Bar Mills Queen City Coal

[PRR Modeler]

Looks great Vince. I can't tell from the pictures- Is the weathered roof flat or at a angle?

[vinceg]

It's at an angle. Interesting point now that you bring it up. For the main building, the roof is pitched but the tops of the walls are parallel to the ground so the angle is more apparent. For the big addition, the roof is pitched but the tops of the walls are parallel to the roof. Just interesting....two different styles.

Here's an older picture of one of those side walls that shows the angle more clearly.



Cheers.

[vinceg]

Question for the group - those ceramic cap strips are resin castings. When I do apply them to the building, I will need to cut some to size and also miter some corners. What's the best way to do that? My default assumption would be to use a fine-toothed razor saw but I thought I would ask here before I start shattering a few.

[jerryrbeach]

Vince,


I agree that a fine tooth saw is the way to go on most castings.  I have used an X-Acto to slice through resin castings if they are too delicate (thin cross section) when a saw might tear the casting.  You might want to saw most of the way through and finish by slicing if you think it may tear.  It depends on the type of resin.  I have found the softer the resin, the less chance of tearing or shattering.


If I mess up the cut I either use some Tamiya putty as a filler or will slice out a section of the broken area and ACC a piece of styrene as a patch and file or sand to shape to match the casting.

[vinceg]

Vince,


I agree that a fine tooth saw is the way to go on most castings.  I have used an X-Acto to slice through resin castings if they are too delicate (thin cross section) when a saw might tear the casting.  You might want to saw most of the way through and finish by slicing if you think it may tear.  It depends on the type of resin.  I have found the softer the resin, the less chance of tearing or shattering.


If I mess up the cut I either use some Tamiya putty as a filler or will slice out a section of the broken area and ACC a piece of styrene as a patch and file or sand to shape to match the casting.

Thanks, Jerry. You were right. Super easy cut with a razor saw. Those little "ceramic" caps cut cleanly and quickly -- frequently with one swipe.

[vinceg]

OK. Lots to catch up on. I am pretty much finished with the main office building. I'll post some pictures tonight (this morning?) and try to finish up later Sunday morning.

First up, I decided to do my first view block. This building will be at about eye level and there are a lot of windows. At least they're at my eye level -- actual adults may will see more of the roof. I didn't want to see through the building. So, I tried the usual approach of making an "X" out of black construction paper. Here are the sheets with slits that are cut halfway through to allow their intersection:



And here it is installed in the building before I seal it up forever by gluing on the roof:



More shortly.

[vinceg]

Now, I buttoned up the main building by gluing down the roof and putting on the tarpaper. I previously showed that I used a Q-Tip to outline the edges of the tar paper strips with black chalk. This time, I glued down the strips first. That made it a little easier to dry brush some white on the strips without smearing the chalk. Then, I outlined the seams with the Q-Tips after the tar papers was all affixed:



More shortly

[vinceg]

Time for some metal details. For any metal details that are miniatures of metal parts, I first use a blackener on them. Here's the etchant:



The process is simple - just put the metal parts in a plastic yogurt cup (other vessels may also work  ). While they are in there, I use a cheap paint brush to brush on the etchant. Some people just soak the parts in a pool but I'm trying to minimize the wasted fluid (and, more importantly, the disposal of it). Also, I find that there are usually a few spots on the castings that won't take the etchant -- I assume because they have some finger oil or other schmutz on them and acts as a mask. By using a paint brush, I am usually able to scrub the etchant on and get the blackening on. Once they've been cooking a while....depends on the size and intricacy of the parts...I took about a minute for these...I pull them out and put them in a water bath to stop the reaction and wash off the etchant. Here are the parts in the water:



Once washed, I pull them out, dry them off, and buff them with a dry Q-Tip. The result is a metal casting that still has a dull metal sheen and has a black patina that looks good and also makes it more accepting of paint and chalk.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

Now that the roof is in place, I can glue in the other task board pieces that doubles the width of the top of the walls. Here's a picture of one piece of that. The rest of the pieces went about the same:



More shortly.

[vinceg]

The building addition has a sliding door. The instructions for the kit call for using a 1/16" square piece of wood for the rail on which the door hangs. That didn't look very good to me. Instead, I used a piece of 1/32" square wood glued to a scale 2x6 to make more of an L-shaped piece. Then, painted it with burnt umber craft paint. Here's a pic:



The resolution of the photo is way too good. You can see the fibers of the task board rather that just the overall texture of the paint. Looks fine to me in person (having old eyes helps!). This already has two thick coats of paint. I suppose a couple more might do the trick but again, I think it looks fine in person so I'm not going to worry about it.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

Here's the ceramic (resin) caps in place. Took a bit of time to get things mitered properly. I also wanted to try to line up the little bulges in the capping with the end of walls, where possible. Despite taking care, there are still gaps where two pieces join. I tried to fill those gaps with a little extra paint. The paint used here is an acrylic called "Pennsylvania Clay." Here are a couple of pics:





You can see I worked ahead a little here -- there's stuff on the roof of the main building. We'll zoom in on that shortly.

[vinceg]

Here's a shot of the roof of the main building with all of the Roof Stuff. I do love roof stuff.



A few things to note here:

1. The instructions call for notching the chimneys and have them partially hanging over the wall. I didn't see the point of that. Seems like a lot of error-prone work for little visual interest. Not even sure I like the look of the notched chimneys.
2. The roof access piece is an interesting structure. Those walls are laser-etched, not board-by-board. Notice the knot hole near the bottom back of the structure. I thought about having that structure face the front so that I can see the door - more detail. But, the piece actually has the walls cut to match the pitch of the roof. So, to reverse it 180 degrees, I would have work to do. Again, not worth it to me.
3. That vent that looks like a pagoda is a little mini laser-cut wood structure. Very clever. It also has a base that matches the pitch of the roof. Need to be careful when you glue it down.
4. Here you see the result of the etched metal I mentioned earlier. Believe it or not, I did try to file off the mold parting lines. But, you can still see them. I think I found something I hate more than bracing walls.
5. I'm starting to rethink the whole "put tar around the base of everything you put on the roof" thing. As you can see, I did it around the chimneys. As you can also see, I did a not-so-great job. No matter how hard I try, I can't get what looks like a realistic application of the tar. The variations in the width always look out of scale to me. In some cases where it's a major interface between two surfaces (like a wall resting on an angled roof) I have successfully used a thin, paper folded strip. But short of that, I have a difficult time with getting a good result with apply the glue/black paint mix. I have thought about using a mask but that doesn't work with round vents as you see here. There's probably an opportunity here for a new tool or technique. Or maybe it's just a bunch more practice.....
6. You can see a pretty noticeable gap where the roof meets the raised wall. I don't know if I will at least address this or not. If so, I will use the thin strip of paper (painted with glossy black paint) technique to handle it.
7. The roof is not a light as it appears here. My overhead shop light is pretty harsh and makes it look whiter.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

Another roof shot. You can get another view of the back building here, too.



By the way, I don't know that I mentioned the weathering of the walls. What you see here is just some medium gray chalk. I tilted the building on its side and then used a razor blade to scrape off a fair amount of powder from a stick. It's then scrubbed in with a semi-stiff brush. The natural texture of the wall tends to grab the chalk in a pseudo-random fashion. I didn't try any alcohol wash because it looked too dark to me. Also, alcohol seems to dissolve the artist acrylic paint pretty easily so I didn't want to create any new trouble for myself.

More shortly

[vinceg]

Time to do the loading dock on the front wall. The first thing I noticed that the door sill trim seemed like it would be a problem in that it would interfere with the loading dock. Turns out it is. This pic shows one of the support pieces held up against the wall. You can see that it's too high:



Two choices: (1) cut the legs to lower the dock, (2) remove the strip below the door to eliminate the interference. No brainer - a lower loading dock would look illogical is that you would have to step up to get things into the building. Also, A lower dock would then make the stairs on the side look funny as they would now be a little high.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

Here's the loading dock under construction. The instructions do not call for the diagonal cross braces but I put them in. Scale 2x4s.



I took this pic right after I glued on these pieces. You can see the glue hasn't been dried, yet (nor had I yet scraped away some of the excess).

More shortly.