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Thank you All and Pat!

I had my annual medical checkup this morning, but worked on the building this afternoon and got it finished. I did some very mild weathering on the roof and garage doors and installed all the lighting.

I fastened in the gooseneck lights with a small #55 drilled hole, and then added a shaped piece of styrene on the outside to give it more mass. Thin and medium CA held it all in place. After this pic, I painted the lighting Tamiya Medium Gray.

Refinery Ops Gooseneck Install

The control room lighting was built on a piece of strip wood CA'd to the roof supports. The garage light was also held with the same strip wood supported by a ledge made from some more substantial basswood stock. I CA'd one ledge to the foam board mid-wall and the other ledge to the plastic back wall with Walther's Goo. The cross piece was also held with CA. This picture also shows some reinforcing blocks that back up the goose neck lights on the outside.

Refinery Ops Shop Lighting

As you can see I add shrink tubing on my LEDs to ensure that they never short out. The LED's wiring is in series with a  330 ohm current limiter, and then the two grain of wheat bulbs are connected in parallel with the LEDs. The leads are tied together in two ferrules. Notice I'm using the white ferrule inside the larger ones to compensate for the small gauge wiring. This was a suggestion made by one of my readers and it's a good one. Notice too that the current limiter goes on the minus side of the LEDs. I don't why, but this is how it's shown on the schematics.

Refinery Ops Light Leads

These two combined leads are brought into a Euro-style junction block and then led out of the building with a length of zip cord that ties into the bus bars under the refinery. This particular junction block is a plug-in type that I used when building the modular layout in Germany. It allowed me to separate all the subroadbed panels without lousing up the wiring. It's held to the wall with servo foam tape. I stuck it too close to the back door and you can see the wires, but it's facing a wall and no one actually will ever see it.

Refinery Ops Light Junction

Here's the lighting being tested on the bench. I placed the shop light below the windows so it would just glow which is the look that I was seeking. The control room light is over towards the control panel so you can see it. The white/white LEDs do look light florescent lighting.

Refinery Ops Lighting Test

As I was setting this picture up, I knocked a small container of Dirty Black Dr. Brown's weathering powder, upside down on the floor. What a freaking mess!! It took 15 minutes to clear it all up. Ugh!

Here's the building on the layout. I drilled the two pieces of Masonite and wired it into the refinery system. 

Refinery Ops Comp 2

Refinery Ops Comp 1

So... the ops building is complete. Tomorrow I'll do some terrain work. I'm going to use acrylic-based tile grout for the roadways to the two garage doors. I discovered this material in doing the distillery base. You can tint it with india ink or W-S tinting products and it dries looking very much like asphalt. It's not rigid and doesn't crack when dry. I may also use it to do the contour work from one piece of Masonite to another. I may also go with Sculptamold. I'll how I'll feel when doing it. And then comes the chain link fence. Notice how I keep saying that. I think I'm procrastinating...

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Images (7)
  • Refinery Ops Shop Lighting
  • Refinery Ops Light Leads
  • Refinery Ops Light Junction
  • Refinery Ops Lighting Test
  • Refinery Ops Comp 2
  • Refinery Ops Comp 1
  • Refinery Ops Gooseneck Install

Thanks Fellas! Today was a day to get a bit sloppy.

The base board under the building needed to be glued down. While the glue was drying I went about painting all the wooden pipe supports and doing touch up painting on the "metal" ones. It was tricky painting around all the piping and was a harbinger of what's to come when I go about adding ground cover under all that equipment. Won't be easy.

I started building the connecting road to the refinery property which involved a railroad crossing. I'm trying something new with this one using acrylic-based tile grout to build the roadway and crossing. I started by pulling the rails off a piece of surplus Ross curved track to use as flange ways. I temporarily held them to the ties using Walther's Goo.

Refinery Scenery Flangeway 2

I mixed up a batch of the tinted grout adding all the India ink I had left and some Tamiya Nato Black. It makes a good asphalt road color, but quickly found out that I had too large a gradient to fill just using the grout. It wouldn't dry quickly enough and wasted expensive material. So I stopped using it in this application and got out the Sculptamold (STM). I couldn't put that over the wet grout so I started putting it elsewhere. After cleaning off the running rails and center rail it looked like this. It needs a skin coat to smooth it all out, but not too much since the center rail must be proud of the group or it will be a big dead spot. So the completely ugly grout in the foreground will be covered over with STM.

Refinery Scenery Crossing first coat

I added STM over all the changes in elevation, the open spaces at the fascia, the fascia edges and gaps and any open holes in the base board. I used some screen wire and/or crumpled newspaper to fill in the large gaps before using the STM. That new real estate in the triangle seems to be begging for another small substation to feed the refinery... Maybe I will and maybe I won't.

Refinery Scenery STM blend 1

A 1:43 car is just going to be able to slip by the building on the left side into the parking area in front.

Refinery Scenery STM Blend 2

All this stuff has to completely dry before I do any more finish plastering and painting. So I started building the fencing. I quickly found that I am very short of the brass I bought for this purpose. I was able to build one 34" section  and will not have enough to build any more. I've just ordered more material from Special Shapes that should finish the job. 

I'm using the jig that Brennan includes with his fence kit. He used steel wire which was very difficult to solder successfully. I'm substituting brass which solders like a dream using the RSU. 

Refinery Fencing 1

The joints heat almost instantaneously and as soon as the solder flows into the joint I take my foot off the switch but keep tension on the tweezers until the joint cools. I use an abrasive cutoff disc with the Dremel Flexishaft and also grind a flat at the top end so it nests better with the bigger top bar and provides more surface area. Notice how I clamp the Dremel into the Panavise so I can use two hands to control the brass cutting and shaping.

Refinery Fencing 2

Depending when the grout and STM fully cures, I'll be able to finish up the terrain work. It will be some time before all the brass arrives that I need to finish the fencing. Meanwhile, maybe I'll start putting in some street signs and those telephone poles I built four years ago.

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  • Refinery Scenery Flangeway 2
  • Refinery Scenery Crossing first coat
  • Refinery Scenery STM blend 1
  • Refinery Scenery STM Blend 2
  • Refinery Fencing 1
  • Refinery Fencing 2
Last edited by Trainman2001

I'm a little squeamish about building another substation even though it's really needed. I have some telephone poles I made that are already with transformers mounted, but they really wouldn't be big enough to power a serious industrial installation.

The grout was hard so I mixed up some more STM and built that road. I then went back and sanded yesterday's STM and applied a layer of joint compound to smooth it all out. That will dry by tomorrow and I'll be ready to add a skin coat to the road and begin painting and landscaping the edges. I was to leave an unadulterated row where the fence will go and may I just mask off a strip and get the ground cover in. It was really scary sanding near all that piping. I only knocked one set off its stands which I fix when all this disturbance is over.

It's a bit hard to see, but it's probably 1/2 to 3/4" of STM to get it up track height. A skin coat will smooth out the road's texture. This crossing will just get some cross-bucks, no crossing signals or gates. The STM feathers out to the parking lot level although it's hard to see here.

Refinery new road

I also built up the other drive from the garage on the other side. This is a 1/8" drop (1 layer of Masonite). This has a skin coat in place already and drying. Still a little lumpy. I may or may not worry about it. We'll see what happens if I sand it a bit.

Refinery other driveway

And here was the skin coat on the other side of the refinery just smoothing out the transitions and the layout edges.

With all this sealed in with plaster, if or when I sell this refinery installation I will probably removed the OSB sub-based and life it all away. It will not be shipable and would have to be picked up. Please note, I'm not contemplating selling any of this for quite a while.

Refinery Skin Coat

Tomorrow it should be dry and I'll finish up the road and do some landscaping.

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  • Refinery new road
  • Refinery other driveway
  • Refinery Skin Coat

Just checking in... STM is not quite dry so I can't put on the top coat. I'll do that on Monday. Meanwhile I've started another miscellaneous plastic project; recreating a 1:24 Ertl model of the car I owned as a senior at Michigan State in 1966. It was a 1966 Ford Fairlane GTA. It was quite fast, but like other muscle cars, didn't handle very well. 

Car was pretty basic: AM radio, heater... power steering and brakes. That was it. And a 390 cu. in. V8 with 335 hp and a big Holley 4-barrel carb. It would burn rubber on the those Firestone wide-oval tires for as long as you kept your foot on the pedal. After we got married we didn't keep that car very long. The car that replaced it was...well... the sublime to the ridiculous; and AMC Rambler Ambassador with a straight 6 engine. It was an awful car that couldn't get out of its own way. We got rid of that one in three years and bought a great car; a 1972 Olds Cutlass S that we kept for a long time.

Me Michele and the GTA

That nice-looking girl on my arm is my wife of 49 years. This was a memorial day camping trip to Muskegon Michigan in 1966.  I found a light yellow lacquer that should work. I also found a website that has actual colors of this car if I don't like the yellow I chose. I'm blogging this build on the Fine Scale Modeler magazine web forum if you care to follow along.

GTA Box Art

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  • Me Michele and the GTA
  • GTA Box Art

Happy Monday!

I worked on the refinery AND the Ford GTA. I put the skin coat on the RR Crossing leading to the refinery make a model distributor for the Ford's engine and then went on to building the chain link fencing. 

All my brass from Special Shapes arrived and I have enough to complete the fencing. I got another 34" inches built and then started fitting it to the layout. Of course this didn't go quite as well as it should have. I got a couple of the bends backwards, had to re-cut the fencings after soldering the previous erroneous cuts. And then there were the breaks which occurred in the previous bent sections. As it were, I did make some progress.

Refinery Fence Setting

While it's tempting to actually curve the fencings to conform to the layout contours, chain link fences are made of straight pieces of galvanized piping and therefore are chords of a curve, not curved. To make the bends, I marked the pipes with a Sharpie and made saw cuts about halfway through to facilitate the bend. This also greatly weakened the fence at that spot. The long bottom portions of the verticals will be sunken into the layout almost up to the botton longeron. 

To repair the broken parts I used a piece of 0.032" wire into the smaller tube and a piece of the smaller tube into the larger upper one. K-S tubing is convenient that it's all sized to telescope into the next larger size. I also joined one 34" section to the next using these internal pieces. This makes and almost invisible splice.

I have one more break to repair (tomorrow) and another section to build to complete the perimeter. I'm not planning on having fencing running at the back trackside of the refinery, although it probably would be fenced. The retaining walls is at the back which would preclude access by that way.

I'm ready to paint the roadways, add the marking and warning signs, and paint and add ground cover to the entire refinery area, then finish the fence and install, and the refinery will be finished.

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  • Refinery Fence Setting

Needed another skin coat, and may need a bit more. After sanding yesterday's coat I found that the texture of the underlying grout was way to coarse so I covered it with another layer of joint compound. When that's dry tomorrow I may need a little more touch up and then it will be time to paint.

I made another 34" section of chain link fencing and finished up the bend joints on the work done previously. I'm getting the hang of making all the joints, but I keep dropping the finished fencing on the floor when I'm wrestling with assembling the fencing to get the bends positioned. It's very fragile and clumsy to place the fence pieces on the layout without fastening anything down just to get some measures done. The lower projections on the fence will embed into the layout almost to the lower longeron. I'm going to drill oversize holes and then use epoxy with filler to seal the fence in. This way slight variations of pole-to-pole distance won't matter. When I did the substation's fence I made tight fitting holes and it was a pain in the butt getting all the posts into the "ground". I could also use plaster instead of epoxy, or I could use epoxy putty. It's almost like installing a real fence. I'm brainstorming with myself here...

Refinery More Fencing

With the latest section of framing completed, I'm almost done. I need another foot to bring the fence around the back end. I'm going to bring the fencing to the edge of that triangular piece on the right side. This gives a bit more enclosed real estate that could house another out building or a small substation. I knew going into this that the fencing was going to be a major part of the project. I wasn't wrong.

 

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  • Refinery More Fencing
Last edited by Trainman2001

A rare Sunday work session. Spent the whole time continuing to build the chain link fence. I've pretty much figured out how to handle the bends without creating a weak, floppy mess. Besides cutting the tubing at the bends and installing inner pieces that are bent and control the bend, I'm adding middle reinforcing rails that further strengthen the bends and hold them. I finished roughing out the framing all the way around the right side, but have a few more middle bars to install. I had a couple more spots for joint compound which I also did today after sanding last week's plaster. This should finish it off and be ready for paint.

Refinery Chain Link Corners

Refinery Chain Link Rt End

This is the extra space where I can either add a small substation or another out building. I'm still not convinced I want to build another substation. The last one can't be matched.

Refinery Chain Line Right end

The fencing is in one piece up to the middle of the run up the front. It's long and completely unwieldy. Moving it from the layout to the shop and vice versa is challenging to keep from bumping it into stuff and wrecking it. I've had to re-solder several joints due to this. I won't be able to put on the gauze in one piece, and it must be painted with the gauze in place. Therefore, planning the finishing schedule is taking some consideration. To join the several sections, I'm using thin CA on the pins that connect the pieces. Brennen uses solid steel rod in his kits so it's impossible to splice sections together. By going with K-S brass tubing, I'm able to pin sections together with an almost invisible splice. I'll try and overlap the gauze joints at the corners where they'll be less noticeable. I was right in my assessment: the fencing is as challenging as any part of the refinery project.

 

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  • Refinery Chain Line Right end
  • Refinery Chain Link Corners
  • Refinery Chain Link Rt End

Exercise day, got to work around 2 something. Finished the brass work on the fence and started painting the refinery area. I decided to create the entire fence as one assembly. After soldering the splices and adding the corner reinforcing bars, it holds together well enough to move it from place to place. It's really long and very easy to catch in things like the rest of the layout, the florescent lights, and anything else that might be in the way. However, I now know that I can paint the entire fence system off the layout and get it to the layout without wrecking it.

Refinery Chain Link Assmbled 1

For the final corner, the one where the straight run turns left on the right end, I added the reinforcement with the fence on my sawing table in the layout end of the room. I moved my RSU to that spot so I could solder this last piece in place with enough elbow room to hold the entire fence. I ran out of 1/16" solid rod so I substituted 3/64" rod for the last two corners.

You can see the extent of the whole deal in this picture. Please ignore the mess...

Refinery Chain Link Assembled 3

It was time to start painting. I put the first coat of dark earth on all the fresh plaster areas and a first coat of Jungle green for the fascia boards. I didn't add any ground cover yet. When I put the next coat of latex down I'll start adding the final gray ballast as a gravel surface. I chose this route since the raw plaster absorbed the paint so quickly that it would be wet enough hold any ground cover. The paint needs to be really wet to get good adhesion. 

Refinery Painting Start 1

It looks pretty good with the fascia matching the rest of the layout. The white areas on the left is the access road that's going to be treated with asphalt colors. I did finish all the sanding over there and am satisfied with the surface. It's really far away from the viewer so I'm just being finicky.

Refinery Painting Started 2

I pre-painted white craft paint in the road areas that are going to get any line work. I'm going to have the wide stop line in front of the tracks and I made a stencil for the RRXing lettering that goes on the road surface. I also pre-painted where the white parking lines will be in front of the ops building. I first did these by winging it with the ops building moved off its location.

Refinery Parking Slots 2

But then I put the building back and found that my lines weren't going to work, so I added more down the line. Even so, this is one cramped parking lot. Maybe that's what's going in that space on the other end. Right now, Sinclair Oil must be asking the EEs to walk or bike to work. In fact, looking at this picture, The lines should probably face in the other direction and be on the other side of the lot next to the HP Spheres' stairs. That way, the cars will at least have a chance to get into the parking space. There's also very little space by the left end of the building. I tried an auto and it just squeezes by. I felt this space was tight from the get go, and I didn't want to make the building any smaller. O'scale is a pain in the butt! Stuff is big!

Refinery Parking Slots

I woke up thinking about the best way to attach the fence to the platform. One way would be to make 1/8" holes or larger to give the slop needed to get all of those poles into those holes. I then thought about using the next larger telescoping tubing size to make sockets. Place them on the legs and glue them into the holes, trying to not get any on  the sockets. This would hold the fence securely, but make it removable. I thought about what glue to use: epoxy putty, plaster, Gorilla Glue...? Epoxy putty would be a good way to go since it would be easy to control, wouldn't ooze into the sockets, and hold like crazy. It would also fill the excess space well and give some reasonable working time to get it all together. I will take suggestions from the audience on this one.

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Images (6)
  • Refinery Chain Link Assmbled 1
  • Refinery Chain Link Assembled 3
  • Refinery Painting Start 1
  • Refinery Painting Started 2
  • Refinery Parking Slots 2
  • Refinery Parking Slots

Thank you!

I've been thinking about that too. The way I see it the sockets were mounted on the fence poles and then be inserted in the oversized holes so everything would seek its own alignment, after gluing in the fence with its sockets, things should (famous last words) naturally go back into the same places they were originally. At least that's how it SHOULD go. The gauze and painting all needs to be done off the layout since it would be impossible to paint the back side of the fence with the refinery in the way. So if I could glue the sockets in before all the painting and gauzing, it might make it all work.

Myles, I agree, final assembly and painting needs to done off site where everything is accessible. I wouldn't use the next size telescoping tubing for the sockets. Unless you have sufficient clearance (slop) you will have the same problem identified above.

I know based on solutions exhibited in all your previous projects you will solve this dilemma and complete another fabulous model.

Gerry

You convinced me. No telescoping tubing. Besides, the tubing is expensive. The fence so far is quite costly (like almost half the price of the refinery kit). 

I added more white for the parking lines to accommodate the new parking lot design, and then mixed up some dark gray artist's acrylics for the asphalt. It's way to dark, but it's just the first coat. I'll add another coat of a lighter gray to more closely match the access road to which it connects. 

Refinery Paving Step 1

It seems to be drying pretty shiny and I'm seeing lots of brush strokes. I'm hoping some of these will disappear as it fully cures. The parking lines and the RR stop line are masked under this paint. I'm hoping I get them up without peeling the "asphalt" paint. We'll see. 

You can clearly see that this looks like really new asphalt next to an older road. While that's pretty prototypical when road work is done, I'm going to try and match it a little better.

Refinery Paving Start 2

Tomorrow I'll finish the asphalt painting and use the stencil to put the RRXing in place. Then it will be time to paint the fence and add ground cover into the refinery. I'm worried about that. Even with the little painting/plastering I've done within the refinery's confines and loosen too many pipes for my liking, so putting down paint and scenic glue in between all those units isn't going to be fun and may not end well. I didn't know any other way of approaching it since landscaping first and then installing all the apparatus seemed impossible.

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  • Refinery Paving Step 1
  • Refinery Paving Start 2

Glad to be of service. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Since we weren't going to the place we're going to for TG dinner, I did get some layout time and got the paving and ground cover done. Sometimes you get really productive. Today was one of those days.

I mixed another batch of paving color much lighter than the first and covered all the paved areas with it. I then pulled the masking tape and did some very minor touch up. It worked well. Funny thing though... When I revised the parking space design, I have the spaces going down a slight slope where the Masonite plate tapered down to the main base. From above the lines look parallel, but from across the room, they look completely whacked. Oh well.

Refinery Paving Fin

I'm going to weather all this asphalt and add some cracks filled with pitch, oil spots, etc. Still have some pavement to add to the front door, and some vegetation at the building front to separate it from the parking lot... I think.

It was time to put ground cover on this new work. After putting a second coat of earth brown on the triangular space on the right I added various W-S grasses and "dirt" to fill up the space. I'm not concerned about this vacant lot since it's going to be repurposed at some point.

For the refinery proper, I dreaded having to paint the entire base with latex paint to hold the ground cover so I tried an experiment in the right corner to see if just using scenic cement and the gray fine ballast would be sufficient to hide the base and do the job. Putting on the cement was much easier than painting since it dries clear so if I got any on the apparatus bases it would be invisible when dry.

Refinery Gravel Test

The experiment worked so I was able to quickly do the entire surface. I diluted the thick scenic cement with some of the thinner stuff so it would cover easier and faster. I haven't added any further liquid cement to the coverage. I'll wait until it dries and may go back and add some wet water and liquid scenic cement to further fasten everything in place if needed. Since nobody or nothing is going to mess around back there, if some gravel is not attached it really shouldn't cause a problem.

Refinery Ground Cover 1Refinery Ground Cover 2

What was truly miraculous was I didn't break anything. I was amazed that I got the brush with the glue into and around all the stuff without knocking anything. I did lightly bump my elbow into the flare tower, but I caught myself and was more careful going forward. The parking lot still has a lot of sheen so I'm going to shoot it with some Dull Coat to flatten it out. I may do this after weathering.

Refinery Ground Cover 3

Makes a big difference with the surface uniform and not all marked up like it's been. Now I have no reason at all to procrastinate finishing up that chain link fence which has been patiently waiting to have bridal veil attached and painted. The fence will install right at the margin between the gravel and dirt.

I finished this post after having the TG celebration so I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I know ours was very good.

 

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  • Refinery Gravel Test
  • Refinery Ground Cover 1
  • Refinery Ground Cover 2
  • Refinery Ground Cover 3
  • Refinery Paving Fin

Thanks Mark!

Well I hope all of you survived the holiday. This was the first TG in quite a few years that both kids and all the grandkids were not here.

Well the bullet has been bitten! I'm actually putting the "fence" part onto the chain link fence. I started out by spraying a very light coat of Tamiya gray primer. I did this in the basement and proceeded to smell the whole house up since the work space where I was working is next to the heater and it pulled the fumes into the system. Didn't make CEO very happy. I opened some windows in the basement to pull in the some fresh air.

I was working on the sawing bench I have in the shop adjacent to the layout. It was badly lit since the nearest florescent is over the railroad behind me and I was working in my shadow. I just bought another LED shop light at Costco to replace a light in the shop. I'm slowly going to replace all the fluorescents with LED fixtures. They put out more, purer light at half the wattage. I then installed this now-spare fixture over the work table to make my life much easier.

The next thing was to cut the Bridal Tulle to the approximate width of the fence to which it will be glued. I measured the distance and marked the tulle every foot or so with a Sharpie. I then taped it to a cutting board and with a new #11 blade and 18" straight edge, cut the material. It will take three 3' strips to do the entire fence.

I added the dotted line to the pic to highlight where the Sharpie marks are. 

Refinery Cutting Tulle

I first thought to just use CA to hold the tulle to the frame, but it wasn't working well. I just bought some "fresh" thin CA, but I don't believe it's any good. It wasn't kicking even with accelerator. I'm taking it back. So I turned to the MicroMark PSA. It isn't great since the surface area on the tulle is so small there's just not enough to really stick to the sticky adhesive. But it holds it well enough to then go back and spot glue with CA. I went back to my aging CA. It's getting thicker, but it still kicks and holds.

Any fuzzy areas at the bottom are trimmed with a sharp blade while holding the tulle with a tweezers.

Refinery Tulle Progress 1

I made pretty good progress today even with a protracted work session. I just have about a foot and a half to finish the tulle and I'll be ready to install it. The bare space you're looking at is land reserved for the future engine house and machine shop. Probably scheduled to be built mid-to-late 2018.

Refinery Tulle Progress 2Y

You can get an idea just how unwieldy this construction is. It's over 10 feet long with lots of bends.

After all the tulle is in tomorrow I'm going airbrush the whole deal some kind of simulated galvanized steel color. I may just shoot it with flat aluminum. I'll see how it looks. For the substation, I actually mixed up some gray and aluminum to give kind of a metallic gray. It worked pretty well. Maybe I'll do that again. It's alcohol-based so it doesn't smell up the place too bad.

I'm thinking that I may not need to insert ALL of those posts into the layout. I may clip every other one to streamline the insertion process. The other thought I had was to leave every 5th post long, and the then cut those next to them shorter and the middle one shorter still. This would facilitate getting the posts into the holes because you wouldn't be trying to get all of those long ones into holes at the same time.

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  • Refinery Cutting Tulle
  • Refinery Tulle Progress 1
  • Refinery Tulle Progress 2
Last edited by Trainman2001

Well... we're just one day away from completing this long-running refinery project. Today was pretty productive. I got the fence finished and painted, finished weathering and detailing the parking lot and crossing, and started installing the fence. 

The parking lot was completed with the addition of parking bumpers made from 1/8" sq. basswood, simulated cracks, a spray of Dull Coat, oil spots,  etc. I also made a little pavement to the front door and added a touch of grass to the front to dress the property up a bit.

Refinery Parking Lot fin

The lampposts were created a few years back when I finished the Victorian station. Rather than spend the time to create some new ones I decided these were perfectly okay and pressed them into service. I used weathering powders to add some tire rubber on the parking spaces.

I also weathered the crossing roads with the grimy black Dr. Brown's powders. I used a cosmetic sponge to smear the powder on the surface. It's not very scientific.

Reefinery Weather Crossing

I added the last bit of tulle to the fence and put it onto the back shop work table for painting. I mixed up some metallic gray, but it is a little bit dark almost like raw steel rather than galvanized, but it just makes the fence look a little bit older and more dramatic IMHO. I moved my air compressor to this table and sprayed the whole deal. Since it was Tamiya paint and I thin with 91% isopropyl alcohol so even though I hazed the entire room, the smell is not too bad and didn't get a rise from upstairs. I sprayed much more into the air today than yesterday using the Tamiya primer, but the smell was much less.

I then trimmed the posts as I described yesterday. I generally kept all the posts a corner original length and then kept every fifth of sixth post long and clipped the intermediate posts to shorter lengths. This scheme, as you'll see, really worked exactly as planned and made getting them into their holes much easier.

Refinery Fence Fin 1Refinery Fence Fin 2Refinery Fence Fin 3 

Starting at the Ops building end, I first marked the location of the long posts with a medium Sharpie. I drilled the post hole with a 1/8" drill (the posts are 1/16") giving me enough slack to compensate for any inexact location of the holes.

Refinery Fence Install 1

After going from one end to the other with the long posts, I inserted them into their respective holes and again marked the next longest-sized post locations and drilled them. I repeated the insert-until-the-next-shortest-post-hit-the-platform method and drilled the remaining holes. I didn't quite finish up today, but will do so tomorrow.

Here you can see that the fence on the Ops end is down to its final depth.

Refinery Fence Install 2

Here's looking down the line. The holes are fully drilled to the first curve on the other end, so there's not much more to do in that regard.

Refinery Fence Install 3

So to sum up: Vary the post length to facilitate insertion, use oversize holes for the same reason, and insert, mark and drill the remaining holes as you go along inserting all the posts you can to preserve alignment. This is about the biggest fence I ever want to make in one go again.

Tomorrow, after getting all the posts seated, I'll remove the fence and add Gorilla glue into the holes and glue the fence in permanently. I may add some micro-balloon filler to the Gorilla glue to give it more body to better fill the holes and not have too much drip out the other end. Once it's all glue in, I'll go back and add some weeds and ground cover to hide the any remaining holes. I have to hook up the wires to the new lights which you can wires hanging down below the layout. I have to add one more coat of green to the fascia boards too now that all the sloppy stuff will be done. Lastly, there's some landscaping that needs to be added to the background area and some ballasting to trim around the crossing and the disturbed areas from the project. And with that, IT WILL BE DONE.

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  • Refinery Parking Lot fin
  • Reefinery Weather Crossing
  • Refinery Fence Fin 1
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  • Refinery Fence Fin 3
  • Refinery Fence Install 1
  • Refinery Fence Install 2
  • Refinery Fence Install 3

Thank you dear followers!

Today, I'm officially turning over the keys to the refinery to Sinclair Oil. There are a few minor punch list items that need doing (signage, landscape around fence posts), but for all intents and purposes the refinery is complete.

I finished drilling the remaining holes for the right end fenceposts and decided to inject Gorilla Glue into the enlarged post holes using a syringe. The glue expands as it cures so it fills up the space securing the fence. I put a board across the far end since it was trying to pop up. Then I decided, before gluing in the left end around the parking lot to check clearances since the fence terminates into the interior of a curve. Boy! Am I glad I did that. My favorite clearance test car is an MTH auto rack. It hit the fence!

Refinery Fence Clear Problem

I was able to stress the next bend and pull the end away on an angle. I then tested this fit with five different locomotives: all of the big steamers and some of the ungainly diesels. The fix cleared okay in all cases, so I was able to glue that end in place.

Refinery Fence Clear 2Refinery Fence Clear Fix 1

After the fence was sitting well, I connected up the parking lot lights, and added all the missing ballast. It was a challenge to get it on the far side of the loading rack, but I persisted. I used a squeeze bottle to carefully apply "wet water" (Isopropyl Alcohol/water mix) and then dribbled W-S scenic cement directly from the squeeze bottle in comes in. As a reminder, I use roofing granules for ballast. It's just about the perfect scale size to 1:1 ballast on the Norfolk-Southern RR.

Refinery Ballast Repair 1

Here's that piece of 1:1 scale lumber holding down the fence's far end until it cures. In these pictures I've just added the glue which is why the gravel is wet.

Refinery Ballast Repair 2

Looks nice now that the M.O.W guys got their jobs done. This "road to nowhere" should eventually end up at a B.T.S grain elevator. Landscaping back there over the refinery is going to be...let us say... challenging. Like maybe I should have put that road and additional RR crossing in before building the refinery.

Refinery Ballast Repair 3

Last thing I did was add another carefully applied coat of Jungle Green paint to finish up the fascia boards. Sometime in the distant future, I'm going to have curtains made to hid all the rest of the benchwork. That will look very spiffy.

So... the refinery is done! Here's some iPhone pics I took from various angles and lighting. I'm going to take some beauty shots with the Canon EOS to submit to various places for publication. The project started in April and finished Cath the end of November... an 8-month endeavor, the results of which I think are worth it.

Refinery Compelte 4

There's an Engelhard car in this picture. I worked there for 8 years. They no longer exist being absorbed by BASF. That's a Kaolin car used to haul that ultra white clay that is used in paint and making paper whiter. It would not get product from the refinery. Although Engelhard was a huge producer of zeolite petroleum catalyst used in catalytic reformers, I do not have such an operation in my chemical plant.

Refinery Complete 1Refinery Complete 3

Grain Elevator will go in that wide between-track space. The RR Crossing has to traverse that long connecting track and it's all right adjacent to the refinery... Ugh! I really think I should invest in a MicroMark topside creeper to reach over the refinery.

Refinery Complete 6Refinery Complete 8

And here's at night...

Refinery Complete Night 1Refinery Complete Night 2Refinery Complete Night 4Refinery Complete Night 6Refinery Complete Night 7

Tomorrow, the Gorilla Glue will be fully cured and will probably need a little trimming/cleanup, plus i'll do some weed placement around the post bases. I also have some chemical plant signage that I want to print out on hi-res photo paper and make some placards to go at strategic spots throughout the plant. I need to get/modify/make some humans to populate this facility. And then it will be truly done.

So what are the takeaways from this one? First of all thanks to all the supporters who encouraged me and fed me ideas, suggestions and techniques. 

  1. While Plastruct kits look cool, they are a bear to complete for several reasons: terrible instructions, difficulty keeping butyrate tubing together with solvent cement, incorrect quantities of materials, lack of details necessary to make an actual working facility, etc.
  2. Breakthrough was when I realized I could flip the design and have the piping on the aisle way so I could pipe the model while on the layout
  3. Found out there was a website that could help you design transition cones of any size... thanks to one of the readers for that one.
  4. Perfected mass-producing utility lighting.
  5. Perfected making and installing chain link fencing in ridiculous lengths.
  6. Designing an ops building to fit a small space.
  7. Further extending the envelop on my scratch-building skills.
  8. Designing and building a free-lance, believable flare tower with air craft warning lights.
  9. Building a cooling tower from a single picture on a website again using SketchUp and Illustrator to create an O'scale drawing set.
  10. Finding out that you can get enough bridal tulle to build a 10 foot model chain link fence for $0.70 at JoAnn Fabrics. The single cheapest hobby purchase I've made in decades.

I actually ran some trains today to move the various locos into position to test the fence clearances. It's been a long time since they were running and some of them showed it, both with some depleted batteries on the engines that don't have BTRs and running on dirty track, but they did run.

I think the next project will be the Bronx building only because I've got that nifty 3-D details. I'm waiting to hear from Andre Garcia as to when we can schedule the laser cutting. The backlog list is long and we have some years of work left.

Also, I want to finish that Fairlane GTA...

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  • Refinery Fence Clear Problem
  • Refinery Fence Clear 2
  • Refinery Fence Clear Fix 1
  • Refinery Ballast Repair 1
  • Refinery Ballast Repair 2
  • Refinery Ballast Repair 3
  • Refinery Compelte 4
  • Refinery Complete 1
  • Refinery Complete 3
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  • Refinery Complete Night 1
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  • Refinery Complete Night 7
Last edited by Trainman2001

So I just completed making a sheet of signs that would make sense in a Petro/Chemical Plant. I'll print these out tomorrow and mount them in strategic locations. I added the text in the "number of accident free day" sign. There are all readily available in a Google search. I look at IMAGES and click on the one I like to make it larger then make a screen print. I crop the image in a photo reviewer software. I use a Mac so this is pretty easy to do. I use PVA to make the back sticky and put them on thin styrene. I'll print them out on Glossy hi-res photo paper. It easier than making decals out of them.

Signage Image

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  • Signage Image

Trainman 2001

What a great oil refinery.  You are a fantastic model builder.  The best I could do was paint an oil refinery on by background on my toy 027 classic 50s operating layout.  I worked for Exxon Mobil in Baton Rouge and used that plant as an example.

I also worked for Engelhard Corp., the mid 1980s, south of Macon, Georgia and we lived in Macon.  They mine and produced kaolin clay used for paper coating and transport it to fine white paper mills in tanker cars as a slurry.  I painted a tanker car with a white top that they use to keep the car cooler to fight algae and a black bottom and installed a company sticker.  Did you work in McIntyre?  I was there for 2 or so years until the economy went down.

Charlie

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Thank you all! 

Charlie, I worked at Engelhard corporate at Metro Park from 1986 to 1995. I was at the big kaolin plants a number of times since I worked with the training groups in all the plants and divisions. I was the training director. I stayed at the guest houses near the plant a few times. It was an interesting company, but they lost their way once the Engelhard family was no longer leading. It happens to a lot of great companies when the founders move on and "professional" managers come in. The guy that ran it last was from GE. He ran the minerals division and then when Orin Smith retired took over as CEO. When he sold the company to BASF he walked away with $42 million and a few thousand people lost their jobs. They were once the biggest catalyst company in the world, patented automotive exhaust catalyst, and was one of the leading precious metals companies in the world. Now they're gone...

Thanks Mark for hanging in there for the full 8 months. And thanks to everyone else too.

Today, I officially finished the model with the addition of the signage and vegetation around the bases of the fence posts.

The Illustrator signs I made were too big when I printed them out. I went back and reduced them to 60% of the initial size which worked much better. After spraying some final fixative to preserve the ink a bit, I brushed on a thin coat of MicroMark PSA (pressure sensitive adhesive) and then put the sheet on a piece of wax paper. I cut out the signs with a straight edge and sharp #11 blade, and took them to the refinery to hang them. The wax paper peeled cleanly off the back to expose the sticky stuff. 

For the curved vessels, I may have to go back and use some CA since the PSA wants to release and the signs straighten out. I added "No Smoking" and "Confined Spaces" signs at locations all over the facility. I put two "Safety" signs on the ops building, and "Restricted Area" signs on the perimeter fence.

I then trimmed off the excess Gorilla Glue that foamed out of the holes, painted the damaged areas with earth Behr latex interior wall paint in a dark earth color, and sprinkled a mixture of fine and coarse turf on the wet paint. I a couple of area I used W-S Scenic Cement to glue on large patches of weeds around the bases of all fence posts. With these two steps, all of the refinery work is done other than adding some humans.

Refinery Signage 1Refinery Signage 2Refinery Signage 3Refinery Signage 4 

I took some final beauty shots which show the vegetation. The signage pics above were shot before I did the landscaping.

Layout Status w Refinery 4

Notice also that I actually ran some trains today and took some movies. I just uploaded it on Vimeo and YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PX1_2u8U-A

Refinery Final 1

So that wraps it up. Project started in April and ended on December 1. Took my youngest grandson down to the layout room tonight and he was duly impressed on how it came out. I am too... When I opened that box of tubes and pipes from Plastruct, I really didn't know if it was going to amount to anything or not.

Took another overall layout status shot from the spot that I use for these. I put the tripod on top of a 6 foot step ladder and have marks on the floor to position the ladder in the same spot. Little by little it's all filling in. My wife came down for the grand opening of the refinery and thought the whole deal is looking really good. Once the rest of the town buildings are finished I'll go back and put in the telephone poles and other street details. Right now I don't need anything else in the way when I'm adding more structures. There are at least three more major structures for the town: Bourbon Store House, Nighthawks Cafe and the Bronx Victorian Building.

 

Layout Status W Refinery 1

Just for fun, here's what it looked like in October 2012. Building a large model railroad is a big job! I can see why some fellas get hung up on design and can't get started.

Track Laying 1

It will probably be a little while until the next project kicks off since I don't have it in hand right now. Meanwhile, I'll finish up that Fairlane GTA model. Hard to believe that a muscle car in 1966 with a 390 V8 in a mid-car size body did 0-60 in the 6s, and I have a 2008 Acura TL type-S with a V6 that does 0-60 in the 5s. Imagine that and gets 10 mpg better. In fact and 430 hp Corvette gets 25 mpg on the highway.

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  • Refinery Signage 1
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Last edited by Trainman2001

Myles,

I was interested to see how the refinery went together.  Though I have no practical knowledge of such facilities as I do power substations, there is a vague similarity in that it's use is for energy, and there are a lot of interconnected parts!  All of us should take note to you comment about looking at the box of Plastruct parts and wondering how you were going to get it done.  If we try, we find out we can do more than we thought.

Thank you for the overall view yesterday and the one from 2012.  I joined the Forum in June 2012, and found your topic around the time of your October photograph.  It has been a great ride!!  

Speaking of rides, the Fairlane is a great project for you.  It is something of what you can do with your Acura in comparison to the old Fairlane.  I would have no idea how my 2004 Hyundai Sonata does compared to the old '69 Galaxy XL with the big V8 I had.  I do know this; I had a 2005 Sonata which some nut totaled for me a number of years back by running off the main road at 55 mph at least, hit my front fender when I was stopped behind the stop sign.  The reason I bring it up is that the 2005 had a 4 cylinder engine in it, which was too small for that heavy of a car with our hills.  I used to lose speed going up a few hills.  The 2004 I bought after the 05 was totaled has a V6, and it has way more than enough power.  No I don't hot rod is so I don't know the 0 to 60.   

Good luck on the Fairlane, a truly handsome car.

It has a power to weight ratio of around 10.5. 3600lbs/340hp. ford made less than 30 427, 425hp fairlanes with a lightened body, about an 8 to one ratio if left stock, but with headers and tuned,,,Oh Mama!

You fairlane will make a great cruiser, head turner and street car. 

Trainman2001 posted:

 

It will probably be a little while until the next project kicks off since I don't have it in hand right now. Meanwhile, I'll finish up that Fairlane GTA model. Hard to believe that a muscle car in 1966 with a 390 V8 in a mid-car size body did 0-60 in the 6s, and I have a 2008 Acura TL type-S with a V6 that does 0-60 in the 5s. Imagine that and gets 10 mpg better. In fact and 430 hp Corvette gets 25 mpg on the highway.

Great project, loved the start to finish narrative. The '66/67 is a nice car, might require some bigger tires for 6 seconds

GT 251701-870-0

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Ah...Altoona! My engine house will look like three bays of that monster.

Since I'm between projects I'm not working on the RR much (building that model Ford GTA), but I did one little thing.

I added some missing railings to my only Rail king engine, a UP EMD switcher. It has nice rails attached to the chassis, but all the body mounted railings are just molded-on bumps. I added the missing ones leading to the cab door. There are bumps there supposedly representing railings which I left in place. Scraping them off would have required repainting. I had UP gray, but was afraid of the match and didn't want to repaint this engine and the calf that accompanies it.

The model's rails measured 0.045". The wire I used was 0.050". A little thick, but the next size would have been 0.032" and that would have been too thin. I went with the larger size. I had a fleeting thought about scraping off the molded on railing flanking the engine compartment, but dispelled that for the same repainting challenge.

This engine DOES NOT have a constant voltage headlamp, and has no lighting in the cab. I have a schematic for putting a constant voltage LED in the engine and am considering doing that. This headlamp looks like it a candle unless the voltage is cranked up. I guess that's the tradeoff when buying MTH's economy line, versus Premier. I guess I'm a Premier snob being that all my other MTH engines are of this class. At least it has good sound.

SW Railing

Here's the schematic for an LED light mod (thanks to Don Grabski). The first is directional, and the second non-directional. I'm going to try and do this... Wish me luck.

Constant Voltage LED BiConstant Voltage LED non

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  • SW Railing
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The Altoona shop!  Wow!  I would have liked to seen it in it's heyday!  Three bays in your space will look good.

The RailKing looks good.  I like Premier steamers, but am quite happy with Scale Railking diesels.  I agree, the detail is a bit lacking, yours is looking good.  I think the constant voltage headlamp and cab lighting will be a great enhancement!  You will do great!

Boy...has it been that long since I posted anything? I'm way onto page 2.

I've been working on the Ford model, but am getting ready to build the Bronx Victorian Building. I'm going back over all the drawings before getting them to Andre at River Leaf, and am I glad that I did. I remeasured the actual building on Google Earth and compared it to my SketchUp rendering. I was too wide by about 10% and a little short. Then I decided to print out some of my Illustrator drawings and compare it to the actual 3D printed parts. Again, am I glad that I did that. I can change the drawings, but I can't get more of those parts printed.

Both the large 2nd floor windows and the smaller 3rd floor windows were about .3" too wide. Here's the trim fitted to the now-adjusted window width. Notice too all the brick work that will get laser-engraved. I chose a fancy bond design, but surprisingly, the real building did not have a bond pattern. That 3D trim is going to look really cool and I don't know how I could have done it otherwise.

Bronx Trim Design Fit

Yesterday, my friend brought his wonderful 7 year-old son for a couple of hours of train running fun. Now that winter's here my track alignment problems corrected themselves and we were getting good performance. I did post something on the electrical forum last week when I changed out an MTH broken grain-of-wheat bulb for an LED and blew out the CV board when I accidentally grounded it to the chassis. MTH had two in stock and I ordered a new one of the other A unit of the E-8 PS-1 Rock Island lash up.

The 7 year-old is smart and really getting into trains. The other day he told his dad, "He wanted to be Myles when he grew up." I don't think he was referring to an "accomplished training director of a major industrial company." I think he was referring to "an old guy who doesn't have to work and plays with trains all day." That sounds pretty good to me. He's at an age where he's really noticing the details of the trains, the things that make one kind of engine different from another. He looked inside my mountain and exclaimed, "The whole inside is made of trash!" I told him that he was absolutely right. The entire mountain is cardboard strips covered with plaster.

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Great work there Miles! I would love to grow up to be you, but I think I could get about 25% of what you do right and I guess in my world that's ok, cause its all about the fun! I will say I have learned so much fallowing your builds that some of my scratch building don't look like some guy with bad eye sight and fat fingers built them! LOL

Well... gosh... thanks guys. Regarding my skills versus yours. Just keep moving ahead. Many of my skills are just the result of trial and errors, with lots of the latter. My hands are pretty shaky too, especially when I'm hungry. I just push through and do stuff anyway. I like inspiring people to do better and do things they didn't think they could do. Some folks do that with athletics. Me and athletics ain't so hot. But we each have stuff to give. In my case it building small things. 

If Andre doesn't respond soon, I may end up building another major plastic project. I have a 1:350 Trumpeter model of the USS Essex that was given to me. I am thinking about building it to the same level as the Missouri that I did 5 years ago. That means lots of after-market photo-etched stuff and probably many months construction time. It doesn't have to be done all at one sitting so I can be building train stuff at the same time.

Just reporting in. I am working on that Trumpeter 1:350 USS Essex Carrier in late WW2 configuration. I'm adding all the bells and whistles like I did on my USS Missouri project of 6 years ago. Meanwhile, I put something up for sale on the "For Sale" forum. Check it out.

Once Andre is able to do my cutting I'm back in the structures business. With the help of my computer-genius daughter in law I was finally able to get Windows running on my Mac and now have Corel Draw on my Mac. I was touch and go, but I persevered. Corel Draw is a better vector drawing platform than Adobe Illustrator. Having both running simultaneously really shows the difference. I've now stopped my $20 a month subscription to Illustrator, and can now send Andre native Corel Files for his laser cutting. This will enable him to make corrections more easily if they're needed. It cost me $200 for the Corel upgrade (since I was a licensed holder of Corel Draw 5, I was eligible for the upgrade) so already saved $40 for this year and $240 a year going forward. I can also work on all my old Corel files without converting them. 

Welcome back!!  I knew you were working on the car and I see now the ships, so I wasn't bothered that you hadn't posted.  Getting Corel running on your MAC sounds like a good thing.  That's good you are still working with Andre on your buildings.  

I saw what you have for sale.  Very nice indeed!  I'm sorry I'm not in the market, but I'm sure someone will snatch it up!!

The model car is on hiatus until the weather turns to Spring. I have to spray the lacquers outside. The carrier is all being done in acrylics so I can airbrush it in the workshop. Still on my wish list is an outside vented spray booth so I can spray anything indoors.

The ship is going to be a doozy. Here's just a taste of what's going on. The kit's guns were too fat and breaking so I made my own out of 0.032" brass tapered with a file and sanding stick.

Essex Twin 5s Comp

The fantail had to be painted early since it was inaccessible when the over head stuff went in.

Essex Fantail Comp

My order of hi-def photo-etched came today so the real work begins in earnest. The island looks like this now.

Essex Funnel Filling and Install

It's going to look like this when I done (or at least that's the plan). The PE should reproduce most of these details if I can pull it off.

CV-10_1944.09_Mast_Details

If you're interested in following along with this, you can see it here:

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/mo...ts/f/7/t/177660.aspx

I'm doing a build thread on it on three different forums, Fine Scale Modeler's one seems like the easier to navigate.

 

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  • Essex Twin 5s Comp
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Yes, great pics and very nice, fine looking details.  As with all, your posts are interesting read and informative.  Would be nice to be able and see all your pics.....    I have a couple nice ship models to build, myself.  But, from so long ago I would have to check and even see what ships they are of.  One thing I like about O gauge trains, my sons and I built 1/48 model aircraft in the 80s and 90s.  We concentrated on the development of the jets, have early types from 1944 to 1949, along with the 100 series of jets, and about seven of the X series aircraft.  All in 1/48 scale and they do look right for the layout we had in Houston, plan to make use on the one here in Oklahoma........ when I get that far........  LOL!!!!

Jesse   TCA  12-68275

Trainman,

I built this 40 years ago with poor tools and no dremel.  It is wood, and I think it was a Revell kit, but I'm really not sure.  My young son couldn't resist playing with it, so it's pretty busted up and the 5 inch guns are mostly broken off.  From afar, it still looks good.  I no longer have the energy or nimble fingers to repair the thing.

The Essex project looks great.  I would really love to see pics of your Missouri build.  IMO, the most beautiful warship ever built.

20180204_045751[1]

Jerry

 

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Jerry, that looks like the old Sterling kit (1:192 scale). That was a balsa model that took a lot of skill to create a good representation and it looks like you did that. 

And I wholeheartedly agree; the Iowa class ships were the most beautifully designed warships of at least WW2. Now part of that could be clouded by the fact that Revell's 1954 model was the first plastic model I ever built and thus I was imprinted. It was also the first model Revell made using their own dies. When you compare the Iowa class ships to their other battleship brothers and sisters, you can see immediately what adding the 300 feet and the second funnel did for the design. Besides increasing the speed more than 4 knots, it also put balance and streamlining in the design that looked elegant, not clunky. While everything had a function, it all worked together. To build this model I had to do a lot of research and got lots of input. One person was the yard superintendent in charge of the 1980s refit of all four Iowas. His nickname was "Rusty Battleship" aka, Dick Landgraff. He passed away last year and was on the commission to convert the Iowa to the final museum ship in San Diego. 

Here's some Missouri pics to satisfy your request. Model depicts MO as it was after the Signing in August 1945 and mods made in Pearl before October of the same year. At that moment in time, the ship retained all of its late War radar suite and armament except for the triple 20mm guns and tub that flanked the #2 turret (port and starboard), and the decks were striped of the dark blue stain and returned to their original teak. I picked that moment since I want to display the laser-cut wood decks in their natural wood finish.

The model has probably 1,000 additional pieces of photo-etch and scratch-built goodies including steel prop shafts and brass propellors.

Mo front oblique

Missouri Complete 02Missouri Complete 03Missouri Complete 04

The masts are all scratch-built brass. The backstays holding them up are high E guitar string. Antenna wiring is thin gauge E-Z Line.

Missouri Superstructure Fin

I set the bar very high with this model and am striving to replicate it with the Essex. I'm in a minor dilemma with the carrier. I don't want to paint that fancy splinter camouflage scheme which was added in mid-44, but I've already added some more 40mm guns that was added at the same time. Instead, I'm doing the much easier solid Navy Blue scheme. Only the rivet counters will know this. These 1944 mods also effected the kinds and placement of radars which further complicates the build. The Trumpeter kit is basically the "as built" Essex before any mods were made.

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  • Missouri Complete 02
  • Missouri Complete 03
  • Missouri Complete 04
  • Missouri Superstructure Fin
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Last edited by Trainman2001

Trainman,

Sensational.  Thanks so much for those pics and your highly detailed descriptions .  You certainly know your stuff.  What a gorgeous model.  I made at least 3 of those Revell plastic Missouri models.  They were great.  I probably still have them somewhere in the attic.

Those railings, radars, gun directors, and rigging are so detailed it's beyond belief.  I've never seen those mounts on the fantail, behind the 40mm AA guns.  Are they 20mm, or do they have something to do with the scout plane launchers?

Best I've ever seen.  Gotta love it.  Looking forward to the Essex updates.

Jerry

Thank you very much. Every time I go into the spare bedroom and look at it, I really can't believe that I built it. It was a serious challenge.

Those are Mk 51 gun directors for each of the 40mm Bofors emplacements. American armament in mid-late WW2 was already very sophisticated. Everything bigger than 20mm was driven by gun directors through complicated servo systems. The hand wheels and gun sights on the bigger guns were there only if the directors were out of commission. There was a MK 51 for each 40mm quad. They used mechano-optical sight computers that handled the lead corrections when sighting on moving targets. The gun director person would aim at the aircraft and the turret would follow. The 5" turrets had four MK 37 directors that were both radar and optical driven with fairly long path optical range finders. The 5s would slave to these directors. And the 16" main batteries had the big MK 38 directors on top of the front and rear air defense towers. They were mounted as high on the ship as possible to best see over the horizon. These too had radar and very long path optical range finders. Each turret, whether 40, 5" or 16" also had their own methods of aiming. The winglets sticking out of the 16" turrets were optical range finders. When the Iowas were refitted in the 80s, the big gun turrets received radar shell tracking systems that could follow the shell's trajectory for further adjustments. The systems were deadly accurate. Lastly, the USA had developed electronic proximity fuses for their 5" shells. They actually had miniaturized vacuum tube radio range finders in the shells that would detonate when they were within a lethal radius of the air target. The vacuum tubes had to withstand the 10,000 gs that the shells would experience accelerating out of the gun tube. The Japanese never knew about this technology until after the war and thought we had the best trained gunners in the world. That may have been true too, but it wasn't the reason we were so deadly.

Fascinating.  I loved reading that.

I always wondered why those 5 inch turrets were firing at aircraft.  I think my model had 40 Bofors mounts and thought the 5 inchers were too big a shell for planes.  I've never heard/read any descriptions so detailed.  I knew about the winglets on the main turrets.  In Connecticut, the Massachusetts is fairly close by and I've been inside of both types of those turrets.  I'm sure the Iowa's were much more spectacular than the SD's.  

This is great stuff.  Thanks....

Jerry

Thanks Rich and CSX Al!

Another clue to the 5"-gun-as-anti-aircraft-system question is their high-angle ability.

015750f

The 5" guns can point almost straight up (85°) which would only be to shoot at aircraft. Any more vertical and they risk the shells falling right back on their heads, although the 40mm Bofors could elevate to 90 degrees. They were often referred to as 5"/38 high-angle guns. The 38 is the caliber. In artillery sense "caliber" is the multiplier of the bore diameter to get the length of the barrel. The 16" gun turrets on all US WW2 battleships were very similar, however the Iowa's were 16"/50 caliber, whereas the South Dakota class' (for example) were 16"/45. Like in good hunting rifles, the longer the bore the greater the muzzle velocity and the higher the accuracy. So if you multiply 16 X 50 = 66'. That's 16.5" in our favorite scale 1:48. These are really big guns!

And with that I promise to get back to talking about just trains. However, most of us mechanically-inclined hobbyists, we tend to be interested in anything that floats, rolls or flies.

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News update: I'm holding off on the Bronx cutting. Andre is traveling extensively and the price to do the job is high and I'm not sure I want to put all my eggs in one basket. I printed out full-size drawings of the three views and am going to make a cardboard mockup to see how and where it will fit. I'm a little concerned about how big it is and where it will go in the village. Better to find out this way that it doesn't work then to get a box of laser cut parts and THEN find out that it's too big.

Meanwhile, after I sold my Rock Island consist to Gene France of California it now has a home on the San Diego O'Scale Model Railroad Club layout and Gene sent me a video of it running on a big wonderful layout. I'm really glad that it found a great home and thanks to Gene for sending the video and closing the loop.

I'm continuing monumental work on the Essex aircraft carrier, updating it as best I can to a late WW2 configuration. I'm building all the masting out of soldered brass and believe me, it's one heck of a challenge. I had a rare set of weekend work sessions and finished the Mark 37 gun directors and the main tripod mast.

Essex Tri-Mast

The yard arm consists of a main support using three sizes of sub-millimeter thin-wall brass tubing with the photo-etched detail piece soldered to it, providing detail AND strength.

Here are the two directors. Base is kit plastic with all brass on top. I mounted the assembly on a brass plate which you can see and may do some more filling to hide the gap better. These are a bear to build and there's still more details on the antenna that can be added if you're so inclined. Right now I AM NOT so inclined.

Essex Mark 37s

And I also ran the trains for a little bit...after all I am a model railroader at heart. Winter has make that track misalignment at the gate disappear. Low humidity did the trick. Perhaps I should get a de-humidifier for the basement...?

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Glad to hear from you.  Yes, it sounds like the mock up for the Bronx is the way to go now.  I was aware from elsewhere Andre has been a world traveler as of late!  Duty calls!

The work on the Essex looks superb, but I agree you have to decide when to take the detailing so far.

I'm glad Gene got that great looking Rock Island set for the San Diego O scalers club.  Are they one of the clubs at Balboa Park?  Our youngest daughter made a West Coast trip when she was in the Touring Choir of Grove City (PA) College a few years back.  The choir took some sightseeing time in San Francisco, Yosemite, and Balboa Park.  Holly saw a sign for a model railroad building at the park, told the gang she was with that she had grown up seeing my trains, and suggested they pass some time there.  She saidthey all thought it was great!!

Yes, now that you have passed through a few season changes, it seems you may do well to get a dehumidifier.  Glad you ran some trains!

It's good to periodically check in just so my thread doesn't get buried too far back in the queue. I made the Bronx Victorian mockup and tried it on for size. I'm glad I did. As much as I love the building's appearance, I think it is too big and too grand for the village. Here it is in the three possible locations. In the first two, it blocks viewing the distillery which, for all intents and purposes, is center-piece of the town vignette.

Victorian Fit 2

While the building is only four stories, the floor heights (probably 12 feet) make it look like a 5-story building. And the mockup doesn't include the mansard roof details and the decorative top roof that extends even higher so you wouldn't even see the refinery.

Bronx Doc Center Comp

In the second location, it's too close to the railroad and may actually be hit by long engines and rolling stock.

Victorian Fit 3a

This picture really shows how it blocks viewing Bernheim.

Victorian Fit 3b

This last location is behind the fire house and is where I was planning to put the under-construction rick house that would eventually store Bourbon barrels for the Berheim distillery across the street. 

Victorian Fit 1

From this angle all you see is the blank wall where a parking lot exists on the prototype. All the beauty is missed on the far side. I could reverse the building and have the brick side with the windows facing the fire house, but I'm not sure that's so good either. The Nighthawks Cafe structure is a much better size for this town. I think that's the one that I'll have cut.

VIctorian Fit 4

Readers... let me know what you think. Andre wants $460 to cut it, and I've sunk another $40 to have the architectural details 3D printed. That puts the total price tag over $500.00. 

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Last edited by Trainman2001

Well guys... I spent time on SketchUp this morning and did some surgery to selectively compress (us O'scalers are good at this) to keep the flavor of that elegant building, but reduce its volume so it fits in my village better and here's the new look.

Bronx Bldg Shrunk Ver. 1

I removed the 3rd story with all its windows and reduced the length by removing one set of windows and getting rid of the side door which wasn't part of the 1870 version anyway. I think it looks pretty good. What do you guys think? You can disagree. 

It would take less time to laser cut with one full set of windows missing, and the wall size reduced over 30%. I see that the mansard roof texture got switched. It should be slate fish scale shingles like the side roof. It only has one chimney since two looked like over kill.

I'm going to mock this up too and see where it fits.

And I'm still going to build Nighthawks.

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Trainman2001 posted:

Well guys... I spent time on SketchUp this morning and did some surgery to selectively compress (us O'scalers are good at this) to keep the flavor of that elegant building, but reduce its volume so it fits in my village better and here's the new look.

Bronx Bldg Shrunk Ver. 1

I removed the 3rd story with all its windows and reduced the length by removing one set of windows and getting rid of the side door which wasn't part of the 1870 version anyway. I think it looks pretty good. What do you guys think? You can disagree. 

It would take less time to laser cut with one full set of windows missing, and the wall size reduced over 30%. I see that the mansard roof texture got switched. It should be slate fish scale shingles like the side roof. It only has one chimney since two looked like over kill.

I'm going to mock this up too and see where it fits.

And I'm still going to build Nighthawks.

Much better. A question (NOT a criticism): Does the architecture fit with the locale? But then it's your railroad, so does it really matter? It's been 35 years since i lived in KY (Lexington), and a significant amount of product from Buffalo Trace may have deadened more than a few brain cells.

There are a lot of neat victorian buildings in lots of KY towns. Maysville, a neat little river town southeast of Cincinnati,  has buildings that look just like this one. The town in Pennsy where were lived had buildings from 1600s thru 1890s, all within a stone's throw of each other. I'm leaning towards a Victorian small town, but then my whole layout is an anachronism. I have an 1870 distillery with modern material handling equipment, and Victorian train station next to a state-of-the-art electrical substation, and then there's the refinery. If I like how it looks I'll build it.

Here's a Maysville building. Notice the eyebrows over the windows.

Maysville KY 3

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So... taking all the comments into consideration, I quickly chopped the existing mockup to make a reduced-size Bronx Victorian structure. And it works nicely. In fact, it's perfect!

Resized Btronx 1

I think this is my preferred position. The two stories are a little taller than the adjacent structures, but this structure typically had 12 foot ceilings and the others look like 8 foot ceilings. But it's not overpowering and reducing the length keeps the alley way next to the chocolate shoppe, or track clearance in the first location. I think Nighthawks would go where that DPM corner store is temporarily located. I'm going to make that into an appliance store and have a Miller Engineering "Zenith TV" neon window sign for it. Next step is to change all the laser cut working drawings.

Small Bronx 2

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And now for something completely different...

Last week our Kenmore Elite dishwasher's control panel (purchased in 2011) ceased working... dead as a doornail. We went to Lowe's on Saturday and bought a new GE dishwasher, but will be delivered in about 2 weeks. Then on Sunday, I bumped the Kenmore and the "Cancel" button lit up. All the buttons worked! So... I stopped hand washing dishes and we did a load in the machine. Then yesterday, when I walked by the dishwasher to the sink the floor felt funny. My shoe caught on the hardwood. When I looked I saw (with horror) that the floor boards were cupping leading out from the dishwasher. The floor had gotten wet underneath.

Then I went down to the train room. The dishwasher sits directly over the town. Because I had put Tyvek on the ceiling to keep out the dust and brighten the place up, no water had hit the layout, BUT, there was a significant bulge sitting right over the center of town that was obviously holding water. And what water that did escape (the floor had clearly gotten wet) had come down directly over the gap at the back between the three bridges and not a drop had hit the layout. WHAT LUCK!

The plumbers came today, checked it out and sure enough, the dishwasher was leaking directly from the motor housing. The assumption is that the leak caused the electronic problems, and not the the other way around. When the buttons went back on we were second-guessing ourselves about buying the new one, but after the plumbers left we realized that we probably should have seen this leak before.

The Big Lead 1The Big Leak 4

I put cardboard Teepees over any tall object that could get broken from the drop cloths. I chose the thinnest, biggest and cheapest they had at the hardware store.

I used a big Rubbermade tub to catch the water. Also luckily, there were big flat, non-built areas in town that were under the water "blister". We perforated the Tyvek with an Xacto knife and the water drained in a controlled manner.

Catastrophe Averted

Ironically, if we had gone to the expense of finishing the basement and putting in a dropped ceiling, it would have been much worse, since the dropped ceiling tiles would have disintegrated and collapsed right onto those delicate and irreplaceable buildings.

Whew! Don't like when this stuff happens. Of course, living in Louisville and not getting flooded or a wet basement, I really can't complain.

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Trainman2001 posted:

And now for something completely different...

Last week our Kenmore Elite dishwasher's control panel (purchased in 2011) ceased working... dead as a doornail. We went to Lowe's on Saturday and bought a new GE dishwasher, but will be delivered in about 2 weeks. Then on Sunday, I bumped the Kenmore and the "Cancel" button lit up. All the buttons worked! So... I stopped hand washing dishes and we did a load in the machine. Then yesterday, when I walked by the dishwasher to the sink the floor felt funny. My shoe caught on the hardwood. When I looked I saw (with horror) that the floor boards were cupping leading out from the dishwasher. The floor had gotten wet underneath.

Then I went down to the train room. The dishwasher sits directly over the town. Because I had put Tyvek on the ceiling to keep out the dust and brighten the place up, no water had hit the layout, BUT, there was a significant bulge sitting right over the center of town that was obviously holding water. And what water that did escape (the floor had clearly gotten wet) had come down directly over the gap at the back between the three bridges and not a drop had hit the layout. WHAT LUCK!

The plumbers came today, checked it out and sure enough, the dishwasher was leaking directly from the motor housing. The assumption is that the leak caused the electronic problems, and not the the other way around. When the buttons went back on we were second-guessing ourselves about buying the new one, but after the plumbers left we realized that we probably should have seen this leak before.

The Big Lead 1The Big Leak 4

I put cardboard Teepees over any tall object that could get broken from the drop cloths. I chose the thinnest, biggest and cheapest they had at the hardware store.

I used a big Rubbermade tub to catch the water. Also luckily, there were big flat, non-built areas in town that were under the water "blister". We perforated the Tyvek with an Xacto knife and the water drained in a controlled manner.

Catastrophe Averted

Ironically, if we had gone to the expense of finishing the basement and putting in a dropped ceiling, it would have been much worse, since the dropped ceiling tiles would have disintegrated and collapsed right onto those delicate and irreplaceable buildings.

Whew! Don't like when this stuff happens. Of course, living in Louisville and not getting flooded or a wet basement, I really can't complain.

Myles,

Consider yourself VERY VERY lucky.

Yes... there's was a lot of luck and then the right reaction. I always turn off the main water inlet to the house whenever we're going away overnight or longer. We've had four water catastrophes which were all random and could all have done untold damage had they occurred when were weren't home. 

1. The bottom of a humidifier opened one clip and the sump flopped sideways opening the inlet valve without anything shutting it off. The house was already sold and it soaked through the utility room wall into the family room and soaked the carpet. It was a townhouse built on a slab so there was no basement to get wet.

2. A washer hose let loose early on a Sunday morning. I came downstairs to the sound of water spraying. It put about an inch of water on the Armstrong Sheet Goods vinyl flooring and some got to the basement, but I was there and could shut off the water before it got to the rest of the house.

3. The water inlet line to a water softener pulled out of its compression fitting and was spraying the entire basement...all my tools, but I didn't have a railroad yet so it didn't do anything REALLY serious.

4. The nylon nut on the water inlet connection under the toilet tank in a second floor bathroom cracked and was involved in an uncontrolled release of water that got through the floor and started cascading out of the light fixture in our master bath that lies below. Again, we were home and I was able to shut off the main, get a plumber and get it fixed.

Any one of these events if they were to continue for days without anyone intercepting them, would have done ridiculous damage. There are many cases when a second floor leak takes place and runs for days and takes apart the first floor. The house has to be gutted to repair the damage. It also precludes a pipe freezing in the house from wrecking the place when it thaws out when no one's home.

So... It takes a couple of seconds to turn off the water. 

About 35 years ago, while we were away for a week at Disneyworld, a hot water pipe burst and sprayed water across the room, hitting South Plastiville on our large layout. My brother, who was watching the house for us, discovered it. He repaired the leak but did not tell us about it so as to not spoil our vacation, but instead turned the damaged area into a disaster scene.  Two Lionel cranes held the track suspended in the air. Every emergency vehicle he could find on the layout and the kid's toy box were at the site as well as all of the sidewalk supervisors from Plasticville.  A Wheebles helicopter hovered over the scene. It was hilarious. Fortunately a new Life-like grass mat was all that was needed. 

Glad to hear you kept the damage to a minimum.

Earl

 

 

  

Whew, close one.  (yep, still with you...I've just been lurking quietly again )

  In winter of 2011 I was visiting around town and knocked on a pals door. Looking around while waiting for the door to be answered, I looked down at his neighbors basement window.

  There was water coming off the cement sill andbeing winter, I stepped off the porch for a better look and realised water was flowing out from around the window frame. 

  The basement was now a huge aquarium and they weren't due home for another few weeks so we made calls.

   The power company killed the electrical and gas, the city shut off the water, and the house was not opened, just wrapped up tight with a giant yellow& black "ribbon" and a "No Occupancy" sticker stuck to the door. Ice busted out the windows after a few days, foundation cracked and the house began listing.  The owners abandoned the home, the city pumped it dry and razed it and filled it, but not till a mid summer block meeting..... at city hall. My buddy bought the lot at auction for the nicer garage and yard expansion. 

  The third home where a neighbor's misfortunes allowed a cheap expansion of his own mansion. He still hasn't taken down the fence though. I tore my diaphram, he had a heart attack, but the hot rods are safely stored

About 6 years ago my Wife and I bought our retirement home in a different state. (South). The house has a crawl space under half and a walk out basement under the other half. We packed up the house after labor day the following year and headed home. We came back down over Christmas and the first thing I did is turn on the kitchen faucet to get some water. Nothing. Dag... I headed for the basement and from under the garage door came a steady flow of water into the back yard and down the hill. From the water bill we estimated the main line in from the street let loose under the house about 3 weeks before we got down there. The crawl space filled up and overflowed into the basement which directed the water under the garage door and out; luckily, I guess. Again, Luckily, since we had only recently bought the house there was very little in it since we were doing major renovations. I turned the water off at the street and called a plumber. He discovered the coupling between the main water and the house plumbing system blew off. Further investigation showed the limiter valve at the street which is supposed to bring the water pressure down to a useable 42 psi was set at its max of 150psi. The plumber couldn't believe it didn't rupture our entire system. All fixed and no inside water damage. Just a heart stopping water bill for those three months. Obvious moral. Turn the water off whenever you're gone for more than a day.

Thanks for all the kind thoughts.

On another front, I've been experimenting with ways to build the Nighthawks Cafe without any laser cutting. I've purchased all the different windows from Grandt Line and Tichy, plus the doors. I've got all the drawing modified for hand making, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to use Masonite or MDF for the walls. I did an experiment using a Dremel with the router attachment and a 1/16" carbide bit, plus a piece of wood set up as a fence to guide the router cut. The test was marginally successfully. While the fence worked, I had to be very careful in guiding the device so it didn't wander away. I also have been thinking about how to set up the fence so it's very secure, but easily adjustable. I have a colleague who has a CNC router, but they've recently moved and I don't think his shop is set up yet. Also, I'd have to learn to use additional software to create the cutting program. 

I'm also considering doing it the old fashioned way; using styrene for the walls and cutting the window openings with a razor knife either punching them directly out, or using the snap-and-glue method where you slice and dice up the walls, removing the window spaces and gluing the rest back together. I used this method when building the Victorian Station and it worked well. Besides, the walls are getting covered by Plastruct embossed brick sheeting which actually covers the entire wall without any splicing. I'll keep you abreast of any developments.

Meanwhile, work on the Essex continues apace. I've been working to finish the island with all that soldered brass scratch-build and Photo-etched stuff. It's been a challenging job. I paint and rig all this before fastening it to the deck.

Essex Island Status

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Checking in again...

Glad I kept the plastic sheeting over the city until the new dishwasher was installed and checked out. I went to remove it last week after the dishwasher install, but noticed water in the Rubbermaid pail and on the plastic sheeting. We had the plumbers remove the old dishwasher and waited over two weeks for the new one to be delivered. Meanwhile, the stop valve under the kitchen sink that was "shut off" after the old dishwasher feed line was removed was actually leaking a a little bit. Just enough to wet the area under the sink AND to seep down the pipe and come out of the basement ceiling onto the layout AGAIN. All is now dry and I'm going to remove the sheeting and run trains again.

I'm still working on the Nighthawks design to make it a DIY project without laser cutting. I've adjusted all the exterior dimensions so it is no larger than 6 inches wide and deep so I can cut two sides out of a single sheet of Evergreen 6 X 12" stock. Further I thought about having the two turret cones produced by Shapeways and redesigned the geometry  for 3D printing. I sent them the converted-to-STL SketchUp drawings and was ready to pull the trigger. It would cost $44 for hi-res acrylic printing. That cost is not out of line, but then I thought about how to make it in my shop for $0. It's about 2 inches in diameter and height. My challenge was my little Taig lathe. It isn't really a wood lathe and I can't grab a four-sided wood chunk in its 3-jaw chuck. I thought about how to approach this and came up with a solution. I will create a square blank (which is now being glue downstairs). I will drill it in the approx. center and then glue in an appropriately sized dowel which will go into a 3-jaw chuck. I will carve off as much stock as possible before putting it in the lathe and then using a sanding/grinding bit in the Dremel and grind off the wood as the lathe is turning. This way I won't have to use wood turning tools (which I don't have) nor use a wood turning tool rest (which I also do not have). Should work. Here was the set up screen on Shapeways.

Screen Shot 2018-03-18 at 3.38.36 PM

Another possibility would be to make it out of Scuplty hardening clay.

A third possibility would be to make it out of modeling clay, make a silicone mold and then resin cast it. That's not a cheap solution since the resin materials are not free.

There's a dense foam called Renshape that makes a great carving foam and is available at https://www.freemansupply.com/...g-and-styling-boards

I believe it is NOT inexpensive.

I'll keep y'all posted.

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Thanks Mark!

So... I'm ordering a sample pack of Renshape from Freeman. It's $25 and gives chunks of all different densities of their structural foam and other pattern making materials. Considering the small sizes of the pieces we O'scalers make, that sample pack could be all I need.

Meanwhile... I decided to see if I could make the turrets from wood. I have wood and I have a lathe (although not technically a wood lathe) and figured "what have I got to lose". The glued up block was really a bunch of angular cutoffs from layout frame building so first I had to knock off the angles on the chop saw. The first time I tried to cut it, it promptly flew off the back of the saw table. It was a tall piece (almost 3" high) and hand holding it was stupid and dangerous. Didn't get hurt other than surprise. I then clamped the block against the fence with another piece of longer stock held with a c-clamp. This worked well and I had a cube of solid wood very quickly. 

I found the centers on each end and drilled one end in the drill press to accept a piece of 1/2" brass rod. After inserting the rod I soaked the end with thin CA so it was very secure. I sawed off the square sides to reduce the overall shape to sort-of an octagon using a Japanese style thin-blade hand saw.

This I COULD chuck in my lathe. I also drilled the tail end for a tailstock spindle to stabilize this big chunk of wood. I took it nice and easy using a metal working carbide bit to gradually knock off all the high spots and create a true cylinder. I then proceeded to gradually reduce the diameter of the small end tapering it to the large 2" end. I did 2-hand turning which is always fun. I moved the carriage feed with my right hand and wound out the cross feed in an ever increasing speed to create a cone with some curvature built in.

When it was near net shape, I used the Dremel with a sanding drum while the lathe was turning to create the final shape. I had a template of the turret that was drawn in CorelDraw which I printed out and pasted to some illustration board. After using the Dremel I hand sanded the turret to smooth finish.

The last thing I did was move the piece further out of the chuck and face the back side so it was true to the cone AND reduce the brass plug diameter to 3/8" to make less metal to part off. I used a hack saw to cut it off since there was limited room to get in there with a part-off tool.

NH L Turret Composite

The process to create the small bottom turret was the same, but easier since I didn't have to glue up the block and had less wood to remove to create the octagon. Here is a picture of what it looks like after the 2-hand turning.

NH S Turret 2-hand Turning

Again I cut off this piece using a hack saw, only this time the plug was aluminum. After finishing, the small turret looked like this.

NH S Turret Turning Fin

There was a scratch in the large turret that I filled with Tamiya filler putty and then sanded smooth in the lathe.

NH L Turret Filled

Here are the two turrets fitted with ball bearings that I conveniently had in an old film bottle in one of my drawers for years. I had two of almost the perfect size. I'm going to coat them with Tamiya clear color coat so they'll look like mirror balls. I epoxied the balls in place and will let dry overnight.

NH Turrets Complete

To refresh you memories, here are both turrets in building on SketchUp.

NH Turrets Drawing

The turrets were the most challenging part of this build (IMHO), so having them done first really relieves some stress. The rest of the build is more straight forward and is a repeat of other kinds of builds that I've done. In practice, these kinds of architectural details are shingled with shingles of decreasingly smaller size as the diameter shrinks going up. I've had thoughts of buying Rusty Stumps HO and N scale shingles to do it, but it's a lot of $$$ just for a few fractions of inches of shingles, so I may cut my own out of the straight Rusty Stumps O'scale shingles I have in my stash.

Another wrinkle is the lower current is embedded into the building's corner. I may be easier to cope out the building to let the turret nest into it, then try to cut out a quarter of the wood turret. It's not the wood that the trouble. It's the big aluminum pin embedded into it that will be harder to cut, AND there's no convenient way to hold it. Since I had a cutting template of the shape, I can trace it onto the building and simply cut out the profile.

 

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Since I'm waiting for some new lighting effects for the Essex, I decided to continue working on Nighthawks and made a significant dent in the process.

I finished editing all the CorelDraw plans to make the adjustments needed to create a 6" X 6" d structure which included changing the Mansard roof pieces, all the floors as well as the walls themselves. I then printed all the pages out in duplicate. I trimmed the images to their exterior lines and them sprayed them with 3M 90 spray adhesive. It's their high-strength product AND does eat into styrene so I wouldn't recommend using this. It was the only one that I had so I used it. 3M77 is milder and is less aggressive. The X'd out windows are last minute changes. The center windows are where the chimney chase will be, and the left window is being eliminated since it will be into a turned stair well.

NH Pattern Glued

After sticking the drawings onto the styrene I cut them out using a #11 Xacto and then using a MicroMark corner cutting chisel. Before I decided to use the chisel I was cutting a "X" from the window corners to make it easier to break out the window center. This works, but the corner cutter is better.

NH Window Cutting

I tested each window opening with the two sizes of windows going in the structure (Tichy and Grandt Line) and they fit nicely, based on the drawing accuracy based on measuring the actual windows before doing the drawings.

NH Window Fit

Here's the corner cutter. A couple of taps with a soft-faced hammer does the trick. You have to be careful aligning it in the cut window edges.

Corner Cutter

I got all the windows cut without difficulty.

I then added the Plastruct brick sheeting. The first piece was on a wide section (walls are two lengths: full width and full width minus 2X wall thickness.) All I had to do was pay attention to brick alignment AND gluing on the correct side. This embossed brick sheeting has the right side and the wrong side.

After the second wall section was cured under some weight, I realized that I had glued on the brick sheet wrong side out. Doh! While it was pretty well cured using Testor's tube cement, I was able to manhandle the sheeting off the styrene wall. The wall broke at a narrow section, but it was an easy fix. I then used another piece of brick stock and redid it. I was hoping to not scrap any brick stock since I didn't want to use pieces. I then glued up another two walls and DOH! again, I glued another wrong side out. I couldn't believe it. Really? Two brick pieces scrapped! Give me a break. I then had to piece sheeting on two walls. I tried to make the seam as inconspicuous as possible. I left the sheeting overlap the walls and trimmed them after curing. During cutting the edge of one of the front pieces I had the tip of my left index finger hanging a little over the edge of my metal straight edge and almost trimmed the tip of my finger off... close, but not quite. And since I'm on a blood thinner, it did bleed pretty well. I bandaged it up tightly and got back to work. By the end of the session I got all four walls bricked. Openings were cut out after walls we cured. 

NH Walls

I was going to leave the brick sheets unpainted except for mortar and picking out random bricks for different coloring, but, the two packs of bricks sheets have different shades of brick red, so I'm going to have to paint the entire sheets. I can now pick any color I want. The bottom four feet should be a field stone foundation. I need to decide how to approach that. I can leave it brick all the way, but a stone foundation would add interest. Any suggestions on the best way to approach this?

Tomorrow, I start planning an executing how to join the walls and cut some floor plates. I could have cut the windows using the "snap and glue" method like I did with the Victorian station since the brick sheeting would hide all those glued seams, But directly cutting the windows worked okay.

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I have used the X cut and snap out method in the past, but I like the looks of that corner cutter.  Twenty-five years ago or so, I tried the snap and glue method on a clapboard station I was building, following instructions in a Model Railroader magazine, but I just couldn’t get the seams to look like the author’s.  I abandoned the project and still have pieces of the job in the spare parts box to remind me of the frustration.

JerryG posted:

Fascinating.  I loved reading that.

I always wondered why those 5 inch turrets were firing at aircraft.  I think my model had 40 Bofors mounts and thought the 5 inchers were too big a shell for planes. 

As mentioned, for anti-aircraft duties the 5" shells that were used had proximity fuses and exploded at certain altitudes, sending flak over a wide area, which is what downed the aircraft. Different types of shells with different capabilities were employed, depending on what the targets were, be it shore bombardment or anti-ship or whatever. My late father-in-law was a gunners mate on a Fletcher class destroyer in the South Pacific during the war and told me about their gunnery methods. These ships also were equipped with 20mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns.

They probably would have used armor-piercing rounds if they had to fire at steam locomotives. 

Last edited by breezinup

Our 5" shell technology was unique and very effective. Now Russia and China are touting hypersonic. We've been messing with that for years, but haven't operationalized anything yet. Sounds to me like we're going to repeat the 1960s and 70s when we freaked out by the Soviet Mig 25 Foxbat and created the Fs 14,15, 16 and 18, only to find out that the '25 was fast and that was it. It was built with steel, not titanium, had engines that failed after a short time, was not maneuverable. In other words, we really overreacted and it cost us $$$$. We're going to do it again.

By "hope", you mean that I give mere mortals permission to screw up occasionally since I do it so regularly? I've said it before, I screw up when I'm rushing. I don't know why I was rushing yesterday, but I just wanted to get as much done as possible before all the lighting stuff comes for the Essex. My orthopedic surgeon son in law noticed that I tend to work too fast. He tells me to slow down. He's right! He's also one of the top surgeons in Louisville so I should listen to him.

Work continued today on Nighthawks...

The building now has four sides.

Using a surface gauge, I scribed the location of the 1st and 2nd floor plates. For the first floor I'm probably going to use 1/8" Masonite, but will go with foam core for the 2nd since it won't be supporting anything. I then glued 1/8" square stock on these lines. I was careful to not put them where other structures were going.

Since my walls are only about 0.050" thick and are supposed to be brick (about .180" scale thickness) I decided to pack out the window spaces inside. Some .125" evergreen strip stock did the trick. I measured the opening length and set the Duplicutter to that size and chopped off the long pieces. After I glued these in I cut shorter pieces for the narrow edges. I test fit the two different windows sizes in each opening as I went along so I've got very nice, tight fits. All reinforcement pieces and the packing are the same thickness (1/8") so I can install interior walls if I so desire. I don't think I'm going to do any interior detail on the second floor. I did this in Saulena's and you simply can't see in from the layout edge. It was fun, but a waste of time. The main floor is different  since there's that big curved window...

NH Window Packing

It was time to join the sides and then I found another booboo that I made. I knew I needed brick sheeting to extend out over an edge so the white substrate didn't show. Only trouble was that I picked the wrong set of sides (long sides) to extend the substrate. It was the short side that needed the extension. So I cut the extensions off and will deal with the substrate on another day.

I first tried using a picture framing miter clamp to hold one set of edges and my corner clamps for the opposite end, but it was working well due to the internal bracing getting in the way so I used the corner clamps exclusively for the rest of the building.

NH Glue Up 2

The white plastic plate was there to add some more rigidity to the clamp surface on the flimsy front piece. You can see the white edge. Since I'm painting the whole building the white won't show.

I have to modify the front corner under the curved glass since this is not brick, but is a framed up structure. I made the curved backing piece out of a piece of 1/8" Plastruct ABS. I squared it up and scribed a 1" radius curved. I cut it out using a jeweler's saw and trued up all the edges hand sanding on the Precision Sander. I cut off the bottoms of the front window wall and then re-glued them to the curved piece.

NH Curved Frt Mod1

NH Curved Frt Mod 1A

I test fit this assembly where it's going to be. It needs some more work since it going to sit behind the brick wall. Furthermore, I'm going to make this lower window wall a scale foot higher.

NH Curved Frt Mod 2

I'm redrawing the building on SketchUp while construction is progressing to get a handle on any challenges. Making this curved piece was just one of those challenges that needed addressing now, not later. I didn't want the window sill to be at floor level. I will also raise the top another scale foot also. I have to be conscious of the upper works and not cut the space down too much. I did some more work on the turret's mating scheme to the rest of the building. If the turret was an actual living space, there needed to be a passage from the attic to it. I didn't have such as a space on the original design.

Hight Hawks progress

For the stone foundation I'm thinking to create a thin, carved veneer using Sculpey. I printed out a scale sized piece of this pattern (downloaded from the Podium rendering add-in for SketchUp). Sculpey is very brittle in thin sections so I think I'm going to embed some window screen into it before heat hardening it.

 

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Images (6)
  • NH Window Packing
  • NH Glue Up 2
  • NH Curved Frt Mod1
  • NH Curved Frt Mod 1A
  • Hight Hawks progress
  • NH Curved Frt Mod 2

All right, I missed something.  Every picture of Nighthawks I have ever seen shows a bit of space above the left hand side of the Phillies sign above the big window indicating to me that it is a one story building.  Have I only seen part of the Hopper painting, are you combining this with another building, or (this is probably the answer) have I not been paying attention?    I am thinking you explained yourself back there somewhere, and I can't find it now, so I'll just ask for clarification.  

 

Mark Boyce posted:

All right, I missed something.  Every picture of Nighthawks I have ever seen shows a bit of space above the left hand side of the Phillies sign above the big window indicating to me that it is a one story building.  Have I only seen part of the Hopper painting, are you combining this with another building, or (this is probably the answer) have I not been paying attention?    I am thinking you explained yourself back there somewhere, and I can't find it now, so I'll just ask for clarification.  

 

You are correct.

I suspect Hopper took some architectural liberties; it's hard to believe that a one-story cafe would be stuck out on the corner, especially since the other buildings in the painting are two-story..

It probably was a 1-story structure, and he did take liberties. Hopper was an American Impressionist and therefore represented objective reality in not-so-objective ways. The perspective of the building is a bit off. The counter and the building seemed to be triangular and yet it was most likely a square street corner. It is said that he chose this angle to better show the two characters sitting with their coffee. Incidentally, those two are purported to be Hopper and his spouse. So, yes, I'm taking this one-floor odd-shaped impressionist image and pushing it into a real-world four-sided multi-story building. It's model railroading impressionism. 

nighthawks_by_edward_hopper_1942

The lighting appears to be florescent and vey uniform. There are round, wooden bar stools, and I already have the coffee urns and cups (resin from Westport Modelworks). My biggest challenge is going to be trying to make the figures. I've downloaded a primer on how to sculpt figures using Sculpey and it appears to be straight forward (famous last words). The trick is to build a basic shape on an aluminum foil armature, fire it to make it solid, then add the next layer of detail, fire that, and so one. In this way, you're not trying to make a finished product out of very unstable clay. When I did my "Wallace and Gromitt" figures for the B-17, I didn't know this trick and kept messing up previously shaped and unstable clay trying to add another detail.

My grandson used the instructions to shape his "Old Man and the Sea" diorama and it worked pretty well. So I'm game. Instead of trying to make a Hopper and wife, I might attempt to make a Myles and wife. That would be a trip! I did a perspective mod on Corel PhotoPaint and straightened the "Phillies" sign so I can make a decal of it. It's missing some parts which I had to estimate. Notice the wall thickness at the far end of the window. It's a masonry building.

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  • nighthawks_by_edward_hopper_1942

I believe, still, that the Nighthawks cafe is on the ground floor of, at least, a two-story building. There is, in the painting, a stout pole, ribbed, maybe cast iron, that could be intended to support an overhanging second story. See the painting "Drug Store"

http://media.overstockart.com/cache/data/product_images/overstockart_2378_1437784882-570x650.jpg

Look at the painting "Night Windows" 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hP2IT2qdNyg/UrTHuIerECI/AAAAAAAABKU/g-JZHRM-Lu4/s1600/Hopper---Night-Windows-2318-26488.jpg

The curved corner could match the curve of the cafe window.

I agree that modeling the cafe almost has to be modeling impressionism!

Did I mention that I'm a Hopper fan?

This is a good discussion. Notice above the sign that you can see part of the brick building across the street, so at least that part is one story. I'm shoehorning it into a nice two story victorian style building just for fun. This design appeared in a May 1957 Model Railroader mag that I got from my uncle in the 1950s. I wanted to build the kit since then. I don't let go of ideas easily... It was built old school with strathmore board, brick paper and thread for window mullions. 

Even with a shortened session (exercise day), I did make some interesting progress. I finished framing up the lower curved front structure minus the outer decorative framing. I needed to pack out the curve to bring it level with the outer surface. I did this with three layers of .040" X .125" styrene which was thin enough to make the curve and glue solidly. I could have avoided this step id I would have notched the ABS piece to drop the front pieces back so the curve was flush with the facing, but I didn't think of that until today and that ABS piece was solvent and CA cemented in place and it didn't want to budge.

NH Curved Front Forming 1

It was still about .010" lower so I added a piece of thin styrene sheet which did the trick.

NH Corner Forming 2

With the surface ready, I then sheeted the whole curve with 0.015" styrene which gave a perfectly smooth surface for further framing appliqués to detail this portion of the window area. I test fit the piece here and you can see the nice, regular curved front that's perfectly square.

NH Corner Fit Trial

I needed to reinforce the top edge to make it stiffer and give more gluing surface so I laminate some 1/8" square stock on the top straight edges, and used the thinner piece laminations to handle the curved portion. Here's what that looked like.

NH Curved Frt Inyernals

Before I did anything else it was time to make the 1st floor plate. I found a piece of Masonite that was exactly the correct width (5-5/8") which I chopped sawed to the other interior dimension (5-15/16").

NH 1st Floor Plate Fitting

I laid out and cut the corner curve and notched out the other corners to clear the corner reinforcing pieces and then tried the floor panel with the window piece to see how it fit. I glued two 1/4" square lugs at the window sill base for a glue point and reinforcement to put the curve back into the building.

NH 1st Floor Trial

Back to the sill. I didn't have any more sheet styrene, but I have a nice big sheet of 1/16" aircraft ply which I used to layout and cut the first layer of the wide window sill. The will be a couple of other pieces that will go here to shape and captivate the clear styrene which will make the large curved window.

NH Window Sill 1

And a bonus. I was looking (and didn't yet find) my Rusty Stumps stair making kit, I found a bunch of sheets of MicroMark O'scale stone wall textured, adhesive backed detail sheeting which is now going to make the stone foundation for the building. At least that's today's plan. I had forgotten that I bought this at least 5 years ago. It might be a bit large, but it looks pretty good. I will have to figure out the best way trim the top.

NH MicroMark Stone Wall

All the LED supplies arrived today, so I'm going to do one more day on Nighthawks and then it will be back to the Essex. Some of these materials may find their way to Nighthawks. I bought adhesive copper foil to provide invisible conductors for lighting the flight deck and it will also work well in buildings. I also bought tiny, wide angle, surface mount LEDs that would provide vey uniform lighting to the ship and the cafe.

 

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  • NH Curved Front Forming 1
  • NH Corner Forming 2
  • NH Corner Fit Trial
  • NH Curved Frt Inyernals
  • NH 1st Floor Plate Fitting
  • NH 1st Floor Trial
  • NH Window Sill 1
  • NH MicroMark Stone Wall

I'm having second thoughts about the MM stone sheets so I went to the LHS, bought more Evergreen and ordered some Plastruct embossed stone wall sheeting. They had several different patterns. The one I chose has fairly even courses so it will look good when cut to the 3 scale feet height.  That and the rest of my errands today left me with  just about an hour in the shop. It was a very encouraging hour.

For starters, I took the suggestion of one of my faithful readers (Ken NJ) to to make a curved window out of 1/8" acrylic. I had some remnants laying around from building the Missouri's showcase. I found one undamaged chunk that was just the right size. I measured the window space minus the thickness of the two window sills and scribed a line with the digital calipers. I then used an acrylic scriber to engrave a deep groove in the piece to enable breaking on the line. I clamped the straight edge to the work piece since you have to scribe it over and over and over to make it deep enough to break correctly. I thought it was deep enough and tried to snap it and got a half of the piece separated leaving a jagged chunk still attached. I went back and deepened the remaining groove and it broke clean leaving just a little bump that I took off with the belt sander and then cleaned up the edge with the NWSL True Sander.

NH Window Scribing

The plan to bend the acrylic started with shaping the corner of a 2 X 4 to the required curve radius. I chopped off most of the stock with the chop saw and then sanded to the curve line with the belt sander. I clamped this fixture to the workbench and then clamped one half of the acrylic to this.

NH Curve Fixture

I used my Top Flite Monokoting heat gun to heat the bend zone and move the free end around the curve. After two tries I got it pretty good. There's a little spring back, but it's not excessive and it will glue in place well.

NH Curve Result

I tried it in the space before cutting it to the proper length. I used the ply window sill to mark the final length, marked it, squared off the line, cut it long in the scroll saw, sanded it closer with the belt sander and then final hand sanding with the True Sander. The fit is very good.

Here is the test fit before final length cutting.

NH Curved Window bent

Theres a little distortion at the bend, but I think it's acceptable. I'm sure bending thin styrene clear sheet around that bend would have its own problems to contend with.

The final thing I did today was run a test using the newly obtained copper foil and surface mount LEDs. These little packages put out a huge amount of light with a wide dispersion... perfect for interior lighting. I put the copper foil onto a piece of scrap acrylic. The contact points are on the bottom of the LED with a separation between anode and cathode of about 1mm. So I taped the two copper strips about that far apart. Tinned a tiny spot on each side, held the LED down with tweezers and then heated the foil next to the package and it settled down in moments and was done. I tested it with my 12VDC power source with a 470 ohm current limiter and boy! you can't believe the light output with no heat. I find LEDs still like magic...light with no heat almost seems against nature. And these things are cheap! ($0.29 each). They come in a little plastic sleeve all attached together with a piece of clear film across the top protecting and holding the LEDs in place.

SM LED Test

This has got to be the coolest way to illuminate buildings or hangar decks of aircraft carriers without big clunky lights hanging down. The copper foil can be painted over so it could be almost invisible. I new about the copper foil since it's been used for doll house lighting for years, but it lacked the tiny LED light sources. I wish I did this when I lit the distilleries and all the other building on the layout. Learn something new every day. Today I learned two new things. Again, the value of taking the time an posting all these massive details comes back in learning and skill improvement... and I'm 72!

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  • NH Window Scribing
  • NH Curve Fixture
  • NH Curve Result
  • NH Curved Window bent
  • SM LED Test
Last edited by Trainman2001

First of all, congratulations on having the surgery. My son would be proud of you. It's amazing how an operation that used to take hours, with time in the hospital with great discomfort is now done in minutes as an out-patient. My son did 815 of them last year.

Nighthawks: Unfortunately, now that I've nailed down the lighting question, I will get back to working on the carrier and finish it. While it's comforting to have four projects running concurrently, it's not the way I like to work because I have the need to complete them. The rest of the Nighthawks build should go smoothly without too much drama... at least that's the plan. Clauswitz said that strategy ends the moment the first shot is fired. My experience tends to agree. Often simple projects that are supposed to be a piece of cake turn out to be the exact opposite. I won't get too complacent.

I'm still thinking about buying a 3D printer... and still concerned that the ones I can afford don't have the resolution to do O'scale work. I wish someone would make a serious cutting laser for around $500. The ones with any capacity are all over $1k.

Good Afternoon Trainman2001,

My name is Randy and I'm a lurker. Seriously, I found your thread about a year and a half ago and have been following it ever since. Your work is amazing and Inspiring. I'm been a modeler mostly on and sometimes off for over 50 years building cars, planes, and the occasional ship. 3 years ago I discovered O scale trains and here I am. You caught my attention (yet again) with the LED's and copper strip. Who is the manufacturer of the LED's? I'd like to look into them myself.

Thanks!

Thanks Randy! As I've said many times before, you can't take the old shop teacher out of me. I learn as much from my commenters as I give so it mutually beneficial.

Here's the link to the surface mount LEDs.

https://www.superbrightleds.co...5-smd-led/1843/4456/

And here's the link to the foil tape on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Just remember that the LEDs are very small (but powerful) and will require careful soldering. As was said in "Man in Black" just because something is small doesn't mean it's not significant" or something like that. The fellow who steered me to the copper foil uses a piece of sheet styrene between layers if he's going to overlap two circuits. I would definitely recommend drawing out the circuit before cutting any tape.

Your welcome.

Today I was working on the Essex and got all the lighting in place in the Hangar deck and really learned how to work with those surface mount LEDs. I also spent hours wrestling with trying to get a staircase into Nighthawks that wouldn't take up so much room that it would wipe out the restrooms or the kitchen. The problem is two fold. The building's footprint is nat large being 24 scale feet on the side and the 1st floor ceiling height is 11 feet. That makes for a stair case challenge. In the Netherlands they solve the problem with deep buildings and very steep, almost ladder-like staircases. 

After trying straight and various turned staircases, I finally capitulated and put it outside. That too might be a problem since I don't know how much room is in the alley way.

Here was one of the earlier attempts. In this one it forced the kitchen pass through all the way to the wall. I was using 7.5" rise and 10.5" tread. I changed that to 9 X 9 and it helped, but still killed half the kitchen and had the stair running up past two of the windows. If I was still in the design phase, I would have structured the windows around the stairs, BUT THE WALLS ARE ALREADY GLUED TOGETHER. Every attempt led to similar problems.

NH Stair Challenge

So here's the final version. You can see how long a stair is when it's going up 12 feet, plus there's 3 feet of foundation too.

NH Stair Challenge Solution

I had thought that I had all the stairs designed, but lost the version that had it. So I will have to open that upper window to make it into a door and now have an extra door on the first floor. If it was a bar, there would be a ladies entrance in the early 50s, but it's a cafe and doesn't need one. The door next to the outdoor stair is to the kitchen. Oh well... I take ideas now. I have the Rusty Stumps stair kit which is perfect to craft the wooden stair case (if I can find it in the shop... I've been looking, but can't seem to find it... I know it's there somewhere so I'll keep looking.

Here's the LEDs taped and painted on the flight deck's bottom.

Essex unmask LEDs

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  • NH Stair Challenge
  • NH Stair Challenge Solution
  • Essex unmask LEDs

As a big Hopper and Nighthawks fan, I am enjoying this building project immensely.  Here are just some ponderings about the new proposal.  

The outside stairs are a good compromise but if they are intended as second story access, rather than as, say, a fire escape, then have you tried flipping the section?  That would make it so that the first steps are right next to the door, rather than the back of the first landing being there.

In otherwords, people would walk from the cafe door immediately to the entrance to the steps.  Doing so might block a bit of the first storey window, which I suspect is what you wanted to avoid.  But, I assume that it wouldn't make any difference on the second storey as to which window becomes the door.

I dunno.  Visually it works very well as you've designed it, Myles.  I was just thinking about traffic flow for your little people as an architect might.  Either way I hope that you will have room in the alley for this feature.

The second thing is that I'm curious about the two kitchen doors.  I haven't read through all the posts yet, so pardon me if this has been covered.  I like them and they are classics. But I wonder whether they will hamper interior detailing possibilities by limiting the uninterrupted wall space that you have to work with?   Of course, you may be going for the stark Hopper look -- in which case, that will be a plus.  It's hard to tell from the painting whether the interior door has a window in it or a dark sign on it.  If the former, it would suggest a kitchen with single egress.

I'm really impressed by the bent front that you fabricated and am looking forward to reading and seeing more.  

You work amazingly fast, especially given your are also working on a boat, so this post may be moot! :-}

Thanks for the ongoing sharing.

Tomlinson Run Railroad

 

If you hadn’t mentioned the lack of room for interior stairs, I would be fat, dumb, and happy in my blissful ignorance!  I agree, it seems logical that there should be a stairwell inside with its own exterior door, but you are probably the only person who will know there isn’t room.  I wouldn’t think a building like this would have exterior stairs in real life.  Will all sides be visible to the average visitor?  If not, the space for interior stairs and entrance can be implied.

If you think you need stairs, then your design has a lot of interest!  However, will it take something away from the Nighthawks cafe?  

No... we're not to late to make minor changes. I really can't change window locations unless I want to "brick one up" and simulate renovations. I took your advice and moved the outside stair to the other side of the building.

NH Stair Position 3png

Originally, the three doors were: Main entrance, Kitchen entrance and 2nd Floor apartments entrance. But moving the stair outside makes the 2nd floor entrance redundant. There is a cellar. I suppose the door could be a cellar entrance. I also have a Photo-etched pavement cellar elevator from Bar Mills that I bought years ago and haven't installed yet, and this building would a perfect place since there's obviously a basement. Where the stair is now is truly the backside of the building since the corner in which it will be placed has the building's face on the right side of the above image. With SketchUp, I was able to grab the entire staircase, rotate it 90° then flip it so it was reversed from its previous position, all without redrawing anything. Building stairs is a fun project and the Rusty Stumps product includes a fixture to position the stringers while gluing on the treads (if I can find it).

I bought another couple of airbrushes from eBay. They're importing Chinese airbrushes for significantly less $$ than my Badger. I love my Badger, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a couple more. I also bought a manifold to connect them all up at once, and I'm going to get more siphon bottles so they can all have paint ready to go without major cleanings. One of the two is a medium nozzle with siphon bottle, and the other is a fine line brush with a top feed cup. I never liked the Badger open cup since it's a bottom feed gun so the cup sits at a funny angle and I tend to spill it all the time.

But there was a wrinkle. Badger uses 5.0mm fine-thread hose fittings and all the others use 1/8", so today, I bought an adaptor for the Badger fitting and two more hoses with 1/8' fittings including one that has the female version of the 1/4" pipe fitting for the compressor. I forgot that with three airbrushes you need at least three hoses.  After our vacation, I'm going to buy a larger capacity compressor since mine doesn't have a reservoir and runs continuously when you're spraying. It's 43 years old and has served me well.

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  • NH Stair Position 3png

So here we go again... I decided to solve the stair problem with brute force. First of all I didn't want to spend the time building an elaborate stair that really won't be seen nor do I want it to be the focal point of the model (it's the insides that's the focal point). I also wanted to solve the "3-door problem" and this solution solves both.

NH Stair Problem Solved

It's not pretty, but it's very practical. I covers that third door and if we imagine there's one in there, it will be an inside access to the outside stair so you can go upstairs without going outside in the rain. It's also a private entrance to the apartment. I first design the enclosure to hide the supporting trusses, but then realized that these could be exposed and add more interest to an-otherwise funny-shaped box. I don't have to build any stairs are all since the door will be closed and the upstairs window won't show anything. So if this is in the back and not very visible, it won't matter since it's not much to look at, but it's realistic and is architecturally relevant to the era.

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  • NH Stair Problem Solved

Yes!  Trainman, this is a brilliant solution to the door and stairs problem and looks fantastic with the double-hung window at the top, and slight roof overhang.  Just perfect!  The lines for the roofing over the stairs draws the eye up nicely and works well with the actual roof.  And, as you said, it is authentic to the period.

I can't wait to see the execution.  You have a winner here!

Tomlinson Run Railroad

Thanks! That's what you can do with SketchUp! It's a fantastic design and visualization tool, but it does take a lot of work to learn. It's kind of like the guitar. You can play a few chords in a few hours, but to play like Eric Clapton, Steve Howe, Kenny-Wayne Sheppard or Andres Segovia takes a lifetime. You can create a Cape Cod bungalow in a few minutes, but when you start working with complex images that have compound curves, it's quite a pull.

This post probably should go in the "What have you bought new" thread, but since I have such a loyal following I figure I'll just post it here.

I ordered and recieved a set of two airbrushes from Amazon. These are Chinese and getting two for around $35 was an offer I couldn't pass up. My faithful Badger XF-150 is many years old and has been rebuilt by Badger. Badger has a lifetime warranty and will rebuild their high line brushes. It was a good thing! I'm keeping the Badger as an active air brush. The new pair includes a medium gun with a suction feed (like the Badger) and a fine-line top-feed gun. I wanted a top-feed gun for doing detail work. Now I have three. On a job like the Essex, having multiple guns with different colors loaded will be helpful.
 
Three Airbrushes
 
The new guns, although a little less refined than the Badger, are nicely made including additional nozzles and needles for additional sizes and will do well for my use.
 
To drive three airbrushes required a manifold. Incidentally, that Badger diaphram compressor dates back to 1977, so it's done yeoman duty. No complaints. I have a moisture trap, but having it sideways I think is probably not doing it any good.
 
The Manifold
 
I was able to source that at Amazon too. It has one inlet and three outlets. They use 1/4" threads with knurled nuts with O'rings so you don't need a wrench to make an air-tight connection. I also needed four hoses. My Badger hose uses an atypical 5.0mm fine thread on both ends so it needed replacement. I needed to get a 5.0mm/1/4"  adaptor to connect the Badger brush inlet to the rest of the system. And I needed another adaptor from the compressor's 1/2" female pipe-threaded outlet to the 1/4" hose fitting. So I now have four hoses connected to three airbrushes. I moved my airbrush holder to my roll-around auxiliary work table and I'm going to mount the manifold onto it and use a single hose from the compressor to the manifold. This will greatly increase my air brush reach.
 
Next thing is a new compressor which I'm buying after we return from a trip to New Mexico celebrating our 50th anniversary. Again, there's a Chinese twin cylinder compressor and reservoir available for a bit over $100. While I'm not over-joyed about buying Chinese air brushes when Badger still makes some of their's in the USA, I know for a fact that almost everyone's compressors are made in China. This includes Badger and Pasche, and they upcharge their compressors, but when you look closely, they're all the same product. My current aging compressor has no reservoir which means it's running continuously as I'm spraying, and has no pressure regulator which really reduces my ability to spray different materials effectively. I'll keep y'all posted on how this all works.

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  • Three Airbrushes
  • The Manifold

Hi gang! Just got back from our 50th anniversary trip to New Mexico. First time in that state and we spent most of the time in Santa Fe and it's area (Taos and the Ghost Ranch). It was wonderful, great weather and terrific food. Yesterday we went back to Albuquerque to meet with the bass player in my old R&B band, his wife and his terrific home. They too moved away from their ancestral locale to be near grandkids. He had clued me into the locomotive restoration project on-going in ABQ, where they're bringing SD 2926 back to full running condition. The site is open to the pubic on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 11:00 to 2:00. We wouldn't be getting there until almost closing time so I called and asked if we could still come and they said to hurry. We took an Uber and got there at 1:45. Glad we did!

This was one of the big late model 4-8-4s built by Baldwin for the Santa Fe. It features a very large tender with 4-axle Buckeye Trucks. The engine has 80" Boxpok drivers. They've added Timken light-weight roller bearing alloy side rods, thus bringing it up the the latest steam engine specs. The engine was a park engine that was brought to this industrial spur that has access to BNSF trackage. They're very far along with boiler pressure testing underway. They expect to run it later this year. It was capable of over 100mph.

My wife was a great sport! It was her birthday and she agreed to go with me to this out of the way spot and spend time learning about restoring a relic. She asked terrific questions and really was engaged. Steve, our docent, was one of the main mechanical engineers on the project and is a retired nuclear engineer at Sandia Labs. Another member of the team is the founder of Ticket Master. It was terrific crew and I was immediately envious. We spent over an hour learning about this magnificent, big engine. My uncle worked at Baldwin during the years of this engine's manufacture and probably designed parts of it.

When the loco was turned over to the City to display in a part, all of the specialized tooling necessary to maintain such a machine was scrapped for pennies on a dollar. All of those tools needed to be sourced or created in order to do the things needed to get it running. Steve gave us a thorough description (including showing us the custom tooling) on how they had to hone the 28" cylinders. To purchase a commercial hone big enough to do the job would have been over $30,000. They have a very limited budget living mostly off of donations, so they had to make their own. The hone had to be completely aligned with the major access of the machine being the center of the main driver's axle. Before honing, they needed to ensure that the crosshead guide and crosshead were in line with the bore which in turn had to be in line with the axle. They created an adjustable plate with a very small center hole to support a piece of stainless steel wire that was fastened at the other end at the center of the main axle. The plate was centered using a dial indicator swung about the cylinder diameter and the adjusting screws were manipulated to bring the plate's hole to dead center. They then used a dial indicator fastened to the crosshead bearing and touching the wire to align the crosshead slide with the bore. It was not in line when they started. Just getting the crosshead guide re-babbeted was a seriously difficult task.

They are very far along and are now doing boiler pressure testing in preparation for final certification. They expect to be running later this year.

2926 Engineer's Side 2

At the end of every work session the engine is pushed back into it's "garage" by a Trackmobile so vandals can't get their hands on it. Once the boiler testing is completed they will start fitting the boiler insulation and jacketing. A fellow was fitting a small piece of jacket to the other side. It was very shiny.

2926 Engineer's Side

The piston and rod are removed and stored separately to make it easier to move the engine (all roller bearings on main axles), and to rework them before re-installation. The engine is immaculate. 

2926 Running Gear

2926 Front End Throttle

The elevating stack works and they demonstrated it for me and I made a movie, which I'll put up on YouTube tomorrow. 

2926 Face

This engine probably didn't look this good except for the day it was born. All the exterior painting is Imron, and they even used more specialized paints for any parts that receive wear. The paint was donated by the manufacturer.

2926 Face 1

Here I am showing the comparative size of the 80" drivers and that brand shiny new return crank. The new rods were so much lighter than the plain bearing rods that they had to shave off metal on the big counterbalances on the drivers. Instead of requiring lubrication every major station stop, the new rods can go a couple thousand miles before using a grease gun on them. This engine has bigger drivers than N-S's 611. Just getting brake shoes was a major challenge since no one makes an 80" brake shoe. They cost $1,000s.

2926 and Me

Here is the very clean and easy to understand tender Buckeye Truck.

2926 4 Axle Buckeyes

For those of you who like to weather the heck out of steam locomotives, just look at the refections on that tender. It's like an expensive car. All of these engines looked like this when they were new. Builders photos showed flat finished because they sprayed them with a flat spray for the pictures since the reflections made it hard to get a good picture, but it was washed off before delivery. Trucks usually aren't painted so cracks can be easier to spot. Same goes for couplers.

I anyone gets the change to get to Albuquerque before it's put out on the main line I would whole heartedly recommend seeing this. It's very rare for any of us train lovers to get so close to a running locomotive where you can actually touch it. Most engines in museums are surrounded with railings, and they're all painted over. This one's real and is going to be alive again. And it's a stunning engine.

The address is: 1833 8th Street, NW, Albuquerque, NM. It's only about a mile and a half out of downtown heading north. It lies in a very industrial area and the engine is not easily seen from the street. Our Uber driver didn't know it was there.

 

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  • 2926 Engineer's Side 2
  • 2926 Engineer's Side
  • 2926 Running Gear
  • 2926 Front End Throttle
  • 2926 Face
  • 2926 Face 1
  • 2926 and Me
  • 2926 4 Axle Buckeyes
Last edited by Trainman2001

Great pictures of the 2926.  I remember first seeing a 2900 class Santa Fe Northern, the 2912, in Pueblo years ago. I know these are the biggest Northerns ever made, but when you see one in person they're so huge it's really overwhelming.  I've seen the Challenger, a Big Boy, the 844, and others, but for some reason  they didn't seem as overwhelming to me as these Santa Fe 2900s.

Myles, Welcome back!!

Thank you for sharing your visit to see the 2926 with us!!  The photographs do show the immensity of the locomotive!  It is great to learn that this one will be back riding the rails soon.  I have never been out that way, but I do get reports from my brother-in-law (another Butler Pennsylvania resident) who fishes in the Santa Fe National Forest annually that the scenery is great too!

Congratulations of your 50th anniversary with your lovely wife!  I'm glad she was interested in the 2926 as well!

I'm glad to be back and thanks for the nice comments. Here's the New Mexico Railroad Historical Society website that's doing the work. The project apparently started in 2000 when the engine was rescued from it's life as a park engine (and pigeon coop... most likely). Like they did with the UP Big Boy project, they had to move it from that place by laying temporary track in front and then moving that panel from the rear to the front so they could keep going.

http://www.nmslrhs.org

The site has tons of pictures and some videos that clearly show just what it takes in skill, persistence, and dedication to turn a hulk into a marvelous machine.

One last pic... he was my wife discussing locomotive reconstruction with Steve, the mechanical engineer. I'd really like to be on one of these projects. All of the skills were those I was teaching kids how to do in the early 1970s as a metal shop teacher including sand casting are being applied on this majestic job. They even set up a bronze foundry right at the loco work site to mold bearing wear plates for the radial buffer. Those Timken rods were in place on the original engine. As explained to us, it sounded like they were upgraded during the restoration. I think he was referring to this as a design upgrade in the 2900 series versus the earlier SF 4-8-4s (3700 series) that were running since the late 1920s (also Baldwin-built). The rods were removed and sent to Timken who rebuilt the bearings (still in business!!!). SF 3751 is the other SF 4-8-4 that is restored, running and doing fan trips (or at least it was). There's some great videos on YouTube about the 3751.

2926 Michele with Steve

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  • 2926 Michele with Steve
Last edited by Trainman2001

Hey there! Thought I'd check in an tell you what I've been up to. Nighthawks is patiently waiting for me to finish the model car. The Essex CV9 carrier was finished two days ago and I'm pleased with the results. It was a brutal build with lots and lots of custom work, tons of photo-etched parts to wrestle with, time spent getting additional parts to replace those that I screwed up, but it was very rewarding. I started using tiny surface mount LEDs on adhesive copper foil which I'm now going to use for building lighting. Takes some soldering skill due to their tiny size, but they're incredibly bright and take up zero room.

The ship sits on an oak plank made for me by my old friend in Albuquerque. I'm waiting for the plexiglass for the case to arrive. I found a Louisville plastics house that will cut the pieces on a router so the edges can be glued directly without further finishing. It's sitting with the Missouri which I built 6 years ago before starting the RR. The lights are on in the hangar.

Ships on Shelf

All the masts and yards are soldered brass. In fact, whenever I could, I soldered all the photo-etched parts. 

Essex Complete Cross-Deck

The ship is configured as it was late in the War where Corsairs and Helldivers were added to the air wing, planes were painted 100% dark sea blue, the ship was navy blue on all vertical surfaces, the flag bridge was moved forwards to coincide with the ends of the island and the 40mm gun mount that was in that location was removed. All the radar was repositioned or changed to meet it's late 1944 refit. Two additional 40mm mounts were installed in a port fore sponson that was supposed to be the location of a cross-hangar-deck catapult that was never installed in the Essex.

Essex Complete Port BowEssex Complete Port ViewEssex Complete Stern View

Again, I used E-Z Line to rig all the antennas. The tail designs are custom made decals which I drew on CorelDraw and matched the dark sea blue on the computer so the tail decals were bigger and easier to apply.

Essex Complete SternEssex Complete Strbrd Stern 2Essex Complete Strbrd Stern 3

Regarding the Ford, finally got the paint rubbed out, but wore through some paint on the high spots. I'm now adding adhesive foil to the window trim. 

GTA Chroming Rear Window

So that dear readers this brings you all up to date. I expect the Ford to be finished in about a week and then it's back to building things for the railroad. Meanwhile, one of my florescent lights was acting up and I had to go up in back to the open space. While standing there I realized that I had a unique view of the refinery and took some pics. Here's the one I like the best. Speaking of lights, one by one I'm replacing all my dual 40w florescent fixtures with LED. They go on sale at Costco for $20. They're easily twice as bright as the florescent, have better color and use 1/4 the power. Win/Win. So far, I've refitted all of them in the workshop. The railroad room will be next.

Refinery Reverse View 1

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  • Ships on Shelf
  • Essex Complete Cross-Deck
  • Essex Complete Port Bow
  • Essex Complete Port View
  • Essex Complete Stern View
  • Essex Complete Stern
  • Essex Complete Strbrd Stern 2
  • Essex Complete Strbrd Stern 3
  • GTA Chroming Rear Window
  • Refinery Reverse View 1
Last edited by Trainman2001

Myles, Glad to hear from you!!  I knew you were working on the carrier and the Ford and that the Nighthawks wasn't ready to go yet, so I wasn't concerned.

The carrier looks fantastic!!  Not being up on ships, I will only say that I like the plane ready for takeoff looks like it's propeller is going around!  Great!

That is a great view of the oil facility!  That was a good idea to take a photograph while up in the air changing the light!

Thanks Mark. You know I always like to show off what I'm doing to the vast audience that peers at my thread. My wife always asks me, "Are you doing the models for yourself or for what others think about them?" Can I do both? I do like the attention and it does encourage me to strive for better results. Being in the training/teaching profession my whole career and playing guitar professionally in college in front of big crowds are also forms of showing off. This is from a person who as a kid would have rather done anything instead of standing in front of a class making a presentation. I guess I'm still over-compensating.

I agree with your answer to your wife, You can do both!!  You are right, when you are doing it for someone else, it encourages you to do it a little better, and to think about it more to write it down!  I was horrified to get in front of the class, because my face would always turn red and kids would laugh at me.    It is far easier to type out replies and send photographs to show what I have done, and attempting to do, and asking for help when I know I don't know what I'm doing!  

Good news and bad news.

Good news: after a long wait just heard (yesterday) from editor of Railroad Model Craftsman mag that my article on the design and construction of the Bernheim Distillery is slated for publication as a three-part article. Don't have publication date yet, but soon. He requests that I take new pictures of the finished product on the layout using a sky blue background to block out any clutter. I bought two additional portable white boards at Michael's today, plus found 4' X 12' roll of sky blue "bulletin board" material that will make for a seamless background. I then went to Costco and picked up two more of their LED shop lights that are on sale for $20. They're about twice as bright as the florescent lights they replace and have better (less blue) color. Tomorrow I'll start changing out the lights and building the backdrop assembly and see what kind of pictures I can create.

Picked up the cut plexiglass for the showcase that's going to protect the Essex. 

Bad News: came down with shingles on Father's day. Awful! Started taking Valtrex as soon as I knew what it was and hopefully it will clear up faster rather than slower. We've been putting off getting the vaccine since we were waiting for the new advanced drug "Shingrix" that is significantly more effective then the current one. Unfortunately (for me) my luck ran out. When this bout is finished, I will still need it since it can come back again. My son had it two years ago at age 42 and is an ophthalmologist and warned me and my wife to get it since it can be brutal especially if it comes around the eyes. I had all intentions doing so. I'm in my 70s and it's the time to get it if you've ever had chicken pox. It's a nasty, mean, sneaky virus that lives in you all your life until it decides to activate. How the heck does that happen?

I'll take a half-like! The Shingles thing is my "community service" responsibility  We humans are funny… we're either convinced we're going to get something or we're convinced we're not. Neither is a rational point of view. But the randomness of illness is quite frustrating. It's one thing if you're a runner and wreck your knees… not random. Or if you've smoked for 30 years and get COPD… certainly not random. But a 65 year old virus living in you body and deciding to assert itself…Really! Give me a break. That really sucks! Shingles is not fatal, but can affect internal organs on the same nerve trail that activating. And it is especially brutal around the eyes and can lead to blindness.

Thanks guys! Shingles is annoying, but with the Valtrex and Tylenol, I managing okay and sleeping well. I do believe that it's giving me a lesser case of it.

Here's the Essex in the case I put together yesterday. I did not do the neatest job gluing it together, but it's fully functional and now that very delicate model is protected for the long haul.

Essex Encased

As things have it, I just met a very nice man my age here in Louisville who is as passionate about photography as I am about trains and model building in general. We had met earlier on a board we were on together, and he remembered that I am a proficient solderer. He had a hearing aid sterilizer that had a bad switch on a circuit board and asked if I could take a look at it. I replaced his switch and we found that we had much in common especially our professional career philosophies. Then along comes the note from RMC about needing a better finished model picture of Bernheim for the article and this gentlemen is going to help me photograph it.

Today I changed out the two fluorescents hanging near Bernheim with the Costco LED lights, and started experimenting putting the backdrop in place. Before I went to the trouble of attaching the sky blue bulletin board paper to the backdrop boards, I took an iPhone pic and sent it to the editor to see if what I had done was correct. I had two choices: put the backdrop at the rear edge of the layout, or put it directly behind the distillery. The picture I sent him was this.

Bernheim Far Backdrop 2

He said nearer would be better. So I moved the panels to immediately behind the model. I then took another shot just to see how it works. The photographer's bringing professional lights with umbrellas so the front of the building won't be suffering in shadow as it does. The LEDs do provide significantly more and warmer light than the florescents so every couple of months when Costco features them I'm going to pick a couple up and in a year or so all the layout lights will be converted over.

Bernheim Near Backdrop 1

Remember, all this backdrop will be blue and the lighting will be correct. It certainly isn't now. I am really excited about this article getting published…finally. I had really given up on it. Now I have to start thinking about the next ones. I should develop a more professional photo shooting area for the all the in-progress pictures. I'm noticing that folks that do construction articles regularly have their in-progress shots done with pretty good lighting and very plain backgrounds. You have to plan ahead for that.

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  • Essex Encased
  • Bernheim Far Backdrop 2
  • Bernheim Near Backdrop 1

I'm on the right track. Checked with RMC this morning with some test shots with the blue background. We're all set except for the studio lighting to get rid of the dark front face. Here's the set up. These are display boards available from Michael's for about $5 or so covered with blue bulletin board paper also around $5. I'm going to preserve this backdrop for use with other photographic challenges. These test shots were done with my iPhone.

Bernheim Photo SetupBernheim test

In a few minutes, my photographer friend will arrive with better cameras and lighting and we'll be in business.

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  • Bernheim Photo Setup
  • Bernheim test

So… here's some of the pictures we took today. I have cropped/adjusted these. The editor is getting RAW, unmodified images which magazines prefer since they have the most adjustment latitude. I shot some pictures with my Canon EOS before he came and only used the LED overhead lighting, plus the LED spots that I have aimed at the town. He came equipped with remotely operated strobes and diffuser umbrellas.  I've sent the editor those that he took. If he wants to see mine, I would be happy to offer them.

This one was shot with no room lights on and is quite dramatic showing the lighting.

Bernheim All Flash 3

This had room lights on as well as the fill strobes.

Bernheim Final 3

Here's the setup: (Shot with iPhone)

Bernheim Photo Setup

Here's one from my Canon with just room lighting.

IMG_7498

I'll let you all know when the issue will come out. The Ford Fairlane is one day away from completion and I'll be back onto Nighthawks next week. My caricatures are about 10% oversize. I've reprocessed that so they'll be ready for the display I'm going to make. The model presented some real challenges including opening that door and having to mold a new windshield out of 0.010" sheet styrene in a Sculpey mold after the original cracked in half. I also had some paint problems doing it outdoors (pollen infestation). All that's missing is the tiny GTA badge that goes in that blank space in the racing stripe and a final polishing. The 66 Fairlane GTA was a nicely proportioned car. They got much bigger in later years.

GTA Almost Done 1

As I was crawling around the layout setting up the backdrop I came to the awful realization that my city streets need to be ripped up and redone. The Strathmore-on-green foam was a failure on many levels, but since the dishwasher leak, the moisture put the nail in the coffin and has the paper delaminating all over the place. It looks like crap and doesn't meet my standards. It's a miserable job to do now since all the structures and landscaping is all around. I may remove paper and use grout as a road surface. It looks very real and hopefully won't delaminate. I may just paint the foam directly, or use thin Masonite as a road surface. Anything but what I've got now.

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  • Bernheim All Flash 3
  • Bernheim Final 3
  • Bernheim Photo Setup
  • IMG_7498
  • GTA Almost Done 1
Last edited by Trainman2001

Thanks Mark! I added one more detail to the Ford before putting it on the shelf, a set of scratch-built semi-scale hood hinges. I found pictures of a set of 66 Fairlane hood hinges on eBay which I then used as a template to draw a detailed drawing on CorelDraw. I pasted multiple copies of the drawing onto some styrene and cut the parts out. I used some photo-etch brass free material for some of the smaller arms, and use 0.025" round styrene rod for pins. Because of all the plastic, the hinges are not robust enough to actually operate although they are mechanically correctly and do move properly, but they're flimsy, so I applied thin CA to the assembled hood to lock it into place.

GTA Hinges Installed 1

All that's missing are the counter-balance springs. If I were to build another car model AND wanted to make these fancy hinges workable, I would make them entirely out of brass and add some springs (either real or simulated). There would be so much drag in the mechanism that it would hold up the hood regardless.

Now… onto Nighthawks. As promised I started back at work on it today. I got the second floor (first floor ceiling) fitted. I had to notch the heck out of it to clear the widen window boxes so it would settle down onto the floor supports. The second floor will not be decorated and will be blacked out, so the way the floor fits is immaterial. I did not attach the floor yet since there's a lot to do before that point.

NH Ceiling Fit

But, what I did do was get the lighting installed. I used the very small surface mount LEDs soldered to adhesive copper foil laid out in a series pattern. I found that these small LEDs, while very bright, are also very delicate and heating too long while soldering does seem to kill them. I test them when isolated and then again when soldered into the foil and then again as a circuit. I'm now using CL2N LED driver chips. These little marvels eliminate all the guess work about what to do to limit the current in the circuit. You put the plus voltage on one of the three leads and the minus on the other end (the middle lead doesn't connect to anything) and regardless of whether you put 5 VDC or 90 VDC all you get out is 20 milliamps, which is just what the LEDs love. The limiting factor is the voltage drop across each LED. Each drops about 3 volts, so in a series circuit, with 4 LEDS, that's a 12 volt drop and I'm driving it with a 12VDC power source so all's well. If I was using a 6 volt source, I would use two drivers in a parallel circuit with 2 LEDs in each leg so each leg would drop the 6 volts. Again, I no longer have to worry about current. So with a 90 VDC power supply I could drive 30 LEDs in series with just one LED driver chip. This is so much easier than calculating the resistor values needed in conventional LED systems.

Here's the lighting under test.

NH Light Test

And here's the array. The positive and negative terminals are on the bottom of the LED. They're close together so you cut about a 1-2mm gap in the foil, tin the foil, hold the LED on the solder and then heat each side until the LED settles in, and then get off. Again… too much heat and you can kill the LED. They're only $0.29 each so losing one or two is not a big deal.

NH Light Test 2

I form the copper tape corners so I don't have to solder them. This is a trick I learned in the 70s when I was installing old school burglar alarms with the led foil tape on the window glass. The foil had to be continuous so you bend it back on itself, turn it 90 degrees and keep going. From this view you can see the widened window boxes. I will put on "sheet rock" to make regular looking walls.

I then masked each LED with a small piece of tape, premiered, and painted the ceiling flat white.

NH Ceiling Paint

The last thing I did today was add the Plastruct stone wall appliqué to the bottom scale 3 feet of the building. This will be painted to simulate stone. I'm letting it dry over night and work on it tomorrow.

NH Stone Glued

The Plastruct stone worked well in this application since it had nice smooth courses  and makes a nice straight top edge which building foundations have. The windows mount from the inside to reveal some brick wall thickness. I'm using conventional Tichy windows turned upside down and mounted from the back which puts the upper sash on the outside and the lower on the inside as it should.

I realized today that the small, bottom, upside-down turret is nestled into the building so 3/4 of it is exposed. That means that the piece has to have a 90 degree notch cut into it, or I have to cope cut the buildings wall so the turret slips into it. I will probably be easier to cut the turret, but it has a ball bearing epoxied to the apex and an aluminum shaft that was used to hold it in the lathe chuck when I made it. I believe that an abrasive cutoff disk in the Dremel could handle the metal parts. We'll see.

I'm at a point where I have to pre-plan the assembly carefully. The interior probably has to be completely fit before the front window assembly goes in since it will hard to do it from the top down. It's also tricky just getting the floor plate into position without any walls or furnishing in place. I spend a lot of time just staring at what's built so far and building it in my mind to figure out the best approach. That's the one challenge with scratch-building that people don't speak about much…no instruction sheet. I also have to figure out the best time to paint the exterior since I can have the windows installed so painting should happen soon.

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  • GTA Hinges Installed 1
  • NH Ceiling Fit
  • NH Light Test
  • NH Light Test 2
  • NH Ceiling Paint
  • NH Stone Glued
Last edited by Trainman2001

I really appreciate the work you've put in on the LEDs.

By the way, a friend I road raced with 40 years ago restored a 66 vintage race car, the Fairlane, like your model and campaigned it in the SVRA. The chassis was set up basically like the racing Shelby GT 350s since they're so similar to the early mustangs.

Great work as always

I can't imagine racing the Fairlane. As it was, it handled poorly. It was a good drag racer, but a car with drum breaks, leaf springs and solid rear axle and 14" wheels didn't even pretend to handle well. I imagine that if set up correctly it might work, but not in the stock condition.

I did a test piece today to see how I wanted to paint the brick. The first two panels were done by spraying the mortar color and then dry brushing a brick red that I mixed up from artist's tube acrylics. I wanted a paint that gave some working time which these did. The last panel was the reverse. Leaving the Plastruct color untouched, painting the mortar color and then, before it dried, wiping it off diagonally so the color stayed in the mortar lines. 

NH Brick Paint Test

The dry brushing technique was too variable so I went with choice number three. Choice number two was using less paint on the brush with more repetitions. Number three is more subtle and I might give it an alcohol wash (or maybe not).

It then used this technique to paint the building and wiped the mortar off with a paper towel which I kept using clean sides. I then mixed up a matching color to the Plastruct color and painted those exposed edges which showed the backing plastic color (white).

NH Bricks Painting

I then hand painted the stone foundation using the same acrylics on a palate mixing various tones of grey and randomly painting the stone, while trying to leave the mortar color untouched. I think this needs some further treatment to make it less dramatic, possibly a wash or maybe a misting with some airbrushed light gray. I notice in the picture that I missed one of the window boxes. I'll have to remix some of that brick red...

NH Stone Painting

Talked with the RMC editor today and the article goes to press next month. He wants a re-shoot of the cover shot to get better lighting under the canopy. We were using synchronized strobes. This time we're going with studio lighting. Picture session will be next Tuesday. I'm getting excited.

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  • NH Brick Paint Test
  • NH Bricks Painting
  • NH Stone Painting

Your choice of mortar treatment of the brick was an excellent one (IMO). I used a similar one many years ago. Often a VERY light wash of white acrylic , removed quickly with a paper towel will age the bricks if you want that look. Instead of using the expensive artist's paints in a tube I use the small bottles of paint from places like Michael's or WallyMart for about $.75 a bottle (black, white, yellow, red, burnt umber and 2 or 3 others). If it were me , I'd tone down the foundation a bit by eliminating the black stones (perhaps in favor some dark grey) and putting a light grey wash over all of it.

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  • P1000164

Thank you! I have those paints also, but didn't have anything in the grays (or even black), but had a nice mix of the tube acrylics. I should use them since they don't last forever either. I did tone down the stone work by getting rid of the blackest color and paint it carefully with Tamiya Neutral Grey. I still want to overspray some light gray (just a dusting) to further subdue the harshness. I used a small brush and re-did some of the mortar lines as well.

NH Toned Down Stone

I went around with another mix of brick red and put a second coat on all the window packing since I had completely missed one part yesterday and the rest weren't covered well enough. I lightened up the mix just a bit to improve the match with the Plastruct brick color.

It was time to start building the interior. As I noted, this all has to be done and in place before the ceiling goes in. I had three ways to fabricate the interior: 1/8" Masonite, thin Foamcore, or built up with styrene. Masonite is not so easy to cut and shape, Foamcore is not very stable especially in cross-section, which left using styrene. 

I built the walls sort of replicating how real partitions are built using thin surface material supported internally with some framing. For the framing I used 1/8" square Evergreen stock. I laid out the door and pass through locations and  glued the framing up to these lines. Then I cut the opening out with one side's facing in place.

NH Wall Building

I used Testor's tube cement again to give me a little more positioning time. The solvent cement sets so fast that you often can't get the piece down before it's already kicked. The sheathing is 0.020" styrene. I then applied glue to the frame and attached the second side sheet. I then cut its openings through the other side.

To attach the walls at right angles I pre-glued the square stock at the location on the through wall and left space in the sheeting before the frame piece so the two walls keyed together. 

NH Wall Joint

For the last turn I simply used a single thickness of 0.040" sheeting since this didn't need any thickness. Actually, none of the walls really need to be scale thickness except at the pass through to the kitchen which I could have simulated with just some thickening pieces right at the window. But, I makes me feel better to make them like real walls.

I test fit the walls in place. The front and back doors don't align well, but it doesn't matter since I'm no longer using that door. It will be covered by the exterior stair housing that I added to the design later when I came to the conclusion that there really wasn't enough room for an actual staircase in the building's confines.

NH Wall Fit 2NH Wall Fitting

I needed to think about the flooring before I went any further. The flooring needs to be added to the floor piece when it's outside of the building before gluing it in. I already had a good black and white checkered floor pattern that I used in the Distillery Boiler House, and put it to use again here. Actually, I designed this when building Saulena's tavern 11 years ago. I printed it out of 5 X 7 photo paper, and after dry, sprayed it with Grumbacher Final Fixative to preserve the inkjet ink.]

NH Flooring

I tried the walls on the flooring. BTW: made two sets just in case I screw one up. One is sufficient to cover the space.

NH Flooring Fit

I made a wooden pass through sill and also pre-stained more wood strips for the door, window and baseboards. I noticed in Hopper's painting that the door has no frame at all. It's just an orange rectangle. I'm conflicted about how close to the painting I should be. On one hand, I'm trying to replicate the painting in 3D, but I've already deviated from the painting by making the counter rectangular, not a triangle like Hopper drew. The painting doesn't show a pass through since the wall is cut off before it would show. I did drill the hole for the support pole by clamping the ceiling and floor pieces together so the holes are in line. I have to make a ton of bar stools. Anyone know if there are any pre-built ones out there? I'm not sure where that door actually goes. Notice also the wall thickness next to the red head. It looks well over a scale foot with the glass bisecting it. My wall will not be that thick. It will be about a scale foot. (or less). According to the story, Hopper was painting a cafe that more or less existed in NYC. I will match that yellow and green as best as I can. It's a very well lit space and mine will be also. And I'm going to have sculpt the figures. John Armstrong did it, so I should be able to also. Heh…heh…!

nighthawks_by_edward_hopper_1942

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Images (8)
  • NH Toned Down Stone
  • NH Wall Building
  • NH Wall Joint
  • NH Wall Fit 2
  • NH Wall Fitting
  • NH Flooring
  • NH Flooring Fit
  • nighthawks_by_edward_hopper_1942

 

I was playing around with SketchUp and Podium rendering various views. I still haven't finalized how I'm going to build all the layers of millwork on the outside of the big window.

NH Int Render with LEMNH Render Test

Spent time at the hobby shop today so I only worked a little over 1 hour, but got the flooring down and started sheathing the perimeter interior walls which need to be done before I drop in the partition walls. I had to seam the flooring to fill the whole space. I fastened the image down with MicroMark pressure sensitive adhesive.

NH Wall Sheeting 1

I'm using thin styrene, 0.010" to simulate dry wall. I have more 1/8" square stock packing out the framing and giving a surface to glue to.

Because of the floor ledges, it necessitates doing the walls like a real building with sheet rock going on one floor at a time. The only area that doesn't quite work is where I used 1/4" square stock as corner reinforcement that is fatter than the rest of the wall framing. One can imagine that it a pipe chase going to the second floor.

On Monday I will continue with these wall. I will have to mask the flooring when I paint the walls.

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Images (3)
  • NH Int Render with LEM
  • NH Render Test
  • NH Wall Sheeting 1

The Hopper painting shows wooden stools. SketchUp had a nice wooden stool on their 3D Warehouse which I've used as a model for a 1:48 version. I just drew them up in CorelDraw for Laser-Cutting and giving Mini-etchers the opportunity to bid on this smallish job. It will be cut from 1/32" maple sheeting and the legs should fit together nicely. When I build them, I'll make the plans available for others, or the vendor could include them in his store. Below is a JPG which can't be used on a laser cutter. They have to be vector drawings. My master is CorelDraw, but I've included a PDF which can also work. Laser cutters are so precise that it should preserve those small angles where the legs meet and should facilitate the gluing job. They'll also key into the notches on the square upper piece that sits under the seat.

NH Stools Laser Drawing

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  • NH Stools Laser Drawing

Actually, I already have a 3D version since that's what was the basis of the orthographic drawings that I created. What you download from SketchUp's 3D warehouse is a complete 3D model.  There are a few places to get it printed these days starting with Shapeways. My quess it would cost upwards of $50 to have them produced this way. I think laser cutting will be less expensive and be out of wood which could appear more realistic. I'll see what the estimate is.

Started the day preparing to paint the walls. I mixed Tamiya Flat Yellow, Flat White and a tinge of Flat Green to approach the shade in the painting. I think I got it pretty close. I had to mask the entire building to paint the perimeter interior walls. I start using thin Tamiya tape around the base board area, then use paper with thick Tamiya tape to cover the large areas. I used the thin tape to mask the inner surfaces of the window openings.

NH Wall Masking

I used my old Badger airbrush to apply the paint to both the perimeter walls and the partition assembly. A few light coats did the trick.

NH Wall Paint

After the paint was dry I cut the pre-stained strip wood for the mill work. This included door framing and baseboards. Parts were cut with the Duplicutter II. The partitions are not glued, just posing for the camera.

NH Millwork

Before I went any further I realized that I needed to add brick lintels and window sills to the exterior. I sliced off brick rows from the Plastruct sheet and then cut them to brick size, again on the Duplicutter. I used a steel edge to space the fence out from the tool's back. I find that the razor blade doesn't exactly cut to its fence which can leave a little ragged edge. Spacing it out a little puts the cut completely on the blade. To cut 45s, I use that piece of masking tape on the cutting surface as a guide.

NH Cutting Lintel Bricks

Here's a collection of bricks waiting to be applied.

NH Lintel Bricks

I finished the session by applying the first bunch of lintel bricks. When they're fully cured (solvent cement) I will trim any irregularity at the their bottom edge (tomorrow).

NH Lintels Begin

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Images (6)
  • NH Wall Masking
  • NH Wall Paint
  • NH Millwork
  • NH Cutting Lintel Bricks
  • NH Lintel Bricks
  • NH Lintels Begin

Yup! O'scale is the only way to go for old scratch-builders. I just looked at the 1957 magazine article upon which this building is based and he used masonry lintels and sills which would be a lot easier to craft. I may switch to that. Also, my friend and I re-shot Bernheim for the article today using photo-floods to get more light on the front and I'm pleased with the results. It's up to the editor to decide if we're there yet. I've sent all the files and the ball's in his court (a Wimbledon reference). The magazine will crop it and drop out the blue background replacing it with a real sky image. The focus is much better than shown on this GIF version. All the pictures are transmitted as Nikon RAW and are 20mb each. The lighting and color are pretty accurate.

Bernheim Sample pic

I'll post later today when I have more Night Hawks work done.

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  • Bernheim Sample pic

Today was one of those days...

Before getting back to work I decided to notch the corner of the building to accept the small upside-down turret. I had a drawing of the contour of this part and used it to make a plastic pattern that could be traced onto the building corner. All good so far...

I then made a sample piece to test the cuts to set if it worked.

NH Turret Inset Test

It worked! So… we still good...

Then I traced the pattern onto the building's corner. And used the Dremel with a combination of carbide router and small diameter sanding drums. Again… we're look'n pretty good.

NH Turret Inset Cut Wrong

Everything was just great!

NH Turret Inset

So I started back to work on the lintels. I'm going to finish the building with the brick lintels, but use simulated stone window sills. I put lintels on all the windows and doors and realized that one of the back walls is having the outdoor stair and it will block some of those so I removed the already applied brickwork. 

Then it hit me! I CUT THE NOTCH IN THE WRONG CORNER!!!! WHAT??? Yup! I was so excited about doing it this way that I forgot to double check actually which corner I was destroying. It the front corner over the front window space that gets the turret. 

So I immediately went into repair mode. I made brick replacement pieces that matched the brick courses of the existing walls, put some heavier backing plastic to rebuild the corner, then another layer of the same thickness that I used as a doubler behind the brick sheeting and then the actually replace pieces which were traced from each corner's cut. The insert pieces are sitting below the building. You can see the lintels that were removed in this image also. It's good that it will dry overnight since this corner was seriously compromised.

NH Fixing the Screwup

It won't be perfect, put after gluing the inserts in tomorrow, I'll fill the gaps and re-scribe the brick joints and paint with matching color. It's the back of the building. And there's a silver lining (I am nothing if not an optimist). It gives me another shot at cutting the opening and I wasn't all that happy with the fit in this cut because there was big chunk of 1/4" square stock reinforcing the corner. The front corner doesn't have this blocking so it will be easier to cut with the jeweler's saw. This accident didn't happen because I was rushing since I took the time to make the test piece. It was basically a lack of attention for the forrest while I was looking at the trees.

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  • NH Turret Inset Test
  • NH Turret Inset Cut Wrong
  • NH Turret Inset
  • NH Fixing the Screwup

You always learn more from your mistakes than your successes (or so they say)...

After all the tumult in cutting the building, I'm re-thinking cutting the turret instead. I don't have to cut the hardened steel ball. That little bit can nestle into a small depression I'll make. And cutting the aluminum plug won't be too difficult for a razor saw. And that way, I'll leave the building alone. Ideally, it's a job for a milling machine (which I really don't have) and holding onto a conical part is very tricky. I suppose I could embed it in some sculpey and then harden that to give a good support to the part while I cut it. That could work.

The patch is completed although there's still some touch up painting to be done. It's a reasonable solution to a ridiculous self-imposed problem. If I can match the red decently, it would almost disappear. It almost looks like a real building repair… It's a benefit using the Plastruct color as the base since when sanding you expose more of it instead of removing it if I had painted the red.

NH Corner Fixed

I cut and fit the interior doors. I wanted to match the orange that Hopper used for his door. I also wanted brass push plates like shown in his painting. I first mixed some red into the light yellow I used for the walls, but it was a bit too pink so I added some more straight yellow and got very close. I also put a coat of Tamiya clear gloss on all the woodwork.

NH Interior Doors

My first approach for the door push plates was a using a sheet of gold MicroScale decals, but after wetting them they started falling apart, so immediately went to plan B. I used some PE fret brass that I polished with some steel wool. There's nothing that simulates polished brass than polished brass. I also put a coat of clear on the brass so it wouldn't oxidize too badly.

I getting antsy to install the interior walls and realized that first floor windows and doors need to be fitted prior to this happening. I designed the building to be laser cut and all the doors and windows were going to be custom-cut. When I decided to go "old school" and build it out of styrene, I changed the window sizes to conform to Tichy window dimensions. I even went further when I was gluing up the interior window frames I used the actual windows to space the frames correctly. However, I didn't change the door openings to conform to the Tichy doors that I purchased. And they were completely wrong-sized! 

The door frames had transom windows, but my openings didn't include this. Furthermore, the frames fit tightly, but the opening was so much shorter I was having to dissect them. So I decided to build the frames from scratch to hold the Tichy door. The width of the opening was .094" wider than the door, so I needed to pack out 0.047" on each side. I had some 1/8" X 0.015" strip so three stacked together gave me .045" which was just about perfect. I added a piece at top to fill that space too. Then added some 0.088" X 0.020" about 1/32" back from the frame edge as a door jamb stop.

NH Door Packing 2

The door fits nicely. I'm going to airbrush the doors, but probably brush paint the frames, both a flat brown.

NH Door Fitting 2

With a brick building the windows and doors are often set into the structure like this door is. Most of the doors available from the likes of Grandt Line (RIP) and Tichy are framed for frame buildings where the frame stands proud of the siding. The exterior stair will be clapboard so the doors and windows will be more conventional. Again, I'm not going to use the transom window and will cut the frame down to remove it.

The last thing I did was blank off the door that will no longer be used since I'm eliminating the back door and will be hidden by the exterior stair.

NH Door Blanked

I still have to deal with the cellar windows, which I was not able to get factory built ones to fit the space. I may scratch build them. They're pretty simple affairs. Fitting all these details takes a lot of time.

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Images (5)
  • NH Corner Fixed
  • NH Interior Doors
  • NH Door Packing 2
  • NH Door Fitting 2
  • NH Door Blanked

Well… with that encouragement, I will simply age the patch a bit and let it be.

We had a nice lunch with our daughter today and then went to the Speed Art Museum at the University of Louisville, but I still got into the shop at around 3:00. I continued working on the windows. I did find that I had purchased Tichy windows for masonry without a flange for the second story windows, and was using the Grandt Line windows that I already owned for the larger first floor windows. Since the 2nd floor windows would inset more shallow when view from the front since they fully fit into the window openings, I decided to cut the flanges off the first floor windows and, in effect, turn them into masonry windows. I used the micro saw to this. These Grandt Line windows have a mold defect in the vertical mullion where it breaks at the same place all the time. It's right where that little bit of flash is. I'm always having to reglue them.

NH Making Masonry Windows

The window fit in the space nicely.

NH Masonry Window Fit

I got all the windows fitted and ready for painting. Then I got to work on the cellar windows. I decided to fabricate them out of styrene sticks, but because they're so small, I'm building them on a piece of thin 0.010" styrene sheet cut to the window opening size, and after it's all cured, I cut the middle out leaving a complete frame. I never built windows this way, but it actually worked very well.

I cut each strip long so they stick out on one side and then go back and cut them all off flush. This way, I don't have to cut pieces to an exact length which takes much more effort. I'm using 0.020" X 0.030" for the wider piece, and then 0.020" X 0.020" square on top for relief.

NH Basement Window Fab

I enlarged the cellar opening to make them higher since the window frames were a bit thicker than I would have wanted and it would have left very little room for the glazing. I cut about a 1/16" off the top of the opening using the micro-saw and Xacto. These windows too will be painted with the rest of them next week. The window is not asymmetric as it appears. It simply wasn't pressed all the way into the opening evenly.

NH Basement Window Fit

I've decided that instead of trying to cut the master turret with the wood and metal, that I would make a resin casting of it and cut which would be much more easy to do since it would be all one material. But first I have to order some new silicone mold material from Smooth On. The stuff I have has kicked and cured in the bottle. Even though it's two part, one part will cure eventually left on the shelf. This one did. I'll keep you posted.

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  • NH Making Masonry Windows
  • NH Masonry Window Fit
  • NH Basement Window Fab
  • NH Basement Window Fit

I may add a mullion too, but I may fake it by having it overlap the frame on the front. If I can get it to fit nicely between the frames, I'll try that first, but Plan B will have it on top. I can't put it behind since it will interfere with the glazing. I have the perfect styrene strips for it.

Yes, by using the thin styrene sheet as a 'building surface' I was able to maintain squareness without effort. In fact, it was so elegant, it could be used to build much larger frames as an alternative to laser-cutting. 

Speaking of laser-cutting… it's looks like the estimate for cutting the stools is very inexpensive ($5.40 plus shipping). My talented number 2 grandson's coming home from camp next weekend and I'm going to give him stuff to do. He's a budding artist and I'm going to have him sculpt the occupants of the cafe. He started learning how to do it when he and I built the "Old Man and the Sea" diorama for school last year. I researched it on the web and found a wonderful source on how to really use Sculpey when making figures. You do it in layers, firing each to harden it. That way you're not distorting previously shaped areas when messing around with others. You build the mandrel out of aluminum and roll a core of Sculpey on it and get the posture, then fire it. You then add each layer carefully, firing each time until you're working on the final little details (noses, ears, creases, buttons, etc.). It really works.

I'm also going to have him assemble the one dozen bar stools. We're picking him up with his older brother, visiting U of Wisconsin for the older one's college selection challenge, and spending a couple of days in Chicago. The older one's a Jr. Counselor now and we'll go back to camp in Wisconsin for another four weeks and we're bringing the 14 year-old home.

And on the magazine article front… the last set of images were acceptable and the article's going to press. As I noted before, it will be three parts in RMC. If you remember back a couple of years, O'scale Trains refused to publish my substation article because I post all this stuff here, and it was you folks that suggested I turn to the newly re-vitalized RMC, which accepted the article without reservation. They're now publishing my second and I feel there will be more in the future.

Like the great line in "Pretty Woman" when that snooty clothing store refused to serve Julia Robert's character, "Big mistake… big mistake!" I doubt that many of OGRR's forum members are Railroad Model Craftsman subscribers. RMC is oriented to a different audience, and they don't even share the same advertisers. And, different numbers. I doubt that I have 20,000 people reading my missive every day. O'scale Trains needs to get with the times.

Wow, your older grandson is visiting colleges already!  They grow fast!

I'm glad the other grandson is interested in art.  Our older daughter has made a lot of Sculpy Clay people in the past.  

Well I am glad RMC is picking up your articles.  Seems like an excuse to me from O Scale Trains.  Yes, as if that many folks read your posts here.  Hardy har har!!!  I don't subscribe, but I will be picking up the copies with your articles at our local Giant Eagle grocery store.  Actually, that is where I first found OGR magazine back in 2012.  I sure wish I had known about this forum before that.

Thanks Mark. I'm really glad that we moved he when he was seven. In a couple of weeks he turns 17. He has his own car, is really cute, girls like him very much and he's basically finished working in the basement with me (although I force him downstairs to get his approval on all the latest additions). I have his younger brother for a couple more years and then he'll go the same route. I'm cultivating another protege… the son of a mentee who I meet periodically. He's going on 8, loves trains and showing all the signs of being a good model builder. 

I stopped the trains at the exact same times, as did all of us. But while a sophomore in college, discovered a nice local hobby shop and bought a model and some supplies. I built models in the dorm and all my 'sophisticated' dorm mates would stop by, check on progress, and lament how much fun they used to have doing it. From that point on I never stopped. The picture below is Michele in our first apartment about a month after we were married, where there is a box in the corner with an almost complete Tamiya Tiger Tank kit while she was writing thank-you notes to our wedding guests on a folding bridge table. This wasn't even our real apartment. It was a temporary while the real apartment's building was being completed. To me, model making has always been my stress relief… still is.

The picture dates from May or June 1968. That little metal cookie box below the model held ALL of my modeling supplies. Now my tools occupy and entire shop. Progress! Tamiya had just come on the American market at that time.

Thank You Notes 02

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  • Thank You Notes 02

Great photograph!!

I did very similarly.  I put the trains away when I moved away for my first job.  I built about a dozen 1/24 model cars during my single apartment days, and carried the tools and paints in a small box.  I still have the cars, although several are in need of some parts glued back on.  Fortunately I put each in the plastic show cases, so all the parts are still there.  I may get to repairing them when I retire.  When we got engaged I was 27, my wife to be got me an N scale train set, which I ran in our first house.

Myles, great that you get your grandsons involved. It might not mean anything now but it's a memory they'll treasure later in life. Plus, it's passing it on. My daughter bought me a model to build with my grandson for Father's day. He's too young now (18 months) but I'll save it for when he's older.

I started the young one on building some Snap-Site non-glue models when he was about five. I had them playing with the trains before that. My philosophy is: I don't forbid them from doing things (realistically… working with acetylene torches would be forbidden…) but, certain things must be done with Grandpop's help and guidance. When it's not forbidden, kids are less apt to sneak and do stuff without supervision. I let them roll cars back and forth and taught them how to use the manual uncoupling. I had some separate RR trucks that they'd roll back and forth to each other and got them used to re-railing trains. By age five or six they started being able to use the throttles with me hovering closely.

The face of my youngest grandson (now 14) is the most description picture of pure joy I can imagine.

Alex Jack and Trains

When my son was two, I was building, in mass production fashion, 1/8 scale models of classic cars made by Pocher. I was building three-at-a-time on the dining room table and couldn't put the stuff away so I had to trust that my daughter (5) and son (2) wouldn't mess with it. These were the first three. Eventually, I made 65 Pocher kits on commission.

PICT0003

So I included both of them in the process. I would sit Adam next to me and give him some small nuts and bolts and other parts that he could assemble and disassemble. The cars had real spoke wheels which were very delicate. Onto them you had to 'force' thick vinyl tires. I found the only way to do it without wrecking the wheels was heat them in hot water and put them on. One kid dipped the tires in the water and one would take them out with tongs, and I put the on the wheels. They couldn't wait until it was "time to put the wheels on". I never had a single model project disturbed or damaged by the kids in all the years I was building stuff. Same goes for the grandkids.

Make them part of it. Teach them how to interact with tools and things. Don't forbid, but guide. Kids (most of them) don't want to wreck stuff unless they're frustrated.

My uncle with the HO trains in the 1950s, didn't have his own kids. He didn't have trouble with little kids, but couldn't handle teenagers. All he could say when I was with him with his trains was, "don't touch this…don't touch that." I was (and still am) a kid who looked with his hands as much as his eyes. It frustrated the heck out me that I couldn't touch his stuff. Meanwhile, by that time, I had my own permanent train layout up in the basement in which I did all the track laying and wiring, and I had been model building from when I was 8. It made no sense to me that I couldn't touch his trains. He didn't understand that Kids don't automatically mean breaking stuff.

Morale: Start them early and keep at it.

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  • Alex Jack and Trains
  • PICT0003
Last edited by Trainman2001

The fact is, young people are often more creative than us old guys. We need their insights. Look at the age of people in the control room of Space X, Elon Musk's space exploration company. Very young and very energetic.

Monday… happy Monday. As a retiree with a deal with my wife that I'll do no model building on the weekends, for the first time in my life  I look forward to Mondays more than Saturdays.

I finished up all four cellar windows and put a mullion down the middle. Unfortunately, since they were all custom made to the size of the holes that I created, they vary in size a bit. In this picture, the larger one will be partly occluded by the outside stair (which is the second thing I did today). These will be painted and glazed off the model and then installed.

NH Basement Windows finished

Since I drew the outside stair originally in SketchUp and then in CorelDraw, I was able to stick the drawing onto the Evergreen clapboard styrene and then cut out the main profile piece. For the rest of the parts that determined its width, I used the Tichy door molding to determine the width since my SketchUp drawing used a door from their 3D Warehouse and it wasn't sized the same. I gave an 1/8" clearance on each side of the frame and cut the piece out. The thin cross-section of the sides broke on one side so I glued it back with a backing piece to reinforce it. I roof is "corrugated metal" styrene left over from making the cooling tower in the refinery. The bottom piece is a chuck of novelty siding left over from making the Victorian Station. Gotta hold onto all those scraps.

NH Outside Stair Parts

I glued all the pieces up with the side pieces butting up against the profile piece. I used 1/8" square stock to reinforce the corners. I used angle blocks to set up the right angles. For the transition pieces for the roofing I used some thin styrene sheeting to wrap the angle and give it something to glue to. Notice I numbered all the pieces to keep it all straight.

NH Outside Stair Insides

The roof design gave me some pause. The slanted portions would drain straight down so the corrugations when linearly, but the flat pieces needed to be pitched outwards so the water just didn't sit there. So I made some tapered supports out of some strip stock and glued the roof pieces to these.

NH Slant Roof Construct

Here's the completed structure put next to the building as it will sit. 

NH Outside Stair Glue Up

I used some small styrene angle for the corner trim and some 0.020" X 0.100" strip for the fascia boards. The window opening is sized for the large Grandt Window that I used on the first floor with the trim facing the outside as normal practice. I then started working on the angled framing that will support the upper landing. I'm using 0.040" X .188" which looks very much like a 2 X 12 structural member. The pieces on the wall are just being fitted. There will be angled members down to them and I'll probably put an NBW on them to make it look like something is actually holding them to the wall. Please note: This is not on the correct wall. The correct wall is the one around the corner on the right. I just stuck it there for the photo. The pic below is on the correct wall.

NH Outside Stair Framing

I'll finish all this up tomorrow and get ready to paint and weather all of it. To connect this assembly to the building I think I'm going to install a wood block between the upper slant roof and lower slant panel and hold it to the building with a screw from the inside. It will be a much cleaner installation and should be easy to do.The screw would be in an unseen area.

I removed the backdrop off the layout today since the photo session is complete. Then I took this picture showing what the water from the dishwasher leak did to my streets. I was a having a continuous problem with delimitation before, but the moisture made it worse. I have a major street repair project facing me. Since all the buildings are removable, (just unhook their electrical leads underneath) I'll probably remove them to give an open work surface. I'm thinking of stripping all the strathmore board off the green foam substrate and then adding something… what? Maybe Masonite. My curbs are too high anyway so a thicker road surface will be a benefit. I'm also thinking about styrene, but I worry about paint adhesion. I'd be trading a headache for an upset stomach… bulging to peeling. I've kept the XING stencils which is a good thing.

Water Damaged Streets

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  • NH Basement Windows finished
  • NH Outside Stair Parts
  • NH Outside Stair Insides
  • NH Slant Roof Construct
  • NH Outside Stair Glue Up
  • NH Outside Stair Framing
  • Water Damaged Streets
Last edited by Trainman2001

Work continues on the outside stair. After I had cut and glued the diagonal braces and trying it on the building I quickly found out that I was putting the right most brace right through a window so I had to reshape it to be a small bracket like the center one.

NH Bracket Fitting

I went ahead with the wood-block-screwed-mounting. I measured and cut a piece of thick ply (scrap laying around) and CA'd it between the top and bottom. I needed a bit of shim stock to get the fit perfect. I placed the stair up to the building in its finished position and marked the inside of the building where the screws should go paying attention to the ledge that will support the second floor. I then drilled the exterior of the building with a  clearance hole for the self drilling screws that I was using. I didn't depend on their "self-drilling" attributes.

When I started driving the screws I was putting too much torque on the whole assembly and didn't like it. So I drove the screws into the block with the stair off the model to pre-cut the threads into the tap-drill-sized hole that I drilled in the wood block. This enabled me to re-drive the screws home without breaking anything. I then took it all apart to prepare for painting and windows installation.

NH Outside Stair Fix'n

NH Outside Stair Mount

I wanted to dress up the brackets and and add some gussets since the joints weren't very strong. I have a decent selection of NBWs from Tichy. 

NH Bracket Details

In this image you can see the large clearance holes for the mounting screws. The bracket pads will be painted the trim brown that I'm using on the rest of the model.

NH Wall Supports

Lastly, I painted all the windows and doors, primed the outside stair and started masking it for airbrushing the brown trim and starting to get the tin roof painted.

NH Windows et al painting

While I was laying out all the windows, I found out that I had not re-drawn the turret window panels since I decided to go from a laser-cut structure to a hand-built one. I will draw them up tonight after I finish posting. There are a lot of windows in this little building.

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  • NH Bracket Fitting
  • NH Outside Stair Fix'n
  • NH Outside Stair Mount
  • NH Bracket Details
  • NH Wall Supports
  • NH Windows et al painting

Finished the outer stair, added the first windows and attached the stair to the building today. I finished masking the outside stair and painted the brown trim. Then I masked that and started working on the tin roof. This picture shows the entire sequence starting with 1) painting the brown trim. 2) a coat of Tamiya Burnt Iron which gives a good old metal look. Then 3) I took it outside and did a glancing low-angle Tamiya rattle-can Bare-metal Silver to give a brighter look to the high spots, but leave the dark brown in the trenches. Finally 4) I used rust weathering powder followed by direct application of Vallejo Shadow Flesh which is a great rust color. I dry brushed this to collect the corrosion at the lower edges of the roof slopes.

NH OS Roof Painting

The roof looks about how I expected it should look. I left the wall color the Tamiya Gray Primer and it needed to be toned down a bit so I used AK interactive dark gray wash. It looks frightenly awful when you're putting it on and you think, "Oh good lord, what the heck am I doing to my beautiful work?" But, after you wipe it down, it works out pretty well. You just have to have faith like Indiana Jones stepping off what appeared to be an abyss in the 3rd Raiders movie.

NH OS Tint Application

Here's the finished weathering. Not too much, just some wear and tear.

 

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Images (2)
  • NH OS Roof Painting
  • NH OS Tint Application

Hmmm…. for some reason a whole bunch of this post didn't. Here's the pictures you're missing after the outside stair was completed. I dropped it on the layout to see the orientation and as I thought, the backside with the stairway door will not be easy to see from the layout front, but could be viewed from the bridges area.

NH OS Position on Layout

I added 40 X 80 Evergreen Strip window sills and painted them Badger ModelFlex "Sand" which made a nice limestone color.

NH Window Sills

Today I installed all the remaining building's windows (main building since there are four in the turret and three gable windows remaining). For some I added some Builders In Scale lace curtains to add some interest.

NH Windows in

In looking through all my drawings I found the plan view of the roof part that has the turret floor attached. I took the turret bottom and placed it onto the drawing to see exactly where the bottom turret is situated and found that it is pushed off the corner just enough so I can cut out the wedge WITHOUT touching the aluminum core or the steel ball, and I did it. To keep the piece still since it was impossible to put in a vise, I embedded in a piece of stiff un-cured Sculpey Clay. With it stabilized the cuts were actually easy. Here's looking down.

NH Bottom Turret Fit 2

And here's looking straight ahead.

NH Lower Turret Fit 1

I wanted to start working on the interior since the laser cut stools kit is coming soon (they're shipped). I made a cardboard mockup before cutting plywood since it's so much easier to work with. My first attempt turned out to be a bit too tall. I wanted the counter top to fall under the wide sill from the pass-through window.

NH Counter Mockup 1

I got out one of my Artista figures and decided to knock off about 8 scale inches.

NH Counter Mockup 2

I have some nice 1/16" aircraft ply to which I traced the counter top. I cut this piece out with scroll saw, trued it up with the belt sander and then further finished with diamond files and sanding sticks.

NH Counter Tops

I used the vertical parts cardboard to lay out these parts on the same piece of ply, and had sort of a minor miracle. The five pieces stacked together exactly was the same distance from a previously cut area on the ply to the other edge. I mean it was EXACTLY the same distance… completely random. This dimension had nothing to do with the length of the parts. 

NH Counter Parts Miracle

Here's all the parts, sanded, waiting for stain. I bought some Minwax Mahogany Stain today to try and get the color of the painting's woodwork. I'll use the same stain for the bar stools. 

NH Wood Counter Parts

I going to do some panel designs on the base pieces using some thin strip wood which will also be pre-stained. Staining before gluing means the glue will be basically invisible. I'll probably glue it with Aleen's Tacky Glue. After gluing, I gloss the assembly with polyurethane vanish. Tomorrow I'll do the staining and hopefully the stools will arrive so I can build those while the stain dries. I'm still waiting for #2 grandson to be available to start sculpting the figures (but just between you and me, I'm thinking that he's busy catching up with his friends since he was away at camp for four weeks).

 

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Images (10)
  • NH OS Position on Layout
  • NH Window Sills
  • NH Windows in
  • NH Bottom Turret Fit 2
  • NH Lower Turret Fit 1
  • NH Counter Mockup 1
  • NH Counter Mockup 2
  • NH Counter Tops
  • NH Counter Parts Miracle
  • NH Wood Counter Parts

Thanks all!

Yes! That's why it's a miracle. In my experience the amount of material needed is about 1/4" too short. This was the first time in my memory that the distance was exactly right. In German the word is umglaublich (unbelievable).

Going to cardiologist for my 6-month A-Fib checkup. If it continues as it is he's moving me to a one-year cycle. Then I'm stopping at Costco hoping to find more of those great LED shop lights still on sale for $20. I want to add another one in the shop over the one table that's poorly lit (my picture taking table) and another to replace the florescent fixture over the "bridges area". Over the next year or so, I'm going to change out every florescent lamp in the train room with LED. They're twice as bright, use half the power and have warmer color.

I'll be back in the shop when I get back and get some more work done.

Thanks for the good wishes Mark. I am now cleared for one year intervals.

I didn't buy two more shop lights since they're no longer on special, but I did find them back in the racks at Costco and bought one ($27 instead of $20), and I installed it over the one table that was in the "dark" so to speak. That table is now going to be outfitted to be my photo studio. If I'm going to continue to produce magazine articles for RMC (or others) I need to be taking better in-process pictures. I have way too much clutter in my images and that makes it hard on the photo editors to drop the backgrounds out of the picture. If you go back and look at my substation article, you'll see that a lot of the images are floating on the page with no background.

New Shop Light

Here's two images shot under the new light. The first is with no iPhone flash and the second with the flash. The flash fills in very nicely.

NH New Light Photo

I did stain ALL the counter parts, including the striping for the edging and pieces for the raised inner panels. I decided to attempt to dress it up with a raised panel design. I first was doing it mathematically by adding up the widths of the outstrips, doubling that number adding a bit more for clearance between the inner panel and the edge rails and use that dimension to cut the center panel. Of course, I subtracted the gap allowance from the sum of the side rails thereby negating the clearance. So after I scrapped all those pieces and decided to actually measure the size on the workpieces. This took a tad longer but I got all the pieces cut and stained. Always stain before gluing since stain won't take where the glue is.

NH Counter Staining

I glued up one corner and stuck the top on to see what it looked like. The only trouble with using real wood is the grain is way out of scale. It might be better to make it out of styrene and simulate the wood finish. If you modeling rough, rural, outdoor woodwork, the grain adds some grittiness to the scene, but this is supposed to be fine furniture and there is no exposed grain. I'll live with it. I'm mitering the corners so the trim lines up.

NH Counter Fitting

And when I got upstairs for dinner, a tiny box was waiting for me with the laser cut stools. They look very, very fragile, and should look pretty neat when built. They were having trouble with the axis motors doing circular interpolation so they sliced some dowels of the correct diameter for the seats. That was good customer service. MiniEtch is the company that did it. They nested the drawings differently than I did and used less material. I should learn from them. Since I typically don't do model work on the weekends, it will wait until Monday to see how they go together. I imagine you could make these little things conventionally, but I couldn't really understand how to do the cross-bracing without driving myself nuts. Now I just have to be careful removing them from the fret.

NH Stools Laser Parts

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Images (5)
  • New Shop Light
  • NH New Light Photo
  • NH Counter Staining
  • NH Counter Fitting
  • NH Stools Laser Parts

Happy Monday! Before getting to work I had a minor repair job. The roll-around work table that I bought in 1999 at an IKEA in Venlo, The Netherlands, needed a re-wheeling job. It was rolling terribly and I thought it was because the wheels were binding on little bits of model making debris on the floor. What it actually was is this...

Destroyed Wheel

The tires on the front two casters were disintegrating. And therefore were rolling very badly. I ordered four replacements from The Home Depot on-line and picked them up at the store today. and installed them. Now it rolls as it should. It's also over-balanced with the front edge of the table extending out over the wheels quite a bit to provide knee room and I have a heavy, cast iron woodworker's bench vise attached on the front also. I think that's why the front wheels did this and the back two were still intact. I replaced all four.

I finished building the counter, using a combination of Aleen's reinforced with thin CA. I then stained all the stool parts by just dipping the entire fret into the stain and blotting off the excess.

I removed all the parts I was going to use from the fret and here they are. In this image I already started gluing the seat bases to the seat tops.

NH Stool Parts

I "attempted" to glue the first one together and immediately found that, since these are cut out of solid wood, not ply, the cross-braces are extremely fragile and I already broke more than I'd like to admit. I also found that gluing them together was as challenging as I imagined. The tooth pick gives a sense of scale… they're really tiny.

NH First Stool Disaster\

I did get the second attempt built and put it next to the completed counter and quickly discovered that the stools are too tall! About 8 scale inches too tall. Sitting that high would be uncomfortable and ridiculous.

 

NH Too Tall Stool

I attempted to modify the stool height by removing material from the top of the legs, but this drastically changed the angle of the leg and made the cross-braces no longer able to join one another. I then took off material from the bottom by cutting just above the bottom rung. This height looks about right with that large Artista engineer sitting on top. When I sculpt (Grandson may not be available if his social life continues next week as it has this past week), I'm going to manage the scale a little better since this figure seems a little bit oversized. The bar is a scale 36 inches high.

NH Stool Corrected

I'm going to put a brass foot rail on the counter panels to give them something to rest their feet on. Still have to do the gloss coating on the bar. I'll do that when the stools are all done. The cross-braces are so fragile, I'm wondering if I shouldn't harden them by soaking them in CA before attempting to assemble them. I may also glue some very thin styrene behind to reinforce the cross-grain braces. Should have been ply.

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Images (5)
  • Destroyed Wheel
  • NH Stool Parts
  • NH First Stool Disaster
  • NH Too Tall Stool
  • NH Stool Corrected

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