E. L. Moore's Dilly Manufacturing Company is one of my favourite projects. A few years back I built an N scale version from cardboard and scrap wood. Dilly's also has an interesting backstory that includes a few major figures from mid-20th century model railroading. I'm surprised that AHM or some other '60s and '70s era plastic kit manufacturer didn't offer this building. Maybe they did, and I just need to look harder.
The model was in pretty good condition when it arrived. The structure was intact, although some details had broken off. Luckily they were floating in the packing material. I've adopted a strict unpacking procedure that starts with clearing off a table, and then carefully unwrapping and opening the packing material over the table's surface so as not to lose parts that may have come loose in shipping. I don't discard the shipping material just in case I may have overlooked a stray component.
The back porch railing and main sign had broken off and needed regluing. There were some additional loose parts included with this model, but after careful examination it doesn't look like they came from Dilly's. I've set them aside as they're likely from one of the other models.Anyway, some carefully applied Weld Bond reattached those stray parts.
Mr. Moore's model has a rather nice brick foundation whose bricks I speculate were scratchbuilt by scoring a pattern into balsa. My little N scaler just has a concrete foundation - that is, balsa painted a concrete colour.
Looks like I should have added a stovepipe to my roof. There's some sort of white, chalky material embedded between some of the bricks. I don't think it's Mr. Moore's attempt at mortar lines, but is some plaster from someone trying to anchor this model into scenery. I don't think I'll try to clean it off as I suspect I'll damage the bricks in the process, or at the very least strip them of their colour.
The difference in size between N and HO seems quite striking in this view.
E. L. Moore's uses his old standby method of creating a shingle pattern by scribing lines into balsa with a woodburning tool.
On the other hand, mine just uses paper strips with shingles cut in. I don't think the woodburning tool method would work that well in N scale.
The roof is removable, and for this photo I temporarily put an LED button light inside the main building. The upper dormer with the pulley doesn't light up because Mr. Moore didn't cut out the roof under it. On the other hand, my N scale version leaks light everywhere!
The smoke stack on the left looks a little skewed. It's a bit loose in its base, but not falling out loose. I probably need to apply a little glue to it so that it remains intact.
E. L. Moore's Dilly Manufacturing Company is one of my favourite projects. A few years back I built an N scale version from cardboard and scrap wood. Dilly's also has an interesting backstory that includes a few major figures from mid-20th century model railroading. I'm surprised that AHM or some other '60s and '70s era plastic kit manufacturer didn't offer this building. Maybe they did, and I just need to look harder.
My N scale shingle roofs use soft balsa for the panels, grain going vertically. I impress a metal edge ruler along horizontal lines (like making clapboard siding across the grain), then I scribe in vertical shingle separations with a fine pencil. It's similar to ELM's wood burning, I suppose, but it's such thin wood, a wood burning pen might disintegrate it. If I was too worried, I'd back up the roof panels with another layer of cardboard- grain running opposite and cut slightly smaller) underneath.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good method. I think the probably with using the wood burning tool for N scale work is its relatively thick cutting edge. Your metal edge in the ruler I think is finer, so if the wood burning tool could be fitted with a finer cutter, it might work ok.
DeleteI think I found the technique I use in an old MR article reprinted in a Kalmbach how-to book from the 60s.
DeleteWhat's the title?
DeleteI'm pretty sure this has been made into a kit-- somewhere I've got an ad for one from an old Walther's catalog. Not AHM, but Sequioa or something. Remember, this was not an ELM original design, but Bill What-his-name from years before his.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, the design was created by Bill Livingston in 1949 or so, and a photo of it first appeared in RMC in 1950. I think a company called Summit Engineering produced a kit in the mid-50's - I think though it was cardboard and wood, I'd need to check. Still, I wonder if one of the plastic kit manufacturers of the '50s, '60s, of '70s era produced an 'unauthorized bootleg' version.
DeleteI think I've seen this kit but only in a wood/card version, not plastic. Possibly by more than one company.
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