Barrel & Marble Works: Marble Works Sub-structure

Real life caught up with me later in 2010 and posting ground to a halt. Hopefully things are more stable now and I can get back to writing.

I’ve been working on the Barrel & Marble Works - along with some other buildings that I plan to write about - for awhile and thought I’d post some updates on its construction. As I mentioned back in the first post, I had in mind for this project to be an E. L. Moore inspired work, but updated with a little more modern materials and construction techniques. Mr. Moore no doubt would have built the sub-structure from sheet balsa, but I decided to forego that approach and use sheet styrene instead.

The next few photos step through some of the highlights of building the substructure for the Marble Works end of the building. The dimensions are as drawn in the sketches in the first post. Sheet 0.040 inch styrene was used for the walls, and all the window and door moldings are from the Tichy Train group assortment package.

{Walls are cut from 0.040 inch sheet styrene}

{The frame for the rear loading dock is drawn on the back wall}

{The opening is scored and holes were drilled at the corners in preparation for breaking out the sheet styrene from where the door will go.}

{The pieces are flexed out.}

{After a little sanding, the frame is test fit - doesn't fit too bad}

{In the process of figuring out which windows and doors to use.}

{All the openings are cut and things fit fine}

{The walls are glued together and square stock is used to reinforce the corners.}

If you compare the prototype photos in the first post with the actual construction of the model, you can see the model isn’t an exact replica, but just an impression inspired by the real thing. The prototype is too large for my layout, so some compression was necessary, and I didn’t want to search too hard for all the do-dads I’d need to make an exact replica. What I wanted to do was capture the unique features of the prototype - the parts I especially liked - and combine those into an interesting building.