Fountain Brewery kitbash #2 - 2021 winter build challenge

[PRR Modeler]

I did not realize you lived in New Zealand Mark.

[Janbouli]

I did not realize you lived in New Zealand Mark.

I was thinking the Zealandia came from Zeeland , a Provence of the Netherlands , to which New Zealand owes it's name.

[Mark Dalrymple]

I was thinking the Zealandia came from Zeeland , a Provence of the Netherlands , to which New Zealand owes it's name.

Its possible, Jan - although I can find nothing to suggest the businessman who started Zealandia hailed from the Netherlands.  I might have expected the spelling to be different if he did?  Parts that were not made on site were imported from the UK.  Regardless - my factory is fictional but based in facts to attempt to keep things as plausible as possible.

Thanks for following along on this journey.

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

I did not realize you lived in New Zealand Mark.

Hi Curt.  I went back and had a look through my Shadowlands and Tellynott thread and I see you started posting on page 7, when I first started posting pictures of my structure builds.  You might find it interesting to go back to the beginning of this thread to read some of the history of parts of NZ and the influences on my empire.  There are some great stories in a couple of the links I posted about the first settlers trying to survive in extremely harsh conditions.

Cheers, Mark.

[postalkarl]

Hey Mark:

All is looking just great so far. Keep the pica flowing.

Karl

[Mark Dalrymple]

All is looking just great so far. Keep the pica flowing.

Thanks very much, Karl.

[deemery]

I did not realize you lived in New Zealand Mark.

The forum software automagically rotates his pictures so they're right-side up 

dave

[Mark Dalrymple]

Hi guys.

Next up I applied some dry transfer lettering to the front brick walls.  I often find words that wont fit, or for which I don't have all the letters I need.  'Manufacturer' was one such word and so I swapped it out for 'builder'.  I measure each letter, writing down the measurements.  I then add these up and added 1mm for the gap between each letter.  I then apply a piece of low tack painters tape horizontally across the wall just below the bottom of where I want the word to go.  The length of the word is deducted from the length of the wall, halved and then a starting point is found by finding the center of the wall and measuring to the starting point.  I then mark in pencil the starting point of each letter.  Its then just a matter of rubbing the letters on, keeping things nicely horizontal and not making a mistake.

Photo 1 - shows the dry transfers.

Photo 2 - a close up.

I decided that a building of that height manufacturing bikes on the bottom floor and servicing them on the forth floor would need an elevator.  I made up an elevator shaft rooftop protrusion from clapboard and 6x6 trim.  This was weathered and then painted in floquil foundation.  I then had a roofing conundrum.  I thought it would be nice to put some tiles on this structure.  I had bought some recently from Northeastern scale lumber for this reason.  I had one piece left over from years ago and made sure to buy one piece the same colour.  Unfortunately things have changed since I last bought these shingles.  The tile sizes were different, the random colouring of the tiles was incredibly un-random, and where each strip of tiles used to be held together by a blob of glue every 4 or 5 tiles (meaning it was fairly easy to cut and paste) they were now glued by a solid bead.  In the end I decided to use my old sheet of tiles for the visible front and side of the structure, and the new sheet for the back where it won't be seen from up close.  I then used the left over bits from the new sheet to do the roof to the left.  I figured because I had to cut and paste several times that the pattern would become more random - I was wrong!  There was a lot of work in this last roof so I will have a go at colouring with markers first before I discard and change materials.

Photo 3 - shows the shingles cut to fit around the elevator shaft.

Photo 4 - shows the elevator shaft.

The black cardboard sub-roof pieces were carefully measured and cut and trimmed when necessary to get a good tight fit.  I then used these pieces as a template to cut out my tile roof pieces.  I used a sharp long blade to 'saw' through the tile strips so I could reuse offcuts by splicing these together.  On the old sheet you can poke the knife through the gap between the blobs of glue, find the correct angle by feel, and then saw through the glue blob.  On the new sheet it is far more tricky - but at $12 a sheet I was determined!  I then glued the black card onto the roof using canopy glue.  Canopy glue was also used for splicing the tiles.

Photo 5 - shows the cardboard roof pieces glued into position.

I stuck a piece of high tack painters tape to my old cutting board, measured width-ways into 4.5mm strips and cut out a 1mm strip between.  These were painted slate grey.  By removing the 1mm strips between you get paint on the edges as well.  These were then used as flashings around the elevator shaft, down the valleys and at the brick wall intersections.  The easiest way I find to work out how the flashing should go is to imagine water flowing down the roof and that the goal is to keep it out of the building.  Typically when working around a protrusion I do bottom flashing, then side flashings the top flashings.  The bottom flashing then has to be folded up to fit over the top of the tiles.

Photo 6 - shows the flashings going around the elevator shaft.  You can also see a valley flashing in the background.

More soon, cheers, Mark.

[madharry]

Mark really going well'Mike

[Mark Dalrymple]

Very good, Dave!

Following on...

Photo 1 - shows a close up of one of the valleys.  By doing this step you can have a nice prototypical gap between roof planes. 

Photo 2 - shows a view from the top.  I have added ridging and hip capping.  You can see I have also made a stack out of styrene tube.  I marked this on the sub-roof with pencil and cut out the hole.  I then used this to cut out the tiles.  This means I will get nice solid fixing for the stack to the 1.5mm styrene roof below.

Photo 3 - shows the structure from the front.  I also added flashings around the intersections of the two roof planes at left.

These last two photos show the vertical strips of colour on the rear roofs.  I'm considering writing to Notheastern Scale lumber about this because I think it ruins the look of the roof.

The top story roof will be done in Campbells corrugated iron, and I'm considering Campbells shingles for the shop roof.

More soon, cheers, Mark.

[PRR Modeler]

The building looks great and the shingles roof looks fabulous.

[Keep It Rusty]

I agree.

You've done awesome work here, Mark. Your workup on these plastics kits really is great modeling.

[Mark Dalrymple]

The building looks great and the shingles roof looks fabulous.

You've done awesome work here, Mark. Your workup on these plastics kits really is great modeling.

Thanks very much Curt and Craig.

I think any good plastic or resin kit can be turned into craftsman quality with a bit of care and hard work.  And by thinking outside the box you can easily came up with something unique.

One of the problems I have with craftsman kits are that so many of them are made of wood siding.  This always seems at odds to the prototype to me.  If I look at photos from the 30's, in any city scene the vast majority of the structures are built from masonry products.  Plastic and resin kits can fill in this gap, and I believe can be made to stand up against any craftsman kit.  If you can change the kit so that its origin is not obvious - all the better.

Cheers, Mark.

[deemery]

...  If I look at photos from the 30's, in any city scene the vast majority of the structures are built from masonry products....

Cheers, Mark.

I think it depends on both the part of the world and on the size of the city.  US in general uses a lot more wood in structures than most of Europe.  The smaller the town, the more likely you are to see wood commercial buildings.  And that's because larger towns/cities passed restrictive fire codes, usually after a big downtown fire :-)  Commercial buildings would be subject to more stringent building code requirements, either by the town or by the insurance company.

dave

[ReadingBob]

Your brick coloring and mortar on the Bicycle building is truly phenomenal.    

I haven't done it in quite a while but I enjoy the challenge of taking a plastic kit and making it look craftsman quality with a proper finish and some weathering.     Gee, that could be the basis for great forum contest someday.