FOS Engine House at Caldwell Junction - Build

[ReadingBob]

Okay, back at it.  I finished this one up today.  It took me a longer than I had anticipated.  Partly because I got side tracked with the contest build and some because of various other things like not feeling well at times, etc.  Anyway, here's the final few posts.   

Attachment 1: To construct the coal bin I used my chopper to cut the boards to length.  I really shouldn't have bothered though, it looks a little better when the ends are uneven so I went back later on and trimmed a few of them to various lengths.

Attachment 2: The coal bin walls are constructed right on the template.  There's a back wall and two side walls to build.

Attachment 3: After the walls were constructed I glued them together and used a tiny machinist square to keep them square to one another.

Attachment 4: The final touch was to add some rusted corrugated roof panels over the roof (which was made out of strip wood.

Attachment 5:  There are two stacks that go on each end of the peak of the engine house roof.  To mount this I first filed a flat spot in the peak where I wanted the stack to go.

Attachment 6:  Next I used a small drill to drill a hole in the flat spot to glue the pin on the stack in.  Later on I glued the stacks in place an then applied some pitch around the base.

More in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

Attachment 1:  The smoke stack that goes over the boiler room section of the engine house is constructed from a piece of a drinking straw (included in the kit), a few narrow strips of masking tape, some wire and a round 'cap'.  The hardest part was getting the cap on reasonably level.  It took a few tries until I was happy with it.

Attachment 2: I wanted to light the engine house for John.  I'm using LED's which means it's important to keep track of which side is positive and which is negative.  To help me remember I color one side of the positive wire coming out of the LED (or current limiter with a red sharpie.

Attachment 3: I had a couple of teeny, tiny LED's prewired in my drawer.  I'll use these for the exterior lights over the two doors.  Soldering leads to these is a real challenge and not for the faint of heart.   

Attachment 4: I start by drilling two very small holes in the plastic lampshades.  These are spaced roughly the same distance apart as the two leads on the LED's.  I want them to come out as close as possible to the part of the lampshade that the conduit will be glued in.

Attachment 5:  I run the wires from the LED's through the two holes I drilled and then pull them through until the LED is almost in the lampshade.  A tiny drop of ACC is applied to the back of the LED and then I pull the rest of the leads through and make sure the LED is glued as close to the center and square as possible.

Attachment 6:  Oop... basically the same picture as before.  Sorry about that.   

[ReadingBob]

Attachment 1:  I take the two wires (these are very, very fine wires) and use ACC to glue them, a little bit at a time, to the brass wire that makes up the conduit.  Once they're glued in place I paint the conduit (and the wires) flat black and go back and touch up the lampshade where the wires come through (and the wires) with dark green.  I can barely tell they're there.  I know Slim offers a hollow tube like material that the wire can be run through but I've been happy with the method.

Attachment 2:  Here's a finished exterior light.  I test them to make sure they still work after handling the LED's so much during this process.

Attachment 3: I cut two pieces of a stiff material (sorry, I forget what it's called, I picked it up an art supply store) to use as interior ceiling to mount some 5mm LED's and current limiters to.  I marked where I wanted the LED's to go and, as you might be able to see, which side is positive and which is negative.  I drilled holes mounted the LED's and then soldered wires to them.  The current limiter (in the lower right corner) takes 3 volts and is the first thing the positive wire coming into the circuit attaches to.  From there the negative lead of the current limiter jumped to the positive lead of the nearest LED'.  Then it's negative to positive again to continue the circuit until all three LED's are wired.  The negative lead from the last LED exist the structure and completes the circuit.

Attachment 4:  With three LED's @ 3v each and one current limiter at 3v the circuit takes just a wee bit more than 9v battery has to offer.  To test it I just touched the wires to the plug of the wall wart that came with my Digitrax Zephyr DCC system.  The inside of the plug is positive and the outside is negative.  Everything worked on the first try.  Woo-hoo!  I really need to take an old wall wart (I have tons of 'em), cut of the plug and attach some alligator clips to wire to have a test tool handy at the work bench.

Attachment 5: The second circuit in the structure consisted of one interior LED and the two exterior LED's.  Those were wired, with a current limiter, the same way I showed previously. 

Attachment 6: Here's what the wiring looks like before the roof were attached.  The main roof is removable but I sparingly glued the lower roof in place since it would contain the large smoke stack and support wires.

Finals photo's in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

Here it is finished.     I pushed the two structures together for the photo's but they're not really attached.  John only has a place for the engine house itself.  I build the rest, well, because it was there.   

Hopefully John will add a few shots of the engine house in it's final home once he gets it in place on his layout.  They'll probably look better than my photo's of it sitting on the kitchen counter.   

Thanks for following along!  This was a fun kit to build and appreciate John giving me the opportunity to build it for him.   

[Zephyrus52246]

Really nice, Bob.  The buildings look great together.


Jeff

[bparrish]

Bob...

The rust on the corrugated iron is just great.

Thanx
Bob

[gnatshop]

Well, chit - Li'l ReadingBob has done gone and impressed me again! 
The pressure is on John now to locate it in a scene that is deserving of it!

John, don't waffle under the pressure and challenges that li'l Bobby has thrown out!   
We'll be waitin' on more pitures!   

[cuse]

Fantastic! I can't wait to place it. I've been holding off on final track position and, obviously, some scenic decisions for the area where it will be. This will be the center of one of the few scenes I planned the whole layout around. I really want to surround it with natural view blocks and clutter. The intended effect will be that of a little jewel of a scene that you need to work a little to see all of.


Bob, it's awesome. I love the idea of lighting too. Thanks-hope to see you soon! 


John

[GPdemayo]

Great job Bob, can't wait to see it on John's layout.

[ReadingBob]

Thanks gang!  I really appreciate the kind words coming from such a talented group of modelers.  This one was a lot of fun to build.  It's another winner from Doug for sure.

P.S. - Just give me a buzz when you want me to bring it over or you want to pick it up John.  Other than my daily cubicle confinement my schedule is pretty wide open at the moment.   

[postalkarl]

Hi Bob:

Great job. Looks wonderful as usual.

Karl