Lamson bash

[Rick]

Dave, those trees look more like the moss covered rocks I see here in Oregon.
The HO club I belonged to used cotton balls spray painted green and then flocking sprinkled on.

[deemery]

Dave, those trees look more like the moss covered rocks I see here in Oregon.
The HO club I belonged to used cotton balls spray painted green and then flocking sprinkled on.

Part of it is I used WAY too much 'highlight' green.  I have some Woodland Scenics "canopy" kits on order, I'll see what they look like.  I suspect generically that a mixture of techniques will work out, I just have to find the right mix. 

dave

[deemery]

This is interesting:  I'm considering how long to make the warehouse.  So I spotted a pair of cars at the freight doors on the 75' structure.  The left boxcar overhangs the end of the structure by a couple of (scale) feet.

OK.  But what if I added 10' to the structure so it's past the end of the boxcar?  (I slid the structure mock-up to the left, ignoring the right side.)

The building looks substantially more substantial.  (Sorry, couldn't resist.) 

So I'll make that structure probably 80' or 85' long.  Now the main factory building looks a bit small by comparison, but there's not much I can do about that.  My thought is the brick structures as a whole outweigh the frame warehouse.

But I thought it was worth showing the difference between the two mock-up sizes.

dave

[ACL1504]

Dave,

I think the addition of the track helps to bring it all together. Looking very good. I really love those structures.

Tom

[Michael Hohn]

So, the time in making the warehouse mock up is paying off.

[deemery]

So, the time in making the warehouse mock up is paying off.

Yeah, I draw the building outline, etc. in a very old version of PowerPoint   .  Those pieces are stuck to the chunk of styrofoam with double-sided tape.  A really quick way to mock things up.  For the mill area itself (seen back at the beginning of the thread), I scanned the kit's plaster wall pieces and attached the scans to foam core, so I could see how the plaster wall chunks composed as I kit-bashed them.

I think that extra 10' makes the warehouse look substantially bigger.

dave

[PRR Modeler]

Good choice extending the building Dave. The scene is really coming together.

[deemery]

Lots of progress on the warehouse.  First I measured 2 distances, the length of 2 cars, and most importantly the distance between the door centers across 2 cars.  (Don't forget I model 1890s, when 36' was pretty much the standard car length.  34' and 28' were also common in this period, but I wanted to support a pair of 36' cars.)

So 80 scale feet will cover the length of 2 cars, and the center-to-center distance for my cars is 5.5" (actual).

Next I selected doors and windows from my stash of Tichy parts:


I worked out how tall to make the foundation (.020/18"), then calculated the loading door height appropriately.  (Loading door height and spacing are the 2 critical dimensions for this project.)

I cut a long piece of scribed siding to 80' scale, used that to cut a piece of blank 1/16 wood to the same length, then ripped them to 14' 6" tall (slightly over 2").  I cut 2 pieces of scribed siding for the ends, taped them together back-to-back, and cut the gables. 

On the scribed piece, i worked out window and door spacing:


I put some masking tape on the scribed siding face, flipped this over (remembering that I was working from the REVERSE of the front of the structure.  Fortunately this building is basically symmetric, but I've made that mistake on other projects!)   Then I cut out the window and door openings, and started doing the sanding and adjustment to get a good fit:

That's where I stopped today.  Tomorrow I'll be away for the day, but on Thursday I'll finish the scribed siding part, then start work on the back (which will also get window openings) and the two gable ends.

dave

[PRR Modeler]

Nice looking progress Dave.

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave, that's a nice structure you are building.  The design looks realistic and will complement the scene.  Have you decided on a color yet?  Have fun, mike

[deemery]

Howdy Dave, that's a nice structure you are building.  The design looks realistic and will complement the scene.  Have you decided on a color yet?  Have fun, mike

Mebbe white on white?  I've used that on another warehouse elsewhere on the layout.  And I used 2 different brands of white to get some differences between the white siding and the white trim.

White trim on boxcar red would be another prototype choice, but I think that might look funky against the red brick.  A third choice might be light grey walls, white windows/trim.

I'll have to decide tomorrow, once I'm done cutting out the windows.  Next step would be to paint the walls, and the trim stripwood (corner posts) and window/door castings. 

One more thought:  I might reverse the location of the door in the frame, so the doors open inside and are located on the inside of the frame wall.  The casting sitting on the wall looks kinda funky to me right now, with the door opening inwards but on the outside of the wall.

dave

[deemery]

I finished cutting window/door openings:

Then I decided to do a technique I've done before.  I treated the clapboard with HunterLine Greige stain.  You can see the difference here, raw wood on the right before staining:

Now this is sitting under weight overnight.  Tomorrow, I'll put white paint (slightly thinned) over this.  That should get me a well weathered "whitewash" look.  I'll also prep and paint (airbrush) the styrene window/door castings, some styrene strip for framing, and wood corner trim (1/16 x 1/16) pieces.

dave

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

Nice work keeping all those windows straight.  That's a good point about the doors opening outward. I think your approach with frame on the outside with doors opening inward might look more prototypical.  White will look great on the structure.

Have fun,
mike

[Rick]

Dave, nice job cutting out all those windows and doors.

[deemery]

I'm using the Micro-Mark thin beam square.  That's my favorite Micro-Mark exclusive tool, I have 2 of them (sometimes I use both, mostly it's so I can find one when the other has disappeared...    )  I do the cuts across the grain first, then do the with-grain cuts.  I put masking tape on the finish side (the clapboards) to help prevent chip-out, that's a trick I learned from the old Campbell kit I built more than 50 years ago!

dave