Building an REA Freight House

[Mark Dalrymple]

Hi Jeff.

Living in New Zealand - we don't have Michaels.  An art supply store or similar will stock these.  The finer the lead they take the more accurate you will be able to get.  I find .5mm is pretty good, but .7mm is a bit to thick.

Cheers, Mark.

[Raymo]

Great looking build so far Jeff! I built 3 of the REA trucks on Doug's diorama and did a clinic at an EXPO on them. I should post it to the forum.

[GPdemayo]

Excellent job on the trucks Dan.....love to see the posts of the clinic. 

[Dennis Bourey]

 Yes Dan  Beautiful build Jeff....

[nycjeff]

Hey Jeff.

Glad my build helped. Yours is looking good.

Karl

Hello Karl, thanks for looking in and thank you for the kind words.

Hi Jeff.

Living in New Zealand - we don't have Michaels.  An art supply store or similar will stock these.  The finer the lead they take the more accurate you will be able to get.  I find .5mm is pretty good, but .7mm is a bit to thick.

Cheers, Mark.

Hey Mark, I appreciate the information. I'm checking where I can get one.

Great looking build so far Mark! I built 3 of the REA trucks on Doug's diorama and did a clinic at an EXPO on them. I should post it to the forum.

Hello Dan, thank you for the great picture of your trucks. Where are the kits made ? And I would love to see a build thread of your fine work.

Yes Dan  Beautiful build Jeff....

Hello Dennis, I appreciate your checking out my build.

Continuing on...



Another look at the front sub-assembly. My camera seems to be having trouble with the colors here, sorry



Finally, a better picture. You can see my floor platform which I stained with my AI solution and a pallet with some cut wood shapes to suggest a busy interior.



This is what the front sub-assembly looks like in place. I haven't glued it yet. The wood color is first a dry brush of antique gold and then a second dry brush of cocoa bean color. The corner trim and 2x4 trim around the door were painted the same color as the walls. The sign above the door is one I got from the web which I then resized to fit.



Here is the rear sub-assembly in place but also not glued. That's it for now, more later.

[Raymo]

Jeff, They're made by Sylvan Scale Models. They have 6 or 7 different variants..

[postalkarl]

Hey Jeff:

Looking really good.

Karl

[nycjeff]

Jeff, They're made by Sylvan Scale Models. They have 6 or 7 different variants..

Thank you Dan, I may have to get a couple of those. I can only hope to do half as well as your builds. You are the master

Hey Jeff:

Looking really good.

Karl

Thanks Karl, I'm having a good time with this build.

Continuing on...



The walls for the first building have been glued together. Now I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere.



I added extra bracing across the top and bottom with the 1/8 square strip-wood. I then installed some extra bracing at the roof peak to give me more gluing surface for the roof cards. I used 1/4 square strip-wood for this. Looking down at the corners you can see how the vertical end pieces on the walls fit together for both more support and more gluing surface. I know that this is pretty basic information for the experienced modelers out there, but if you do not do this at your wall corners when building a structure I definitely recommend it.



I've started to add some weathering chalks to the walls as seen here. You can also see that I have added a piece of brown construction paper inside the building for a view block. You don't want to be able to see all the way through a building when it is placed on the layout. This is as far as I am going to go with this building for now. Next up is the large freight warehouse building.



The first step on the freight warehouse is to draw a scale outline of the wall on paper and decide the locations of the doors and windows. As seen here I then transfer the door locations onto the wood wall material.



These are the tools I use to cut out my door and window openings. First I drill holes at the four corners of the opening with my pin vise. This gives me a good start and end point for the cuts. Next I use a metal straight edge and a sharp #11 Exacto blade to make the line cuts. Go easy and make multiple passes with the knife and make sure the corners have been cut all the way through. Don't force the wood piece out ! Don't ask how I know this. When the cuts are all the way through the wall material, the cut-out piece will lift out easily.



Here are the front wall and the end wall with the door and window openings laid out. More in a minute

[nycjeff]

I just finished up another 6 pictures with narrative and somehow lost it all at the last keystroke. Sometimes I hate computers. I'll come back to this all later

[postalkarl]

Hey Jeff:

The assembled walls look just great.

Karl

[nycjeff]

Hey Jeff:

The assembled walls look just great.

Karl

Hello Karl, thank you for the nice words

Well, I'm going to try that last post again. I don't know what I did to lose it before, suddenly it was just gone. Anyway, continuing on...



Here are the four walls for the freight warehouse with all the doors and window openings cut out and braced with 1/8 square strip-wood. The extra horizontal bracing is to support an interior floor. I plan on several of the large freight doors to be left open for interior views.



I sprayed both sides of the walls with rattle-can dark grey primer. This seals the wood wall material and also provides a good base for the finish craft paint colors. Another advantage of the primer is that after a light coat of the finish paint some of the grey shows through to give the appearance of walls that will soon need a fresh coat of paint



After masking off the top portion of the walls with blue painters tape I brushed on the red wall color. Using the painters tape leaves a crisp clear line at the edge of the paint.



When the red paint was dry, I masked off the bottom portion of the wall and applied the green paint to the top of the walls. The painters tape goes on and off the walls easily and does not pull up any of the paint. The blue painters tape is a very good tool to use when building and painting structures and I definitely recommend it if you are not using it. You can see that I have also started painting the large freight doors.



Before applying the finish paint to doors and windows I first spray them with rattle-can red primer. When spray painting small parts I first use painters tape with the edges folded over to stick it to a piece of cardboard to give a sticky surface to mount the small pieces too. This prevents the small pieces from flying away from the spray can pressure. Another good use for the painters tape.



Here are the end wall and the front wall of the warehouse with the doors and windows glued in and some of the wood trim installed. I glued 1/16 square wood for the corner trim pieces and 2x4 wood for the horizontal trim at the color break line. I have applied some signage as well. I liked the large banner style Railway Express Agency sign that is on the front wall of the first building, so I put another one on the end wall. The New York central sign I got off the web and resized it to fit here. I also printed out some numbers for above the large freight doors. The bumpers below the large freight doors are 1/8 square wood with the corners rounded off and painted dark grey. You can see that one door is completely open and one is partially open. These doors will provide views of the interior floor and planned details inside the warehouse. That's it for now, more later.

[postalkarl]

Hey Jeff:

WOW!!!! you are really doing A great job with this. Keep up the great work and keep the pics flowing.

Karl

[nycjeff]

Hey Jeff:

WOW!!!! you are really doing A great job with this. Keep up the great work and keep the pics flowing.

Karl

Hello Karl, thank you for the nice comment, coming from you it means a lot to me

Continuing on...



The freight warehouse walls have been assembled and I added additional bracing at the corners and across the bottom to help stiffen the structure. The corner diagonals are flush with the bottom of the building and the two cross pieces are even with the floor supports. The cross pieces will strengthen the floor and give me more gluing surface when installing the floor. I used 1/8 square strip-wood for all of the bracing. The reason that the walls do not meet at the upper left of the picture is because this is where the warehouse wraps around the corner of the first building.



Here I have installed the interior floor. I use the back cardboard piece from a yellow legal pad for this. As you can see, I notched the floor card to fit around the vertical bracing. The warehouse is about 7 inches wide by 11 3/4 inches long.



Here is a view of the front wall of the warehouse. This will be the street side of the building.



This is the right end wall. I intend to build a deck/ porch area under the door with some stairs.



This is the back, track side of the building. This side will face the aisle of my layout. Two of the large freight doors will be open and one will be half open. More in a minute

[postalkarl]

Hey Jeff:

Looks just beautiful. Keep the pics a coming.

Karl

[nycjeff]

Continuing on...



This is the left side wall. This wall goes up against the right wall of the first building. Most of the wall will not be visible, only the front 3/4 inch and the rear top portion.



Next up are the interior roof trusses for the warehouse. The first thing that I did, as with all of my scratch-builds was to draw a scale template on some paper. I traced the roof outline and then measured from the top to the interior floor at both sides and the middle. These scale drawings take the place of an instruction sheet and are invaluable to a successful scratch-build. As you can see, I cut the main wood members to fit the drawing and then tape them in place. I used small pieces of the clapboard siding to make some gusset plates for the corners and middle. I then cut some 45 degree angle pieces to strengthen the areas where the posts meet the top. You can see the first completed truss above the template where I am building the second truss.



I am working on the fourth and last truss here. You can see that I have painted the bottom of the middle post. I didn't go into much detail here because you will not be able to see much of the interior when the roof is on, only what you can see through the open freight doors.



The trusses have been glued in place and I also glued a small additional piece at the offset wall location to help strengthen that area. I'm very pleased with how the trusses turned out, I know that they will not be visible with the roof on, but I feel that I gained valuable experience by building them that I can put to use on future projects.



I've started to place some interior details inside the warehouse. I used some bits of strip-wood, some drinking straws and some wood dowels to give the appearance of assorted freight. I still have to glue the open doors in place and weather the floor to give it a more used appearance. That's it for now, more later.