A steam powered flour mill from Keep it Rusty

[nycjeff]

Continuing on...

I changed a couple of things from the instructions at this point. First of all, I switched the position of the gable ends of the storage barn when assembling the walls. I put the side with the barn doors on the right instead of the left as Craig did. I did this because of the way this structure will sit on my diorama. Craig had the store to the right of the main mill building, but mine will be to the left. No big deal, except I will have to build the man steps to the door opposite of the way the instructions call.

Secondly, I decided to have the large barn doors open, showing an interior. This meant that I had to install a floor inside the barn. I glued some 1/8 square bracing strips on both ends of the inside gable walls and then cut some 1/16 plywood to fit. I scribed some board lines on the plywood with the backside of my #11 blade and then stained the floor with my A&I solution.



Here's a look at the bottom of the floor. You can also see how the vertical bracing pieces fit together at the corners in this picture.



Next up is the roof for the storage barn. The instructions call for painting the roof card, but I wanted to do something with a little more texture for the roof surface. I cut some packing paper to size with a little overhang on the edges. I then drew on the lines to help me position the vertical roof trim boards to cover the "seams" of the roofing material.



Here I'm ready to glue the packing paper roof sheeting to the roof card.



Here the roof has been glued on, the 1/32 square strip wood pieces have been glued on and I dry brushed some color onto the roof. I primarily used a brown color, with a little red and then some grey. I plan on using some chalks when the structure has been glued to the base and won't be handled as much anymore.
You can also see the roof for the store structure in this picture. I decided to do this roof in the same material as the storage barn. The instructions call for different material for each roof.



That's it for now, more later.

[nycjeff]

The roof card for the store is ready to be glued on. There are slots at each end of the triangular portion of the roof that are meant to slide onto the storage barn roof. The instructions say that if the two do not go together easily, you may have to do a little filing and/ or trimming to get them together properly. Note the rounded top to the rear wall of the store, more to come on that in a bit.



After lots of filing and/ or trimming along with much weaping and gnashing of teeth and more than a few choice words. I did get them to fit together finally. At first I had a quarter inch gap at the top of the walls where they were supposed to come together.
This picture shows the result of the trimming I had to do on the storage barn roof. I had to trim about an 1/8 inch from the bottom of the roof card. You can also see that I had to enlarge the slots on the store roof card.



And here is a picture of the trimming I had to do on the store rear wall. Again I had to take about an 1/8 inch off the top of the chipboard wall piece.



Anyway, the end result looks good. Finally. The pictures show the end result of about six attempts with a little filing and trimming at each attempt. I'm sure that the problems were of my own making, Craig's design has been spot on to this point and I think that I somehow did something to make this step more difficult than it needed to be.



A look at the joined buildings from a different angle. You can see that I have added the rest of the 1/32 square strip wood for the vertical seam covers. I used a piece of 1/16 wood dowel along the peak line. The instructions called for two pieces of 2x4 strip wood to cover the peak joint, but I thought that the dowel looked better to me.



All in all, I'm very pleased with how the store/ storage barn turned out. I had some fits and starts, but that's just part of the fun isn't it. I made some changes to the kit, as I always do. I blame certain members of the forum for teaching me this- I'm looking at you Tom. Such as using bracing on the inside of the walls, switching the location of the two gable end walls of the storage barn, keeping the large barn doors open and adding an interior floor and going a different way on the roof of the storage barn.

Next up are several small sub-assemblies, such as the steps below the man door at one of the gable end walls and the loading dock deck below the large barn doors. I also have a few other ideas that I want to add to this fine structure, but we'll get to those as we go along. I'm having a lot of fun with this kit.

That's it for now, more later.

[Pennman]

Jeff,

You are attacking this kit at quite a quick pace and with excellent results.
I see a neatly attached Store with the storage barn, especially at the roof lines.
No gaps and it appears like a tight fit.
The addition of the interior floor will show off this model even better.
Keep up the great work. Thanks for sharing.

Rich

[nycjeff]

Hello Rich, thanks for looking in and for the nice words. I'm getting a lot done because this is my time of year to spend my hours in the train room. Unlike most of the other posters on the forum for whom summer is a time to be outside and get things done- it is the opposite for me here in the desert. Here, where it can be above 100 degrees before 11 am, I have to get my outside chores done early. The late morning and afternoon hours, when it is too hot to be outside, I can spend time inside in the AC in the train room.

[nycjeff]

Continuing on...

Next up were the stairs for the outside door on the left side of the storage barn. The instruction manual dedicates a couple of pages to this little project, along with a separate sheet of full size templates.

First I "grained and stained" the strip wood. This means that I used my razor saw to texture the surface of the wood and then I dipped all of it into my A&I solution. When dry, I dry brushed a little of the trim color onto the strip wood.



Here are the major pieces of the stairs. I had to remember to make the stairs, railings and steps face the opposite direction than shown in the instructions. This was because I switched the gable ends of the kit when assembling the building.



Here are the assembled stairs. The templates made this job easier. It's much easier making little sub-assemblies like this on a flat surface, then gluing them together.



And here is a look at the stairs in their intended location. Also, in this picture you can see the finished rafter tails on both the barn and the store.

[nycjeff]

Now it was time for the loading dock/ deck for the other side of the storage barn, under the large barn doors.

First, I separated out the strip wood needed for the deck and then I "grained and stained" the wood.



I used my chopper to cut pieces to the correct size following the information provided on the template sheet.



Following the steps given I first laid out the support beams and then glued the deck joists in place.



The instructions only called for cross bracing between the front row of posts and the front side posts. I decided to install cross bracing between all of the rows of posts. I dipped into my strip wood stash box for this additional work.



Here's a look at the finished loading dock/ deck

[Rick]

Jeff, I really like how you rusted the roof.
Looks very realistic.
Nice job on adding the floor and good colors on the stairs and deck.

[Jerry]

Jeff nice coloring on the roof.  And your stairs and deck came out perfectly.

Jerry

[friscomike]

Howdy Jeff,

As other folks have said, the roof looks terrific.  That porch is tiny.  The loading dock looks terrific, too.  This is a fun build to follow.

Have fun,
mike

[nycjeff]

Jeff, I really like how you rusted the roof.
Looks very realistic.
Nice job on adding the floor and good colors on the stairs and deck.

Hello Rick, thank you for the generous comments. I'm pleased with how the roof came out as well. The stairs and deck were not very difficult to build with the aid of the excellent instructions and templates.

Jeff nice coloring on the roof.  And your stairs and deck came out perfectly.

Jerry

Hello Jerry, thank you so much for looking in. The feedback is much appreciated.

Howdy Jeff,

As other folks have said, the roof looks terrific.  That porch is tiny.  The loading dock looks terrific, too.  This is a fun build to follow.

Have fun,
mike

Hello Mike, I'm glad that you like my build and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

[nycjeff]

Continuing on...

Here's a look at the loading dock/deck in it's future position. I haven't added the barn doors to the wall because I wanted to make sure that they would fit when the dock was in place.



Next up is another little sub-assembly- the outhouse. It comes with four laser cut framed walls that fit together very well, as have all the parts that I have come across so far. Craig has done a remarkable job with the design and engineering in this kit.
In this picture you can also see the laser cut parts for the floor, ceiling, toilet seat and more strip wood, because this outhouse is made with board by board construction. The door with it's Z frame bracing is still on the carrier sheet.



The outhouse is done. the hardest part was fitting the foldable toilet seat part into position through the door. And if you can believe it, there is a 3D printed toilet paper roll sitting on the seat shelf inside and you can actually see the hole in the middle of the roll. This 3D stuff is amazing.



Here's another look at the outhouse. The door has been added and of course it has a crescent moon cut-out in it. If you look carefully you can see the toilet paper roll inside.



Here's a look at all three little sub-assemblies that I have done so far. As I said before, constructing them was made much easier by the very well done step-by-step instructions and the templates that come with this kit. This is the first exposure that I have had with this large a kit and with this level of detail and construction techniques. I'm very impressed and can't wait to get to the rest of this kit. I'm only just getting started with everything that needs to be built.

[nycjeff]

It's time to start putting this part of the diorama together. I will mount this scene on a styrene base as I usually do with my builds. I always draw out the footprint of the structure and then use blue painters tape to cover the footprint before painting.



The styrene base has been painted. I used a dark camo rattle can color this time. Any dark color that resembles an earth color will do, you just don't want any of the white styrene color to show through. When painting I always make sure to get the white edges of the base painted.



For this next part of the build, I'm going off script. I wanted to add something to the front of the store, but I didn't want to cover up the view of the wonderful recessed entryway. I decided to add a wood floor in the area outside the front entry. For this I used some 4x10 strip wood from my stash. Here I've added some texture to the boards surface and then dipped them into my A&I solution.



I cut the boards to about the same length and then used my #11 blade to distress the ends of the boards. Next I glued them onto the base. You'll notice a section of the floor is a little longer, that's for the part that extends into the recessed entryway.
Also in this picture, you can see the barn door assembly for the storage barn. It comes with some wonderfully detailed rollers at the top of the doors that fit into a styrene channel and some 3D printed door handles that are incredible.



I wanted a cover for this front deck area, but I didn't want a full roof, again because I didn't want to hide the detailed recessed entryway that I worked so hard to build. I decided to build a wood frame. I used 3/32 square strip wood for this. The ledger board on the wall of the store just below the sign is a piece of 4x10 strip wood that I cut out pockets for the four joists to fit into. The diagonal bracing at the top of the posts is only 1/4 inch long with 45 degree cuts on each end. This was definitely a tweezer job. More detail for this front deck cover is coming, but that's for next time.

[nycjeff]

I wanted the appearance of some type of roof covering for the front area, so I decided to have a folded up awning with pull ropes. I used some grey packing paper for the awning. I cut a piece to the correct size and then folded it. I glued some black thread to the underside of the awning and then glued the folded awning in place. I also started to glue pieces of a wood walkway to the stairs on the left side.



The rear wall of the structure will face the track at the back of the diorama, so I just put some basic scenery in place there.



It's getting to be detail time so I stuck some, but not all, of the castings that come with the kit to some painters tape and then got then ready for a coat of rattle can primer grey.



I continued the basic scenery, which is just sifted dirt from my yard and some ground foams held in place with a mod podge and water mixture, on the left side.



Using some of the castings I made some display benches for the front area under the awning frame. I finished laying the pieces for the wood walkway on the left side as well.

[friscomike]

Howdy Jeff,

Oddmun and Co. is looking terrific.  Wow, that's a lot of details to paint.  It will take longer to paint them than to build the rest of the kit! 

Have fun,
mike

[deemery]

Awnings were MUCH more common, and rarely modeled, for the era before air conditioning.

dave