Ok, I guess this is my contribution to the 2021 build challenge. I have never done a build thread, so this is my first attempt to chronicle the building of a craftsman kit. There will be some time from post to post, since my modeling is mostly done on weekends (with my full-time job interfering).
I am building a freelanced railroad set somewhere in 1910-1930s, in an approximately 5x9 corner in one of the spare bedrooms used otherwise as an office. I will go into a bit more detail about my layout in a later post. In essence, it is an oval (so I can watch trains running) with a branch that leads to a mine.
I decided that my pike needed a depot, and I have an FSM Brownsville Depot in my stash, so that is what I chose to do as my next project. Since I enjoy lighting my buildings, I have to include at least a partial interior. I won't go through the painting, construction of the outside building walls, etc., since that is covered in some other build threads, but provide a few details on how I built the interior.
First, I decided on how to lay out the first floor, with an office in the center, and waiting rooms to either side.
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The larger waiting room to the left will be L-shaped, due to the newsstand (see later). The rear won't be visible, and it is sort of a "hallway". The floor was fabricated from stain scribed basswood, the walls from micro plywood. The notches in the floor are to accommodate the wall bracing (in the corners) and the doors along the walls. The floor will rest on the bracing along the bottom of the walls.
Team Track Models https://www.teamtrackmodels.com/ (https://www.teamtrackmodels.com/) has a cardboard depot kit with interior wall details, and I cannibalized those walls to represent the interior walls of my depot.
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I decided to have a ticket window for each of the waiting rooms, and "installed" doors from each room to the hallway in the rear that won't be visible. The notches in the corners are to accommodate the wall bracing, the notches along the sides are for the doors. Here is another view with the front wall (the one that will face the platform) attached.
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And another shot showing the walls mocked up (not glued), with the first floor assembly inserted.
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And lastly for this installment, a shot showing all of the walls of the main building, the passenger platform, and the first floor assembly. I went for a very lightly weathered look, and probably will add a bit more once the walls are up.
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More later!
Swisstrain,
That is really going to be a great depot. I love the interior, it looks perfect for your build. Great build as well.
Tom ;D
Keeping a close eye on this one! Great kit and a great start!
Cool! Everyone likes seeing a FSM kit being built..
Great start to a really nice kit. Looking forward to your progress pics.
Awesome scratch build.
I will be following this one - you are off to a great start.
The interior looks great Swisstrain.
Cheers, Mark.
Neat. Great kit and wonderful idea to add something to the interior since you're going to light it up. 8)
Great start Swiss.....I'll be looking in. :)
Cardboard kit for interior? Brilliant. But then, I never knew that some "paper" kits had interiors.
Thanks for everyone's positive comments, sincerely appreciated. In particular since I have seen some of y'alls great modeling work. Yes, I live in Texas
Bob, while I have never succeeded in turning a cardboard kit into a convincing structure model, I have found cardboard kits to be an incredible source for interior details. It might seem that buying a kit just to use the interior might be a bit pricey, but the fact that they can be reprinted and reused multiple time makes it ultimately pretty economical. Also, typically, there are options with wall configurations, wall textures and doors that can be combined and rearranged in multiple ways so that no interior will look the same. And for an interior, it doesn't matter if seams are not completely hidden.
Besides Team Track Models (from whom I got - and cannibalized - the depot interior), Clever Models (http://clevermodels.squarespace.com/ (http://clevermodels.squarespace.com/)) has several models with at least partial interiors (Union Hotel, Muchie's Pawn Shop, etc). Scalescenes (https://scalescenes.com/ (https://scalescenes.com/)), in their Scratchbuilders Yard section, has a file called "interior Detail" for download and it is a complete steal for British Pound 2.50. It has doors, various wall and floor textures, as well as furniture. The download is scaled at 1:76 (OO Scale), but easily re-scaled for print. There may be others that I don't know about (please tell me).
I wish the "Roomettes" interiors could be bought as downloads, and without the pricey Woodland Scenics lighting, they have some great interior options.
I will try to post another update on the depot later.
Urs
Since later access will be difficult, I furnished and populated the first floor as a complete assembly. The next three pictures are from left to right, as viewed from the platform side of the building.
The benches in the waiting room are from Northeastern Scale Models (sold in two-foot sections, to be cut to length as desired). For inside, I am generally using figures that have little detail, since I don't think anyone will be able to recognize facial expression. I printed some more detail from the Depot Interior (clocks, timetables, etc.) to "decorate" the walls.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50899233352_3b3434f189_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kxMSLQ) (https://flic.kr/p/2kxMSLQ) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/150771392@N07/)
The desks in the office are also from the Depot Interior by Team Tracks. I scratchbuilt some ticket counters and a file cabinet and had the chairs leftover from another kit.
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The room to the left is partially taken up by the newsstand. I built a shelf and added some stacks representing stacks of magazines and papers and added an attendant. By the way, Mrs. McDonald is not happy that the 5:15pm local is delayed, and is making a complaint at the ticket booth. She will miss dinner at her sister's tonight. (I also notice that the agent's hair is way too yellow, will have to correct that).
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This is another shot with the front wall (temporarily, not glued). You will notice that I have added a vertical channel to the hallway for the cabling.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50899232842_7046bbcd39_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kxMSC3) (https://flic.kr/p/2kxMSC3) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/150771392@N07/)
Finally a look from the outside, to check if anything is actually visible. Apparently, I need the cleaning crew to come out and take care of the windows.
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Now on to working on the lighting.
Beautiful interior detailing.
What Curt said! Two thumbs up! ;D
Really love that you've furnished the inside. And so well.
Nice work.
Swisstrain,
Welcome to the forum and your detailing of the station interior is very well done.
Tommy
Beautifully done station interior.
Jeff
Ok, it has been a while. Just when I thought work was letting up a bit, and I could make some steady progress, I was thrown a curve ball, and I had less time available than I thought I would have to post a steady build thread. But nevertheless, I made some progress, just have not posted for a while. Still 2021 though and will count for 2021 build challenge. I am planning to document progress to date in a couple of posts over the next few days.
First off the first floor lighting. I added a ceiling, with a circuit for four lights. I installed a 12V "lighting bus" running parallel to my "track bus" around my whole layout, to which I plan to hook up all building lighting. When working with building lighting, I like creating circuits including 4 LED lights, since that lets me in most cases avoid resistors or current limiters (4 warm white LED's using approximately 3V each). The below pictures shows the floor/ceiling with the circuit installed and lit, and a side view of the lit waiting room (note building walls are not yet assembled).
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51523730107_dffd3ebacb_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2muYzUg)
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51525250814_3a67546be5_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv7nXm)
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The final two pictures for this post show the first floor after assembly of the walls with and without the inserted floor.
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Beautiful work on this kit so far. I really like it.
--Opa George
Hey Swisstrain:
I test built that for George when it came out. It's A beautiful station when done. Your interior looks just grea. Keep the pics coming.
Karl
Beautiful work, and I love the interior detail. It's great to see you making progress, again. Jobs sure can get in the way of modeling. We appreciate you sharing your build with us.
Quote from: postalkarl on September 27, 2021, 05:12:00 PM
Hey Swisstrain:
I test built that for George when it came out. It's A beautiful station when done. Your interior looks just grea. Keep the pics coming.
Karl
Swisstrain,
Special K is right, this is a cool station. Karl built a beautiful model from that kit. George & I even worked on making a quick adverstising test video to help sell the kit. Joe Fugate from Model Railroad Hobbyist E-zine still shows the footage here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHDm1zeMH4w I'll be following alone on this build as I know it will be awesome. Thanx Thom...
Thanks for all the positive comments, sincerely appreciated.
Yes, this is a beautiful kit. I bought it as soon as it came out, directly from George. Karl, I did see your build thread, and I am using some of the pictures that you posted as an additional reference. Thom, I appreciate the link to that Youtube video, I remember seeing that at some point in the past, but it has been a while.
On to lighting of the second floor. I decided on three lit rooms. A kitchen and a sitting room for the living quarters, plus I wanted a "dispatcher" (or just some sort of an operator) behind the bay window. I found this guy at Model Tech Studios, and he is just perfect.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51524545571_309567457c_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv3LiZ)
In order to create a lived in interior behind the bay window, I needed to slightly adjust the bay though and make it a real "box", since per the kit, it just sits above the platform roof (e.g. floor is slanted upwards 45 degrees). Here is the modified bay with my dispatcher. The visible "seam" visible from the outside where the additional triangle is attached to ensure that the bay has a level floor will later be hidden by the adjoining platform roof (the roof will need to be modified too and installed as two separate pieces instead of a continuous one).
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(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51525455740_68fd82efa1_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv8qSy)
For the other two rooms, I built some "shadow boxes", one with a simple kitchen interior, plus one that depicts a sitting room. I like to make those rather sparsely furnished, just enough to create the illusion of an interior when looking through the window. The furniture, the stove in the kitchen and the fire place are are 3D prints from shapeways. I will later complete the shadow boxes with a ceiling, and add the lights as well as a figure in each.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51524545361_0d2017e8ea_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv3Lfn)
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The last picture shows the second floor arrangement.
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The interior you are adding is looking better and better as your build goes along.
Lighting it up will make it special too.
Tommy
Swisstrain,
Love the interiors, excellent.
Tom ;D
The build is coming along nicely, I really liked this kit from the day I saw it but always thought it would be too big for my layout. I like your idea with the liting.
Hey:
The interior looks just great.
Karl
Thanks for all the positive comments and encouragement so far. Lynn, the kit is too big for my layout too, but my layout is really more of an excuse to build structures. While admittedly, that makes the "layout" somewhat whimsical and makes it appear as bit of a caricature, I actually enjoy that aspect of it.
In the meantime, I made some good progress to near completion!
On to the freight shed. I am a bit pressed for space, and I therefore decided to shorten both the freight house as well as the passenger shed by approximately one inch each. I felt that was the maximum I could reduce in size without disturbing the overall handsome proportions of the depot complex. Also since there is a diverging spur, I needed to adjust the freight platform to the curve. The next couple of pictures show how that was accomplished.
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(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51523731017_c8cf4a847f_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2muYAaX) (https://flic.kr/p/2muYAaX)
The remaining couple of pictures show some of the detailing of the freight house.
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(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51524773888_2b61cc5827_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv4Wbu) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv4Wbu)
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51524773753_4ab61cd2d3_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv4W9a) (https://flic.kr/p/2mv4W9a)
I will post an update on the lighting and final assembly in the next couple of days, when I have some time.
It all looks great
Looking just beautiful.
Wonderful details..... 8)
Simply marvelous! You've added so much to an already terrific kit. :)
Well, for this to be your first build thread you've done a fantastic job, swisstrain. Those interiors are dynamite.
I hope you were able to fit it just right on your layout and lots of trains are stopping at this depot to drop off and pick up plenty of little people.
Once again, fantastic job.
Jaime
Very nicely done!
hey Jaime;
Just watched the video. It was really great. thanks for sharing it with us.
Karl