Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

Thank you Gormo. It doesn't take too long to knock up one of these buildings, just a few days doing a couple of hours here and there. Being a basic card board structure, it goes together quite quickly. The styrene detail work is the easy bit !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Philip.

If I show how it's done, it makes it a lot easier for anyone else willing to have a crack at scratch building !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Toto. It's amazing how a simple looking building is transformed with the additions of a few little details. I'm looking at adding a few more extra details to the building further down the track (no pun intended)...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Here is my latest video update on the layout. Enjoy.



Cheers, Gary.

 

Well with my persistent cough and another positive test yesterday to Covid, I have a little more time up my sleeve. Must admit that I didn't want to do too much or I should say the energy levels were down.
The last couple of days I have been carving up card again for the fourth building. This building is based on the Salco building on NW 59th St, Miami and what I have chosen to do is reverse the building left to right to suit my needs.

Here are a two pics of the building in question, the first from rail side

The second image shows the not to straight frontage that runs parallel to the siding.

I have pretty much copied the buildings main features, just reversed everything.

You can see the slight bend in the building in the next two pics.

I have to relay the siding as currently it is about 2mm too close to the building. More to come over the next few days.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Today I measured up the exterior ribs on the building and cut up some Evergreen styrene (#157 1.5mm x 4mm strip) and chamfered the top edge of the post. The 23 ribs were glued into position with CA at 50mm spacings.

After these had cured, I sprayed the whole carcass down with some flat grey acrylic primer, before I noticed I hadn't added the inner corner rib where the building juts out and also a horizontal rib. This has now been rectified.

Looking back at earlier street view maps of the Salco building, there are two drain pipes, not necessarily down pipes as the exit the wall, but not from the roof, but approximately 2/3rds of the height of the windows. I usde 2mm diameter Evergreen styrene rod (#212) for this and to make the necessary 90* angle bend, a cigarette lighter was used. One pipe is straight whilst the second one has a bend near the base. Short lengths of Evergreen strip (#8102 0.28mm 0.56mm) was used to make the cleats to hold the pipes against the wall.

You will notice in the first photo above I have drawn in a rectangle. This is to represent where a roller door once was located. I want to give the model a patched in look to it so recently I purchased some Golden Fiber Paste. This isn't cheap at $28.00 for the small jar, but I can see this lasting me for several years.

The pencil makes were lined with some painters tape and the patched out area lightly painted in with the fiber paste. Only a very thin skim is needed. Other areas were also treated the same way with tape. The far left hand corner has an area where it looked like the HVAC was located at one stage. This is represented below as four patches.

This photo gives an idea of the texture of this fiber paste.

After the tape was removed, I was left with raised area. In some places I laid lengths tape out horizontally, vertically and even tore some tape to give a rough edge of where cracks have been patched over during regular maintenance of the building.

This close up shows the effectiveness of the fiber paste once dried. Remembering this is only as thick as the painters tape. If I find it is too high, a light sanding with wet & dry paper will fix it. You can also identify a hole where one of the down pipes exits the building.

So after tea tonight, I'll give the model another light coat of primer, then give the building its first top coat.

More as it happens. On another note, I had a parcel arrive this morning.., two RTR cars and two kits (hoppers)...

^ 56' Thrall All Door box car.

^ 57' mechanical reefer (refrigerator van).

^ Two ACF Centre Flow hoppers (CB&Q ; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy RR).

Cheers, Gary.

 

I'm glad to say that the building has had the windows, roller doors, down pipes and paint and weathering added !

I still wish to add ancillary items such as vent pipes, HVAC systems and more to the roof. All in good time...

A couple of overall pics...

Now some detail showing how well the Golden Fiber Paste worked out after painting and weathering...

and now the roller doors...

The roller doors are simply corrugated styrene (Evergreen Styrene #4526), the same I had used for the previous buildings. The rails above the doors were constructed from Evergreen styrene strip #132 (0.75 x 1.0mm) and Evergreen styrene rod #211 (1mm diameter).

For the roof I dry brushed a few colours on, started with black around the individual panels, then a dark grey with a little brown thrown in. This was followed by light greys and white to high light the exposed concrete or where water hasn't accumulated...

I have purchase a packet of etched brass mesh to use for the vents on the HVAC system. More as it happens.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Gormo and thank you Phil. I'm impressed too with the way the paste has worked. I think this paste will have a tonne of uses in the future.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Pete !

It is a great product. I got onto this product from watching the Boomer Diorama youtube channel. Fantastic channel and Boomer is well credentialled and has a tonne of tips to share !

https://www.youtube.com/c/BoomerDioramasTheImmersiveModelRailroad

Cheers, Gary.

 

Well now that building is 90% complete, it's time to turn my attention to the next build...

The next building is to be situated in the top left corner of the layout, where the siding (spur if you are from the USA...) with the gondola is sited in the pic below.

I was thinking earlier through the week that another warehouse would be good to place here, built as a low relief model, similar in design to the pics below...

My initial thoughts was to combine both the different buildings above into one, taking the best features from both. These two buildings are situated along the down town spur in Miami, so they would both fit in quite nicely. The blue/white building being the Nicky Gregory Company building located on the corner of NW 23rd St & NW 19th Ave and the cream building is Trujillo & Sons food processing plant on the corner of NW 23rd St & NW 12th Ave.

Now after some careful considerations on the operations of the layout, I questioned myself on the amount of warehouses/food industries I have and that I would only be switching out refrigerated cars, box cars, tank cars (both fuel and corn syrup) to the industries I have in place.

So, what to do ??

Well, I do have a couple of gondolas and one of the bigger industries on the down town spur is the Ferrous Processing and Trading Company, which is situated on NW N River Drive. This business features in most videos on the down town spur on youtube.

Lance Mindheim has modelled it on his layout as shown below.

This is what the next build will be, albeit in low relief. The model I build will resemble the structure with its heavily constructed all over roof. The biggest issue I have is that I'll be modelling it as only half the width, which means there will be no support at the back. Maybe some clear styrene strips could do the job in holding the far side of the roof up ??

I have already cut out the uprights and roof supports, ready for gluing together, although I do need more 0.75mm x 3.2mm styrene strip to reinforce the legs and roof supports,making them more akin to I beams.

More as it happens.

Cheers, Gary.