Micro-Scale Models Two Stall Engine House

[postalkarl]

Hey Marty:

Looking good my friend. Keep up the good work .

Karl

[MartyO]

It is now the time to get the windows in place.

Since the windows are going to be seen from the inside, so I did my trick of gluing two identical window together back to back with dirty'd acetate in the middle. The windows are CA'd in place after cleaning up all flash from the walls and window frames.

From the first photo below you can see them in place. The one thing that stands out in the photo is how bad the foundation rocks are carved. There are too many scratches on each block and tend to stand out too much.

In the second photo I sanded down the foundation (outer wall side only) to reduce the scratches/groves on the rocks and carved in the mortar lines a bit deeper and chipped each rock to give it more depth. The colours are sightly drifting at this time but I am sure it will all come together in the end.

I think it is time that I tackled the gable-end walls.

Until the next post.

[nycjeff]

Hello Marty, great job on the interior walls and I like your idea of using back to back windows for a more realistic look.   Jeff

[MartyO]

Hello Marty, great job on the interior walls and I like your idea of using back to back windows for a more realistic look.   Jeff

If you do this trick make sure you sand flat the back of each window frame. This will allow it to lie flat and avoid shadow lines in the window.

[MartyO]

I have been experimenting with the colour of the inside of the walls to see what it could look like. The photo give a look at what I got so far.

[deemery]

I wonder if they'd whitewash those walls on the inside.  Roundhouses would be pretty dark places, and dark walls would definitely not help visibility...


dave

[MartyO]

I wonder if they'd whitewash those walls on the inside.  Roundhouses would be pretty dark places, and dark walls would definitely not help visibility...


dave

I think you have a point, I will eventually mock it up and see how it looks, then make colour adjustments as needed.

[MartyO]

Now that the walls is a reasonable shape, it is time to work on the end walls. These were challenging to get right and I think there is much more work to be done to get them "perfect".

So here is the picture story of my trials and struggles.



First I just removed a bit of flash and coloured them with Gold Ochre chalks as a starting point. So of getting the feel of what the structure should look like.



I then turn the end wall over and began to investigate how to handle the back of each wall. It was flat and it would not look right that way.




I sketched and carved out the door opening blocks first, then sanded lower all the rest of the wall to reveal the block I carved. Then I filled in the remaining parts of the wall with that "sandstone" blocks.




I then experimented with colouring the rear of the walls. Base of Gold Ochre, brown stain, Black ink and some darker chalk. It is not too bad, but ...


That is enough for this post. More to come ...

[MartyO]

I continue ...

The front end wall looks too boring, don't you think?



There is too little going on in the upper wall, and those blocks have too many scratches in them. Hmm, I wonder what to do?



Yup! Sand down the stone ridges, cut in a round window and fill in the gaps around the window with HydroCal (more on this later.)



Drilling, carving and fitting the round window is not something you ever want to do and if you do there will be chipped and broken areas in the back of the wall. So guess what? I filled it back up with HydroCal. The round window is still temporarily installed, but has masking tape on the back (green stuff). When the HydroCal cured I could have a mulligan and re-do the back part of the window.



The front is looking better. The window is install, but the masons would have put blocks around the window like they did for the door openings.



Here is a closer look to see how it just does not look right yet.



You will have wait for the next post to see what it looks like.

[MartyO]

I then started to play around with the colours of the walls to see what could be done.



I re-carved the blocks for the back wall also.



This is where my small little mind began to explode!!! It has to do with the interior of the building. I particle how the roof would be designed and made considering the work that would be done in the Engine House. Things like would they have cranes to remove parts, what kind, Gantry, beam? would there be water to fill the engines, machine shop tools. This is a small engine house. And remember I want to be able to remove the roof and have a roof that has style.

So what have I done in the photo below? I changes the kit roof design by having NOT sit on the concrete looking strip on the edge of the end walls, but fit behind the end wall, This way you will not see the edge of the roof and add some variation in the roof line. To make this realistic, I had to fill in the mortar line to buildup the concrete cap to look like a concrete cap.  You will get a better picture when I build the roof. (yes, the plaster is brittle, but can easily by re-glued with CA and some HydroCal filler.



There I go again carving the back of the end wall to form out the concrete cap. And some of the tools I used to make it all happen.



Opps, I still have to show you what I did with the window. That is in the next post --- really!

[MartyO]

So as promised,

Yes, I just built up the window edges with HydroCal and waited for it to cure. (and the concrete cap fill-in trick)



The front gets the same HydroCal fill in trick.



After a bit of carving this is how the back of the front wall looks like. (Notice the lightness of the window surround, this is because the HydroCall I have is a different type that was used in 1993 to cat this kit. Wouldn't you know things change. eheh.)




Here is a good example of the effect of the new HydroCal not absorbing the stains the same way.




Ok, back to the back end wall. the Concrete cap is completed and adds that little bit of age and interest to the wall.




So here is how the exterior of the end walls turned out. Pretty F*&^^ amazing! That light coloured open chalk (Burnt Sienna 411.9) gave the wall that "Orangish" tones of the side walls to help blend the exterior colours together



Now I can start woking on the Engine House base, oh what fun that will be. See you on the next post.

[ACL1504]

Marty,

Great job on "kit bashing" the end wall, very interesting. Well done.

Tom 

[Mark Dalrymple]

Great work you are doing there, Marty.

Its really coming together nicely.

Cheers, Mark.

[postalkarl]

Hey Marty:

Looking good. Can't wait for more.

Karl

[nycjeff]

Hello Marty, great work on the interior walls, can't wait to see what's next.    Jeff