Bar Mills Queen City Coal

Started by vinceg, May 19, 2020, 09:07:03 PM

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vinceg

One quick shot of the walls after I have singulated them from the sheets. I used an emery board to file off the nubs where they were cut free. I'm a little afraid of the fragility of the task board.



More shortly.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

A quick closeup of one of the walls to give you a better look at the etched brickwork:



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Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

Here's a page from the manual regarding bracing:



A couple of things to note here - first, on the bottom, you can see that the lower piece of horizontal bracing performs two functions: (1) brace the wall (at least on the x-axis) and (2) serve as a ledge to hold that wood flooring/base piece you saw earlier. That means this all five walls for that part of the building need to have this brace located at the same place relative to the bottom so that the base glues down nice and straight. To try to do that, I started by bracing wall 5 (on the left). It is relatively easy to site as the top of the brace needs to coincide with the bottom of that tab that you see in the middle. Once that is in, I used a couple of straight edges to hold the bottom of the walls even while guiding the placement of the lower braces. Here's a pic:



That dirty-looking thing on the bottom is a super-huge paint stirring stick from Home Depot. It's straight enough to keep the bottom of the walls aligned for this job. This is three of the five walls. I had to do two others.

One other major thing to note here. At the top of the page, you see the warning "ROOF BRACING TO ADDED LATER" [sic]. That is because the location of this tarpaper roof has to be very precisely located. Remember those skinny strips of taskboard a few posts ago (sheet TSK16)? Well, those are glued to the inside of the tops of the walls to give them a more credible thickness. So, the bracing for the roof needs to be set at exactly the top edge of the wall, minus the skinny strip for that wall, minus the width of the chipboard roof. The manual suggests that it is tricky to so that after the building is assembled so you are better off doing that while the walls are still separate. After I do a little more test fitting of parts and I am 100% sure of what goes where, I will do that. Shouldn't be too difficult to measure where those braces need to be. But, I'll bet you a doughnut right now that I will forget to make the braces shorter so that there is no interference between adjacent walls. It has been a while since I have built something that didn't require trimming bracing after the fact. We'll see.

More shortly
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

Still on the subject of bracing those five walls, looked to me as though there is an error on that same page I showed in the previous post. The diagram shows that wall 4 has a brace that goes down to the ground. But, wall 4 is one of the five walls surrounding that wood base (the short wall, obviously). That means it needs the same ledge piece that the other four do. It also means that, if you are going to brace it vertically, you need to leave a little gap for the wood base to slip in. I think the diagram should have appeared as follows:



That's the way I built it.

More shortly.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

One more note on bracing (at least for now). Here is the previous page of bracing diagrams:



Walls 9, 7, and 6 are part of that other shorter extension to the building. This was the part under the roof with the two square skylights. Notice that there is no note here telling you to put that roof bracing on walls 6 and 7 on later. Yet those two walls also have the skinny strips on the top that the other walls do. I think it's the same situation so I think that should be marked. That is, I think those roof support braces need to be in a very specific spot just like the others. I'll be getting into that shortly and will report back.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

Trying some color testing. In general, the plan is to have an off-white building with green trim. I don't know if the roof caps are metal or ceramic. I am assuming I will go with a terra cotta sort of color. That also matches the treatment that Bar Mills used in their ad. For the stucco, I am again going to an Ivory paint (I used Ivory for the clapboard for the Old Dominion kit I just finished). It's yellow-ish off-white. For the trim I am going to my favorite standby, Model Air Signal Green. For the caps, I found an old bottle of "Pennsylvania Clay" that my wife had left over from her teaching days. (She was a science and math teacher so I have no idea why she had a stash of acrylic paints but hey, who am I to complain?)

I took some of the scrap task board and stippled on the Ivory. Also painted up some bracing wood with the Pennsylvania Clay. Held them up against each other to see how it looked:



The clay was a little bright so I hit it with Hunterline Light Gray stain. You can see I went a little past the clay sample on the wood stick. I liked the end result. The Ivory is pretty subtle in the picture. It's a little more pronounced in person but still subtle. Just a little bright for my taste but not bad. I tried hitting that with the same gray stain and you can see the result there. It dominates the whole look. Maybe I could do a round 2 of light stippling there for a nice effect but I think that I will instead stay away from the alcohol there and look to use some light gray chalks to tone it down. More experimentation coming there. I like the way the green looks.

More shortly.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

I wanted to give myself a little break from bracing so I'm working on the window assemblies. These custom arched windows are all laser-cut wood. The self-stick sheet has windows made up of three pieces: a main frame with the upper sash, a separate sash, an outer trim frame. You also get a sheet of pre-cut glazing. Here's a pic:



I love these windows. The acetate glazing is very well done - fits nicely. The self-stick wood sheet is also very handy. When you make a complete window with the bottom sash closed (all the way down), it makes an excellent looking assembly. There's only one thing I haven't yet figured out how to do (would love to get help for you all). One of the benefits of this sort of assembly is that you can open some of the windows for a little variety and more interest. But, to do that, you need to slide the lower sash up a bit and now it's on top of the upper sash's acetate. There's no adhesive there. If you make the lower sash half open you can still push the window down onto the frame that is part of the top sash but then the lower sash is at an angle - it's not in the same plane as the rest of the window. That is, the bottom of that sash is closer to the viewer than the top of the sash. Shows up in close-up photos (had some of this problem with the Yard Office). If you fully open the lower sash, then there is no self-stick and you need to glue it. I'm sure that's the right answer but I have had trouble doing that without getting glue on visible parts of the glazing. I think if I glue in that lower sash after the rest of the assembly is installed in the wall I might have better luck. Again, I would appreciate hints and tricks from the experience out there.

Here's one more pic of windows in progress. The one at the top is complete. The others will missing the lower pane.



That's it for now. Back to work and I will post more once I'm a little further along. Getting close to the point where subassemblies need to come together. I predict some expletives in my future. In particular, I need to think about how to install the windows. These windows are set into their openings - they do not sit on the outside as would usually be the case with a clapboard wall. Need to figure out how that is going to work. The manual recommends cutting a hole in that large floor/base piece so that you have room for your fingers to help position the windows as you push them in. I can't imagine how that could work (unless you have E.T.-like fingers). For a clapboard wall you would simply put them in ahead of time after finishing the walls. But here you can't really finish the walls because the stucco needs to be seamless around corners. For me, I think the answer is going to be to do some initial stucco treatment around the windows so that the windows can be installed prior to assembling the walls together. Then, I can finish the stucco once the shell is complete. We'll see.

Ya know, it's funny -- I have been doing a fair amount of building now for the last several months. Figured I would be getting better/quicker at this over time. Not sure what the problem is. Perhaps I'm starting to see things I didn't worry about before. Or perhaps I am just hitting new challenges that naturally take more thinking. Or perhaps my standards are getting higher. Or, maybe I'm just losing my marbles. Please, nobody answer that  :)

CU Soon.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

PRR Modeler

You're doing a great job. I really like the windows.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

Mark Dalrymple

Coming on really well, Vince.

Re the window problem.  Could you cut a piece of scrap window material and attach it to a piece of double sided tape.  Then cut that into thin strips and glue that to the bottom sides of the inside of the window (double sided tape facing into the building), trimmed to the distance down to the bottom of where you want the bottom sash open.  Peel back the tape backing and stick the bottom sash in position.  That should stop the bottom sash being on an angle to the window and give you something to stick to.  Sounds fiddly, but might be worth a shot.  I glue my glazing in with medium viscosity CA.  I put the glazing in place and then add 4 drops of CA with a needle, one in each corner.  I add the drops to the frame, not the glazing, and the glue works its way down into the corners but doesn't seem to spread onto the visible part of the glazing.  Maybe this approach would work for gluing the top of the bottom sash?  Experiment first if you can.

Cheers, Mark.

Opa George

Nice job so far on this, Vince.  It's looking really cool.
On the bracing to the wall bottom, I have run into that same issue with some other Bar Mills builds.  It's like they just forgot that the walls need to fit around the supplied base.   I am always going back and trimming away that bottom 1/8 inch or so.  But I figure if that is my biggest problem with a kit, I'm still ahead of the game.

--Opa George

jerryrbeach


Vince,


It looks great.  IMO the issues with the Bar Mills directions are typical of their kits I have built.  That said, I really like their kits.  Your idea to stucco around the windows and installing the windows prior to assembling the walls sounds like the way to go. 


I use Testors clear parts cement for gluing the acetate into both laser cut and plastic windows.  It is similar to Canopy glue but seems thinner to me and comes in a bottle with a very fine tip.  I put the glue in a puddle and apply small dots of it with a wire.  Either of those glues dries clear so if some does get onto the visible surface it looks less objectionable IMO.  I have used ACC, but found it can fog the acetate so have gotten away from using it.   
Jerry

deemery

I agree with using the Testor's 'windshield' glue for glazing.  I apply it the same way. 


dave
Modeling the Northeast in the 1890s - because the little voices told me to

JimMooney

How I do the laser cut is as follows
Self stick is really only there to hold things temporarily as an assembly tool. It works really well on shiny smooth surfaces, but is only so-so on rougher ones. works great for the acetate, but wood to wood ...eh? sometimes...(!)
1. Attach sills with the self stick to the bottom of the frame (not a lot of SS here but it is just there to hold it for a bit)(sometimes I run a little ACC along
    bottom of sill to help)
2. Attach the upper panes now to the back of the frame (self Stick)
3. now position the lower panes where you want them. If they are fairly high up , there is really no adhesive,
    so use a little ACC applied on the edges with a toothpick, it'll wick in and hold it together.
4. I now apply the front top trim if there's any.
5. self stick works fairly well on task board , but not so much on basswood (especially clapboard) . But I never really trust it to hold a window on,
   probably work for a few years, but it the building gets handled I see this stuff slide a round. I apply a lot (!) of wood glue all around the window hole,
   especially in the corners. I then press the window in from the front. This pushes any excess glue to the back, but also fills in the edges and glues the
   window together better. If any gets on acetate, wipe off.

Sorry about the bracing your right on part #4.
The roof bracing on parts 6 and 7 was supposed to be to scale on the instructions , It should be about .215" down from top (use cheap digital calipers to mark it....probably not too critical.)

vinceg

Quote from: PRR Modeler on May 23, 2020, 03:56:59 PM
You're doing a great job. I really like the windows.

Thanks, Curt. I like the windows, too. I am so amazed at how nice they look. Much more work to assemble the components and put in the glazing, but it is really nice. I can see there will come a time when I want to do more with photography in the hobby. The windows with more detail and smooth glazing will be a big part of that (as opposed to the wavy look you get by filling in panes with a glue product of some sort). I know Art Fahie (of Bar Mills Fame) says that -- photos are important to him so he puts in the extra work. I am slowly being won over.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

vinceg

Quote from: mark dalrymple on May 23, 2020, 04:52:47 PM
Coming on really well, Vince.

Re the window problem.  Could you cut a piece of scrap window material and attach it to a piece of double sided tape.  Then cut that into thin strips and glue that to the bottom sides of the inside of the window (double sided tape facing into the building), trimmed to the distance down to the bottom of where you want the bottom sash open.  Peel back the tape backing and stick the bottom sash in position.  That should stop the bottom sash being on an angle to the window and give you something to stick to.  Sounds fiddly, but might be worth a shot.  I glue my glazing in with medium viscosity CA.  I put the glazing in place and then add 4 drops of CA with a needle, one in each corner.  I add the drops to the frame, not the glazing, and the glue works its way down into the corners but doesn't seem to spread onto the visible part of the glazing.  Maybe this approach would work for gluing the top of the bottom sash?  Experiment first if you can.

Cheers, Mark.

Thanks, Mark. If I understand you right, I think I have been doing something similar with doors. I frequently get in a situation where a door is either too big for an opening or too small. Either way, I had previously solved the problem by gluing scrap stock to the sides of the door and then gluing that to the inside of the building just behind the doorway. The net result is that the door is now very parallel to the wall and is also recessed which is a look that I like. I never thought of doing the same thing with the window panes.

Also, I need to do more with super glue. I do almost everything with Canopy Glue. Works great for a whole bunch of applications and materials but perhaps a bit too messy for intricate window assemblies. I went to Home Depot yesterday to buy some Gorilla Gel ACC. Time to expand my horizons. Thanks for the idea.
Vince

Protolancing the Illinois Central Chicago District from Chicago to Kankakee

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