Bar Mills Queen City Coal

[vinceg]

Here are the parts for the crane. Very simple structure - a few plastic I-beams and some laser-cut wood components. I sprayed the wood with Rustoleum 2X primer - it's the dark gray stuff:



I didn't do a good job in this picture but there is a metal casting for the crane motor and a small chain that goes with this as well. You can see the teeny zip-lock bag in the upper right of the picture.

Also, at the top of the picture you can see some more laser-cut parts that represent the stand for a freestanding tank. We'll get to that later.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

The gantry crane has two rails (I guess any gantry crane does). Those were the two larger I-beams that you saw in the previous post. One of those rails is attached to the main office building, the other is freestanding. Here is the office-mounted rail in place:



And here is the freestanding rail assembly:



More shortly.

[vinceg]

At this point, I noticed that when the crane is fully assembled, there won't be much holding it together. There are a couple of horizontal supports between the rails and then the crane assembly itself. I was concerned that the crane would easily snap off when I moved the building around -- too much weight pulling on the cross pieces. So, I decided that it was time to start preparing the diorama base so that I could glue down the main office and finish off the crane.

First, I added some red oxide Pan Pastel chalk to the crane rail and supports attached to the building. Easier to do now before I forget and have to do it when the building is glued down. Here is a pic:



More shortly.

[vinceg]

First step - I know there will be a significant concrete area as part of the diorama. I started by spray painting the top surface of the diorama with Rustoleum flat white. Then, I put the buildings (and a mockup for the coal bunker) on the dio to get a rough placement and pencil in the placements.



Nothing glued in here. Just looking to get a rough idea. I can see that the coal bunker in the back will be partially obscured by the yard office building. But, I can improve that by pushing the yard office back a little bit. Also, I think most of the visual interest in the wrap-around catwalk/stairway on the bunker. That will be easily visible.

Here you can also see the freestanding tank in this picture. Unpainted here. Finally, that bulldozer is part of the kit. Woodland Scenics vehicle. Comes weathered. What you see is straight from the package.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

(What's going on with the web site? Has been sluggish all day....)

I decided to use Woodland Scenics Concrete Top Coat. It's a very light tan color:



I applied two coats of paint to the dio with a cheap sponge brush ($0.79 at Home Depot). I did most of the surface but skipped areas that I know will be covered with ground and foliage later.



It looks shiny here but it is still wet.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

I wanted to take one more look at the roughed-in placement of buildings now that it's painted. Here's the birds-eye view:



I also wanted to look again at the bridge that will provide access to the facility (the Rix product to the right). Here you can also see the base coat of paint on the freestanding tank. It seems the guy in the bulldozer is wandering around the facility.

More shortly.

[PRR Modeler]

Excellent modeling Vince.

[vinceg]

For the expansion joints, I decided to try the technique that I learned from the Jason Jensen videos. I just used a fine-lead mechanical pencil to draw cross-hatched lines. Nothing special about the spacing. I just used the width of my clear plastic ruler:



The courtyard won't be anywhere near this big, but I wanted to be sure I covered any area that might potentially be exposed.

That concrete paint is thick. Combined with the sponge paint brush, it left a little texture on the surface. Not a bad thing -- in fact, probably a good thing -- but one side effect of that is that the pencil lines also get some texture. Here's a closeup:



More shortly.

[vinceg]

To help accentuate and weather the cracks a little more as well as help cover up that "texture" that the brush stokes create for the pencil lines, I went back and traced each of the expansion joint lines with Pan Pastels using Raw Umber and a small paint brush. The color of this pic looks a little funky because I did this in our family room while watching TV. This is low-wattage, incandescent lighting rather than the LED, 5000K lights over the railroad and my workbench.



More shortly.

[vinceg]

I wanted to provide a little more texture to the concrete so I went back and added some more Pan Pastels with two shades of light gray, using a Q-Tip. Here's a pic:



When this was finished, I wasn't 100% happy with the result. So, I later went back and scraped on some medium gray chalk dust using sticks and a razor blade and then brushed it in long, light strokes using a makeup brush (don't ask me why I have one). It helped blend the whole result. In the end, I'm not sure how much additional value was added with doing the Pan Pastel/Q-Tip thing. And, I'm sure that after the buildings are down I will want to go back and do some more highlighting. We'll see.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

Okie-doke. With the concrete more or less "ready," I glued down the main office building and finished the crane. Here's a pic:



And, I couldn't help myself - I wanted to see it with the yard office again as well. Here's the last pic for this segment of the thread (the yard office is not yet glued down nor is that rascal in the bulldozer):



Ready for the coal bunker now. I have actually done a fair bit of work on that so far and have some pics. Will try to bring the thread up to date with that soon.

Cheers.

[vinceg]

Thank you, Curt. It's getting a bit more exciting now. Looking forward to getting the coal bunker finished and finally opening that first bag if static grass to start working on the terrain.

[ReadingBob]

In a word - STUNNING! 

[vinceg]

Thanks, Bob. Appreciate the encouragement.

Working on uploading pics for the next piece of thread now....

[vinceg]

OK - the last building - the coal bunker. I have made quite a bit of progress in the last few days since I have been off. Lots to catch up on.

As with the other two buildings, it comes with its own manual and separately bagged components:



More shortly.