Separated at birth?

VIA's Venture (by Bachmann in this case :-) ):

The Ventures:

It took nearly 13 years ...

 ... but the sign was finally installed at Stella's. Invited or not, if you have a ghostly urge for used records, pop over to Stella's ....

The Bott's Cotton Gin micro-layout in action

You may recall that almost exactly two years ago I posted about a micro-layout created by David Fugere based on E. L. Moore's Bott's Cotton Gin project. Today I stumbled across a couple of YouTube videos showing that micro-layout in action.

It's a beautifully constructed HOn30 layout and is quite charming.

The Station at Poppyfield Flats

Waiting for the Mt. Lowe trolley with a picnic lunch

The Mt. Lowe layout will have 3 structures: the circular bridge, the lookout at Inspiration Point, and this one, the station at Poppyfield Flats. I thought I'd park scenic work for awhile and build a structure. This station seemed to be the easiest of the three, so that's the one I started with.

Simple drawing in S scale made over the Christmas holidays

My station is based on a couple of end view photos of the real Poppyfield station, but I must admit mine is not an exact replica as the photos weren't much to go on, and I wanted to keep the project doable for me. I also wanted to be free to make any necessary changes to the structure to make it fit into the layout's little world. If you're interested, you can find the reference photos I used on page 34 of Mount Lowe Railway by Michael A. Patris, Steve Crise, and the Mount Lowe Preservation Society, and page 155 of Mount Lowe: The Railway in the Clouds by Charles Seims.

The first part of construction was to build up the end walls from pieces of 0.100" x 0.100" styrene strips. To do this I taped the plan to a piece of thick scrap cardboard, laid a piece of wax paper over top, and then glued together the end wall pieces directly on the plan. This method is similar to the one I used to build up the exposed structure on Cal's Cabbage Plant.

Revell's Contacta styrene glue was used for bonding all the structure's plastic parts together. 

Speaking of tools, the above photo was shot just after finishing this project, but I thought I'd present it here as it shows all the tools that were used. Tool-wise not much is required, the tricky part is accurate measuring and cutting. 

There are 7 trusses, each built up from 3 pieces of 0.020" thick styrene

Next up was the roof. I think it's easiest just to show some photos of the structure as the pictures are fairly self-explanatory as far as construction goes.

One philosophical thing I will mention is that the roof details I hinted at in the drawing were scraped in favour of a simplified structure that I think is more robust and buildable. If there are any carpenters reading this I apologize for my overly simplistic roof framing, but I think it effectively suggests roof trusses without being overly pedantic about structural details, which in the end aren't the purpose of this layout and won't be in clear view anyway.

A flock of roof trusses awaiting installation

Once all 7 trusses were built up, the two end trusses were glued to one of the roof panels (cut from 0.020" thick sheet styrene), and when dry, the other roof panel was tilted up and glued to the free end of the trusses. The remaining 5 trusses were then glued to the roof panels to complete the basic structure.

The roof was completed by adding fascia strips, also cut from 0.020" thick styrene, all around the perimeter. 

View showing vestigial roof truss verticals cut from 0.020" x 0.20" square styrene strips

Those verticals I added to each truss probably wouldn't contribute any additional structural strength to a real roof. I added them mainly for decoration. They're just pieces of 0.020" x 0.020" styrene strip.

The roof's covering is made from two pieces of Campbell Scale Model's HO scale corrugated aluminum sheet. I suspect the prototype used some sort of shingling, but my layout is set in a 60s / 70s era, so metal would be readily available for roofing. Frankly, if I were building a structure like this in those mountains I'd use metal on it wherever I could. I'd build the whole thing from metal if that were possible. 

The aluminum sheets were attached to the roof panels with 3M transfer tape. The strip along the peak is a slice of 0.010" styrene.

The thin edge of a square was used to space the slats

The next sub-assembly was the bench. It's built up from 0.020" x 0.080" styrene strips. In S-scale it measures 3' wide. I think the real McCoy had a backrest and wasn't quite so wide, although I can't say for certain. I was going to add a backrest to mine, but given where it was being placed on the layout I thought it would have more utility if the platform were left open so it could be loaded from either side. 

The seat slats were trimmed to the correct width, and their edges were sanded smooth once the glue was dry.

Gluing an 0.100" x 0.100" square overhead spanning beam to an end wall

We're getting close to final assembly. But before that I had to tilt up the end walls and glue them to some 0.100" x 0.100" styrene strips that span the length of the structure. Vince mentioned I should buy some 1-2-3 blocks for this sort of work, and I think he's right. I used my little Veritas speed squares. For small jobs they work ok, but I have to be extra careful not to bump them while things are setting up.

Top structure showing spanning beams before the roof is glued on. Each corner has a gusset.

I added corner gussets to make the structure a little stronger. They're cut from 0.020" styrene.

At this point it was merely a job of gluing the bench between the end walls, and then gluing on the roof.

The structure was painted with loose mixtures of Tamiya flat white and neutral grey acrylic paints. The roof had a little of my rust mixture washed on to show a little weathering. However, general weathering will have to be revisited during final scenicking on the layout.

The model is actually quite rigid, but I think if a real structure were built like I've built this little thing it would break up in the first stiff wind, or the roof would catch the wind and pull the structure off its foundations. It needs some bracing in the big, open space under the roof. I need to think about what to do. My structure is clearly a fantasy :-)

The view from the trolley pull out at the base of Inspiration Point

It looks like our picnickers are still waiting for the trolley. I better go and see what's up. Until next time!

Bristol board and card and paper and balsa and watercolour

After riding The Ocean to Halifax last year I toyed with the idea of building a model onboard if I were ever to take that trip again. I thought I'd build a small structure using a few simple tools, and materials that weren't messy, toxic, or had a bad smell. Classic cardboard and balsa construction came to mind. The idea was I'd start and finish the build in the time it took the train to go from Montréal to Halifax. Upon arrival I'd box up the model and mail it home before beginning my Nova Scotia travels. 

Well, I'm unlikely to ever ride that train again, but I kept wondering if such a build were possible: a simple model, built with simple materials and tools, taking no longer than 22 hours - well, 25 if you include delays :-)

The FireHouse Iron Works as seen in May 2024, Whycocomagh, Cape Breton Island

During the trip an old, somewhat dilapidated, and repurposed firehouse located in the town of Whycocomagh on Cape Breton Island caught my eye. I quite liked the size and shape of the building, so I thought this would be the one I'd try for a 22 hour classic card build. 

Well, I might as well fess up right from the get-go: although it was a fun project in classic style, it took much longer to build than I thought. Ok, it didn't take 22 hours to build, probably only a handful of hours if you add up all the dots and blots of time, but they were sprinkled over a period longer than 22 hours. There was time waiting for glue to dry, waiting for paint to dry, and my usual humming-and-hawing about how to proceed with certain parts of the build. It all adds up. This was further complicated by the fact that there are basically three little buildings in this project, making it a more time consuming project than I had thought because of the number of parts to be made. And on the train I would have been diverted by sleeping, eating, and general lolling about and gawking out the windows for long stretches. I think a more feasible 22 hour project would be a single box structure with just four walls and a roof - maybe something like Marmora station.

As you can see I made a few changes to the building's look. All the fine detailing is simplified, or simply left off. I wasn't much interested in the prototype's distressed look, so I changed it to something a little cleaner, brighter, and more colourful with basically little to no weathering. Instead I wanted to make use of watercolour's ability to create flowing, variegated colour to add interest to the surfaces. Watercolour paints would also be easy to use on a train as there's little fuss or muss with preparation and clean-up.

I figured if I was to build this on the train I'd have to had drawn the plans before departure. You may recall I created drawings for this project, as well as few others, over the Christmas holidays and that lead to a sharpener crisis :-)  I'd say a third of the work on this project was associated with figuring out the elevations from my reference photos. I wouldn't want to do that on a train with time pressures looming.

Using the plans, the walls for all three buildings were drawn out in contiguous strips on pieces of bristol board. I used 4-ply, 500 series Strathmore bristol board that I bought a few years ago at an art supply in Pasadena. You may recall I also used it for Thrifty's and the Art Metropole projects. 

Once the walls were laid out I scored in the board separations with a scribing tool. This gives a little three-dimensionality to the surfaces and helps keep the individual siding boards from being lost as they're painted.

Painting these wall strips is easy. I can simply mix up some paint, stroke on some loose washes, and in a minute or two the painting is done for all a building's walls.

One way to build up the wall strips into boxes is to scribe the corners and then fold. You may recall I used that technique on Cal's Cabbage Company. I didn't use it here as the bristol board is considerably thicker, and I'm not good at angling out the inner bends to get a smooth corner. Instead, I cut each strip into individual walls and assembled them with balsa strips to reinforce the corners - similar to the Mike Gill approach. 

Even though the interior is a hodgepodge of leftover balsa strips, it's surprisingly strong. I used Weld Bond on all joints, and to attach the balsa. After a few days though I noticed a little concavity with some walls and added a few cross-braces before gluing on the roofs. 

You can see the additional cross-braces in the above photo. 

I consider getting the walls stood up to be a construction milestone. At this point the pieces start to look like a building. 

And the walls are looking pretty square, so there's some extra happiness to be had at this point.

So, I sat back and basked in square wall glory for a bit. Next up was framing the windows, doors and corners, which I find to be a little tedious when done as a marathon, but not unpleasant in small doses. Meaning, being somewhat compelled to frame everything in one go on a train could try my patience. 

All the framing was made from strips of 3x5 card with 3M transfer tape applied to the back. This meant the frames would instantly stick to the walls when applied, which sped up the building process a bit.

Doors were cut from scraps of the 4-ply bristol board and painted with watercolours. Doorknobs were made from dressmaker's straight pins.

Glass for the windows was cut from the clear plastic lid from a box of Christmas chocolates I had stashed away for just such a job. Again, Weld Bond was used to glue the 'glass' in place.

The metal roof panels were made by embossing the pattern from a piece of corrugated plastic onto scraps of printer paper - this is similar to the good, old paper metal technique. I used a toothpick as an embossing tool. These pieces were bonded with 3M transfer tape to roof panels cut from the 4-ply bristol board, and then painted with a loose mix of Paynes Grey and Raw Umber watercolours. No attempt was made at realism regarding colour. I just wanted something that looked interesting.

You might ask, why not just use the piece of corrugated plastic? The answer is I wanted to keep the roof stylistically similar to the walls. That is, I wanted a rather flat 3-D surface with a papery finish. The plastic would be too strongly 3-D, and watercolour couldn't be used on it.

And that is that.

So, would I build something similar in one of these overnight compartments on the Ocean (there's a fold-down table somewhere in that pile of stuff) ? Maybe, if it was a simpler project. 

But, it also depends on the smoothness of the ride. I don't think it's up to 1972 Mercury Marquis Brougham standards :-)