Sýnir færslur með efnisorðinu Structures. Sýna allar færslur
Sýnir færslur með efnisorðinu Structures. Sýna allar færslur
miðvikudagur, 19. ágúst 2015
þriðjudagur, 19. maí 2015
Generic Industries - 3
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| Yes, they need some additional details, some more vegetation, and weathering (and the building supply dealer needs the doors glued in place!) but the scene is starting to come together. |
I'll wrap up this short segment on the "Generic Industries" - follow on posts on final scenic treatment and details and the like will use the names of the industries. For the last couple of weeks I've been diligently working on three projects - rotating from one to another as interest, paint and glue drying time, and time available indicate. So, at the same time I've been working on this project I've been doing some work on the locomotive fleet, and also finishing Derby & Ball. I'll address the "generic industries" scene first.
Total time invested so far is a couple of evenings and a rainy, muggy weekend day. The payoff is pretty big since a six-foot stretch of the railroad looks much closer to "done" than it did a couple of weeks ago!
A couple of other lessons learned from this exercise:
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| The American Models factory seemed very undersized when first placed in the scene. I knew it needed to be a little beefier - or it was going into the circular file. |
2. One problem with using kits can be seen in this view. I swear some kits that say "HO" on the box are closer to N scale. I get selective compression. And I get the need for it. When it's a "stand alone" building the fact that it's undersized is not often obvious. But it can be a real problem when you have several actual scale sized structures around it. Or when you spot a boxcar next to it and see the boxcar is bigger than the building!
That was the case with the American Models kit. The "main" building has great lines and was easy to build. But it looked undersized. Frankly, I was about to pitch it in the trash when I figured I'd see if I could make it just a little bigger. The solution was the line side warehouse from Walthers. I butted it up against the American Models kit and it seemed to make the scale look a little better. I followed this up with a small office building for the "complex" that I'd built from an American Model Yard Office kit I built years ago (back in my MR days???). The color scheme on the office determined the color scheme on the rest of the buildings.
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| The Foundry buildings in place. The addition of the Walthers warehouse gives the complex some much needed size. Still need to "plant" the structures and the tree! Then there will be additional details - maybe some more fences, and some additional weathering. |
well "dull" was one of the words used.
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| When you marry an artist you better be prepared to hear things like "That's very nice. but it seems monotone and dull � maybe something besides gray buildings?" I got a reprise when I explained the "new" freight house would be red�. |
I get it - the old two story freight house is "weathered" wood - so it's basically gray. The foundry complex is gray with gray-green trim. And the building supply warehouse is a faded "industrial" green.
sunnudagur, 3. maí 2015
Generic Industries - 2
Managed to get the Walther Clayton County Lumber kit painted - roofs have the initial coat of paint but need to be secured in place, as do the doors. In the third photo you can see how much real estate is available for the "second" industrial building. I think the Clayton Lumber kit, which I will finish and detail as a building supply distributor, fits this spot nicely.
miðvikudagur, 29. apríl 2015
miðvikudagur, 1. apríl 2015
fimmtudagur, 26. mars 2015
Progress Report
They say there's nothing like an open house or a visit from some fellow modelers to really kick things into gear. I hadn't really been all that motivated to do a lot of modeling in January and February. I'd say it was more "puttering" than progress. But when I learned that two of my good friends and great New England modelers were going to venture forth from their winter hideaways to visit several layouts in the DC area, including mine, I figured it was time to get my you-know-what in gear again!
The blog has also suffered from a lack of progress posts except for a couple of "wordless Wednesdays." What do you want from me - to make progress and then have time to actually blog about it????
So what has been going on:
1. These visitor preps always seem to start with cleaning up - the layout had gotten littered with "stuff" again. Actually just getting the surface of the railroad cleared off can be a huge motivator.
2. I engaged the services of Rich Cobb to build a couple more White River Junction structures to go along with the station he completed for me a couple of years ago. This meant getting Rich photos, footprints and other bits and pieces.
3. Bernie came out here and we "swung for the fence" with an attempt to fix the issues with the "black hole of White River. You can see what our plan was here. The result, still very much under construction, can be seen below:
There was the unfinished river scene north of White River Junction that needed a little something. Last weekend was spent patching the sub terrain, adding the "dirt" texture layer and painting the backdrop. I'm still getting my sea legs under me with the painting, but I do enjoy it! A couple of evenings to prep a couple of boxes of Super trees, and another evening spent flocking and "planting" them. A quick coat of fresh black paint will double as the water surface for the time being. Yes, the bank still needs vegetation, and track needs some ballasting. Overall, I think this will be a nice photo spot on the railroad - I know I'd certainly wait for a train here, and would be sure to frame the picture with that "electric maple" on the right:
And the "official" structure awaits signage, weathering, and details:
Read More..
The blog has also suffered from a lack of progress posts except for a couple of "wordless Wednesdays." What do you want from me - to make progress and then have time to actually blog about it????
So what has been going on:
1. These visitor preps always seem to start with cleaning up - the layout had gotten littered with "stuff" again. Actually just getting the surface of the railroad cleared off can be a huge motivator.
2. I engaged the services of Rich Cobb to build a couple more White River Junction structures to go along with the station he completed for me a couple of years ago. This meant getting Rich photos, footprints and other bits and pieces.
3. Bernie came out here and we "swung for the fence" with an attempt to fix the issues with the "black hole of White River. You can see what our plan was here. The result, still very much under construction, can be seen below:
Rich came through in record time with the White River Junction ball signal (Rich delivered the models painted but unweathered - the final finishing is on me):
Yes, I consider myself blessed to have great friends and talented modelers who are willing to help me out with this project, but ultimately it's my railroad � which means I should probably do something�.
I did get the WRJ station platforms completed - by far the largest paved area I've ever in one sitting. I think I'll save the specifics on that for it's own blog post, but you can see the platforms behind the E7 in the photo above.
There was the unfinished river scene north of White River Junction that needed a little something. Last weekend was spent patching the sub terrain, adding the "dirt" texture layer and painting the backdrop. I'm still getting my sea legs under me with the painting, but I do enjoy it! A couple of evenings to prep a couple of boxes of Super trees, and another evening spent flocking and "planting" them. A quick coat of fresh black paint will double as the water surface for the time being. Yes, the bank still needs vegetation, and track needs some ballasting. Overall, I think this will be a nice photo spot on the railroad - I know I'd certainly wait for a train here, and would be sure to frame the picture with that "electric maple" on the right:A few weeks ago I did a post about the Derby & Ball building in Waterbury. Just to show I actually do things other than redo track and make trees, here's the progress shot of the Derby & Ball building (obviously still under construction!) I couldn't determine how the prototype was painted in my era, but I kind of liked the colors it's painted now, so I went with those. Very New England color palette.
One last thing - just tonight (so Jim and Randy just missed it) I got the Twin State Fruit Company building for WRJ from Rich. So out with this stylish mockup -
Sorry for such a long post - I'll try to keep future posts shorter and more frequent!
But there's been a lot going on (some things I'm keeping close to the vest for the time being!) and wanted to catch you up!
miðvikudagur, 25. mars 2015
miðvikudagur, 4. mars 2015
fimmtudagur, 26. febrúar 2015
Derby & Ball Co. - 3
I've been making some progress on the Derby & Ball Co. complex - as you can see, the basic walls of the "main" building are assembled and have been primed. The building is resting on the "plans" for the woodworking shop portion of the complex.
mánudagur, 9. febrúar 2015
Derby & Ball
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| Derby and Ball wood shop is visible to the left side of this Phil Hastings photo. The smoke is obscuring everything but the smokestack on the remainder of the complex. |
In the meantime I decided to focus my attention on a few more of the Waterbury structures.
First up on the docket is the Derby and Ball Co. building complex.
This includes a long two story structure and a one-story building that was likely used as a wood shop.
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| You can see the basic outline of the main building in this mockup, which is nothing more than a piece of newsprint cut to fit the layout with rough sketches of the window and door locations. |
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| The footprints of the Derby and Ball buildings to the left of the mainline. |
I'd already done some mockups of the structure - my models will be fairly large as model railroad structures go but won't be scale size - I simply don't the have length. But I should be able to capture the spirit of the complex.
The smoke from the locomotive in the Phil Hasting's photo is obscuring the two-story buildings - here's how they look today - like many of the older trackside buildings in Vermont they've been renovated and altered slightly over the years, but the basic "bones" are still there - I have to thank George Dutka for these shots which he was kind enough to lend me (and they're published here with his permission):
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| George Dutka photo shows the Derby and Ball main building. The white "garage" in the background is the old woodworking shop. |
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| Sanborn Insurance Map closeup of the Derby & Ball complex. |
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| Another photo from George. This shot of the shorter building in the two-story complex reveals the gable roof was different at one point. I plan to build my model following the lower gable trim since I think the resulting model will be a little more interesting. |
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| George even found an "earlier era" picture of the complex - I'll be using this shot to backdate my model in some places - there's room for artistic interpretation even in prototype modeling! |
At this point the model isn't much to look at since I've been laying out the doors and windows on the sub wall - more updates to follow.
(I have to add after building the last three or four structures from wood it's really, really nice to be working with styrene on this one!)
fimmtudagur, 15. janúar 2015
Laskey Cabinet
Before he moved to the wilds of southern Virginia Norm Wolf stopped by and dropped off a couple of structures that he knew wouldn't fit on his new apartment layout. One of them was a kit from Scotty Mason called "Laskey Cabinet Co." I liked the basic look of the building, since though it's freelanced it doesn't have some of the downright peculiar features of some of the more "imaginative" kits out there.
Knowing that it was wasn't prototype Norm mentioned "..if you can't find a spot for it don't worry" or words to that effect. My attitude was this building has one thing going for it most of my other structures don't�it's out of the box and finished!
Haven't spent much time in the layout room this week - lots going on at work and I spent a lot of time in the basement preparing for my clinic at Cocoa Beach so I may have be feeling just a touch of burnout. But spending some time before dinner looking for a place to "plant" this building seemed like an ideal way to ease back into making some progress on the layout.
I ended up locating it on a siding at the north end of Randolph.
The structure is in pretty good shape, but the flashing on the office building looks like it's lifted a little - likely a result of a differences in humidity and temperature between Norm's old basement and mine and the change of seasons. So I might have to rework it a little.
Thanks Norm!
miðvikudagur, 24. desember 2014
Local Histories as Reference
Although the internet can be a great resource sometimes I think we've become just a little too dependent on the "Google Machine." Sure, "Googling" is a great start whether you're shopping or researching how a 200 year-old building looked in 1954, but it's not the only way to get from "here to there."
I've found local town histories are one resource that many modelers overlook. Although in many cases the railroad history in these is thin on details (if not outright incorrect!) they often have wonderful vintage photos and lots of details in the text that may seem a little too down in the weeds for a history not centered on one town or city.
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| Two of the Arcadia histories I've found useful. |
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| The History of Waterbury is a little heavier on text with fewer photos - but there are some images useful to the model railroader such as this shot of Pilgrim Plywood. |
Most of the ones I've located are reasonably priced, so I simply purchased them. If you locate one that's truly rare the price may be a little steep - especially if you're unsure of how useful the information in the book may be. If you don't wish to purchase the book you try to borrow it through interlibrary loan. Another possibility is to stop in the town library next time you're in the area you're modeling on a research trip - you might find other sources there like old maps and newspapers.
I've had the Acadia books and the Waterbury town history book shown in the photo above for a number of years.
I thought this might make a worthwhile blog post when I was trying to uncover photos of different sides of some of the buildings in Randolph - and not having a lot of look with online searches. I also wanted to find any photos of the Randolph Furniture factory. After exhausting my usual sources I resigned myself to having to use a commercial model as a "filler" and turned my attention to some of the other buildings. As I was researching the Brigham Gelatine plant I came across an article online from the Randolph newspaper. Although the article was about plans to convert the Gelatine plant to a condo, there was a small photo in the article that credited Wes Herwig's Early Photographs of Randolph Vermont, 1855-1948.
I'd never heard of this book, but a quick search on Amazon revealed a copy for sale. Less than a week later it arrived. It proved well worth the price. There wasn't a single picture of the furniture plant, there were four or five, along with lots of photos of the other buildings in town. (Ironically, there were no pictures of the old coal and ice building, perhaps one of the best known structures in Randolph).
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| Randolph Furniture. Eventually this would become part of the Ethan Allen Company. |
þriðjudagur, 9. desember 2014
What's been happening - Wiring, new car, new automobile, and a firehouse....
I've been getting some wiring completed on the Richmond side of the peninsula (and wiring makes for compelling photographs, which is why you haven't seen many posts this week!). I'm also putting some finishing touches on the Resin Car Works chemical tank car - will do a separate post on it in the next few days here and on the freight car blog.
The other big project this week had nothing to do with model railroading - my 10-year old car picked last Thursday to develop a bad leak in several key places...
Without going into too much detail, it was going to cost more than the car was worth (by a factor of 2x!) to repair it so I ended up shopping for a new car. Not my favorite thing to do....
All that is behind me though.
An ongoing project (something I can do in front of the television) is researching the various structures needed for the railroad. At this point I'm trying to locate photos of the Randolph Vermont fire house (currently the town museum) - the building with a tower just north of the depot. Specifically, I'm looking for photos that show the door/window arrangements on the side and gable walls as they looked in the 1940s/50s - I believe at one point it may have had large "firehouse" style doors that have been replaced but the contemporary building doesn't make the arrangement obvious. After studying it for a while David Emery feels the building as it now stands is pretty much original - or at least relatively unchanged from my modeling era.
Hoping someone took a photo of a train and got more of the building in the foreground or background than I've found to date.
If I can't find that, we'll go with the current arrangement. The firehouse, and the coal and ice dealer from last week's Wordless Wednesday, will be key elements in the Randolph scene. sunnudagur, 23. nóvember 2014
Shepley Coal Company Sheds
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| These two sheds make up most of the Shepley Coal complex at Waterbury. |
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| View from the opposite end. Still need to stain the end wall! |
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| You can see the two coal sheds to the right (in front of 2-8-0 452) in this George Corey picture of Waterbury. The next industry I plan to work on in Waterbury is the Cooley-Wright foundry, visible in the distance to the left. |
Photos show the current state of the Shepley Coal Company sheds. Though not as interesting as silo or elevated ramp style sheds, these lean-to sheds were perhaps the most common in New England in the 1940s and 50s.
Mine is made from Scribed basswood sheets with 6 x 6 posts glued along the side. The bracing crossmembers are 2 x 8s. Everything is stained with a combination of Hunterline Blue Gray, Creosote, and Light Brown stains. The roof is black .040" styrene - I'll add tissue to the roof to represent tarpaper.
Also, the rear walls of the two sheds face the backdrop, so these are also plain styrene. No reason to expend effort on something no one will ever be able to see.
You'll notice there is some pink foam crumbs visible where I carved away some scenery to make room for the sheds. I didn't vacuum it up before taking the pictures - need to be quiet, remember?
Finally - about the name - Shepley was the name of the company as seen on prototype Sanborn Maps. I didn't have room to model the sheds full size - but my sheds are plenty long. I have a small shack that will serve as a scale house that will be installed when I add the scenery texture to this scene. I'm not sure I'm going to call the industry Shepley. I might name it after a friend.
mánudagur, 8. september 2014
Mocking up Waterbury
I've decided to focus my modeling efforts on the Waterbury "front door" scene until it looks "done." Key to this project is scratchbuilding a number of structures that are based on specific prototypes. I've already completed the Seabury Feed Mill and the old two-story freight house. Before I got too far ahead of myself it seemed to make sense to nail down the dimensions and locations of the other structures. The first building I turned my attention to was Demeritt Cannery, which is located alongside a dedicated spur within thetrack that circles the end of the peninsula. I started by scaling the basic dimensions from a Sanborn Map
to create an outline of the building. It quickly became obvious a "full size" building wasn't going to fit, and even if it did it would overwhelm the scene.
From the prototype photos of the building (above) I know basically what the structure looked like. It has four "sections"
1. The one story section with the covered truck dump
2. A three-story section
3. A two story section
4. A gambrel roof can warehouse
I figured as long as I capture these sections the resulting model will look "right" even if it compressed from the extremely long prototype.
I adjusted the mockup - it's much easier to use tape, scissors, and scraps of paper now than to make changes to an under-construction styrene model later! One change I made was to move the truck dump to the left to clear the track. It's a minor change that also allows the other end of the structure to be placed further than the curved mainline track. You'll also note I didn't mockup all the other lumbersheds and other buildings - there's plenty of room to add them on to the layout, and they'll be scaled to the "main" building so mocking them up isn't as critical.
Once I had the final footprint for Demeritt I turned my attention to the Derby & Ball complex.
This structure will be located across the tracks from Demeritt between the edge of the layout and mainline. Since it's a foreground structure I went a step further and drew plans (I use the term loosely!) for the walls on a piece of paper to check access points and viewing angles.
I started with the building scale width, but quickly found the resulting model would have completely filled the space between the siding and fascia - no "breathing" room. I checked various widths by simply folding the paper mockup until I had a width that would allow me to include the correct number and placement of windows (I may use windows smaller than the prototype to keep the proportions correct). 
I'll use the resulting mockup to create the outline of the walls and windows directly on the .060" styrene subwalls. But that's another story.
Is the time I spent (roughly 2-3 hours while watching/listening to football games on TV) worth the effort? I think so - I can proceed forward with this section of the layout confident that the buildings will fit and will look right.
Read More..
From the prototype photos of the building (above) I know basically what the structure looked like. It has four "sections" 1. The one story section with the covered truck dump
2. A three-story section
3. A two story section
4. A gambrel roof can warehouse
I figured as long as I capture these sections the resulting model will look "right" even if it compressed from the extremely long prototype.
Once I had the final footprint for Demeritt I turned my attention to the Derby & Ball complex.
I'll use the resulting mockup to create the outline of the walls and windows directly on the .060" styrene subwalls. But that's another story.
Is the time I spent (roughly 2-3 hours while watching/listening to football games on TV) worth the effort? I think so - I can proceed forward with this section of the layout confident that the buildings will fit and will look right.
mánudagur, 1. september 2014
Waterbury Freight House 4: Two story "old" freight house
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