American Model Builders Laser Art 85' Wood Roundhouse

Started by Oldguy, July 24, 2019, 10:19:55 PM

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Oldguy

Next up is the last major structure for my Kansas City yard is a three stall roundhouse.  The kit I bought is has 6 stalls.   The kit has three major packages, two for the two end stalls and one for the four center stalls.  One can get the kit in various configurations, the main difference is the number of center stalls.  The interior framing consists of peel and stick panels, which I am not a big fan of.  I'll see how it goes.  Main concern is being unable to AI them.  I afraid that the glue would be affected.  In the center stall bag I found two windows that were munched.  Hopefully there wouldn't be used.  I'll explain in a bit.


To cut the framing from the carrier sheet, I use a razor blade holder left over from our paper hanging days.  I find it a lot easier to use versus a plain blade.  One needs to cut through the paper backing to get some pieces loose.  Thee were only four tabs holding each piece to the carrier sheet.

Each stall has a "foundation" piece with post locator notches.  I found the center of the front and back as these lines will be needed to ensure that they line up with track center lines.

I started with the end wall pieces.  The instructions cautions about determining left and right framing pieces as no carrier sheet is labeled.  It took me a while to determine that one had to look at the adhesive side and rotate each until I found a match to the diagram.  I labeled the carrier sheet, cleaned each piece and placed them back to protect the delicate pieces and identify them later.


The plan is the wood end stalls will be used fir KC, while for Clinton, I'll be be using brick sheets for the side and back walls.  This roundhouse had wood front, so it should work well.
Bob Dye
Livin large on a pond

Dennis Bourey

Dennis Bourey
dpbourey@comcast.net

Lake's Region RR
(Happy Modeling)

ReadingBob

Interesting.  I haven't build anything by American Model Builders so it'll be fun to follow along with this one.  Thanks for sharing!
Bob Butts
robertbutts1@att.net

There's a fine line between Hobby and Mental Illness.

S&S RR

John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

PRR Modeler

I'll be following. Something I have done with some of their sticky backed parts is paint the paper covering it and then glue the entire thing with white glue to the connecting part. Having said that, I've never had a piece the size of a wall to do that to.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

postalkarl

hey Old Guy:

I will also be following along. Look like it should be a fun build.

Karl

Opa George

I'm also following, Bob. That is a lot of intricate laser-cut components. I'm really eager to see how it goes together.
--George

Oldguy

One thing confusing is trying to identify certain parts. One just needs to go slowly and it'll come eventually.At least the wall framing can only go on the wall sides, just one way.  I plan on "painting" the interior using chalks, pan pastels, or weathering powder to get the smokey black color.  But decided to wait until after the adhesive parts are added, since I wasn't all that confident that it would stick to whatever I used.


The process is straight forward enough.  Start at the lower end by gluing in a post, then follow that with the short frame frame section.  I found that removing the self-adhesive backing easier, if you start at the bottom of the wall sections. I used my gluing jig to ensure everything stayed square and aligned with the bottom.  Add another post, middle frame section, another post, tall frame section, and end post.  A couple of cautions - when removing the paper backing, make sure it ALL comes off.  Some of the delicate bits, parts of the backing did not come off.  So inspect each piece carefully.  Because, that adhesive is sticky and once put into place, it will not come off.  You pretty much get one shot at it. 


When all the frame sections are added, next comes the side rafter pieces,  Since I couldn't completely be confident on what wall section I was working with, I had to look carefully at each one as they have a slight angle to them,  They only go on one way.  I had to do a little filling to get them to sit correctly, and then glued them in place.  These should help take the bow out of each wall piece.  The end pieces are a breeze compared to the walls.  Put the frame on the wall and your done.  I have super magnets holding them done overnight.  Drat.  I just realized that I need to do another end wall as I need three of them, not just two.

Another word of caution - there are a ton of bits, most of which go only in one place, so I didn't cut all of them out.  In fact, in each carrier sheet, I have labeled each piece with it's part number to keep everything straight.
Bob Dye
Livin large on a pond

Opa George

Bob, I really like the look of this already. I've always been intimidated by the intricacy of building interior framing board-by-board, but this laser cut approach has a fantastic appearance.
--George

PRR Modeler

Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

NKP768

I've built a number of their Nickel Plate wood caboose kits and everything practically drops together. Fun and enjoyable builds.
Good luck

Doug

Dennis Bourey

Dennis Bourey
dpbourey@comcast.net

Lake's Region RR
(Happy Modeling)

postalkarl

Hey Old Guy:

Looks like you are off to a great start.

Karl

Oldguy

Thank you for your interest,  Here are the parts just for the two stall kit.


One thing about this kit, I am going to add a ton of scrap material to my wood scrap box. Here are the scraps just for one back wall.


Next up was gluing the "foundation" pieces together.  More like trying to glue the ends of paper together, albeit a bit thicker, but still . . .   Had I thought about it, the notches are to line up the posts and it would have helped in the alignment.  I got close, very close, but no ceegar. 


Since I am still thinking of interior colors, I decided to do the doors out of sequence.  There are five pieces for each door, starting with the exterior piece sticking to the inner door, which results in a very fine for the window to set into.  Then you attach the inner door framing.  This results in the self-adhesive window frames to show though.  The adhesive is white.  Hmmm.  That's going to affect my interior color choice.  I know some roundhouse interior were white washed, but also turned black from the smoke and oil fumes.  Going to be hard to have a smoky interior with white window frames.  The other thing that popped out was the acetate windows.  The window mullions are on the outside.  And the doors will be open, so the inside of the windows are going to show.  i.e.  the flat acetate.  looks like I will just have to ignore my building OCD and live with it.  The only problem that I ran into was the installation of the inner door panel.  I aligned the bottom of the outer and inner door and it came out perfect.  The inner pane is shorter (not noted in the instructions) and needs to be aligned at the top.
Bob Dye
Livin large on a pond

Oldguy

The kit does have a full scale placement template to aid in it's relation to a turn table.  It mates with the Walthers 90' unit very well which I completed last week.

I plan on mounting it on a removable layout section.  The "T" indicates track center lines and those with a cross line indicate those for the roundhouse.  I need to have access to the interior and most have a removable roof.  But this one has an absolute ton of rafters, so I don't see how this is going to work out as the roof card already has a decent bow in it.  So I might have to have the entire structure to be removable.

Bob Dye
Livin large on a pond

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