Building a wooden version of a Walthers Sand House and Pit

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

I survived the modeling wound . I actually managed to get an hour in while the grand kids were doing there own craft project.

Today I attached bracing to the walls, put together the 2 Tichy doors and then spray painted the doors and windows with a sand colored enamel.

Tomorrow the only thing I will probably get done is painting the inside walls black.

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Today I was able to paint the inside walls black and I put 2 coats of A&I on the windows, doors and outside walls. Tomorrow the grand kids won't be here so I hope to get the exterior walls painted and start making the sub roof.

I'm trying to decide whether to paint the walls a thinned white or buff color. Buff is probably more prototypical for the Pennsy but I like the look of the weathering that shows through the white. Decisions, decisions.

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

I got some time to model today since the boys left early with Mom. Today I applied a very thinned wash of Tamiya Buff on the clapboard and a very thin splotchy finish of Asphaltium (choco brown) on the trim pieces, windows and doors. I'm OK with the windows but I need to weather the doors for me to be happy with them. I also added the trim pieces to 2 of the walls. I loosely put the 4 walls together and I was happy with that test.

No modeling tomorrow, but on Sunday I plan on dry brushing some buff color on the walls (I meant to do that before installing windows and doors but forgot to), install glass, blinds and possibly glue the walls together.

My reasoning for the dirth of color on the walls is that I was reading Keystone Crossings (Pennsy Blog) last night about Pennsy standard colors and there was a paragraph where a gentleman that was around then said that a lot of their wooden structures in the 1950's looked very dirty and that they looked like they had never been painted. Although he didn't say, I imagine it was more so for maintenance type buildings.

[deemery]

if the buildings predated the Depression, it's hard to believe The Standard RR of the World didn't paint them back when labor was cheap and railroad money was plentiful.  I'm aways amazed at photos from that time about how it looks like someone went around and raked the gravel, as well as cutting the grass, planting flowers and keeping everything well painted.


dave

[ACL1504]

Curt,

The walls look good, nice and dirty as they should around steam locos.

Tom

[PRR Modeler]

Tom, thank you for your kind words.

Dave, thank you for your comments. I may have stated badly what I meant to say. The structures were painted but as revenue started drying up maintenance started to lapse. I agree about the upkeep in earlier years, the Pennsy J Towers were beautiful.

[deemery]

Tom, thank you for your kind words.

Dave, thank you for your comments. I may have stated badly what I meant to say. The structures were painted but as revenue started drying up maintenance started to lapse. I agree about the upkeep in earlier years, the Pennsy J Towers were beautiful.

That's my understanding, too!


dave

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Today I spent about 90 minutes trying to make the roof removable.  I never could get the roof to fit properly so it's now glued to the top of the building with several not so nice words . I decided to follow Karl's method of weathering aluminum roofing so I sprayed the sheets with the rattle can color. I did find a bottle of Polyscale zinc chromate in my misc. paint, which is good since the LHS doesn't have any.

Tomorrow I plan on attaching the wild west corrugated roofing. I will take a picture then.

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Today I got the corrugated roofing on the sand house. It took me about 90 minutes and afterwards my shoulders were aching so I stopped when it was done. Tomorrow I will finish weathering the roof and walls. After that I need to build a pipe tower from the sand house to the track sand dispenser. I have some Plastruct piping and bends from a previous project so I need to figure out what I have left.

[jimmillho]

That's a good looking roof Curt.

Jim

[ACL1504]

Curt,

Nice job on the roof panels. Looking forward to the weathering.

Tom

[ReadingBob]

Looking good Curt!   

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Thank you to Jim, Tom, and Bob for the kind words.

Today was a productive day. I spent about 4 hours working on the build. I started out weathering the roof the way Karl talked about in his build thread and then because of the building location (engine facility) I used a makeup brush and put some black weathering powder on it.

After that I built a support frame from the sand house to the track dispenser then weathered it with Hunterline Creosote. The 2 braces are attached to the roof with a small dot of white glue to hold them, but are removable. The bottom of frame (on the concrete pad) and the other ends of the braces (against the frame) I put drops of CA to make sure they would stay put.

I dug out my plastruct pieces and I had only 1- 90 degree bend some other misc. stuff and piping so that is why I went with a 90 degree instead of 2- 45 degree bends.

Tomorrow I want to start on the wood sand bin, but I will need to make it smaller to fit, and obviously when everything is complete I will fix the ground cover.



 

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Today I spent several hours putting together the wooden sand pit. I just made the basic 4 walls. The bottom is made from 1/16 sheet wood (NESL) and the timbers are 10" x 12". Everything was soaked with Hunterline Creosote before assembly.

The footprint is 2" x 5" and the timbers are laced together on the corners for strength and looks.

Tomorrow I want to do the outside bracing and finishing touches, but it might take 2 days.

[PRR Modeler]

Afternoon All,

Today I finished the project. I put the outside bracing on the sand pit and used Tichy  0.20 phosphor wire for the bracing wire.

If you look to the left of the completed project you can see my next project which I will probably start in a month or so.