FSM Jacob's Coal

[deemery]

A quick update:  After mulling over my failures, I came up with Plan B.  I cut triangle-shaped pieces that fit on top of the top chord of the trestle bents.  I'll cut and glue (straight pieces) sills on top of those.  I built a jig to hold the bents in position for when I do that gluing.   Another update probably this weekend, lots of other things going on this week (including moving food donations, my wife volunteered my pick-up and me :-) )

dave

[Lynnb]

Dave I can understand the mistakes irking you, I've gone back after a year to fix something that I didn't feel right about , and usually after seeing how someone else did a technique.

[deemery]

I'm back onto the Jacob's Coal build.  The challenge for the last week has been figuring out how to assemble the trestle bents.  I made a jig and wedged the bents into the jig to hold them into position for (a) the cross bracing and then later this week (b) the (sloped) sills underneath the bins.  Once the glue dries, I'll drill for the NBW castings and then do the other side of cross bracing.  3 of these in total to assemble.

Anyone know of a better jig for this?

dave

[deemery]

Between 'decking the halls' and having to stop and re-glue the occasional piece that broke loose, I've been making Very Slow progress but should finish the trestles tomorrow.  The NBW castings are on order and should be here next week to finish up the bins. 

Photos once I glue the bins onto the trestles.

dave

[deemery]

Trestle bents are finished.  Here's one bin set on one of the bents.  I didn't get around to gluing the bins on tonight, will tackle that tomorrow.  Then I'll start on the 'attic' above the bins.

dave

[PRR Modeler]

Looks great.

[deemery]

Bins are on the trestles, but they're not glued to the cardboard top (which is also the floor of the 'machinery attic'.) At least one of the trestles has a center bent that's out of square, but hopefully that won't be noticeable.  There -has to be- a way to assemble these so they're square, plumb, and properly aligned.  The jig I built wasn't very effective. 

The way I assembled these was to put a bit of Walthers Goo in the middle of the center trestle top, and normal wood-to-wood glue (I'm using NESL Flamingo Glue) on the rest of the trestle tops.  The Goo has a lot more tack, so it sticks to the sloped bins, and gives me plenty of position time before I add weights to let the wood glue set up.

dave

[ACL1504]

Dave,

Wow, great job on the build. The weathering looks fantastic.

Tom

[deemery]

I've colored the attic walls.  I wanted this to look like weathered red oxide, but also make it look as if this weathered differently than the lumber in the coal bins.  First I put some HunterLine Driftwood stain.  Then I applied Pan Pastels red oxide.  Then I immediately went over that with HunterLine Blue Grey.  Once that dried, I touched up the Pan Pastel red oxide.  I also spray-painted the metal window castings a wood-like primer color, and then red oxide. 

dave

[jerryrbeach]

Dave,


This is looking great.  The colors and weathering on both the bins and attic look wonderful.

[postalkarl]

Hey Dave:

Looks great so far. Keep the pics coming.

Karl

[Lynnb]

The colors are really popping out, I just had a terrible vision of the mess one of those pan pastels could make if it tipped.
The bins look great , could you not turn it over and sand the uneven edges to square up on a glass with sand paper? Probably won't even notice once its all together, I'm sure I woun't look for it now that you mentioned it. 

[deemery]

The bin tops are pretty square, I have a stone tile (not ceramic, stone is honed perfectly flat) covered with sandpaper that I used to even out the trestle bents as well as the tops and bottoms of the bins.  A little bit of weight and the cardboard roof will fit quite well.  The attic will hide any imperfections along the top.


The good news is I got my Tichy order yesterday.  The bad news is I ordered the wrong part, so I'll have to order the right part (those 12" square washers for the bins.)  Don ships very quickly, so I can continue the attic construction.  I just won't be able to glue the bins to the cardboard subroof until after the correct NBWs are done.


dave

[Jerry]

Looking good Dave.  Nice coloring.

Jerry

[deemery]

Assembling the attic...  When building a box, I like to assemble two L-shaped legs, and then glue them together.  Lots of bracing in this, both from the FSM kit and some I added. 

To do the windows, I first primed with a wood colored primer (airbrushed).  Then I airbrushed some red oxide.  After the paint cured, I sprayed A&I on the castings and let that evaporate and cure.  (Alcohol will soften the acrylic, so I wanted to let the alcohol flash off and acrylic re-cure.)  I applied glazing.  Then to get that "dusty look" on both sides, I applied some dark grey Pan Pastels.  On the back side, first I lightly coated the "glass" with a flat glaze (Vallejo), then I used a make-up sponge to pat the dark grey Pan Pastel.  (I tried applying Pan Pastel to the styrene glazing, but it didn't stick, so that's why I put the matte glaze paint on it first.)  Then I went back and wiped off the excess dark grey Pan Pastel from the window frames.  Net result matches the wood pretty closely, with a little bit of difference reflecting the different woods used on the window framing vs the attic wall.  Finally, I did a test-fit on top of the bins.

Next step, shingles on the attic roofs. 

dave