28 Winter St., Newburyport MA - HO styrene

[jbvb]

I got this structure ready for my B&M Eastern Route layout between 2018 and 2021. Most of the work was done in 2020/1.  I'm re-posting it here mostly so I can refer non-members to it. But there may also be useful hints to beginning and intermediate scratchbuilders working in styrene.

28 Winter St. is at the corner of Winter and Washington, perhaps 100 yards from the pre-1976 Newburyport depot. Newburyport's tax card says it was built in 1750. It's 36' wide along Winter and 40' deep along Washington



The historical survey hints that it's been painted this dark red since I was in college but I don't recall. By the time that photo was taken my childhood friend no longer lived two doors up and passenger service to Newburyport had been discontinued:

https://www.cityofnewburyport.com/si...ter_street.pdf

I don't know the owners, so I can't be exact about the side facing the tracks. But visitors to my layout won't see it either:

[jbvb]

More prototype views: the downhill and track side of the house.  I don't have room for the garage.





You can't see the shed addition in the interior angle underneath the giant lump of snow. Winter 2015 was tough here.  It totaled another building now memorialized by my wife's model on my layout.

[ACL1504]

James,

I'm looking forward to this build.

Tom

[jbvb]

At the time I was laying out my model Newburyport, high quality pictures, diagrams and images were available through the old property tax card system. It's since been replaced, but I did get a copy of an old card when I asked nicely.



I had mostly completed the two street-facing walls when work stalled in 2018. Here I've finished/fixed their window openings and cut the ends out.



Here I've sketched the walls I didn't have square-on pictures of, and built the ornate front door.

[jbvb]

Here's a closeup of the front door assembled to the wall. 17 bits of styrene and a capillary applicator.

Thanks, Tom.  If you want to preview it, the RR-Line thread is linked from the first page of my B&M Eastern Route thread in the Mid-Scale Model Railroad Forum.

[jbvb]

Here I've got the basic structure assembled, with the second floor non-removable to hold the unstable shape together.



I used .080 square for the corner posts and .060 square to support the floor/wall joints. I did have to do some filing as assembly progressed. Waiting 2-3 minutes dries MEK joints enough to file.



With the most visible sides together, I could start the tricky fitting of the inside corner, the plain walls between the original house and the shed extension and the shed itself. I forgot to mention that I'm using .040 spacing clapboard siding to represent the old 3.5" exposure used through the early 1800s.

[jbvb]

I decided to do the roof next. I was only guessing about the interior floor plan at this point, and so the shed addition comes later.



I was confident about the chimney and front stair layout, based on my own house. I was less sure about walls between the addition and the main house, and whether there was a back stairway (turned out, there is).



It took some fiddling to get the roof to this level of fit, and a good deal more remained. But I really wanted to do the chimney next..

[jbvb]

Here I tried the shell of 28 Winter next to my in-progress scratchbuild of 32 Winter.



As with 32 Winter St. just uphill, I used drywall screws as adjustable supports under the 1/4" hardboard base.

[jbvb]

I'd just got a better photo of the chimney and roof trim. I saw 3 building permits (gotta have one when it's this visible):

1) Extend the chimney by about 3 feet to improve draft,

2) Stucco or mortar over the outside, probably because the original mortar had deteriorated,

3) Add the modern metal cap and bird screen, probably after 1990.



The dimensions appear to be about 3' x 4' and 10 feet above the ridge. The sides are .040. I started the bump-outs with .020, .015 and .010 strip, then puttied. It needed more putty after filing it smooth.

[jbvb]

I've seen chimney extensions elsewhere but never heard any reasons passed down as family history.   A 1934 photo I'll post below shows a stovepipe rising 4-5 feet above the original short chimney.  I suspect coal-fired furnaces in the cellar needed more draft than the original cooking fireplaces, or the iron cookstoves that replaced them before the Civil War.



After a second round of puttying, I took the chimney outside for a spritz of Rustoleum Desert Bisque. Of course it went on thick, but not so rough when primed that it needed much sanding.

[jbvb]

Here I've glued the chimney to the roof and started on trim boards at the corners and roof edges.

[jbvb]

My kid said I was cheating, but I'll leave that to the judges/evaluators.



His issue was that I attached the peak's .020 x .080 trim boards to the roof rather than the wall. This largely hides the minor mismatches between roof shape and wall shape. The peak and eave trim boards weren't too difficult to place after a careful application of tube cement.



Next I decided how to model the shed addition on the rear, and began that. The current main house has shingles on the courtyard walls. The shed has clapboards. I reversed this, based on my grandfather's use of shingles on my house in the post-WWII era. I carved them from the .060 spacing clapboard on the shed wall above. So the clapboards on the alley wall don't line up. They aren't supposed to; different construction eras.

[jbvb]

Here the shed wall is installed. This angle doesn't highlight the shingles I carved, but I was right in expecting them to be visible when painted. The big opening is for the prototype's 3-sash Tudor style leaded window with diamond panes. I planned used the "scribe, paint, rub clean" technique RR-Line member and author Bill Gill had described earlier in the 2019-2020 winter.



At this point, I looked back at the prototype photos and noticed how much casing the prototype has vs. the Tichy 8136 12/12s I used. So I added some .010 x .060 trim around the openings.

[jbvb]

This is Scalecoat 1082 N&W Red. It's close, and I knew the look would change with a completed roof and black applied to windows, trim, eaves and chimney top.



The Flat Grimy Black showed detail well, but the shine of the N&W Red had to go. The chimney's texture is exaggerated relative to the prototype, but any less and no visitor would ever notice.
 

[jbvb]

The windows are temporarily installed; I glazed and applied window treatments out of place. Still to be done were touch up and vanquishing the shine. Which was also an opportunity to adjust the red hue.
 


Then I made the 3-sash Tudor ('leadlight') window for the addition. I used the scribing technique explained by Bill Gill on another RR-Line thread. I filled the scribe lines with Mars Black artist's acrylic and wiped it off. The dust all over is from filing the window to fit.