Bar Mills Queen City Coal

[vinceg]

Here's the loading dock with steps glued in place. I'm happy with the decision to pull off the bottom door trim.

Note that the dock is not centered on the wall. But, you will see later that the loading dock roof *is* centered on that wall. This is by design. I'm not sure why this is. The only thing I can think of is that Bar Mills wanted to be sure you could see the exposed bricks on the right side of the front wall. But, they could have put that brick work higher when they set up the program for the laser. A bit confusing to me but no matter. It will all look good in the end.



OK. That's it for now -- nearly 3am and time for all good little boys and girls to get some sleep. I'll try to close out this piece of the thread later today.

G'night.

[jerryrbeach]

Vince,


Where do I begin?  The walls looks great, your chalk application "did the trick".  They look great!  I like your roofing and the roof details.  I would suggest some flat black flashing along the wall, or even using a narrow strip of your roofing to flash the wall.  I think the gloss would look out of place and harsh against the roofing.  Great job with overcoming the little glitches in the kit like removing the bottom door trim and making the door track look more realistic.  Wonderful modeling, it is going to look great on your layout!

[vinceg]

Thanks for the kind words, Jerry. Yes, flashing might be good. I also didn't think of using some small piece of wall -- sort of like a shoe moulding in houses. It would flex to be sure to cover any gaps. Very clever - thx! I might still leave it alone as well. You know how it is when you stare at and work on something for a few weeks. Anxious to move on. After I build the last building and before I place things on the diorama I will come back and take a look with fresh eyes and see what grabs my attention.

[Janbouli]

Beautiful  modeling Vince , love the stucco walls with the brick and the signs.

[vinceg]

Here's the roof over the loading dock. From the pictures in the kit, I can't tell if this is supposed to be tar paper and board and batten or a ridged steel roof. No matter - I will throw some chalk at it and decide later what it looks like  . Bar Mills roof like this is pretty convenient. You get a piece of chipboard with laser-scribed lines to show you where the battens go. I forgot to take a picture of that -- sorry. Then they also give you some battens that are super skinny laser-cut strips cut out of thin wood with self adhesive backing. You cut those out, stick them down to the chipboard, and paint. Here's the piece with battens applied and some Rustoleum rattle-can light gray primer:



And here it is after some chalking. The chalk here is Some medium gray and red oxide PanPastels as well as black charcoal:



Notice that behind the roof panel is another of the Bar Mills rafter combs on which this roof will be situated. I had quite a scare on this. I cut that comb out of its sheet and hit it with inkahol. All sides to try to minimize warping. That ended up being a lot of fluid. A few minutes after I did that I considered putting the roof panel on top of it with a weight on top of that to keep it straight while it dried. To my surprise the comb had swelled horizontally to the point where it was at least another half "panel" bigger than the roof. That is, at least half the distance between two battens bigger. Imagine my delight. For more fun I held the wood up to the wall to see if the tabs that you see at the back of the comb still fit in the front wall of the main building. Not even close. Fortunately, I realized there was nothing I could do except wait to see what happened when it dried fully. So, I left it out in the air to do whatever it wanted. Happily, the size returned to normal. You can see that it has a little curl to it but gluing it to the building and gluing down the roof on top of it will clear that up. So, for me, the moral of the story is that if I'm going to use inkahol, I should do it while it's on the sheet. I think a better approach in the future will be to use rattle can paint to prime it and then work effects with acrylics. I thought about trying to color it while still on the sheet but when I have done that in the past it hasn't done a good job of staining the sides which is what you see the most of.

More shortly.

[vinceg]

I didn't show it explicitly but the only other piece to the loading dock is the support for the roof. That comes as a U-shaped piece to which you need to add some 1/16" diagonal braces. I also weathered that with inkahol and there were no problems. Here are some pictures of the completed loading dock:



Here's a straight-on shot. This gives you a good view of the asymmetrical support for the roof. Again, this is as-designed. Feels a little wacky to me, but it won't keep me up nights. If it does start to upset me, I can maybe throw a 4x4 diagonal support from the freely-hanging part of the roof to the wall of the main building. Doubt it, tho. I always keep Rule #1 in mind. If it isn't really, really broken, don't fix it. I'm guaranteed to make it worse. I have plenty of experience with that one.

I do like the way the rafter tails align with the battens. Maybe that means it is a tar paper and batten roof.





More shortly.

[vinceg]

There's just one more major detail to deal with. The short wall on the main building has two transformers mounted up near the top of the wall. There are some nice simulated metal tray parts that are laser cut from very thin wood. Then, two angle brackets to hold it up. Those are also wood. Here are the pics:





More shortly.

[vinceg]

All righty then. That pretty much covers this part of the build. I finally glued down the sliding door and a side vent. Added some more weathering. Most of what you see along the base is Burnt Sienna PanPastel. That stuff is amazing. The adhesion is terrific. Almost like using paint. Highly recommend it.

The ceramic roof caps are a little bright. Inkahol made them too dark (tried that a while ago and had to repaint) but I may dust it a bit to get it toned down a little. I do like the color contrast, tho, so I don't want to go too far with that.

I wanted to make another shout out to Jerry Beach who, a couple of pages ago, advised me to stay the course with the current white color I was using. He advised that things would look good once weathered. I see what he saw now. Glad I didn't cave to my inner voice to go adobe on this thing. Thanks, Jerry.

OK. Here are the semi-final pics:



Here's the side that will face the courtyard. Note I still have that big empty wall where the sign is supposed to go. I looked more at what Bar Mills included and I don't like it. I do like what they have in their pictures. I decided I will take some time and design one that looks similar but that may take a little while. By the way, to help with my inability to do nice signs, I just bought Affinity Designer. Happens to be on sale right now for $25. It's an Adobe Illustrator alternative. They also have a Photoshop alternative. If any of that sounds interesting, check out serif.com now. The 50% off sale is good for another week or so. Of course, having a nice tool won't make me any more creative. But, at least I should be able to make crappy signs faster.



Here it is from the back. Feels like this could use some signage, too. But, the next part of the kit (and this thread) calls for a gantry crane back here so I won't worry about it.



Here's the other back. This shot really shows the brightness of the ceramic caps. Needs just a little subtle dulling.



And finally the birds-eye view. One more question I have is regarding that taller building extension next to the main building. Note that it does not have a roof cap. The instructions don't have you putting caps on (I have enough resin castings left over) but I could swear I saw pictures somewhere where there were caps here. I would have to cut some scrap task board to double the wall width there....or maybe not. Might be worth it. I won't throw out any leftover material until I know for sure.

There's more roof stuff that came with the kit but it would go on the single-story extension and would not be seen from the aisle. I'm going to save it for some other roofs that will see more scrutiny.



That's it for now. As I mentioned above, the next part of the build is a gantry crane scene that goes in back of this building along the long wall. I expect I will start that today.

Cheer, all.

[vinceg]

Beautiful  modeling Vince , love the stucco walls with the brick and the signs.

Thanks, Jan. I am liking the stucco, too. I was surprised that the illusion of stucco looks pretty decent and is so much simpler and quicker that the water putty construction. You do see the board fibers in close-up photos but honestly, in person, I just don't notice them. And given how far this will be from the aisle, I think it's a non-issue.

[PRR Modeler]

Beautiful modeling Vince. Everything looks awesome.

[Janbouli]

Beautiful  modeling Vince , love the stucco walls with the brick and the signs.

You do see the board fibers in close-up photos but honestly, in person, I just don't notice them. And given how far this will be from the aisle, I think it's a non-issue.

Same thing I thought when I saw the close-ups , from a normal view point it doesn't show , photo's show so much more then real.

[postalkarl]

Hey Vince:

Looks just beautiful. Love your stucco.

Karl

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looks great, Vince!

Re the small second story addition - I would put a capping of some sort along here.  This is one of those nasty building techniques that causes leaky house/ building.  As the plaster on the cap perishes and cracks the water makes its way in the cracks and down the wall framing where dry rot begins.  It need not be the same as your other capping - paper with a thin fold over both sides painted up to look like metal would work.  The other thing I would suggest for this extension is a scupper and downpipe allowing water to escape onto the roof below.  At the moment if it rained hard you would have a nice little swimming pool.

Really enjoying your in depth thread!  Cheers, Mark.

[coors2u]

That is a great looking structure.

[ReadingBob]

Everything looks beautiful so far!