Kit-built Structure Rehab - IHC Machine Shop

[VagelK]

I've been having fun rehabbing old plastic kit-built structures from long-forgotten model show junk tables or long-gone layouts, and this one has been waiting its turn in a corner of the blast furnace complex on my Path Valley Lines HO layout. 



The Machine Shop is one of many European-made small industrial structure kits imported for the U.S. market a variety of familiar companies, with Tyco and IHC (International Hobby Corp.) the two most recent ones.  Pola, a German firm, seems to have been the manufacturer.



It has a small footprint, making it an ideal auxiliary building for the blast furnace complex, where space is at a premium but there is just enough room to shoe-horn in a repair facility next to the blast engine house and the water tank.



As a product intended - let's face it - for the toy train-to-model railroad transitional segment of our hobby, it is not much more complicated than the old snap-fit Plasticville kits; it's certainly not engineered to retrofit a detailed interior, and the blank space for a big sign above the entrance and large holes for signposts and vents/chimneys cast in the roof have to be dealt with.



But, I have a bunch of detail parts and scale lumber that have been occupying space for longer, even, than this old structure. 



But, while a detailed interior is definitely in the evolving plan, the appurtenances of an early-twentieth century belt-driven machine shop are not among my collection of stuff.  Therefore, I think I'll focus on the shell. 

The overall planning process for this project is organic, so I don't know exactly how it will turn out.

First steps: 

1) Try, without breaking anything, to remove the windows and door from the walls and remove the clear plastic "glass" from the frames of windows, door, and skylights.  Window openings to be filled with MicroClear (probably clear sheet styrene for skylights).

2) Discard the base, with what looks like empty steel beer kegs embedded in mud, and replace with stone foundation footing, maybe not as high off the ground.



3) I have some research to do on small machine shops ...

Stay tuned,
Vagel

[PRR Modeler]

I'll be following although I've given away to other modlers the ones I still had.

[elwoodblues]

This looks like it will be an interesting project, will be following along.

[Larry C]

Vagel interesting rebuild; I'll be keeping my eye on your progress.

[ReadingBob]

I'm going to follow along as well. Interesting project you've undertaken. 

[Jerry]

Count me in.  This should be really interesting.

Jerry

[friscomike]

Howdy Vagel,

I love kitbashing, and this project looks to be a lot of fun.  I like your call to dump the funky base.

Have fun,
mike

[VagelK]

Today I started the disassembly process.



The base didn't survive intact, but it's a discard, anyway.  The windows and door are a series of one-piece panels with clear plastic "glass" laminated onto them and then glued into the wall openings.  There was some residual base material welded to the bottom of one side wall, which I took care of with a few careful srokes of the miniature miter saw.

By the way, I'm impressed that our friends at Pola actually included brick detail on the backs of the front and rear facades that are visible above the roof.  Nice touch.

The trick was to separate the door/window panel assemblies from the interior walls, and then do the same with "glass" laminate without rendering the actual windows and door unusable in the reassembled structure. 



After a tough start I dug out the Xacto No. 17 chisel, became a little bit more carefu, and ended up with the door and all but one window intact enough to be reused.  That remaining flash around them will be trimmed to "Grandt Line" standards before they go back into place somewhere down the road.



After working with Xacto blades  (especially the No. 17 chisel) for a little over an hour with no accidents, I decided to call in the dogs and quit while I was ahead. 
I'll start the next work session with skylight disassembly and nipping off the guide nubs on the inside corners of the wall units.

[elwoodblues]

Vagel,

I'm surprised you were able to save as much as you did, your patience paid off.

[Jerry]

I'm with Ron on this one great patience!!

Jerry

[VagelK]

Patience didn't work so well with the "glass" inserts for the skylights.  The inserts were neatly cemented in place along the ridges of the skylights; there was no bleed-over onto the plastic "glass" within the window frames.  But ... they were so solidly cemented it proved impossible to tease the inserts from the roof.  For whatever reason, clear plastic is very brittle; the first insert snapped into several pieces as I gently pried, and one of those pieces took a piece of the frame with it.  I was able to fit and cement it back into place from the inside (right hand arrow).  The left hand arrow points to a frame that I boogered up from the inside with my No. 17 blade.  So, the inserts will remain in place, and I'll just have to mask them when the time comes for priming and painting.  Oh, and no visitors will be allowed to look at the inside of the roof, where they'll notice those nasty inserts still inplace ... not to mention the scar from where I nipped-off that big piece of something sticking down from the middle skylight.



Otherwise, I removed the assembly guide tabs on the inside wall corners with a nipper and sanded the scars flat; I'll leave the cast-in numbers alone for the time being, but they'll eventually have to be chiseled and sanded flat to allow for an interior brick wall to be laminated.  I think Plastruct brick sheet will do the trick - its bricks are close enough to the kit's exterior bricks that I don't think it'll be noticeable - although I'll need to buy another sheet; my remnant from last year's blast house interior project isn't going to be enough.



I'm still in the thinking phase of planning.  It's obvious that this building's footprint is too small for a major machine shop, so I'm downsizing my vision to more of a light repair shop, with a drill press, a lathe, some work benches around the walls, and - somewhere - a small smithy's forge and anvil.  Lo, and behold, as I was turning to go from my workbench some relics from the 2-stall engine house on my first layout, now lying in peaceful repose behind the Chambersburg roundhouse, caught my eye.  One of those smoke jacks would be great for projecting up through the roof from the hood of a small forge.





So, now the disassembly process is done, and the parts have been washed and dried for the next steps.  I'll be working on a floor plan for a while, and in the meantime I think I'll put some bricks on the inside walls, then build the foundation from some foam core random stone (I think its a Noch product), maybe add a front porch ... and what are we going to do with that big bare rectangle on the front facade!?

[PRR Modeler]

Great job so far Vagel.

[VagelK]

Thanks, Curt.  You and some others following this build probably recall my pig casting machine and blast house interior projects that evolved organically on RR-line, and this one is starting to look like it will follow the same wandering path.  I was going through my backlog of never gonna get used stuff to donate for door prizes or put on the white elephant table at our NMRA Keystone Division's upcoming Jamboree in April, and discovered a Pola Railway Repair Facility that I probably thought I would someday give the Dean Freytag treatment as part of MY blast furnace complex.  Hmmm, thought I ... maybe this could be bashed with the Machine Shop. 

An L-shaped shop would fit in the space available, and that huge clear glass second story would be ideal for viewing into and would complement the blast engine house interior that I finished about this time last year ...



... and, oops! I got the end wall on that repair building inside out!  The low-slung portals in the Railway Repair Facility end walls and the small gantry crane included in the kit would be ideal for a narrow gauge tram for rail carts coming from the blast furnace, boiler house and blast house with heavy stuff for repair or for fabrication and/or repairs.  And that corner lot to the left gets me thinking of all the posh junk that used to populate the back lot behind the the East Broad Top's machine shop complex in photos ... tons (literally) of possibilities.



So, I'm thinking about it.  Finding the right kinds of machinery to put in there would be a challenge.  I know Sierra West has a number of machine shop tools in the development stage, but so far I see nothing changed on their website.

Anyway, I've started to add brick to the interior walls of the current project structure, using JTT Project Sheets from our "local" hobby express.  I cut a piece to fit the rear wall, and brushed some Plastruct cement onto the inner surface, sanded smooth before hand.  I thought I'd have a second or two to align the pieces, but wham! the thin brick sheet was fixed in place as soon as it touched the cement.  Good thing I was careful (that is to say, lucky).



I cleaned out the window openings from the outside with an Xacto No. 11 blade, then used the same blade, with a lot of very light passes, to remove all of the mounting panel material from around the window frame.  Because the interior brick wall is about as thick as that mounting panel, I had to do that in order for the window frame to not be too far inset from the outside.  A lot of sanding & test fitting later, and I have two good windows and one of the damaged ones friction-fitted in place ...



The back wall won't be visible from the aisle, and it might not even be used as is if I follow through with the potential kitbash idea, but it was a good practice exercise, nevertheless.  That damaged window can be used elsewhere, with the open space boarded up with, maybe, a ventilation fan or something.



So, that's where it stands for now.  Any thoughts, suggestions are welcome, and directions to potential sources of machine tools would be appreciated, as well.

[PRR Modeler]

I like the idea of bricking in windows. It helps to give the feel of age.

[VagelK]

I like the idea of bricking in windows. It helps to give the feel of age.

I meant the open space in the frame, but I see your point about bricking up an entire opening.  Something to consider.