28 Winter St., Newburyport MA - HO styrene

[jbvb]

 After air brushing with Scalecoat Flat Glaze. My bottle is old enough to vote and has developed a bit of brown tint, which IMO worked out just fine on the shiny N&W Red. The walls got sprayed, not the roof or chimney. For my layout, 28 Winter needed only a roof and a couple of interior view blocks. For 'contest quality', there are several things to fix and then the rest of the interior to build. I put it on my layout using Tacky Glue to temporarily install windows.  The 'contest' work comes to the fore when I want the 'Structures' AP certificate.

[jbvb]

As it was 29-Apr-2020.  The daylight visible under the RH corner of the roof needs fixing for "contest quality".





So does the shine on B.E.S.T.'s peel-n-stick flashing.

[jbvb]

Also the funny line of the flashing on this side of the chimney. It should be step flashing, maybe I'll be able to manage the chimney contour with a brand new #11 blade. Real step flashing would have had to have been done while applying the shingles.

I've added basic interior walls around the chimney and front stairwell, plus separating the back part of the El from the right front bedroom. 
Now layout-ready, that's where it's been ever since.  But now I've gotten in touch with the present owners, who've given me interior plans. So I can do the contest work whenever time and my priorities allow.

Later I looked closely at this photo (Library of Congress image search "Newburyport") from the Rt. 1 Bypass construction about 1934:
 


Indeed there was a chimney on the track end of the 'El' in 1934. And a second front door facing Washington St., plus a stovepipe coming out of the not-yet-extended main chimney. The small size of the El chimney makes me think it was added when iron cookstoves replaced fireplace cooking, probably by 1830. Gas or electric cooking would have removed the incentive to maintain it.

The stovepipe is harder to fathom. Maybe necessary to keep a coal-fired convection circulation hot air heat system burning properly? Likely removed when the main chimney was extended.

As 1950 is my earliest target date, I didn't redo anything. If I haven't already taken a good photo of 28 Winter with surrounding structures and scenery mostly complete, I'll take one and post it here soon.

[GPdemayo]

Great progress James.....

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looking great, James.

Is it common for houses in cold climates (going by the snow) to have such small eves?

Cheers, Mark.

[jbvb]

Thanks, Greg and Mark.  Mark, the climate here used to generate a lot of snow, though it's been 9 years since anything like the 2015 snow shown on the first page. Newburyport's eaves are typical for this part of New England. Inland and up, there have been many metal roofs so snow will slide off (vs. shoveling).  I associate eaves wider than 12-18 inches with hot climates, to keep the midday sun off the windows.

[deemery]

Turns out narrow eaves have an additional advantage.  They resist the formation of ice dams, which can be a big deal here (New England.)  (A friend and I have been talking about this as he designs a new house in Idaho, he found a nice paper on ice dams that talks about the various causes.  The biggest cause is lack of attic insulation along with no circulation, which creates warm spots on the roof.)  

dave

[jbvb]

True, the metal roofs in the White Mountains and inland Maine are also effective against ice dams.