Some time ago I was looking though my computer files when I ran across Brian Nolan's "Ullins Machine Shop." After looking over the photos I thought it would make a nice project. Now I know Deemery (Dave) is also in the middle of his Machine Shop build but his is a kit while mine will be scratch built.
Some personal history:
Quite a few years ago Rick started a thread in the RR-line Forum building a Shop patterned after the one built by Steve Pettit. It started out as a thread that Rick was building but as time went on more and more people jumped in; when the thread was finished it was about 120 pages long.
Being inspired by the thread I decided to have a go at scratch building my first Shop. Needless to say that was a learning build of what to do but more importantly what NOT to do. About the same time Karl Allison was kind enough to give me the link to his build on the SW Forum. I spent hours studying his great work and how he did things realizing I was going about things backwards but I did finish the Shop. Fast forward I made a second Shop and this time I used what I had learned previously so it turned out pretty good. Both Shops had rail coming into it for Loco repair.
Now I thought it would be a fun build to do just a Machine Shop, using Brian's Shop as inspiration, and see what I could come up with. After taking some measurements of my second Shop I sat down and started figuring what exactly I wanted this one to look like and how to go about the construction.
Welcome to Hank's Machine Shop
With this build I'm going to try and give more detail on various techniques I use. First thing was to come up with a size; nothing terribly large but a manageable size to be filled with machines and details. Also I decided to have the horizontal steam engine, boiler, and water tank on the side of the Shop this time around. Any rail will be behind the Shop this time more for deliveries more than anything else.
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To get started I taped a piece of 1/4 inch graph paper to my glass working plate with a sheet of wax paper over top so the glue won't stick to the paper. Like making any building in real life, I started with the bottom and will work my way up. The floor measures 36 x 20 scale feet. The base frame is made up from 8x8's grained where it'll be visible only.
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The floor joists are made from 6x6's grained and colored with chalks, clear alcohol then given a coat of A&I; again only what will be visible. With the floor having to support quite a bit of weight from the various machines I wanted to use a beefier size lumber.
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The floorboards are made from 4x10's grained, colored with chalks and clear alcohol then given a liberal coat of A&I to bring out the grain. Each row was constructed using either 2 or 3 pieces of flooring per row to look more realistic. Each joint received some extra graining on the ends with my plumbers wire brush and yes I did add nail holes throughout. Also I used a darker color for the floor to add some "age" to it.
My goal is to have a Shop that looks used over time but well taken care of. Too many times I've seen shops that look like they're "on their last legs", which is what the builder intended, but I'm sure there were many throughout this Country that were used but well taken care of.
The next task is to elevate the floor to the point where my Ford TT truck can back up to a dock in the front and be even with the truck bed for some modeling variety and for a different look from what I've modeled previously. Come along and join the fun.
Looks great so far Larry. I'll definitely be following.
Larry, this will be another build to follow along and enjoy.
The base and floor are looking good.
Are you planning belt drive? Need pulleys?
dave
Curt and Rick thank you both and for following along.
Dave yes I'll be doing a primary & secondary belt drive. Not sure about
the pulleys yet; however I do have some I have recently acquired but I'll let
you know when I get to that point.
I'm looking forward to what you build. Brian was a good friend. I'm sure he is smiling down.
I'm working on my 1:16 machine shop. Stay tuned.
Mj
Your off to a great start Larry!
Larry it will be fun to watch you go full steam ahead with this build!!
Your off to a good start.
Jerry
Good for you Larry. This type of machine shop is perfect. I like your concept.
If you need any pictures of Brian's Machine Shop that were in Mario Rapinett's
Worldwide Modeling folders, I have many. He once told me to share anything I have with others.
Good luck with this build, I will be following along.
Rich
Mj it'll be nice having you tag along; of course no pressure here I just hope I can
do Brian's memory justice. Looking forward to your 1:16 build btw.
Philip thank you; great to have you along for the ride.
Jerry thank you so much and for joining in.
Rich thanks and for tagging along. I have a little over 30 photos of Brain's build; probably the same ones.
I'll be using his Shop as inspiration while adding my own twist to things just to keep it interesting.
Howdy Larry,
Hank's looks like a fun build. Great start on the wall. Looking forward to all those belts.
Have fun,
mike
Mike thanks so much and yes this is going to be a fun one.
Time for a small update:
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Now it's time to elevate the Shop floor. After thinking about different ways to go about the elevation I decided to take advantage of the dementional lumber; that way I would know everything would be the exact same height. With that in mind, and after doing some careful measuring, 2 pieces of scale 12x12 inch lumber would fit the bill. These were cut 2.5 ft in length then 2 stack one on top of the other. All the wood was grained, colored with chalk & clear alcohol along with a liberal coat of A&I. Anything that wouldn't be visible was left as raw wood.
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Here's what it looked like when completed. I also added a few pieces of 1x6's all around the base frame for a little added detail.
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And a "proof of concept" photo. The back of the truck is a little shy of being perfectly level with the dock but that will be fixed when the Shop is glued to the base and scenery material is added.
Next will be to start building the back and 2 side walls. These will be completed both on the interior and exterior as far as finishes are concerned. Thanks for stopping by for a look-see and for all your great comments and/or suggestions.
Great progress Larry. Do I understand that the platform will be mounted flush on your foam with the legs sunk in?
Nice flooring Larry.
Keep up the great work Brian is looking over your shoulder!!
Jerry
Curt thank you. No the base will be mounted on the foam as you see it in the photo. The entire front (about 5 boards back) will be a dock area so trucks can back up to it and unload.
Jerry thank you so much. I thought I could feel a warm breeze on the back of my neck. Lol. If I even come close to Brian's amazing work I'll be a happy boy.
Here we go again ;D ;D ;D......another fabulous build by Larry C* ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D I can't wait to see it come to life.....thanx for the inspiration :) :) ;D ;) ............
KYLE CREEL
G&D Ry Co.
So far so good.
Larry,
Looking back on p.1, you mentioned that the machine shop would be 36' x 20'. OMG that's a
small shop in HO scale! I don't think it would be big enough for me to fit in all of the
machines, with my fat fingers! LOL Keep on with the grind.. ;D
Rich
Kyle thank you so much for stopping by and you're welcome.
Rick thank you.
Rich you're correct the Shop is 36' x 20' BUT the steam engine, boiler, and water tank will be on the side of the building. There will be 4 or 5 machines at the most in the Shop. Also no rail inside so that space isn't required for the interior. I figure the area for the steam engine, etc will add another 10 - 12 ft to the overall length; hope I explained it so it makes sense.
Quote from: Larry C on October 15, 2025, 06:00:58 PMMy goal is to have a Shop that looks used over time but well taken care of. Too many times I've seen shops that look like they're "on their last legs", which is what the builder intended, but I'm sure there were many throughout this Country that were used but well taken care of.
I wholeheartedly endorse that point of view. I think that there are way too many in model building that seem to try and portray the worst of times, shameless copying a few 'masters' that model that way quite effectively but the tendency is toward conformity and lightly managed originality.
Most good machinists are particular about the cleanliness of their work places as medics...their livings depend on it.
Good start, LarryC
KS
Karl thank you and your thoughts make a lot of sense. There's a machine shop about five minutes from my house that's been there ever since I can remember; matter of fact my neighbor was a machinist there for years. The outside and the grounds are kept up very nicely so one can only assume the interior looks just as good.
Larry,
That base won't sag, nice work. I've struggled with the "road hard and put up wet" look, and like your approach, worn, but clean and working.
Have fun,
mike
Mike thank you so much. I hear you on that one. The "rundown look" does have its place but I've seen too many modelers use that same approach on all their builds. If you're going that route you better do it very well and few do; IMO.
Larry, your pulleys are in the mail....
dave
Thanks Dave; I let you know when they arrive.
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When I started this thread I mentioned I wanted to show you how I do certain tasks when modeling so hopefully I don't bore you. To start with I use 2 surfaces when building; this one is plexiglass I use for graining and color the wood while the second is glass I attach the graph paper to and build on.
After deciding on a color to use, I then take the Rembrandt chalk and use the same number of scrapes every couple of inches using a single edged blade. Darker colors I use less scrapes and lighter more depending on the look I want to achieve. After that I take a brush and clear alcohol and work the color into the wood and depending on the look I want to achieve I may or may not add a coat of A&I. This will be the siding and I used 2x10's as 1x10's tend to have "bleed through" and I want to use different colors on each side.
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The tools I use are very basic. To cut thicker wood I have a brass mitre box and razor saw with a piece of sandpaper beside it to clean up the lumber after the cut. To cut thinner wood, like boards for siding, I use a block of wood. This one has a triple thick masking tape on the left to butt the wood up against and the single layer of tape on the right is the length I want each board to be. If you look closely you'll see it's had a lot of use.
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So now it's time to build my first wall from 6x6's. All the measurements are taken directly from the graph paper. Once the wood is cut it may have the end sanded some to get the exact fit. The top and bottom boards are glued with just a touch on both ends to stick to a piece of waxed paper to hold it place. The rest of the wall is built off that. Once finished and dry I use a thin piece of metal to carefully lift the wall off the paper.
Continuing on:
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The inside of the side walls are built. If you notice the one on the left has the siding extended above the top of the frame. This is done intentionally and gets trimmed off and all four sides get a light sanding so everything is flush and square. One of the side walls actually was built twice. The first time I thought I might have more of a finished wall inside so I built it with interior boards going horizontally. NOPE! Did not like the look at all. To me a Machine Shop should have the beams showing so I removed the boards and rebuilt that one side.
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Obviously this is the back wall and I built it with two window holes to accept windows but still have plenty of wall space. You'll also notice the side walls are windowless for the same reason.
Next the exteriors on the walls will be finished and the windows installed. Going to use two laser cut windows that Jerry gave me, one of which I'll have to assemble, because they look very promising and the look should be great. Thanks for stopping by and as always I appreciate all your comments and/or suggestions.
Some thoughts about machine tool layout in the shop:
I scanned the floor, but you could just draw it onto a piece of paper. I made cut-outs for the footprints for the candidate machines. I used these to plan the tool layout, the shaft (drive shaft and aux shaft) locations, where to put the various pulleys on the shafts, shifter and shifter handles, etc. I spent a fair amount of time on tool and shaft layout design. In my case, the walls were framed but there was no siding, and the roof was open, which made it MUCH EASIER to do all the belts and connections, etc.
You should consider if you can build your model by attaching the two ends and the ceiling framing, installing the tools, then adding the 2 side walls after the machines are installed.
For each machine, you need to figure out the power run. That includes (a) how to turn the machine on and off, (b) the location of the drive pulley/step pulley from the shaft to the tool, (c) if you model it, the belt shifters. In my case, each machine has its own auxiliary shaft. The drive shaft/aux shaft pair got either 2 pulleys each, or a wide pulley on one side and a pair of narrower pulleys on the other side. For the pair(s) in the prototype, one pulley is actually coupled to the shaft, and the other pulley spins free. When the belt is on the free-spinning pulleys, the tool shaft/tool is not powered. Then a belt shifter moves the belt between the two drive pulleys (or the drive pulley and wide pulley), or between the two idler pulleys (or idler pulley and wide pulley.) The belt shifter moves the belt from one set of pulleys to the other.
Then you connect the shaft down to the tool. If the tool has a cone pulley, you need a cone pulley on the shaft, and of course those are reversed. (small end on the tool lines up with large end on the shaft.) In theory, those 2 sets of cone pulleys have to be exactly the same diameter. (In practice, that's kinda hard to do when you're sourcing machine tool models from different sources.)
Now on my shop, sometimes the driven/idler pair and the cone pulley were close together. But sometimes that wasn't convenient, so other times the driven/idler pair are on one end of the aux shaft, and the cone pulley is at the other end. Needless to say, using an aux shaft means you need a pair of shaft hangers for that, as well as the shaft hangers for the main shaft.
Some shops had a way to disconnect the steam engine from the drive shaft. (Not a problem if you're using an electric motor.) I did not model that.
If you're going to model machinists, think about the figures and how they're positioned to the tool and maybe to the belt shifter handle if you're modeling that.
Now attaching the belts, after you've glued the tools into position, turned out to be more annoying than I thought it would be. I used leather-colored construction paper. What worked for me was to cut the paper over-length, and add a bend (around a drill bit or rod) to make a U shaped belt. I marked up and rough-cut the belt length slightly long, and glued it into position on the shaft pulley. Then I put Deluxe Materials Tacky Glue, which is thinner than the Aileens product. If you use Aileens, thin it a bit so it's easier to apply to the tool pulley. Test fit, trim and then glue the belt to the back side of the tool pulley, and do the same for the front side, wrapping that piece around the bottom of the pulley. I left a gap in the back bottom of the tool pulley where it's least visible. I used decal scissors (or use embroidery scissors to cut the paper, you need something thin that cuts precisely. Besides the embroidery scissors, I used tweezers and a needle in a dowel to position the belts. It might be worth creating a testbed to practice attaching belts to pulleys.
The Iron Jonsey videos are the best set of 'what's going on here?' videos, particularly this one that shows the belts and belt shifting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=730XhT4B0H0
I hope these notes help!
dave
Looking great! I would like to say the piers longivity may be short ;)
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Philip
Dave thank you so much for the notes and the link. I've read them over bit & will read a few more times. I usually use 2 different sets of tweezers and a skewer stick to help position/hold the belts. Being O scale I use Tyvek, USPS envelope, cut to size then painted with Raw Sienna craft paint. I do have belt shifters that I'm going to attempt to include in the build. For me doing a belt line I take my time and plan things out beforehand. Of course I'm a long ways from that as I still need to order a few machines yet.
Philip thank you and great cartoon.
Sorry man couldn't resist. ;)
Philip
Larry the walls are looking good and so is the color.
Jerry
Nice job on the walls and also the coloring.
Philip I thought the cartoon was funny.
Jerry and Curt thank you both so much.
Larry, the walls look good.
Howdy Larry,
The walls look very good. Thanks for the chronicle of your building process. I garnered a few ideas from it.
Have fun,
mike
Rick thank you.
Mike thanks and that was my intention to maybe help or give someone else modeling ideas.
Larry,
Just came across this thread. Not sure how I missed it but I'm here now.
I love the interior walls, very well done and the old brown color seems to fit an older building's interior.
Looking forward to it coming together. Oh yea, I forgot, great job on the decking as well.
Tom
Quote from: Larry C on October 20, 2025, 11:48:48 AMRick thank you.
Mike thanks and that was my intention to maybe help or give someone else modeling ideas.
Doing a detailed machine shop is quite an undertaking! The more experience we can share about how to do it (or not do it... ;D ), the better others will be prepared to decide if they want to take on this challenge. And of course, lessons learned on things like 'attaching belts to pulleys' could well be used for other modeling problems.
dave
Tom thank you and glad to have you along for the adventure.
Dave I couldn't agree with you more, building a Machine Shop is a challenge but hey that's half the fun.
Almost as challenging as building a Saw Mill.
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After figuring out most of the details and making templates for the machines I wanted to include I realized things were going to be a lot tighter than I would like. The solution was to add another 8 ft. to the length of the Shop but still leave the steam engine, boiler, and water tank on the side of the building. In order to keep the windows centered on the back wall I added 4 ft to each end instead all 8 ft. at one end.
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So now here's what the inside of the Shop looks like after the addition. I realized if I was going to make the Shop interior bigger now was the time to do it. There is a line where the flooring butts up against to original one but between all the details, machines, etc. the eye will be too busy to be looking at the flooring; at least that's my hope. Also the ladder, if you notice is taller than the left side wall. This is so it goes into the rafters when I get to that point. I grabbed my SW template from the Wood Cutters Shack and made it twice as long as the template called for.
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This is the outside of the back wall and I decided to go with a green color for the exterior with a coat of A&I added to bring out the grain. The 2 widows are laser cut that Jerry gave me and they finished off really nicely and painted a coffee color from a rattle can. I like the effect of the chalks making the outside look worn but still in good shape.
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I decided to go with a different look for the outside of the end walls so I used some large cut stone sheets from Cooch Enterprises then added some 4x10 boards on each end to cover up the edges of the stones. The gable ends will be green boards to give some contrast.
This is where I'm at for the moment so now it'll be details time and populate the walls before the they are glued to the floor; a process that's definitely going to take quite a bit of time so I get things just the way I want them before any machines are in place. Thanks for stopping by and for leaving all your great comments and also for your suggestions which are helping a lot.
Larry nice coloring on the outside walls.
I see you didn't have a problem with the windows they came out nice!
I like the stonewall good contrast to the rest of the building.
Jerry
Howdy Larry,
The shop is looking great. I like the colors inside and out. The wall studs look perfect. It's a good idea to add details to the walls before they are assembled, IMHO.
Have fun,
mike
Outstanding Larry.
Jerry thank you. The windows were easy to make and I love the look. I thought the stone walls would be nice for something different for a change.
Mike thanks. The first machine shop I made I added the wall stuff after they were glued in place. That was one of those things NOT to do and it's sooo much easier to do the walls first and IMHO they look better when finished.
Curt thank you so much.
Larry, the inside and outside of the walls look good.
Congratulations on your latest order from SW.
Good that you found out you needed more room before you got too far.
Rick thank you so much. I'm looking forward to the new lathe I only wished he had different machines available. When I realized things would be too tight I knew I had to make a decision now on expanding the shop.
Larry,
A bigger shop is great, but where's the toilet? ;)
Do they really have to go outside?? :o
Rich
Looking great Larry!
Rich thanks. Haven't gotten that far yet but I hear Hank is "old school" so I'm sure an "outhouse" will show up at some point.
Philip thanks; taking my time so I get it right.
Very nice Larry, I will be following along.
Gary thank you and thanks for stopping by; nice to have you following along.
Did you get the box of pulley parts?
dave
Yes I did. Thanks.