrave expansion grooves into the Masonite.

 

 

Before airbrushing Model Tech concrete, I ground down the front edge to be the curb cut to ease the fire trucks entrance and egress onto the concrete pad.

 

 

Lastly, I dropped the building onto the base for a status shot.

 

 

The base needs some weathering (as does the building). This will be done when we return on May 4th. I'll be checking in on the iPhone, but probably not posting (as much).

Enjoy your trip.  Everything will certainly be cured by May 4.  The whole thing looks good.  

 

The roof looks very nice, but it must get tedious coloring shingles one at a time!

The slate roof looks great, and so does the concrete base!

have a good trip!

My thoughts too, but it does look much more realistic in comparison to what I see around here. 

 We've got some truly neat "patterned" roofs nearby, and even a few with initials on them too.

   

I'm really learning quite a bit from your posts. Thank you and keep it coming.

 

Ron H.

Hi guys! I'm back. The silicone for the first side of the mold took way too long to cure. I pulled it apart just before we got on the road for the trip and it was cured. As soon as I got back into the shop, I turned it over and poured the second half of the silicone mold. Quickly I realized the first part of the problem. I thought I was measuring the ingredients using grams and wasn't. The digital scale was set to ounces so the 10:1 ratio was completely goofy. When I poured the second side, I made sure to get the ratio right and it cured in 6 hours. I also took it out of the chilly basement and moved it to the warm sun porch.

 

All of this, however, is moot. The entire exercise was a bust since I didn't have any "official" mold release to keep the two layers of silicone from sticking together. Instead I used vegetable oil. It didn't work! The top and bottoms were completely fused together. I basically destroyed the entire mold in trying to get it all apart, and scrapped the whole idea. I did a lot of research into resin casting during this part of the project, but don't want to invest any more money in casting these silly little details that no one will ever see. So I'm going to hang the coats in the cubbies, but leave out the boots and helmets.

 

I'm not finished with silicone mold making. I'm planning on making my own masters for the arches and retaining walls for the elevated portion and will probably use silicone to make the molds. Instead of resin, I'll be using Hydrocal since I still have a lot left and it's much, much cheaper than resin. This is not fully decided at this point, I may still go commercial (Scenic Express), but it's like 17 feet of wall that needs to be covered and that's lots of $$$ to buy. Silicone mold material isn't cheap either, but you need a lot less of it.

 

I did get some constructive work done on the fire house. I got the roof vents installed along with drilling the holes to accept the flag pole. I'm installing that after I stop manhandling it. 

 

 

I then started installing window glazing. For the tower I just used long strips of .010" clear styrene. For the second story which will be dark, I glued the glazing directly onto the walls, but for the first floor which will be more visible, I mounted window frames on the glazing and then fitted them to the walls.

 

In all cases I used the MicroMark Pressure Sensitive Adhesive which is a reasonable way to attach glazing. I applied the adhesive to both pieces, let them set up and then put them together. Getting glazing up into the top of the tower would have been much easier if I hadn't had to glue on the roof piece, but I couldn't have glazing in place when doing all the painting. Luckily, it's just big enough inside to get my hand (and arm) all the way up. And also lucky that I don't have large hangs (a definite disadvantage when I play guitar).

 

I painted the window frames by sticking all the pieces to reversed masking tape. I used a diluted plastic tube cement applied with a tooth pick to glue the frames to the glazing. It's one of the reasons why I like to use clear styrene instead of clear acetate. Acetate is not glueable with solvent cement.

 

I had to paint the insides of the window mullions the frame color (a light green Model Tech paint) since they had red paint from the outside color which looked terrible.

 

My cubbies created a problem for the two rear windows leaving no room for the frame so I to do some selective hacking to get them to fit. If I had thought a little more ahead, I could have made the cubbies a little narrower so the windows wouldn't be in play. Oh well...

 

It's Mother's Day weekend so work will commence on Monday. I just have to glaze the doors and the transom windows above them and it's onto the main doors. I'm still noodling how I want to hinge them. It's good practice since I'm going to have to make similar hinging for the three sets of doors on the engine house (future project).

 

Andre says there's some errors on the Distillery drawings that have to be corrected before cutting can begin. I work on them soon too.

Super!  The detail you have is extraordinary.

 

About the hats and boots.  I understand the frustration with the molding.  

 

We work in very different ways, Trainman, and you may not like this approach, but for what it is worth.   If I were making, say, a half dozen fireman's hats and boots to hang on a wall, etc., I might do it this way:

HATS - get some of the things shown in the photo below.  Th3y come in several sizes but they e are a bit more than a 1/4 inch or 3/8 inch wide.  I think they are called eyelets and made for sewing.  Forget the donut - work on the thing that looks a bit like a priest's wide brimmed hat.

 

 

Put the future "hat" on waxed paper or some other surface that glue doesn't like (teflon, etc.).  

Using a sharped pencil point and depending on surface tension to help you out, put a drop or two of yellow wood glue on the bowl of the "hat" and spread it over the entire top and sides of the bowl.  You way need to use a second pencil point to hold the "hat" firmly in place while you do this.  Then let it dry.  The dried glue will expand the size of the "bowl"  Depending on things, you may need a second application.  

 

Using more glue, apply a thin layer as shown to form and extend the back brim of the firefighter's hat.  Let it dry.  It will be fragile, but . . . with luck you can make six or so hats, cheap. paint them (carefully, they are fragile).  Just takes a day or two because you have to let the glue dry overnight.  Other glues, or epoxy instead, would work, too, I imagine, but I've grown used to using yellow glue . . . 

 

BOOTS - there are two ways I would do it:

Expensive: buy a set of firemen, as below, cut their boots off, and savee the rest of the figures for passengers in trucks or cars or where you won't see their feet. 

 

Less expensive: takes some figures you have but can't use, or that are cheaper, and apply yellow glue to their feet and lower legs to widen them until they look like boots, as was done to widen the hat. 

Welcome back!

Glad to be back. And that dear friends is exactly why I take the time to interact with all of you each work session: Getting sage advice from other modelers who see things differently. Lee's idea, while I may or may not do it, is terrific. I'm also thinking that if I perfect it enough, I can simply make ten copies of each out of the Sculpey itself. I know how to make the hats pretty quickly and it would be faster than building up layers of glue and having to wait for the multiple drying times. The boots are cut out of a slab of rolled clay and then rounded out. I used another donut-shaped piece for the wider top. I can make these quickly too.

 

Andre and I are working back and forth correcting some of the errors that crept into the massive distillery drawing I sent. To make the little added pieces of material that hold the cut parts to the sheets (nubs?), I used the "anchor point add" tool in illustrator and then split the line at that point, separate the points to make a gap. This gap then has the un-wanted effect of turning one object into two (or more depending on the number of nubs). His software was then drawing phantom lines between the end points of these sub-parts which the laser would interpret as cut lines. I've gone back and reconnected all the points and overlaid little white squares with no outlines to block parts of the outline and make the nub gaps. This should correct the problem. If not, I've just wasted a lot of time. We'll see...

The drawings are all modified and back in Andre's hands. I'm excited to see what they're going to look like cut and see if it goes together as I designed it. As I said before, I have a new found respect for the likes of Bar Mills and B.T.S. in the design and creation of complex laser-cut kits.

 

Finished installing all the fire house windows and started on the main doors. After interacting with Les Lewis I decided to make the simplest hinge possible; a brass rod into a drilled hole on the building and a socket in the base plate.

 

I eyeballed the hole position in the door top and bottom and drilled the holes with a 0.032" drill about an 1/8" deep. After CA'ing the brass pin into the hole, I used the door to make a corresponding mark on the building frame and drilled another hole. This hole was very close to the corner and the pin vise didn't have clearance to drill straight in. I fudged it by putting gentle side pressure while drilling which bent the drill so it was almost vertical while rotating. I kept finger pressure on the drill shaft to maintain this curve and got a reasonably straight hole. You have to be gentle since miniature drills are fragile.

 

After fitting the doors two of them were a bit long. I ran some heavy masking tape across the bottom in line with the building's bottom, then stuck the door to the tape when its pin was fully seated in the hinge hole. This established a very nice cutting line for the fine-toothed razor saw. I had to deepen the bottom hole a bit since I cut part of it off.

 

I was then ready to paint the doors and glaze the windows. I used the same red color for the outside of the doors. The insides will be painted the light green window frame color. The regular bottles of Vallejo paint say not for air brushing. I assumed this was because it wasn't thin enough. I used Testor's acrylic air brush thinner to thin this paint.

 

That apparently was a mistake. I've used isopropyl alcohol for thinning Tamiya acrylic for years with zero trouble. The Testor's thinner seemed to cause the Vallego paint to clump...terribly. I would spray for a minute and the gun would shut off. I had to disassemble it completely, clean it out with Model Tech cleaner, alcohol and finally acetone. It was fully clogged. I tried again and it happened again. I spent much more time cleaning than painting. Vallejo has an airbrush paint line, but didn't have this shade of red.

 

 

The trickiest part to this whole affair will be locating the hinge holes in the baseplate. I'm going to tape the doors into position and align the back of the fire house on the base and tape it, then swing it down into position so the bottom hinge pins will mark their location of the base. I'm going to bush the bottom holes with a piece of K-S 1/16" brass tube that just so happens has an i.d. of 0.032". I'll use Gorilla Glue to hold the tubes into the base and drop the hinge pins into the bushings as I lower the building into final position.

 

For the engine house, the doors will be very similar (although a little bigger), but in that case I want to make them remotely operable. For this installation, I'm thinking that I'll mount the lower hinge assembly into its subassembly that can be installed after the building is in place on its base. It will have a series of levers and bell cranks underneath that will open all three doors simultaneously either by servo or push cable. Building the fire house has been good practice in designing a more sophisticated structure.

Nice going.  It does appear to be coming together nicely.  I like those doors a lot.

 Cutting the first page!!!

Andre.

That's great! Perhaps you can try fitting some of the parts together to see if they actually fit as i drew them...?

 

I airbrushed the interior side of the main doors the light green. Again, I used the Model Tech paint. This paint did not have the problems that the Vallejo had with the clogging. The model tech bottle threads directly onto the Badger adaptor and can be sprayed without thinning so it's very easy to use. I then measured and cut the door glazing. There was some variation in the opening sizes so I had to adjust each piece to fit correctly. I used RC-56 canopy cement to hold these windows in. It's a PVA glue that had good tack and dries almost invisible. This picture was taken before the cement dried some it's still quite visible behind the clear styrene.

 

 

After everything dried I inserted the doors up into their respective hinge pin holes and then taped them to stabilize them. I lowered the fire house into position on the base and marked where I thought the bottom hinge pins would best fall.

 

 

I drilled on these spots the .032" drill and then test fit them again. When I got them seated correctly I opened the holes out to 1/16" and prepared some of the 1/16th brass tube that would serve as a more substantial pivot instead of directly into the Masonite. The doors needed a little trimming to get them to open and close properly. Here's one of the test fit sessions.

 

 

With all this done, I'm going to do some pre-weathering of the base plate and start preparing the fire pole base that will be at the rear of the station. I'll permanently mount the station, put the fire coats into the lockers and then mount the 2nd floor. Only then can I finally install the fire pole. Get'n near the end on this one, and just in time. From what I hear from Andre, I'm going to have a distillery to build before long. 

 

I've just designed another kit for cutting using all the techniques I've learned from the distillery project. For example, I can now paste the Brick arrays into the wall perimeters using a keystroke instead of carefully hand fitting the array. It took minutes instead of days...literally! This is the Night Hawks Cafe project. It will make a great little Victorian tavern building with turret with the interior a replica of Edward Hopper's famous Night Hawks painting which resides at the Art Institute of Chicago. I've written about this in an earlier post.

 

There are more buildings for the distillery that will be designed later depending on how good the main buildings come out.

I just love those doors, trainman.  They look REALLY good!

Just amazing

I want one so bad... I have been looking for a firehouse and there is nothing close to what you have. Even to scratch build or kit bash would not come close.

I think you're going to have to contact Les Lewis at Westport Model Works. I seriously doubt that he kept the silicone molds that he used to create this one. The next best choice would be to draw it up and get it laser cut. I'd hold on that choice until I see how the distillery comes together. Unlike this model where the corners were all tapered at 45 degrees so the joints wouldn't show, I've designed the distillery to have interlocking corners which will show some joinery. I've designed cover pieces to hide some of the most obvious joints, but they won't be invisible. I suppose that I could design the corners of a laser cut piece to be beveled so the corners would butt up flush, but it's MDF and I don't have the fixtures to form a really straight bevel.

 

Les did attempt to offer it, but it proved too difficult for him to create. He was using open molds which made it very difficult to control wall thickness. As I noted when I started the project that I had severe warpage of the main parts. There's also a significant twist in the hose tower, but it's only really noticeable when you're looking down on it and that's not how it will be viewed on the layout. I'm optimistic about the laser cut designs.

 

For today's session I finished preparing the doors for mounting; painted and patina'd the down spouts, gutters and flag pole; mildly weathered the base and main building and prepared and mounted the ubiquitous fire pole. With the pole, it's now a "real" fire station. I started out by weathering the building. From the new Big 4 Bridge promenade (a massive railroad bridge over the Ohio River that has been turned into a lovely human walkway) you look down on some lovely Victorian houses in Jeffersonville, IN. This one caught my eye for the mansard roof details and it's brick work. Notice the staining that's coming down from the windows sills. I thought this was an appropriate amount of weathering for the fire house. Get a load of those chimneys! The Nighthawks Cafe will have a roof very similar to this one.

 

 

Here's how it looks when I used the dry-brush technique to simulate the same effect.

 

 

I also dusted the bottom 1/2 with some light sand colored paint from the air brush. This is supposed to represent the dirtying of the bricks due to rain water splashing up. It's very subtle.

 

Next I added some character to the base plate. I lightly air brushed flat black where the tires would be rolling, and then added gloss black for oil stains and some clear gloss for water. In retrospect, I should have added some color to the water since real concrete gets wet and is darker than dry. The painted surface didn't absorb anything and therefore didn't change color very much.

 

 

I painted all the metal details a metallic bronze craft color. It took two coats. I force dry my acrylics with a Top Flite heat gun. I start it on heat and quickly switch to no-heat. It can get really hot and soften styrene if you're not careful.

 

 

After it was dry, I used Rub-n-Buff green patina on the bronze to make it look like weathered copper. It works great. I don't apply it with a brush. I just wipe it one with a paper towel. It's a wax-based produce almost like shoe polish. It cleans up easily with Goo Gone. The flagpole shows the patina very well. It really looks like copper that's been exposed to the weather. Les made the ball on the end out of a ball bearing so I polished up the steel a bit. All the rest is soldered brass. It's not glued in for this pic.

 

As I was applying the Rub-n-Buff to one of the long gutters, the downspout separated from the gutter. It was one of the few solder joints that was original. I had to scrap paint off all the parts and zapped it with the RSU. In two seconds it was re-soldered and I touched it up with more patina and it was A-ok. Whew! Close one! 

 

 

Before going further I had to add the fireman's coats into the cubbies, drilled a large hole to pass the lighting wiring through the base, and then prepared and mounted the fire pole. To hold the coats I used those amazing contact glue dots. I'm really happy I found them at Michael's. There's a lot of use from them in our hobby.

 

The fire pole is 3/32" brass rod (A little fat for 1:48, but I wanted it to be noticeable) which I polished with some polishing compound holding it in the lathe. I made a styrene disc, 4 scale-feet in diameter and painted weathered black for the base pad. To locate the hole in the base, I found a fat Sharpie that just dropped through the manhole in the ceiling and with the firehouse positioned correctly, marked where the center would be on the floor below. I drilled the base pad to pole size and then CA'd it to the flow over the Sharpie mark. I then drilled through the base. Before gluing the pole in, I put it all back together to check fit. Before doing that I had to make a disc to hold the upper end in the manhole. If I was detailing the upper floor, I would have to create an elaborate brass frame to support the upper part of the pole over the manhole. Since I am NOT doing the upper floor, I could simply make a disk with a hole that would fit into the manhole. This preserved the lower floor look of the holes flange sticking out of the ceiling.

 

 

 

 

Here's looking into the station using the flash from my iPhone. Even without the fire helmets and boots, it looks like the interior of a real building. See how the manhole edge shows up. That's an LED light strip on the ceiling. It's very bright.

 

 

In looking at this picture I just realized that I didn't put in the stairway to the second floor. I was just going to up an angular wall going up the back for a fully-enclosed stair. No one will care... They'll be too busy grooving on that cool fire pole.

 

Tomorrow I'll finish the patina work on one more gutter and get ready to permanently mount the building to the base. We're almost done here.

The weathering is great!  The firehouse has really turned out nice!!  Yes, that mansard roof and chimneys are great on the house along the river.  

 

No stairs??  Don't the firemen go up the pole, just like they go down?  

Only if they're very fit.

 

I just was looking for large smokestacks and found an 8 inch one on Scenic Express. I'm going to need these for the next phase of the distillery; the boiler house. I thought Korber made a large industrial smoke stack, but didn't find one listed on their site. Anyone have any ideas?

The fire house is complete and at home on the layout. 

 

To mount the doors and make it easier to get everything in place I inserted the upper hinge pins into the building and taped the doors in that position so they'd stay put when lowering the building onto the lower bushings. I used DAP Quik Contact contact cement sheets to hold the building to the base. I cut the cement into strips the same width as the wall thickness and put it onto the building first. Before gluing, I threaded the lighting leads down through the chase made by the boxing in of the support girders. I threaded the lead through the hole in the base. I left the 2nd floor loose so it wouldn't foul the fire pole. I fastened the contact cement from the rear forward, but didn't press it home until I maneuvered the bottom door pins into their respective bushings. Once they fell in place, I pressed the building down to ensure the contact adhesive was doing its job... it was. I then was able to slide my hand through the doors to position the fire pole so it would thread into the 2nd floor. Luckily, I don't have big hands. For playing guitar, that's a detriment; for model work, it's a benefit.

 

I put patina on the one downspout that I missed only to have the pipe separate at another solder joint. Again I had to scrape off the paint and use the RSU to re-solder the joint. I decided to not glue the roof in place. I was able to wiggle it under the hose tower's down spout a couple of times without damage. I'm also not fastening the main roof down spouts to the building so the roof can be removed if necessary without breaking anything. 

 

I weathered the roof with Dr. Brown's chalk powders. The down spouts are held on the fascia boards using those handy contact cement Glue Dots. Five dots per gutter held everything well. They are a remarkable product for us modelers.

 

I decided against having the fire house in the layout front. It's just too tall and blocks views too much. It looks much more realistic behind Saulena's Tavern. Even though you can't see the interior from this view, it can be see from the inside of the layout.

 

 

And here it is on the layout in the town of Woodbourne. I realize that I don't have any identification on the building. Perhaps I'll put together a graphic and mount it to the depression on the building's front.

 

 

For the little bare square spot between the FH and Saulena's I'm making a filler piece that with have a sidewalk area and some black top. It has a curb cut, pavement expansion joints and a curb between it and the fire house. I might put some weeds growing up in the gaps between the components. Unlike the buildings, this filler will be cemented to the sub-base. Only the buildings will ever have to be removed (for repair/sale). The green area in the foreground of the last pic is going to be distillery property.

 

This project took about 6 weeks, which isn't bad considering the amount of craft work it entailed. While I'm waiting for Andre to get me the distillery parts, I probably will do some more work on the city and maybe build some more telephone poles. And then, of course, there's that mountain that needs to be built as well as a 17 foot colonnade at the high line ...

It looks great!  Your town is really shaping up!

Wow, that is nice.  I gotta get a nice fire station on my layout.  Yours is beautiful.

The firehouse looks fantastic.

Absolutely incredible work.  One quick question...so you plan on adding firefighters?  Just feels like there should be a few of them around cleaning equipment...maybe a Dalmatian sitting guard...just a thought.

 

Anyway, absolutely stunning...wish I had the patience and skill to do something like that.

 

Bill 

Since my return to the forum this is the first I have seen this thread............. wow!  Got a lot of catching up to see your fine work....  impressive.

 

Really like the fire station.

 

Mark

Thanks everyone! Yes! It does need some firefighters. I'm collecting little people, but haven't placed them yet. There's more detail work needed in town before I do.

 

As to patience... I'm more "persistent" than patient. I tend to rush things sometimes, but I hang in there long enough to get it right. Are you retired? Part of the "patience" thing comes from being retired with my only real job is building a model railroad in the basement. Life doesn't get much better than that.

I certainly don't want to wish my life away, but I do look forward to retirement and being able to spend more time with my layout and trains in general.  From reading tidbits about your background, you deserve this time of retirement.  It is nice once someone has paid his or her dues with 40 to 45 years of working.  I have 39 in, not counting summer and part time jobs while in high school and college.  

I appreciate that Mark. And I am enjoying retirement immensely.

 I've been getting too caught up in looking at this fine old specimen, to think about what could be added for a modern look. I got to work in over a hundred firehouses doing ventilation systems.

 Everyone thought lung issues firemen were prone to develop, were related to smoke from fires. Turns out it was exhaust fumes from running the diesels "indoors" so often.

 

 So one thing, new firehouses have a ventilation system to exhaust the motors fumes. 

 There are normally big hoses hanging from above, that get connected to the fire trucks exhaust pipe by clip, magnet, air pillow ect. Most just fall away as the truck leaves.(if they work right otherwise its time wasted to untangle the mess, and often some decent damage to building, and truck too)

 Look in the doors of your local fire house today, and you will likely see big yellow and black hoses hanging down near the side of each vehicle.

 

  Almost every station seemed to have an extra body board or two, around the garage somewhere.

 A couple of painted lines on the floor for each engine, helps tremendously to properly park the big trucks straight and centered. Bad weather compounds the issue, and makes it hard to just use the "cracks" in the floor, or other things.

 Rural- A red drop box for permits, reminders, and just letting the firemen know your having a cookout or bonfire, so they don't crash the party unannounced.

  The roof- A large Radio antennae. Hatch or door over about 40ft. Birds nests and something that doesn't belong up there, and you cant figure out how it got there. (big birds steal really stupid things)  

 The "workbench". Things to be rebuilt, need a place to be rebuilt.

 An air compressor is at almost every station (used some of the ventilation systems too). A few used vintage gas station arrival "air bell lines" to know where the truck tire were. Ding ding! Still hard to hear over a loud truck.

  

  Every firehouse seemed to have something interesting they work or play at, to fight off the many monotonous "slow days".

 

 It might be an old truck, cloths drives, gourmet meals, an Argo, a boat, parade float, horse shoes, a card table, "pitch-back", or the infamous charity dunk-tank out back.

Maybe a train room? (I was always hoping to find "that one")  

I would love to have a nice fire station.  Does anyone know where I can get one, not a kit.

 

Thank You

Ken M

Ken,

drop me an email and we can talk about.

Andre.

This has really inspired me.  

 

I really want to build a fire station with a 'Streets firetruck or two (I already have two) parked inside that I can run out and switch onto my Streets when I want to.  I've seen a video on these forums in the past of someone who managed to do that (even before the WBB turnouts were available).  It's difficult to arrange because of the room needed by the turnsout and all, but I want to do it, and then build the fire station to fit.

Trainman,

My American Beauty unit is on the way.  I can't wait!

 

Love the firehouse/details.  Look forward to what you build next.

 

Good luck with the RSU. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask. I may not know the answer, but we can discuss it and arrive at something. I'm still in a learning mode using it.

 

I'm happy that the fire house has been an inspiration. As far as all the wonderful detail ideas, I would have loved that input about 5 days ago, before I had glued it down to the base. As it is, with the station sited where it is, means you couldn't see any of it. It would only have worked if the model was to be a stand-alone display piece for a contest, which is ain't. As it is, I'm off to the next projects.

 

I've finished the drawings for the Night Hawks Cafe. I'm doing the detailed drawings for the engine house. And I'm waiting for a pile of parts for the distillery. Depending on how those go together, I'm going to draw up the plans for the boiler house and the warehouse.

 

As for the engine house, if I want to laser cut it, it would be very expensive. It's quite large at 40" long and 16" wide, plus the machine shop. I have a friend who has a CNC mill and has offered to cut parts for me. My thinking is to have the main structural parts either hand-cut out of foam core and hand-build all the trusses, OR have the main parts and trusses cut with the CNC and have all the windows laser-cut. 

 

This would serve two purposes. The first is cost, but the second is important. Andre has a size limit of 6 X 16" for the stock. This forces all large parts to be multi-part affairs with complex joinery for alignment and strength. I was okay with this for the distillery, but the engine house would be much more difficult. For example, I'd like to have the roof trusses to be integral with the clerestory trusses. This creates a piece that's so large that only one per piece of stock is possible. There are 13 trusses like this. That's 13 pieces of 1/4" stock just for the trusses. I'm thinking about making the trusses out of more pieces so more could be crammed on a single sheet of stock. 

 

But I believe that the CNC could cut bigger parts and therefore reduce all this joinery and simplify the job. I've been doing some research on making the overhead crane system for the engine house. That will be a fun part of the job out of styrene and plastruct.

 

Sorry to go on here, I'm just thinking out loud.

Laser bed is 40.00" x 28.00" 

 

Andre.

 

Andre, if that's the case, why was I working so hard to get everything to fit in a 6 x 16 envelop. It would have been much easier if I didn't have to put all those vertical and horizontal joints between wall and floor pieces.

 

I finished the little filler piece. It was a nice two hour project instead of 6 weeks... a pleasure for a change. I decided to add some weeds growing out of the edge of the curbing. I saw a video about making weeds out of sisal twine. I bought the twine months ago in anticipation of using it for weeds. I think you're supposed to use fabric dye, but since I didn't have any, I used Tamiya green paint thinned a lot with alcohol. After a couple of dippings, here was the result.

 

 

I used black iron wire to wrap around a bunch to stabilize it and then inserted into a drilled hole with some Gorilla Glue or used this CA from the back to lock them into place.

 

Here's the painted filler piece with some weeds, stains and tire dirt and strategically placed tar repairs.

 

 

And here it is glued down to the space behind Saulena's. Any ideas about what should be placed on it? Dumpster? Limousine, what?

 

 

Andre shipped all the parts so before long work will begin on the distillery.

I can't wait to see the engine house project/overhead crane.  I'm sure it'll be awesome.

 

You have true talent.

 

The RSU should be here early next week.  Excited to get it and start soldering projects I've only dreamed of doing until now...

A wind up, here's the pitch.....

 You already have some garbage cans, but it is a tavern, they have lots of trash. And its not a big lot, so maybe a small one. Or maybe they share one with the gas station, just put it behind the station.

 

It wouldn't be too unusual for the city to own that. Fenced firehouse storage?

 

An empty "bottle" or a little broken glass belongs outside a tavern near the garbage.

 

A limo driver would stay on the street near the door if he could. But if Saulena's is rough & tumble in this town, still leaving room for a "bouncer toss" if he is smart .

 

Parking blocks. Maybe a sign. Parking lines. Handicap spot?

Saulena's parking only, violators will be towed away.

Then park a tow truck right behind the garage.

Or maybe that parking is for upstairs tenants only, not for the tavern.

In which case a basketball net somewhere might work out

 

Really want to appeal to the younger set?

Wood pushers! Bi-peddlers! (skateboarders & bikes)

A stunt ramp, or half pipe

 

Or maybe someone is "sleeping it off" in the backseat of a car.

 How about an animated, rocking van? (Done it yet Lee?)( Hmmm  I meant the modeling idea )

 A car out of gas? Or the one that left the repair station without antifreeze in the new radiator (that should be a 1974 Caddie...those idiots!).

 

Ok that's it, have to reload

 

 

Adriatic,

This is a clean, respectable town Trainman has, with law abiding citizens.  I think the auxiliary area for the fire department or gas stations' extra equipment would be the ticket, not drunken bums.  ;-)

I have an idea an every town has a burnt down or tore down building lot where part of the foundation is still in place but not complete. looked for a pic but couldn't find one basically a foundation that's not complete cause it has fallen apart. and the building is no longer there. and maybe a fence around it to keep the kids out.