Junction Farm (BESTTrains kits)

[Jerry]

What color should I paint my (1890s) chickens?  White?  Brown?

I'm guessing an assortment of colors, ranging from white through tans to reddish brown.

dave

Make some of each color the Rooster doesn't care!!!!!! 

Jerry

[deemery]

Today I worked on farm animals, painting chickens, pigs and I started on the cows.  (I forgot to prime them earlier.)  We'll see how things look tomorrow once the paint is dried, but so far I'm pretty happy.  Photos tomorrow.

dave

[deemery]

The matte varnish is drying on the critters:


dave

[PRR Modeler]

Nice job on the animals...no red bull?

[deemery]

Nice job on the animals...no red bull?

No.  I don't have the space to pasture the bull separate from the cows...

dave

[Larry C]

Dave those are some fine looking critters; well done.

[Philip]

Someone will get flogged~ RUN~

Sharpening the axe now!

Nice work Dave!

[jbvb]

Nice job on the animals...no red bull?

No.  I don't have the space to pasture the bull separate from the cows...

When my grandparents moved here 25 years after Dave's era, there were only a few bulls in town. The owners would bring them to your herd of milkers for a fee.

[deemery]

Well, when I last posted on the barn construction, I had discovered I installed some parts of the barn foundation upside down.  Over the last week, I corrected that.  Sorry I didn't take photos of the entire process. 

First I cut a brace the width (between the corner bracing) of the foundation wall.  I wanted a tight fit, to hold the wall into alignment after the one piece is cut out of the foundation.  Then I used a razor saw to cut the piece that will be visible, cutting close to the corner braces and being careful to cut perpendicular to the ground.  (A razor saw gave me the smallest kerf.)  I flipped that over, test-fit, and then glued the wall segment, right side up, to the piece of bracing and to the rest of the foundation.  I used yellow glue for the original joint, and then went back with 30 minute epoxy to lock things into position.  The next day, I filled in the (vertical) cracks and re-carved mortar joints.  I used (Deluxe Materials) acrylic putty.  In the past, I've used plaster to fill plaster joints, but the plaster doesn't bond as well to a painted surface.  Here's a look at the reassembled foundation from the bottom.


Then I reprimed and painted the rock foundation to match the farmhouse foundation.  I added the missing window castings on the right (visible) side, and filled in the window holes on the other side using scribed siding.


Now the last problem was the lower doors in the foundation.  The parts for that warped badly in ways I couldn't fix, so I had to recreate the door framing.  For the larger right side door,  I measured and noted the distance from the foundation casting to the front of the wall (clapboard) was a bit more than 1/8".  For the top beam, I cut 1/8" square, painted to match, and glued into position on the foundation.  Then I positioned the structure to make sure the top of the beam was tight against the bottom of the structure.  I added 1/8" x 1/32" posts on either side.  Then I glued the laser-cut scribed siding door to the foundation casting (between the posts.)  Turns out there were gaps on either side, so I filled those gaps with 1/32" x 1/16" pieces. I did a different process on the left side door.  There I glued the scribed siding piece, which was larger than the actual door opening, into position.  Then I added 1/16" square pieces for framing, glued to the wood scribed siding piece. 

Finally, I filled a small gap at the bottom of the wall against the foundation with a 1/32" x 1/16" piece of stripwood, and then sanded that down to get a tight fit between the wall and the foundation casting.  Here's the result:

I do need to go back and lightly sand down the top of the window castings, to get a tight fit on that wall and foundation. 

Somewhere I know I have a casting of a pulley on an arm that I'll add to the eave of the barn.  That's to haul the hay bales through that small square door in the middle of the gable wall.

dave

p.s.  I'm guessing those two doors slide towards the center of the structure on a vertical hanger, i.e. they are "barn doors" in the structural sense.  BEST includes prototype photos, and there's no visible hinges or dividing line for those doors to swing into the structure. 

[PRR Modeler]

That's a good looking barn Dave.

[Larry C]

Dave great job on the barn.

[Michael Hohn]

That's a good-looking barn, Dave.  Worth the work, in my opinion.  (Easy to say; I'm not doing the work.)

Mike

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looking good, Dave.

Worth the work.

Cheers, Mark.

[deemery]

It's a little detail, but the pulley will explain that door 'hanging in midair' on the terrain.


dave

[PRR Modeler]

That is a nice detail.