On to the next big adventure. While waiting for material to reorganize my paints, I need a project that wouldn't need a lot of paint. So here I am with the Grain Elevator kit. For those not all familiar, but back in the day, the last set of digits on the kit box was the retail price. In this case a whole $17.95 or about %40 in today's dollars.
First the requisite box and contents. Four bags of section specific parts, a bunch of strip wood, instructions, several pages of templates, and cardboard roof stock. I won't be using the included sign, although they provide instructions on how one can hand paint it on instead.
It is always a good idea to read and re read these instructions and locate parts. Here, I am working on identifying all bag A parts as they will need to be hit with A&I . Considering the amount of bend most of these have, I hope me weighing them down afterwards will remove most of it. The more astute observer will not the there aren't any tall parts for the elevator section. They do provide 18 piece of siding, many of which need to be edged glued together. This task should be easier thanks to Bob Parrish scratch building hints and tips on edge gluing.
Prior to the dunking, I notice a bunch of fuzz which required the use of steel wool. I do a use nitrile glove to protect the old fingers. It does make a heck of a mess.
So while bag A parts were drying, I might as well prime all the plastic parts. These include the standard Campbell doors and windows. They provide a single stair stringer to be cut in half or so and two pieces of "chimney" stock, also each to be cut in half to make a brick chimney. If this is like their other kits, there will be an internal wood former to aid in eit together.
So, while the plastic parts are drying, it was on to identify bag B parts. For each step, the list of material is listed. So one knows that he/she need 2 pieces of B3 and their size is given. I found it just as easy to pick out similar parts and then find which one it is. I then right down on the back the number and orientation. Some parts may vary by only 1/32", so pay close attention. Unfortunately, I had problems positively identifying all parts. In the photo, all the parts on the left are floor material and not an issue. Those in the upper section have been positively identified. What I have left are three parts and two are supposed to be the same. All three are close, but no cigar. I really won't know until the scale house is built to see what fits where. I'll soak all in A&I anyway, knowing I might have to replace one or more of them.
It should be said that some of the illustrations are "see-through", so the parts seen are from the backside. One has to really look at them to figure out which ones those are.
I'll be following Bob. Looks like an interesting kit.
You read the instructions ! ! ! !
You are not a true GUY.
But I am following along none the less.
thanx
Bob
I have a soft spot for Campbell kits, always wanted to do this one,.....they were the first wood kits I started out building. I'll be looking in Bob. :)
Hey Bob:
I actually have that kit in my stash. It's one of my favorite Campbell kits. I will be watching with great interest.
Karl
I'll be watching your progress with this one, Bob.
Cheers, Mark.
Quote from: bparrish on September 14, 2020, 03:10:27 AM
You read the instructions ! ! ! !
You are not a true GUY.
But I am following along none the less.
thanx
Bob
Yeah, well Normally one can get a general idea how everything is supposed to go or just look at all the pretty photos. This thing has way to many small bits for that.
Bag A parts have dried, but many were still curled. I had to switch gears on the edge gluing and use a magnetic jig to hold everything in place. The upper peak wasn't the same back to back. It looked like the die cut was a bit off and one sheet was fed face up and the other face down. It was off by 1/16" Soooo, I did a bit of trimming. Can't wait to see how that will bite me later one. They do tell you to glue all the pieces together face down as not all wood have the same thickness. And they were right. I used a PBL brass weathering brush to remove any excess glue. so far so good.
Needless to say , bracing (not included) is a must. Each of these sides have 8 pieces. So far.
The other, and flat side was built similarly, but each has two sections that are made separately.
These old Cambells look like a ton of fun, and the types a kits I would like to build. Looking forward to this build coming together.
-Steven
Bob,
I'm a real guy and I read all the kit directions even though I usually don't follow them. I don't read them for the instructions as much as I just want to familiarize myself with the kit.
Back in the 60's and 70's, Campbell Scale Models was my go to kit preference. I loved opening the box and smelling the freshly cut sugar pine Leo used for construction.
Nice start on this one.
Tom ;D
I managed to select the color, Antique Iron. Campbell suggested a red or white.
As long as I was coloring parts, I decided to jump to Bag B parts to see what needed to be colored. First up was the four parts that had windows. Did the old painters tape on the back and cut out the holes. Well, batting 50%. The track side sliding doors decided to try my patience. And they won. Okay, I want to think that somewhere I heard tat one can hit the backside of wood parts to keep the broken bits together. Apparently, my remembery was wrong. Then I noticed that the window cut outs were different. Same size, but different heights. Time to start over.
So, I went through my inventory and found that I don't have wide scribed siding, but I have car siding and 1x4 material. I now noticed that I build them for hinges and not for sliding. I'll fix them tomorrow.
So the next hunt for soon-to-be-red parts went after the scale house parts. I managed to slowly find various parts and get them glued up, and wound up at the end sections. Remember when I needed four pieces and only had three and none of them matched? Well, here we are again. The peaked pieces are okay, as are the side pieces. But what's off are the two horizontal rectangular pieces one on each end. I could rob the lower right one and fiddle and split the shortfall under the left sloped piece, but then I now wold be be two pieces short. I do not have any 6" clapboard. I got some 3", no 6" and I'd still be futzing to get parts to fit. So, I'll see how long it'll take Northeast Scale Lumber to get me some clapboard material. And just work around this part.
Quite a project Bob! I'm following along with interest. I still have a few Campbell kits in the stash but haven't built one in over 30, maybe 40 years. ::) :o
Bob your doing a fine job on this one.
I'll follow along also.
Jerry
Thanks all for the comments.
Now it was time to apply the ubiquitous Campbell corner pieces. Since the walls still have a slight bow, I had to do this front side down and add either a weight or strong magnet until the glue caught.
One thing to pay attention to is the corner bevels needed for the elevator shoulders. I was a simple matter of extending the slope line and cut carefully so as not to go all the way through. Just the outer corner.
With glue drying, I painted the plastic bits. I had a window that came with a broken mullion that couldn't be fixed. So it would give me the oppotrunity to have a broken window. This kit , as with most of their older ones, does not come with any window material. So on to the clear plastic folder.Found a strip and come to find out, I could make a long thin strip and it would fit all openings. I just couldn't get the hank of making a "broken" window pane, so I just removed the affected section. I used a thin strip from a wood carrier sheet from the grain mill kit and used it to make it look like the window was boarded up. I would love to show it, but I just can't seem to find it. Sounds weird, but it simply vanished.
I did get the new sliding doors to look like sliding doors with appropriate bracing.
There isn't much I could do until tomorrow, so I thought I'd share some of the templates that came with the kit. Most normal, people would have tacked these down on a flat board. In the past I used an old drafting board, but the templates are printed on both sides, so that was out. You might notice some illustrations without any surface detail. That is because, these are from the inside out. Those showing clapboard or scribed detail are external views. This can get rather confusing at time and required flipping the large illustration sheets many times. And since these were done before the days of computers, it is a testiment to the skill of the draft person to keep everything correct.
There is one sheet for the foundation and floors. Even here they show the parts represented.
Thanks for sharing the build of your grain elevator.
As much as I admire the quality of your builds, I am also enjoying your style of writing about your progress, always with a good sense of humor and self reflection.
Re: the Campbell instructions, I always make several copies of any diagrams, templates, which you can then attach to a flat surface, and don't have to worry about messing them up, not being able to access what's written on the back, and you can cut the copies into convenient pieces. Copying also allows you to easily mirror the drawing, so that you can work with it in a way that is more suitable. After I attach the templates to a flat surface, I usually cover them with wax paper, so that I can do direct assembly work over the template.
Nice work so far, I like the coloring of the tower. Did you do that solely with powders?
I will keep following
Urs
Quote from: swisstrain on September 17, 2020, 01:33:21 PM
Thanks for sharing the build of your grain elevator.
As much as I admire the quality of your builds, I am also enjoying your style of writing about your progress, always with a good sense of humor and self reflection.
Re: the Campbell instructions, I always make several copies of any diagrams, templates, which you can then attach to a flat surface, and don't have to worry about messing them up, not being able to access what's written on the back, and you can cut the copies into convenient pieces. Copying also allows you to easily mirror the drawing, so that you can work with it in a way that is more suitable. After I attach the templates to a flat surface, I usually cover them with wax paper, so that I can do direct assembly work over the template.
Nice work so far, I like the coloring of the tower. Did you do that solely with powders?
I will keep following
Urs
I haven't seen the need to build over any templates lately. That may change. One thing that I do when I do make copies is to add a scale, both horizontally and vertically to ensure that nothing was lost in the copying. I should mention that I use a scanner and then either print that directly, convert it to PDF, or a jpg. So a lot can happen.
Thanks for the comment on writing style. It isn't for everyone. It runs in the family. I have a cousin who co-writes mysteries.
Yes, the coloring is all from weathering powders over an A&I application. It worked out on a previous build where it was all powders and chalk.
While I got other bits glue drying, on to the foundation. Woo hoo they included a foundation. I sprayed it with Tamiya gray primer and now it is time to cut them up. They were cut about 1/4" long, so it was a simple matter of coming in a bit on the ends, draw a 45 degree angle, make the cut, and then sand true.
A moment of truth - gluing the elevator walls together. I used a bunch of 1-2-3 blocks and clamps to try to keep everything square. It worked.
Before adding the loft walls, there is a loft floor to add. I'm pretty sure it is there for structural purposes, either way it got added. Because I added a bunch of bracing, it has to be added before the walls. Without the bracing, it most likely could be added later. The side walls started out curved, so they all have a bunch of bracing. The one below the window is the only piece indicated in the instructions as a loft floor support. One could easily overlook drawing the guidelines and adding these pieces.
Next is a floor and false walls for the lower portion of the elevator. While the tall walls were flat, they have one add a floor support even with the door openings. Easy enough. But then several steps later, they have you make up the floor/wall assembly. This doubles up in the floor supports. I found that out when I went to install the floor. I was able to remove the set on the floor and moved on. The intent is to make up this three-sided feature so the trackside door s can be open and one sees a floor and two walls. Because I add a bunch of bracing, this was not going to be possible, and if I hadn't it would be tricky to add the entire assembly. I should note that if you add additional bracing, either keep it well away from the door opening or figure out where the false wall support posts are going to land an placing the bracing next to it, so that it would also hold up the false side walls. As it was, I had to drop the walls down from the top and then, using a long small paint brush apply glue though the opposite door opening.
Here is a rather poor shot of the trackside opening.
Now for a mea culpa. I found that one long side wall has a part, next to the door opening, that despite my best efforts, was glued in upside down. Because there is a scale house, I can make sure that this side will go here where it will be hidden from direct viewing.
Bob your moving right along nice work.
Jerry
Hey Bob:
Walls look great. Keep them thar pic flowing.
Karl
Great looking build Bob.
While waiting for clapboard sheets to come in, I moved on to the office. I wanted to color it a different color, but, with the walkway skirting, there is no good way to break it up with another color.
Just like the elevator, I started off using steel wood to remove a bunch of fuzz. First step is more edge gluing. While that was setting up, I decided to look at the walkway. Fairly standard stuff, except they misidentified the parts. The instructions call for C7 parts as does on illustration. But C7 is a siding part, not a walkway. Another illustration sows the correct parts and how one needs to be trimmed. The finished part is shown on the floor plan view.
Once the walls had a chance to dry a bit, I need to add some bracing. But first, I need to locate the floor supports. I don't think that I have ever had to measure anything 41/64". I was hoping that it would also lap the edge gluing, but nope. Even the floor will be just a bit short of the joint. I used the tail of a micrometer to get the depth, draw a line and add the support. I will, most likely, be off a 64th or two.
For vertical bracing, one needs to pay attention to the corner posts and keep a short distance away from them.
Then it was going back a couple of steps and adding the sliding door track. The provided piece was a strip of 1/32 x1/16 material. I add a 2x10 over the edge to reflect what was done on the other sliding doors that I have built.
The office building is fairly straight forward, but one needs to remember the floor. I glued one corner together and then slipped in the floor. I colored the floor with Pan Pastel Raw Umber tint or something another.
While that all was setting up, I moved on the elevator foundation. This and the others were just sponged with several different grays. and when set, The elevator was glued on.
I just couldn't wait any longer on the scale house, so I used some thicker clapboard material I had on hand. It didn't have the exact same spacing, but close enough. My pieces are the two horizontal pieces and the thickness is real obvious. Since I don't throw anything potential useful, I went into my scrap box and located the carrier sheet that had the louvers from the Dabler Mill. Perhaps some o the thinnest wood material I have seen. I was just bout perfect to build up Campbell's 1/16" material. I really needed to add additional bracing on these two wall sections and it wouldn't be possible without the filler material.
Tomorrow, this should have set up so that I can color these end walls and move forward.
Bob
Looking good, you are making great progress.
So my haste came back to bite me. I totally forgot all about the scale house floor. and it's made up of 8 edged glued pieces. I also found that I was reading the plain illustrations wrong. I thought they were a typical "slice" but some are a walk through a wall and turn around view.
I wound up having to saw through my brace and then use a small chisel to remove bits that are in the way. Here is where I found out about my "vision position" of a plain illustration. I first removed the brace from the wrong end. And yes, I'll admit it, the red is not paint. Those mini chisels are sharp.
Once I got the four offending wall braces removed and floor braces added, I moved on to my missing window. As I stated previously, I had it. I added acetate, and then it was gone. I knew I didn't have any matching windows, so I went a different route. I decided to show it as being removed and the opening boarded up.
I know it's frustrating but you're doing a great job.
Before the scale house and exit shed can be installed, I need to build the floor. Here are the parts that I have to work with. First, one needs to trim the end boards to fit into the door openings. There is a piece of wood for a scale and some bits and wire for the receiving grate. Everything gets edged glued, so I decided to add some bottom bracing to aid in holding everything together.
I still need to weather this bit up before installing. Once it is installed, it'll be hard to see anyway. I could have just modeled the scale house with the doors closed and saved a ton of time. But where is the fun in that.
I did managed to get the sides glued together on the scale house and exit shed, so these should be ready tomorrow for flooring.
The scale was to have consisted of a rectangular base , glued under te floor and then cut wire grates added. There was no way that I was going to get those wires parallel, so plan B. Unfortunately, I did grab the camera, but what I did was to draw two parallel lines 1/16" apart. Then draw perpendicular lines according to where the grates would line up. Then put in a small dimple at the intersections and drill a hole at each slightly bigger than the wire.Then, I cut along the long lines and cut the grate jig to length I marked the common ends and glued each piece to the scale sides. When that set up, I added the grate wires and painted the whole thing black. All this for a feature that will be hard to see in the first place. I went ahead and blackened the interiors to minimize the bracing.
Once the floors have been added, it was a simple matter of gluing the scale house and exit she to the main elevator.
The same went for the office and a walkway that will eventually attach it to the scale house. One must do a bunch of cut and fitting as the walkway sides must be notched for the elevator foundation which is taller than the office foundation. In the process I lost the walkway overhang of the siding. But this can be over come.
While all this glue was drying, I moved on to the hinged doors. As typical with most Campbell kits, they provide a heavy paper overlay for the door trim. These could work if they were attached in a closed position, but mine will be open. And there is material only for two sides, not four. I'll just make my own out of 1 by material. The other issue is that the door material is typical scribed siding. With siding on one side only. So, I used one side as a guide and drew scribed marks on the plain side. After coloring, they are hard to tell apart.
Most of the roofing is metal roofing. Oh joy.
Bob your doing a fine job. Just keep the patience going it will all work out!
Jerry
Very nice looking Bob.
Hey Bob:
Looks just excellent so far. Can't wait to see this one done.
Karl
I decided to go ahead and use the provided cardboard roof cards. Although, they seem a bit thin. Si, first, I need to provide a brace along the long axis for support. I needed to mark the center line to keep my bracing away from other bracing.
The swinging doors were a pain, but I think well worth the effort. Instructions have one just cut out he paper "bracing: and use it.
Some areas of the roof need to have either a ridge beam or some bracing on the wall for support.
The office chimney is old school. Two pieces that have to be cut in half and then glued together. This task was made a lot easier with a micro saw.
Then came cutting all the corrugated roofing. They sure eat up blades in a Chopper. Then added transfer tape to the roof panels. This is the first time I've tried this with metal roofing, so we'll see how it goes. Then managed to cut my finished doors in half.
Got to open the D bag which has all the materiel for the wood road surface and handrails. There are 3 roof hatches that one is to just glue on top the metal. Not so sure about that. I'll admit that I really like Campbell's lamp shades.
I got the roof cards up and drying. One does need to take the time to ensure that they are parallel to the ground.
With the glue drying, it was on to the vehicle ramps. More edge gluing and cutting joists on an angle. I marked the joist locations using the drawing, and after ensuring that I have the planking in the proper direction, I marked the joist locations at each end. I found that my roller ball pen bled just enough to be useful in gluing the joists down. They tell you how long to cut the joists and I found out that just get one end clear of the ground line and cut the angle. The other end will look long, but ti isn't.
What I did find out is that in the process of removing the protective sheet off the transfer tape, can delaminate the cardboard. I needed to start at several different corners and hit the offending areas with some white glue to it all back together. The transfer tape does hold the corrugated metal well, as long as it has a lot of material to grab. This is my first attempt in using Model Master spray paint, and so far I like how works on the metal.
Bob
Really coming together - very nice work.
Looks great so far Bob.
Bob:
Looks just great. Can't wait to see what you do with the Roofs.
Karl
Quote from: postalkarl on September 28, 2020, 02:14:54 PM
Bob:
Looks just great. Can't wait to see what you do with the Roofs.
Karl
Okay. I'll admit I liked the transfer tape method, even with it's shortcomings. The office was straight forward with cutting the supplied paper shingle materiel to length and then burnish each strip as it is applied. In my case, I used the back end of a pair of tweezers. It didn't take long and then it was hit some weathering powders to brown it up a bit more. I roofed this per the instructions. Not sure how one would add a final row of just the "shingles" in my case.
The elevator was also somewhat easy. I just wished that I had drawn some vertical lines to check on alignment. Nothing really special, just apply. I did jst use rust weathering powders going from dark to light and then a fianl wide brush blending at the end. I did hit it with dullcoat as a couple of areas were still shiny.
Now onto adding an absolute ton of rafter tails.
Hello Bob, that's a mighty fine prairie skyscraper you've got going there. It looks great. Jeff
Thanks all for the compliments.
With close to 100 rafter tails, I decided to make a cutting jig. The rafter angles varied from 40 degrees to 33 degrees. So, I split the difference and decided on making them 36 degrees. I removed the cutting pad on the Chopper, added four layers of painters tape and then, using the left side as my vertical axis found the 36 degree point and cut out the unneeded tape. I reused most of it for the length stop.
After awhile, I needed a break from the rafters and made the ramp handrails. Instead of using tape over the template, I placed the plans on the magnetic jig and used magnets to hold things down. One just has to remember that there are left and right handrails, so the order of fabrication changes.
The rafters do add to the overall look.
To move along, I needed to get everything on a base. I used some foamcore cut slightly bigger than the width and depth (10.5 x 17). Once the main structure was glued down, it was time to add the ramps and their supports. The entrance ramp (the long one) has two supports. All parts were precut, and the shorter one wound up being way to close to the taller one. It was a simple matter of sanding it down.
Ramps glued down, office added, glue drying.
Next up adding the stairs from the walkway. Stairs. Walkway. Um. Um. Dag nab it. I didn't add any openings in the handrails. Son of a . . . . . . .
Welp. I need to sleep on it and figure how to recover from this oversight.
Great modeling Bob.
Hey Bob:
Wowie!!!! Looks just gorgeous.
Karl
With the buildings mounted, it was time to make the stairs. This entails using the kits plastic stringers, cut each in half to get four pieces. The treads come precut. The stairs are 4 feet wide. And since I didn't leave openings in the handrails, it was a simple matter of gluing on an additional post and cutting away what isn't needed. Next up, the risers. I never could master the art of double sided taping of them. But I do have have two stair jigs. One from Rusty Stumps and another from Blair Line that was provided in a kit. Neither one had the needed width, so I modified the Blair Line one. Simple matter of measuring and cutting to form a new slot.
Then on to scenery. I don't like it. I'm not good at it. But, it is needed. Once the ground foam was added, I could finally add the stairs.
One last comment. I built and added the ramp handrail/guardrails per instructions. In hind sight, these should have been placed so the doors could clear them, bringing them closer to the ends of the ramps. I'll add the gravel road and paths once it gets set in the layout.
Very nice modeling Bob.
Beautiful work Bob.
Jerry
Bob,
Nice, very nicely done.
Tom ;D
Great looking model, Bob.
Jeff
Curt, Jerry, Tom, and Jeff than you for the kind words.