Next up is the conveyer between the two rooftop equipment sheds.  First I added a simple card stock subroof to the lower shed that sits on the brick section.




Next i played around with sizes a bit and decided on just over 4 scale feet for the hight of the conveyor.  It actually measures 15mm for ease of marking.  I cut a cardboard strip to that width and clamped it in place on the back of the upper shed.  Once it was positioned to my liking I marked both ends against the roof of the lower shed and wall of the upper shed.






I used that as a template to cut out two sides (front and back) for the conveyer.  I decided to make the profile square so I cut a top and bottom 15mm minus the thickness of the two sides.  In order to keep things square I cut 3 pieces of thick balsa to fit inside the conveyer.  I then attached the balsa guides to one side at each end and in the middle and then applied the other sides.



The black marking ensured that I kept the balsa guides in the same orientation.


Here is the marking template, a balsa guide and the finished conveyer.




And here is the conveyer set in place between the two equipment sheds.




Next up will be the roof for the upper equipment shed and deciding on how to cover the conveyer.  I'm considering the same planking as on the barn and upper shed with rolled roofing on top.

Thanks.  Those fishing weights are very handy.  I have a supply of 2 and 3 ounce weights.

Picking up from where we left off...  I needed to add siding to the equipment room.  I marked off guide lines horizontally to position the boards.  I also marked vertical lines 2 feet apart to indicate where vertical framing would run.  Then I covered the wall with 3M transfer tape.




I gathered a pile of "boards".  These are leftovers from the sponge painted pastel paper siding for the main barn structure.




The guide lines show clearly though the transfer tape.




I started by positioning the first board on the wall and then burnishing it down with a burnishing tool.  The tool mars the paint so I have to be careful not to burnish portions that will be visible.




The siding boards are cut to 33' lengths.  I work with one board until it will not make a full course.  Once I have a partial board I position the end to align with one of the vertical "framing" marks. The boards on this wall overlap the ends to allow for the joint with the other walls.



I continue this pattern up the wall allowing the joints to fall where they may based on the board lengths.  If the pattern gets a little too regular I will cheat in a longer or shorter board to break it up.   Also, as the strips are cut by hand they are not all exactly the same width. This plus variations in laying them down gives the wall a more uneven look.  I was less careful on the equipment than on than the main barn to give it a more rough look.




Here is the finished left wall.



And here are all of the finished walls.  The back wall was left blank.  The front wall has one window.  I boarded over the window then used a flat chisel blade to cut the opening out from the back.




Here is the equipment shed punched atop the main barn roof.




The last step was to add corner boards to the walls.  I used the same siding strips.  The were folded in half lengthwise and glued on the corners with canopy glue.

I've managed to sneak some time here and there over the last few days with company around and work on the roof for the main factory building.  I cut 3 "trusses" to match the front and back building profile and subroof from card stock.  I used a bit of masking tape to hold the trusses in place and then glued the sub roof panels in place.  I did all of this in place to insure a proper fit.




The roof is removable.  Here is the view of the underside.





And here is the completed subroof in place.  It came out pretty nice.




Next up is the equipment room that sits on top of the barn roof.  I cut walls from card stock and reinforced with strip wood.








This will get the same paper siding as the main building.   That will be up next.

The next structure needed is the powerhouse that sits at the right side of the complex.  I picked though my scrap box and various kits looking for something to use as the core to this structure.  Nothing I had on hand really worked.  Given the current budget (layoffs kill that) I wanted to work with materials on hand so I decided to use some brick paper that was different from what I had used for the foundations.  I built a simple box from cardstock and reinforced it with strip wood.  I then wrapped it in the brick paper.  For the front section I build another box, covered it and attached to the first box.  I also built up a cornice for the upper edge, wrapped it and overlaid it to the main box.  The result came out fairly nice.  I used balsa for the subroof. 




Here's the view from the back.



I wanted twin stacks to indicate a pair of boilers.  Going back to the scrap box I found a couple of pieces of brass tubing that fit the bill without trimming.  I build a simple bracing structure with strip wood.  I then used thin strips of the same pastel paper I'd used to make siding to make straps to hold the tubing.  I embossed a few "rivets" and then glued them to the wood frame.  Once that had set I carefully wrapped the paper strips around the tubing and glued it to the back of the frame.  The tubing was free to move within the straps. Once the straps had dried I removed the tubing and glued strips of pastel paper around the bases to create a flange.  I then glued square pieces of balsa to each tube.   Then I reinserted the tubes into the bracing frame, squared everything up and mounted them on a sheet of thin balsa cut to fit into the lower brick box's roof. 






You might notice in the last picture above that the cornice didn't wrap around the left side of the power house.  This side buts up to the wooden barn building and I clearly wasn't thinking about how the two should interface.  I'll blame it on working too late at night.    So I went back and made an end cap for the left side and added it to the main structure.  I'll have to cover the obvious butt joint with a down spout or ivy or something.




A bit of black paint later and the stacks look pretty good.  They will need some weathering later to reduce the freshly painted look.




Here is the basic powerhouse added to the full factory.  I plan to add some more relief detail to the front of it. 




That brings things up to date.  I have started working on the roof for the barn.  I want to make it removable so that I can go back and add lighting.  I'm not sure what to use for roofing.  I supposed rolled roofing would be appropriate for a structure like this set in the 1930s.

Cheers

I think you'll like the results.  To help with leveling the clay I used an acrylic rolling rod from the craft store. It was sold with the clay working tools.  I had tried leveling the clay with a metal ruler but it just made a mess. 

I forgot to mention that when I finished the clay foundation for the factory barn I realized that the other structures needed to be raised up a bit.  Plus wood siding on grade is generally a bad idea.  So, I added some basic foundations to the other structures with strips of balsa and some adhesive backed brick paper.  I also had to raise the loading dock, thus the little bits of wood added under each post.  Those will get buried in the scenery.

Next up is a bit of foundation work. 

The large barn to the right is rail served by an internal track.  In theory the building is 3-4 times deeper than modeled so the track enters on the right and goes back.  In actuality it enters and turns left to run inside the adjoining structures.  I wanted to embed the track in the floor.  I had run across an embossing tool on Shapeways that lets you emboss paving stones into air-dry clay.  I decided to give it a try.  After adding some homosote to raise the track level I build up a frame, added the track and and filled it with the clay.  Leveling this was not an easy task.  Next I used the rollers to emboss the paving stone pattern between the rails and on the rest of the floor.  These are designed to make a road with the track running down the middle so there are overlap seams in the flooring but as its inside it doesn't really show.

Here is the initial result:




Next I went back over some of the areas that were a little sparse with a small flat blade screwdriver and then painted the floor with craft paint and then india ink to enhance the gaps.




Here is a shot of the rollers that were used.  This is HOn30 so the track is a bit of Atlas N scale flex track. 



The rollers are offered in different scales and in both pavers and brick and can be found here:  http://www.shapeways.com/product/NCCCPBV72/set-row-paving-with-border-h0e?optionId=56707826  I'm not associated with the shop owner.  The rollers worked very well but did take some getting used to to get the impressions just right.  I plan to go back at some point and get the HO standard gauge brick rollers for some street trackage if I ever get to the big layout. 


Here is an overview of the base for the complex.




And here you can see how the track runs inside the other structures.




With the building in place you can see how the track enters.  Also, I pulled the frame right after embossing the top surface and ran the embosser along the edges so that the exposed foundation would have a stone texture.




And here is one with a scratch built HOn30 flatcar entering the building.   




While the foundation was drying I mounted all of the windows and built up the freight doors for the front wall.  The upper door is intended as an access point for equipment on the upper working floor.  This equipment was brought in via the track that will run in front of the building.  The bit sitting there is Peco HOn30 "crazy" track.  It will be pretty well buried in the dirt and weeds when done.  Here are a couple of overviews of the full complex to this point.






Here is an overhead view showing the second floor of the factory.  It is made from two pieces of heavy card stock with timbers underneath to keep it from bowing and to give the look of floor joists if you were to lean in and look up.  I don't think that will ever actually be visible.  I'm not sure this will ever have an interior as it meant to be against the backdrop but just incase that ends up being close enough to the front of the layout to view I added a rudimentary flooring texture by marking out boards in black pen and coloring the card stock with black and gray crayon.  (Crayons are just for adults at coffee shops you know.) 




Lastly for now is one of the freight doors.  It is built up from scale lumber strip wood.




Next up will be the powerhouse to the right.

Cheers!

This stonework is simply amazing.  Beautiful job.

Thanks again to everyone.

One more update for today I think. (this is all catch-up)

So the next structure is the big barn-like building.  This is the main processing building (queue the fish-heads song) and receives carloads from the docks.  It has a rail served inside siding on the lower floor and a processing floor on the 2nd floor.  So its rather large.  I didn't have milled siding large enough to make the sides in one piece so I decided to try out a different method.  The core of this building and the equipment shed on top of the brick building are made from card stock reinforced with strip stock.

I didn't get any pictures while I was making the walls but here is a shot with the "barn" and equipment shed temporarily fitted together.




I wanted the equipment shed to look very rough so I used a wood stripper to cut strip wood from a sheet of balsa that's thickness gave the right width.  I intentionally did a poor job of stripping the wood so that the thickness would be uneven.  Then I used this to cover the shed.

Here is the stripper being used to make wider material, but you get the idea.  Handy tool this.  Balsa is cheep.




And here is a closeup of the painted shed.  The uneven stripes give a very worn look to it.




Here is the equipment shed placed on top of the brick buildings.   This shed will eventually be connected to the main processing "barn" by an enclosed conveyer.




For the bar siding I decided to use a method I picked up from Troels Kirk.  I took light gray pastel paper and sponge painted it with FolkArt Vintage white.  I then cut this into strips to make siding boards.  I cut the board stock into lengths that were roughly 33 scale feet (I have it in my head that this was the common length of lumber before home centers took over).  I then applied 3M adhesive film to the walls and using guide lines and a burnishing tool applied boards as one would real siding.  I was careful to end boards where vertical framing would be located.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during this but there is the result.




Here is a closer shot after the building was assembled and corner boards were added.  The corner boards are from the same painted pastel paper.  I think this turned out really nicely.




Here is the general layout of the structure.  This was taken before the corner boards were applied and before the shed was painted.




That's it for today I think.  More to come. 

Dave,

That's the perfect song.  Haven't heard that in years.  =)

Moving on, the next thing needed was a loading dock for the warehouse on the left end.  I built this up from strip wood.  The finish is simply alcohol stain.  The little unpainted blocks were added later to raise the height.  They will be buried in the scenery.




I should have taken more pictures so some steps are missed (maybe that's a good thing).  Here the roof has been added to the warehouse.  The freight door is built up from the same strip wood as the dock.  On the right is the next brick section. Its a section of brick wall from the scrap box.  The warehouse doors are from a Tichy window and door assortment (as are most if not all of the windows. 




Here the new brick section has been painted.  The flat roofs on the brick sections are sandpaper over a styrene subroof.

This project was started a while back so I plan to post several updates to move things along.

I am also a big fan of Troels Kirk and his Coast Line RR which has been chronicled over on "the other board".  I'm sure many if not all of you have seen it.  If not, here's his public Facebook page for the railroad.  https://www.facebook.com/The-Coast-Line-RR-page-127409483958090/

I had ordered his DVD and decided to use his painting techniques on this project.   Here was the first run at painting the warehouse and office.





After getting some feedback I decided they were too brown and looked too much like log structures rather than siding.  So I went back with a more gray finish.



I like this much more.  The brick section is painted with my old standard Floquil paints.  The roofing is preassembled sheet, I believe is from Northeastern.  It looks nice from a distance but up close I find it to be too flat.  But I wanted to use this structure to try out different things so getting some texture on there was simply a challenge to overcome.

A while back I was very pressed for space and decided to play around with HOn30.  I've always been a fan of Dave Frary's work and as a result, I decided to build a small layout in the vein of Thatcher's Inlet.  That layout passed with the old house but some of the projects remain.  With my newly found free time I decided to move one of them forward.  I call this Frary's Fish-head Fertilizer.

So here is the inspiration from Thatcher's Inlet




I worked up a plan using windows i had on hand and by eyeballing the various building dimensions



I scratch built the warehouse addition from milled siding.  The industry will be against the backdrop so the backs are not modeled.  Additionally, the industry will have cars spotted inside the large structure to the right.  The implication is that the cars move back into the building perpendicular to the front but the track actually sneaks inside the adjoining buildings.  Thus the odd openings on the back of the warehouse addition.



Here is the warehouse (left) and the office (front) positioned against the core brick structure (in primer gray). 



The goal is to create the look of structures that have been added on and cobbled together over time.  For this portion there is an older brick building with the warehouse addition to the left and a small office addition in front.  I envision a dim light in the upstairs window of the office addition with the company accountant up late at night doing the books.

More to come.