3-ft gauge tram from the scrap box, with some wooden flooring installed at the foot of the ramp on the machine shop side.

Quote from: deemery on April 04, 2026, 02:17:22 PMBesides the lathe, you'll want a drill press, and maybe a grinder wheel.
dave

Alexander Scale Models has those ... a forge would be great, too.

Thanks, Curt.  I've got the walls of the Railway Repair Facility kit painted and assembled to the .030" styrene sub-floor; the windows are painted, too.  I did go with masking & spray painting the upper story and window frames; Tamiya "NATO Brown" (in aerosol can) is a very close match to the TrueScale "brushable Roof Brown" I had been using on the Machine Shop structure window frames and door, as well as so far on this building. 



The stages of assembly were to first to assemble two pairs of end and side walls upright on on a sheet of glass, then to assemble the pairs into a rectangle, then to cement the rectangle to the base, which was primed (with an unpainted strip of bare styrene around the perimeter for cementing).

Here's a shot of the project structure in its current state and in context with the blast furnace complex:



I getting close to running out of "next steps" for a while, I think.  I'm going to add some random plank flooring in the "new wing" in the area around the end of the ramp down from the "old machine shop," and insert (without cementing) the window frames in the openings.  The corrugated metal roof halves are primed and ready for steel color and weathering, so they'll get made into a removable one-piece.  All that can be done in time for an up-coming layout open house for the local NMRA division later this month, and that's probably where I'll let things lie for a while.



I'd like to get the office space in the right-front corner of "old" building partitioned off by then, as well, but a major ballasting project in the narrow gauge's Richmond Furnace yard (off scene, lower left of the middle picture) is going to take priority of time.  Beyond that, plans are "fuzzy."  I think this is going to be an electrified machine shop, which may be powered by a dynamo in the "new" wing using steam piped from the boiler house (in the shadows to the right of the water tower).  Alexander Scale Models' website has inexpensive, one-piece machine tool castings for a small shop like this one, and they'll fit neatly in the rear of the "old" building.  A large, belt-driven engine lathe (FOScale) might possibly be purchased "second-hand" by the furnace company and installed with a dedicated electric motor to drive its belt and pulleys near the foot of ramp in the "new" wing.  That part of the finished structure will definitely have a 3' gauge tram entering from the shadows between those two brick structures to the right (which is "back stage" out of sight from the aisle) and probably/possibly a traveling crane cobbled together from the outdoor A-frame gantry crane provided in the kit and various styrene structural shapes.

Really, really nice job!

Got diverted for a while running trains ...

I've made a start on the exterior and interior walls of the railway repair facility/shop extension wing by drybrushing "old concrete" over the primed and dullcoated walls.  When Floquil became a 'dot.gone' I took a sample of Polly-S "Old Concrete" to Home Despot and bought a sample size jar of Glidden custom blended interior latex paint, which is what I used here.





I'm continuing to use TrueScale "brushable roof brown" for the window frames and what I'm assuming to be a structural steel upper story.  I'm thinking of taping off and spray painting the interior upper story walls, as the results with the brush painting so far are a bit uneven (which can be dealt with by weathering on the exterior, but not so much on the inside).

There's some warping of the long walls on this kit, too, which I'll fix by cementing to a base of .030" sheet styrene when the time comes.

Checking in after a while away; the barn looks really great!

Got the front porch done.  Fabricated the sidewalk, walls & deck from .030" styrene sheet and built up stairs with .060" square styrene rod.  Railing from a Central Valley stairs & railing set. 



I put it back on the layout to clear work bench space for working on the RR Repair Facility wing, and it looks forlorn tucked away in that corner ... oh, well.

Quote from: deemery on March 14, 2026, 08:36:00 AMThe interior trim looks good, but I'm not sure about the "passive air conditioning" on the left side.

Chuckle!  The rest of the windows will come in time; Micro Crystal Clear panes.  In the description of framing, I didn't mention that I removed some of the mullions from the transom and windows in the door to give a bit more of a N. American look.

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Dave, I was able to correct the warp by gentle flexing.  I believe the laminated inner brick sheet was causing the issue.

Thanks.  Had occasion to spend most of the day in the layout room today ... so was able to get the brick work done on all three exterior walls, using water-soluable artists acrylics. 



Start w/ base coat of dry brushed Barn Red, two passes to get good coverage of the gray primer (mortar).  Then Apple Cider & Crimson dabbed on individual, or small patches of 3-5, bricks.  I use the same fine details brush for both colors, go back and forth between the Apple Cider & Crimson, & don't wait for everything to dry after the dry brushing or when changing changing colors.  It goes pretty fast - the whole job took about 1-1/2 hours.



I had a sign for that big blank space to show you, but I tore it while cutting it from the printer paper, so it'll have wait for a future post.

With time to burn, I looked thru my stockpile of scale lumber & discovered some 1x4's!  So ... I'm gonna frame windows & doors with that & 1x2's razor-trimmed from them here'n'there.  Framed the windows & door on the front wall with them today, and I think you'll agree it's a big improvement on the 2x4 result from the last update.



Couldn't resist a bit of whimsy in that third pic. 

Well, I finished the floor in the Machine Shop wing.



Jerry, I'm going to leave the floor color as is, with some boards showing more grime than others, except in the office (upper, right), where I'm thinking about a painted or stained planking where it's uniform 2x6's.

I experimented with framing the interior side of those flat window castings with 2x4's ... prototypically the framing should be only 1" thick, but I'm not displeased with the outcome.  I lightly sanded the pre-painted wood after framing the window in place to give it some age.



Next step:  painting the brick exterior before re-assembling the walls.  Note that the warping issue is resolved ... I was able to eliminate it by gentle flexing.  Whoopeee!

Thanks, so much, for all your encouraging words.  Here's progress so far.

I find I can get ~ 3 sq in's of flooring fitted before the Aleene's loses its adhesion, and that's also about as much as my hand-eye coordination with tweezers can stand before I must run a train or two to relax 🤪. 

But I'm liking the results ... the randomness isn't as obvious as I thought it would be, but there are equal numbers of 2x10 & 2x8, with some 2x6 (and a few 2x4 fillers) in there.  I used 2x12 along the edges and here and there among the others.

This is the result of 4 x 1-hr sessions.  I think this might be pushing the envelope as far as "kit-bashing" goes.

Quote from: deemery on March 06, 2026, 07:16:18 PMCould you use a piece of brass angle epoxied to the top of the warped piece to keep it straight?

Hmmm

Thanks, guys.  Yannis, you are correct ... my paternal grand father came from Mytilene, by way of an uncle's farm on Sicily, ca. 1914.  He changed his name to Charles Keller and shortened his middle name to Vagel, which he passed to his first son, born in America.  I'm Vagel, Jr.

Today I finally got back to work on the project and decided to start the floor in the Machine Shop building.  I stained some scale lumber the other day, using the ol' tried and true diluted dirty paint thinner.  I trimmed some 2x6, 2x8 & 2x10's to lengths of 8 and 4 feet with a NWSL Chopper.  Excuse the low res due to a screw-up in image editing.



I started with the office space, using 2x6's for uniformity.  They're glued to the styrene sub-floor with a thin coat of Aleene's Tacky Glue; this pic shows the results as far as I got before the glue was too dry to hold anything down.  The rest of the space ... storage room and shop floor ... will be random boards.



I came back from the privvy to find my HO scale alter ego arranging furniture ... I hope he's not being premature!

The walls are just tacked in place with a couple dabs of Aleene's.  Note the warpage in the long wall ... maybe use some wire pins between the base of the wall and the .125x.250 foundation?  The front and rear walls are, fortunately, not warped, "so I got that goin' for me."

I sure hope I don't have to plus-up the dosage of my BP meds, Mike!

Wow!  Just, Wow!