An heir apparent to Revell's Engine House?

Left: Walthers Brick Millworks | Right: My build up the AHM Weekly Herald kit

Galen tipped me off to Walthers new Brick Millworks kit, and how it looks a lot like the old Revell / AHM  Engine House / Superior Bakery / Weekly Herald kits. The similarity is no doubt due to this architectural style being a fairly common one. The Walthers kit looks interesting, and I suspect that like the older item it has a lot of kitbashing potential.

7 August 2022 update: Speaking of engine houses, it looks like this kit might be a variation on Walthers 2-Stall Enginehouse kit.

After the Weekly Hearld dust had settled

I'm always impressed by how neat and tidy people's workbenches look. This is mine just after I finished the Weekly Herald: a scattering of materials used on the model with other projects pushed off to the edges. But, I always do a post-build cleanup before starting anything new. That's on tap for this week.

Weekly Herald: Roof work and finishing up.

The kit's roof had to go. Not because it's bad, but because the skylights don't make much sense to me. Unlike the Operating Engine House, which is where the roof comes from, there's nothing to see inside the building. The roof is simply a manufacturer's expediency so they didn't need to provide a new roof moulding. 

 

 

Kit's roof.

I built a new one from 0.040" sheet styrene, and strips of 0.020" x 0.040" and 0.020" x 0.060" styrene. A fitting was built-up to incorporate a vent from the kit, and an air conditioner was added from Walther's roof top accessories package. The rooftop sign was eliminated because I thought it didn't make sense in the layout's environment. Instead, I just applied a roof ridge of 1/16" L-angle styrene.

 

 

Debra and Donna were asking to see how the painting is done. I didn't provide much in the way of instructions on how the brickwork was painted, so I thought I'd give a little detail on painting the roof.

First off, the roof is brush painted, and I used a No. 7 round for the job.

I started the process with Tamiya XF-6 Copper and XF-26 Deep Green acrylic paint. Straight from the bottle the copper is too shiny, so the green is used to dull it. Also, the green somewhat mimics the colour of copper oxide, so it fits in with the overall paint scheme.

On a palette - I reused the lid off a premixed salad container - I mixed the copper and green with the brush until I got a loose mixture of the dull copper colour I had in mind. The proportions are roughly 2 or 3 parts copper to 1 part green, but what I do is not worry too much about exact proportions, and look for the colour as I add small amounts of green to the copper until I see the shade I'm after. If the paint started to dry and got a little too firm as I was working, I'd add a couple of drops of acrylic thinner to loosen up the mix. I try not to over blend to keep the mix somewhat uneven. This allows some green and bits of shiny copper to show, which is something I like. 

 

Comparing a copper strip to the finished roof.

It took 3 coats on the roof to get the uniformity I was looking for. When dry, I finished up by brushing on a thin, loose wash of flat black acrylic. The result is a coppery roof with the look of panels that are relatively new. I didn't want anything too old and rundown looking. I should have scored the panel lines deeper as they filled up with the rather thick paint. Live and learn.

 

 

 

 

Here's the finished loading dock and service entrance side. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was applying decals I got the impression the designer had a thing about parking. Each wall has some sort of command about whether or not you can park.

 

 

 

 

You can park out back as long as it's only for business. No personal parking back there buster :-)
 

Ok, well there isn't a parking command on the front, but maybe there's a no parking sign on the street :-) Although, it appears pedestrian friendly as a bench is provided out front so one can sit and sample the wares.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's still lots of detailing and finishing that could be done, but when I got to this stage I decided to call it quits. I figured I had accomplished what I had set out to do: build up a classic Weekly Herald kit that would look reasonable as a set piece on the layout. That's the thing with model building, there's so much that could be done on any particular project, construction can become overwhelming. Vince was mentioning to me a not uncommon condition of experienced airplane modellers. They buy advanced kits, search for all the aftermarket photo-etch parts, decals, and resin replacement part upgrades, engage in extensive research and find the exact paint colour matches, and then sometimes stall out early on in construction, or never even get started, because of the daunting task ahead. I felt something like this when I started the Weekly Herald, but eventually bypassed that route by deciding that all I really wanted from the project was decent looking walls, and some localization in the time and space of my layout without losing the character that attracted me to the kit in the first place. If I ever want to build a super-duper Weekly Herald in the future - which is unlikely - I'd replace the random stone facade with cut stones, build up an interior so the skylights would let you see something interesting, open the doors on the loading dock, add lighting, and spend more effort on paint effects.

If dear reader you're the owner of the Weekly Herald moulds - if they still exist - please consider re-releasing this venerable kit. There's lots of life left in it.

Next up: A short break from tradition as I finish up some Wallace and Gromit and Godzilla kits.

Two variations on the Weekly Engine House Herald

As I read through old issues of Railroad Model Craftsman I often see variations on Revell's  Operating Engine House kit. The one shown in the leftmost image I found particularly interesting. The picture is a snippet from a larger image in the article, Longhorn & Soptail RR, by Richard Appel in the July '64 issue. He's ingeniously converted the original 2-stall to a 3-stall version by removing the material within the sidewall arches and using the building sideways. It's for quite small engines of course, but it's nevertheless an interesting variation. When I saw this I thought that by using a similar approach a trolley carbarn could be made by arranging 2 Weekly Herald kits end-to-end, removing wall material under the 4 arches nearest the back end, and using the forward 2 sections as an office and passenger waiting area.

The Flowers And More variation on the Weekly Herald was brought to my attention by Martin. It's for sale on eBay and you can see more photos there. The sign on the building's large false front facade is striking, and a great use of all that wall real estate.

Weekly Herald: Colour

I've spent a bit of time painting and detailing the Weekly Herald's walls. I don't have any in-process pictures as painting is something I haven't gotten down to a science, and maybe it's something that's better demonstrated in a video. Although, I will note that for the brick I use mixes of acrylic burnt sienna and green, along with mixes of deep reds and greens. Alternate washes of these mixes were applied along with washes of grey and Tamiya smoke.

Assembly went as per the instructions except for the loading dock door. Martin alerted me to this problem, and he was quite correct, there is a noticeable gap between the right edge of the doors and the wall. The kit provides a piece called a 'chafing plate' to hide the gap, and match a corresponding moulding on the left. Problem is it's too small.

To fix the problem I added a 0.020" thick piece of black styrene behind the gap to fill the hole, and then made a new chafing plate to match the one of the left. Looks like the two plates need some further painting to get them to match better.

Some of the decals were broken, worn, and thin with age. I decided to go ahead and apply them anyway as if they were neglected ghost signs from an earlier age of branding. Some of this was successful; some not so much. As you can see on the facade, the red lettering is barely readable. Once all the decals were in place the model was sprayed with Testors Dullcote. This used up my last can, and with it being discontinued, it'll probably be the last I'll ever use it.

Also, you can see I didn't use the kit's Weekly Herald sign, but made my own advertising the 'Scarboro Mirror' to honour a paper my parents bought back-in-the-day. I figured I needed some sort of localization to help the building make sense on the layout.

Next up: a roof.

First mentions of the Weekly Herald

Weekly Herald profiled in RMC June '61

I've heard a number of dates as to when the Weekly Herald was released, but I thought I'd go through Railroad Model Craftsman to see if there was anything in print.

As far as I can tell it looks like the first mention of the kit is in an April '61 article by Hal Carstens about the goings on at the 1961 Hobby Industry Association Trade Show held in February at the Hotel Sherman in Chicago. In the paragraph about news from Revell he notes, Revell has taken four of its old structure kits and revamped then to come up with five new items. .... the engine house is optionally a bakery or printing plant....

The May and June '61 issues contain reports on what was new at the American Toy Fair and the International Toy Fair held later in New York. The Weekly Herald gets a mention, and a large photo of the box art, in the June '61 issue. The caption notes, Revell took its engine house, converted it into an old brick factory housing a printing plant. Structure is also offered in a bakery kit.

I also looked through ads to see when the kit was first offered for sale by a retailer. It looks like the first ad was from AHC that appeared in the Nov '61 issue. It offered the Operating Engine House, the Weekly Herald, and the Superior Bakery, for $3.98 US each. An online inflation calculator tells me that's equivalent to $34.60 US in 2020 dollars. I paid $35.00 US for my kit on eBay, although my version is an AHM boxing from the '70s. I should also note that according to the ad, these three were the most expensive of all the Revell structure kits being offered.

Still more about cut stone facades

Yes, I am somewhat obsessed with the stone facade on the Weekly Herald, but there is some reason for my madness :-)

I checked the Herald's instructions, and even the front wall assembly step shows random stones, further strengthening my suspicion that only the prototype model had the rectangular stone facade. 

Back when I was starting the build of a model of the house I grew up in, one of the reasons I stopped the project was I wasn't sure about how to build the half-stone facade.

That's a detail of the house's facade near the end of construction. As you can see the cut stones are very similar to those on the Weekly Herald. The house was built in 1957*, and wasn't unusual for small new homes in Scarborough at the time. Even here in Ottawa, they aren't hard to find in older areas. Just down the street are many from that era. I need to see if I have any colour photos of the stone work, and think about how I'd add such stone to the long parked HO scale model.  

*The real estate agent's sign still uses the old 2 letters, 5 digits telephone number pattern. A quick Googling suggests AT is pronounced ATlantic, which I think was in the West Hill area.

Weekly Herald: Facade stones

While doing the first round of painting on the facade I realized that the stones were rough cut and in a random pattern, and the ones on the box photo - likely of the prototype kit - were rectangular and arranged in neat rows. And in the photos of the other boxings the equivalent parts look like their stones are random as well. I wonder what the arrangement was in the original Revell release? I suspect it was random too. Regular, rectangular stones seem like a more correct mid-20th century aesthetic, as I recall a lot of buildings constructed around 1960 - roughly the year this kit was released - had them. That sort of stone facade wasn't necessarily considered a luxury item in Toronto as it would be today - most of the bungalows on the street I grew up on had them - but they were meant to signify a bit of class :-) A challenge for the serious kit-scratcher: replace the facade on your kit with a box image correct version.

Superior Bakery Blues

Photo courtesy Martin's collection.

While we're on the subject of wall colours, check out the serious blue of the Weekly Herald's cousin, the Superior Bakery. I do like to paint walls to make them seem less like plastic, but with these the colour is so striking that I'd just tone them down a little and leave them as is. 

This looks like an original Revell boxing, and it appears to be in very good condition.

3 versions of the 1

You'll need to enlarge this picture to get a good view.

Martin kindly sent me these photos of walls and roofs of three different boxings of the Weekly Herald to show the various colours it was moulded in over the years.

Over on the left is a '70s boxing from Revell, in the centre is the '70s AHM boxing I'm building, and on the right is the Con-Cor, which I think is from the late '70s or early '80s. They could be built as is, but I think if you wanted a more realistic appearance for your layout, they'd all require painting.

7 will give you 12

Freeman Crutchfield & Bob Uniack discussing roundhouse construction, pg 181

Awhile back I wrote about Robert Schleicher's four storey factory that he built from 2 Superior Bakeries and 2 Weekly Heralds. Vince reminded me that in David Sutton's 1964 book, The Complete Book of Model Railroading, there's mention of a 12 stall roundhouse built from 7 Revell Operating Engine House kits by members of the Burbank, Encino, and South Tarzana (BEST) Model Railroading Club. The author notes that at the time of shooting, the roundhouse was not entirely finished and that it takes a bit of "imagineering" to construct a twelve-stall roundhouse from seven Revell engine house kits, but it was done in both authentic and interesting fashion. Is this the kitbash that uses the greatest number of Engine House / Superior Bakery / Weekly Herald kits? The search continues.

This just in ....

Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. We interrupt your regular instalment of the Weekly Herald to bring you this breaking news. Godzilla has been spotted on the workbench. Take cover immediately. Stayed tuned to this station for updates.* 

*With apologies to Walter Winchell.

Weekly Herald: More bricks in the wall

I was carefully inspecting the joints between the front and side walls, and I think I may not have properly attached the front facade. However, in my defence when I glued it on it seemed to fit properly, even after some sanding and filing to improve the fit. Improve? I thought it was ideal, but now I'm not so sure. Too late now. I'm filling and smoothing the gaps as best I can to make them look normal so my secret is safe :-)

While gap inspecting I realized the backside of the false front had no detail. It's just plain plastic with some unsightly tabs that are to slip over the visible surface of the roof to hold it in place. I ground those tabs off and installed some pieces of styrene brick sheet to make the wall look more reasonable. The roof will hide most of those seams and joints in the brick sheets.

I think it's finally ready for the first round of colour. Stay tuned.......

Weekly Herald: Black Holes & Godzilla

I got out the black paint and a brush, then went ahead and carefully painted the interior. I try to use the paint sparingly so not to have any leak out onto the white outer surface. I also drilled some holes in the floor in case I need to insert lights from the layout for future scene photos.

It turns out there are some gaps that need filling where the front facade joins the main structure. That's a particularly bad one in the picture over on the right.

I've got a few tubes of putty on the shelf, and for some reason I'd forgotten about the Deluxe Materials Perfect Plastic Putty that I had bought last year for the Polar Lights Godzilla build. Godzilla got shelved 'for a while', where 'for a while' has turned out to be almost a year now :-( I think the shelving happened because there was so much filling, sanding, and fitting on the horizon with that project that I wasn't in the mood for it all. Anyway the PPP is still workable, so it has been called into service to fill in some of the gaps on the Weekly Herald.

Maybe I need to continue surgery on the big green guy now that the putty is flowing.....

Weekly Herald: Walls Primed

The colours of the raw parts are somewhat toy-like and don't do justice to the detail in the mouldings. I'm going to give this model a little more realistic paint scheme, and the first step is to prime the surfaces. For this I used Tamiya's white fine surface primer.

The walls are a bit thin, so even with a uniform layer of primer applied, there's a bit of a yellow cast when light is shone through the model. I'll need to paint the inside black to make the structure a bit more opaque.

And, if you were wondering, I did straighten one of the walls a bit by freeing the problematic partition and gluing in a slightly longer stretcher piece. No doubt at sometime in the future when this model is for sale on some forlorn swap-meet resale table a potential purchaser will wonder what kind of a nut couldn't measure a partition properly and created this vile glue bomb of a kludge :-)

Weekly Herald: Basic Structure

After finishing off the Canadian Press complex I thought I'd try and do a speed build on the Weekly Herald as I did on Cal's Coastal Cafe earlier in the summer. I made a start, but no such luck on the speed thing :-(

I figured I'd start by building up the basic structure and then spray it with white primer in preparation for detail painting.

Assembly was slow because there was a lot of sanding and filing and fitting required to get the pieces to glue together nice and square and even. The mouldings are not the most precise, and there seemed to be a considerable amount of flash on the parts. It reminded me of the time I had building the old Revell Gran Turismo kit. Back in the '70s I loved many of the old Revell automobile kits, but although the designs were great, half the time they had twisted bodies as well as parts that weren't too sharp and had lots of flash. They seemed to require a lot of work to make a presentable model. Although this Weekly Herald is an AHM boxing, it's a reboxing of the Revell original, and maybe the production processes that plagued the automobile kits were a problem here as well. All speculation of course.

Once the walls were glued into a box, the structure seemed a bit wobbly, so I decided to add a floor and partitions to stiffen it. The floor is cut from 0.080" sheet styrene, and the partitions are 0.060". That elliptical hole near the the front door is me realizing after the floor was glued in that I wasn't going to get the front door to fit properly if the floor was attached to the inside sill. After some cursing, a hole was hacked in. 

I think I see a little snaking in one of the long walls, so maybe I didn't quite pull-off that whole nice and square and even thing, but I'll check, and if it's good it'll be on to priming. Stay tuned!

Git yer papers here! Paper Mr. Armitage?

Last Friday the Weekly Herald kit I ordered on eBay finally arrived. It's a kit I've long admired, and was glad to find an unopened one in an AHM boxing.

The Weekly Herald, along with its sister the Superior Bakery, and their progenitor the Operating Engine House, are foundational structure kits in model railroading, more so than even the E. L. Moore designed kits. Yes, that's what I said :-) More significant than the E. L. Moore kits.

Those three were part of a collection of styrene structure kits that Revell produced in the late 50's and early '60s. Taken as a whole, the collection was one of the first, maybe even the first, to take commercial styrene structures out of the realm of toys and into that of scale models. And they were developed by the legendary Al Armitage, who through a number of articles in Model Railroader presented the case for styrene as a serious model building material.

I think the introduction of Revell's Operating Engine House and Al Armitage's MR articles are intertwined. Although I can't definitively prove this, there's interesting circumstantial evidence.  

Weekly Herald parts

MR reviewed Revell's newly released engine house in their Nov '59 issue, and in the review they noted, This month's story, "The Case For Styrene" by Alan Armitage, can give you a lot of good ideas for altering styrene kits. The Case for Styrene was actually a two-parter that ran in the Nov and Dec '59 issues, and even though it might not have been the first article that showed how to use styrene and extoll its virtues, it definitely was the most sophisticated. The modelling shown is first rate, but I guess what else could be expected from a gentleman who at that time had been a professional model maker for 13 years and was designing kits at Revell - all according to his mini-bio in MR's Aug. '59 issue included with the article, Diner on Railroad Ave.

And the MR review also noted, Two or more of these kits could also easily be arranged end to end to make a larger building.  And lo-and-behold, in the Sept '60 issue, Mr. Armitage does just that in the article Modifying the Revell Enginehouse. 

Let's fast-forward to 2001. In the January / February 2001 issue of the Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette, Mr. Armitage writes about the origin of the Weekly Herald in The Modelmaker's Notebook column, and in the March / April 2001 issue does the same for the Superior Bakery. Basically, he notes that when he was working at Revell, soon after the Operating Engine House was released, he was asked to come up with variations on the kit. The first one was the Weekly Herald, and that was soon followed by the Superior Bakery. I find it interesting that in those two articles he never states he designed the Operating Engine House, but he is noted as its designer in his obituary that appeared in MR's Dec 2001 issue. Maybe Mr. Armitage was just being modest. 

Like AHM's E. L. Moore designed kits, the Weekly Herald, along with the Superior Bakery, have been distributed by many companies (Revell, AHM, and Con-Cor, and there might be more), and have gone through many boxings. There're also N-scale versions, and both the HO and N versions have been used as a source of kitbashing material. Art Curren's Hardly Abel Mfg. Co. comes to mind, and there was a wild one by Robert Schleicher called Build A Four-Story Factory that required 2 Weekly Heralds and 2 Superior Bakeries- yes, 4 of these classic kits (!).

My kit was advertised as never-been-opened, and it did appear to be in its original shrink-wrap when it arrived. All the parts are present and accounted for with the only issue being that one decal sheet was pressed against some windows for too long and partially bonded to the clear plastic. I plan to build the kit and add it to the layout, but I'll likely modify it a little to make it fit into the overall scene. Stay tuned in the fall for exciting updates :-)