Using a 3D printer to Scratchbuild (Santa Fe Freight House}

[robert goslin]

Looks great Mike.  Sure is a lot of freight doors to paint.  Have fun.

[Mike the Trainman]

I use lightweight spackling made by Dap. I found it in Home Depot but you can probably find it in any hardware store. I use the back side of # 17 X-acto blade as a putty knife. Apply the spackle to the brick leaving only spackle in the joints and not on the face of the brick. Sometimes after it dries I go over the surface with a damp sponge if there is some haze on the surface of the brick.

[Mike the Trainman]

Thanks Rob, There are 20 doors and 10 (7 sets per window 56 panes) windows. To much to mask. Next painting all those windows and doors.

[Michael Hohn]

Mike,

The size of your structure here gives it a very realistic look.  As modelers we tend to build too many small buildings. 

Like you, I've found the rustoleum khaki to be extremely useful. It disappeared from stores here for a while but now it's back.

Excellent modeling as always.

(A different) Mike

[Mike the Trainman]

Thanks (other Mike). It is nice to have someone with a huge layout to build a structure this size. The ice house that I'm going to build will also be this size. We also had the same problem here it was gone almost a year. I had bought a couple of cans so I had a supply to get me through. 

[deemery]

Mike,

The size of your structure here gives it a very realistic look.  As modelers we tend to build too many small buildings. 

Like you, I've found the rustoleum khaki to be extremely useful. It disappeared from stores here for a while but now it's back.

Excellent modeling as always.

(A different) Mike

That was my problem with the South River kits.  As someone who lives in an NH mill town, I could tell just how 'selectively compressed' they were.  So when I built my SRMW kit, I doubled the length by using the back walls (not viewable from the aisles) to extend the front walls.  It's still a small mill...


dave

[Mike the Trainman]

Deemery nice start on the mill. Serval of my friends have large basement layouts that I build for. That enables me to build large structures.

[Mike the Trainman]

After the mortar dries I go over it with my A/I wash. I started painting the doors using Vallejo Model Color Cam. olive Green. Since my supply of Floquil Paint is starting to be used up or dried up (no matter what I do to make it last) some is over 50 years old. I found a list of Vallejo Air Colors match to Floquil. I match the Air Color colors to Model Colors colors (that's the only Yallejo Paint I can find here.

I had to come up with a different way to weather with the Vallejo paints because the A/I dissolves the paint. I made up a very thin wash with black and thinner. It seem to work ok.

[deemery]

The larger scene:

Even with the expanded main building, this still looks 'too small' to my eyes.  What I should have done was made castings of the front walls of the main building and expanded it by another 2 bays.  That would have looked "to scale" for a more typical Newe England mill.

An historic photo of the prototype:


This isn't quite the SRSM set-up, but you can see how I was inspired by this photo.  Here's the kit's page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/103194951@N02/sets/72177720312486962/

dave