Build Challenge 2016: Bar Mills Dock House at Cundy Harbor

[S&S RR]

Bob


Another great build and build thread.  Very nice.

[donatode]

Bob


Another great build and build thread.  Very nice.

What he said......double!  (at least!)

[GPdemayo]

Well done Bob.....

[Dave K.]

Beautiful work...great thread. 👍🏻

[ReadingBob]

Thanks John, Donato, Greg and Dave!  I really appreciate the comments. 

Once I finish the final structure in this kit, which I'm about to start, I want to knock out something smaller and quicker.  I need a few small builds before I tackle something large and complex. 

[ACL1504]

Bob,

There are no more adjectives I can use to describe the quality of your work. But here is a thought,

I'm sure glad you are my friend and you are a member in good standing of the Saturday Butty Group, SBG. AMEN!


Tom

[ReadingBob]

Bob,

There are no more adjectives I can use to describe the quality of your work. But here is a thought,

I'm sure glad you are my friend and you are a member in good standing of the Saturday Butty Group, SBG. AMEN!


Tom

Thanks Tom!  Very much appreciated!  I need to do a better job of getting down there to visit though.  It looks like you're really picking up steam on the layout construction.   

[donatode]

Does the SBG have a formal membership card?  If so I would love to get one.......

[deemery]

Does the SBG have a formal membership card?  If so I would love to get one.......

They should print out a 'system-wide' rail pass.


dave

[ReadingBob]

Okay, I'm going to continue on an build the final structure in the kit.

Midcoast Whale Oil

I don't think John really has any plans for this one but it was included in the kit and it's on my workbench so it must be built!   

I started out by painting the shingles.  I first sprayed them with a rattle can Primer and let them dry.  Then I dabbed on a cheap craft store acrylic paint, "Mustard Seed", using a sponge.  I squeezed a little of the paint onto a sticky note pad, dabbed the sponge in it and then dabbed in onto a dry spot on the sticky note pad a few times to work it into the sponge.  Then I started dabbing it on the shingles.  The instructions said they used "Reefer Yellow" on the pilot model.  It was purely coincidental that the Mustard Seed turned out to be a close match to what's shown in the pictures in the instructions. 


I cut out the main walls using a single edge razor blade.  This aren't wood.  They're some sort of pressed paper material.


I used an emery board to smooth out any nubs left of from cutting out the walls.


Next I cut some bracing for the inside of the walls.  I hadn't glued this piece in place yet.  I was just using the razor to mark where I wanted to cut it.  I moved it directly to my cutting mat to make the actual cut.


I ran a bead of glue down the bracing material.


Put it in place and weighed it down for a few minutes.


More in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

Alright.  The next step you shouldn't have to do but I've never trusted the adhesive qualities of the shingles in some of these kits.  The walls for this structure are covered in shingles so I applied 3M Transfer Tape to the exterior surface of the walls.


I trimmed it to fit using a pair of Friskar Micro Shears and cut out the window openings with an X-Acto knife.


I removed the backing from the 3M Transfer Tape to expose the sticky wall surface and started laying down shingles.  The walls have been scored, using the laser, to provide some guidelines.  A nice touch but in some cases the score lines, which cut through the first layer of the pressed paper material used to make these walls, allowed the top layer to start to peel away from the wall.  I very tiny drop of glue fixed that.


After the walls were shingles I started looking for the parts I wanted to paint a contrasting color, Reefer White in this case.  I built the core of the roof top Water Cooler prior to painting.  It's best to figure out how things are going to go together and what needs to be painted prior to or part way thru the construction.


Prior to painting I found the parts that were laser cut that have exposed edges that need to be painted.  I used the emery board to remove the dark, burnt surface of the edge.  I didn't want that showing through the white I planned on painting these.


Here are the components for the entry way and the instructions.  Notice anything wrong?


More in a moment...  

[ReadingBob]

Okay, final pictures for this morning.

The first thing I noticed was the door was taller than the opening in the wall.  Especially when you factor in the floor shown in the diagram which, interesting enough, is not present in the pictures of the pilot model included in the instructions.


Here I'm just holding the components together.  Nothing's being glued together yet.  I guess John bought the 'Tabs' but opted to not pay for the 'Slots'.         The roof has one tab that should go into a slot in the side wall that's missing and another that should go into a slot in the rear wall that's missing.  Oops.


That's it for now.  Thanks for following along!

[cuse]

I figured Bob would be building it, so why not save a few bucks? 


I would be happy to replace that structure with another, more pressing one


John

[ReadingBob]

Here's a short update on this build (yes, I'm still plugging along).   

I did my usual 'dry sponge' painting of the doors, windows, etc. using Dove Gray acrylic craft paints.  The gray over the white is a bit hard to see but it adds character to the finish.  It's supposed to represent spots where the white paint peeled away exposing the primer beneath it (or, if you'd like, a different color that the building was previously painted).


After the gray paint dried I hit every thing with my A&I mix.  My A&I is a little too dark to use, as is, over the gray/white combo so I dipped my brush in pure A first to load it and then the A&I which effectively thinned it down.  If it was too thin I'd the piece again with the straight A&I or, if it was too dark, the straight A.


Next I dry brushed everything, the edges in particular, with an Ivory acrylic paint.  Even though it's hard to see in the pictures, being that it's white on white/gray, it does make a difference.  Trust me.   


The front wall three window castings that get glued into one opening side by side.  Where they meet one another I filed down the edge using an emery board until I got a decent fit. 


Remember I mentioned that the kit included the tabs but not the slots?  I could have either cut slots in, where needed, or remove the tabs.  Removing the tabs seemed like it would be whole lot easier so that's the approach I took.   


I also noted that the opening for the door wasn't cut tall enough.  I finally got to use this neat little tool I bought a while back.  It's a Corner Punch available from Micro Mark.  It was recommended by Mike Engler a while back.  I bought it hoping I'd do some scratchbuilding one day but that day hasn't come yet.     Well, it really came in handy here.  You can either mount this in a drill press and make the cuts that way or tap it with a hammer which is what I did.


More in a moment...
 

[ReadingBob]

Here's the resized door opening.  The cuts the Corner Punch made were amazing clean.  This was much easier than trying to resize it with an X-Acto knife.


Well D'uh.  I put the corner unit together and when I went to install the rear door it didn't fit either.  No wonder the pilot model didn't have the floor installed in it.


I figured out how short the opening was and then, not shown, flipped the unit over and used the Corner Punch to fix the problem.  It worked like a champ and I didn't have to disassemble anything to do it.  Whew!   


Next I started gluing the walls together using the standard front/side and rear/other side type of combo to make two halves.  I tried to make sure they were square.  Afterwards the corner entry way was attached to the front wall first.


Then I glued the two sections together but paid particular attention to the right wall and how it attached to the entry way.


Finally I figure out how far I wanted the rafter tails I wanted to extend beyond the wall before gluing them in place.  You can see that if I had pushed them as far down as they'd go they'd extend far beyond the roof.  I could have done that and then trimmed them to fit afterwards but this seemed easier.  I'm all about easy at times.


That's it for today.  Thanks for following.