Montague Dock - 3 - Warehouses

Discussion in 'Industrial & Commercial' started by Jim Freight, Jun 25, 2023.

  1. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    The warehouses along this dock are for the storage of goods arriving and departing this dock mostly for the IoK but also some light coastal traffic along the east coast of the UK, the Midlands to the north and Norfolk to the south.

    At this time, the 1960s there is still a modest amount of traffic through this dock even though some trade has been lost to the larger EuroFerry dock with it's links to Europe.

    Four warehouse units are depicted at a time when the owners, or leaseholders still took pride in their facilities and have painted the doors and windows in their own choice of colours.

    As can be seen in the track plan shown again here they comprise of two that have covered unloading bays and two with a simple wooden platform.

    1 Dock M Trackplan.jpg

    However the covered bays are split such that each warehouse storage area has it's own loading & unloading platform in the covered bays. This will become more obvious as I present the construction of these warehouses.

    The Structures

    The length of warehouse frontage I wanted to implement was some 8 feet long which I did not feel like constructing from scratch, even though it would be low profile, what I came across was these laser cut plywood kits.

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    They have the same architectural details so they could be mixed together easily, and if partly low profile could be used to create almost 8 ft of frontage, and those that were full depth did not need to have a rear wall fitted as they butt up against the framework of the layout and the descending port branch track. So after the trial first purchase of one of each a further one of each kit was purchased so that the complete frontage could be assembled.

    So back in summer 2018 I could now properly lay out the dock trackwork and started the custom build of these kits using what would be spare parts to reinforce the low profile structures.

    Work begins :-

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    One of the first things to do was cut out the closed arches of the rear walls so they looked like the front of the bus station kit, a portico appearance I believe it is called.

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    Using my trusty surface table aka an old glass window pane and engineers squares the frontages were paired up and glued together using some of the first floor parts to strengthen them.

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    And so the work so far.

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    Continued in Part 2
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2023
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  2. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 2

    The next stage was assembling the frontage from the goods shed kits with the small loading platforms.

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    Moving on, the columns were reinforced with Plastruct rectangular tubing to give them some depth beyond the thickness of the thin plywood, so that they looked more like columns that could support some weight.

    The shell of the frontages were completed as 4 distinct sections for convenience of safe handling, each being 23 inches (584 mm) long.

    Then they were primed with Expo light grey primer, as it turns out, and I suppose, mostly expected the paint did not enter the laser cut mortar lines between the brick, no matter, the dark singed effect of the lines is satisfactory to me as a dark mortar so I decided to leave the mortar lines unpainted.

    The overall grey primer fits in well with the colour of the local rock strata form which the stonework would have been cut.

    With the primer coat applied they were then tried in place on the dockside to ensure that they and the trackwork worked together.

    High level shots :-

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    Ground level shots with a Dublo ventilated van to check clearances :-

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    The switches in the ground mechanically operate the points via Gem wire in PTFE tubing attached to their slider and provide frog polarity switching with their contacts. It is intended that they will be disguised with e.g. packing crates and are positioned to avoid being in the way of the guide rails of the cranes.

    The structure above these buildings is the cantilever supported boards carrying the industrial branch up to the cement works as it climbs between the motor works and the heavy electrical engineering company's yards.

    At this stage I was considering not to fit platforms in the loading bays as the layout board height here is approx 39 inches (1m) so little would be seen of them, but alas the goal posts were already starting to shift in the years to follow.


    Continued in Part 3
     
  3. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 3

    Moving on 5 years, yes 5 years later, early June 2023 work resumes on these buildings, with some hand painting of various parts.

    Detail Painting Starts

    The stone work is highlighted in the local stone grey for which I use the Humbrol 27 Dark Sea Grey, the concrete of the first floor level Tamiya XF-55 Deck Tan.

    Window frames and doors, rightly or wrongly I have chosen to paint each warehouse in a different colour, from left to right looking at them using Vallejo acrylic paints.

    Dark Red 70.946
    Ochre Brown 70.856
    Flat Blue 20.962
    Green Sky 70.974​

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    Loading Bay Platforms


    This is my first serious foray into building laser cut ply kits, and as a modeller who mainly uses plastics this is all new to me including what follows using foam board and printed texture sheets.

    I decided to try out using foam board for the extra structural parts required, in this case the loading bay platforms. Bought initially for other jobs these two sizes I have found to be useful, available in black and white. The black has a matt absorbent paper finish and the white a gloss finish, I think the best option is to use the black as it takes adhesive and paint better than the gloss and if covering with printed texture paper colour does not matter but adhesive grip does. Readily available from Amazon and I would expect any good craft shop.

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    IMO it is a more cost effective solution compared with using plastic card or buying thin ply and has potentially more rigidity than using heavy card board. Care has to be taken when using it though.

    Do not try and bend it to flatten it, the inner will give way and the outer surface crease badly and is likely to be impossible to smooth out again. However gentle bending and stiffening with webs of foam board offcuts will coax it flat when glued together on a flat surface and weighted down.

    Beware of what adhesive is used for joining it to other pieces of foam board or another material, a strong solvent glue will seriously dissolve away the foam, much as polystyrene cement will make expanded polystyrene disappear!

    For bonding parts together DeLuxe materials Foam 2 Foam is very good, grips within 10 seconds, maximum strength within 2 hours. Warning, may be foam safe but gloves should be worn when using it, having said that it works very well, can string a little but certainly does what it is supposed to.

    25.jpg


    For cutting the foam board one of those knives with snap off blades which are thin and can be used as a long thin blade appear to work well, a few light cuts are better than one heavy. Press too hard and the top edge gets flattened. A firm straight edge is essential, easy to hold and preferably a metal edge embedded in the edge if a plastic rule.

    Here is one of the two warehouse sections to have loading bay platforms fitted.

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    The platform tops are made of black 3mm foam board, the uprights are 15mm high, using white 3mm (leftover from another job) foam board, which, when combined with a 3mm thick platform looks about right, despite the board being gloss white finished Pritt Stick adhesive fixed the paper wraps securely.

    I have used two Scale Model Scenery (they and Deluxe Materials are top notch suppliers) paper wraps here.

    Top surface: TX199-00 Weathered Light Grey Concrete
    Front wall: TX005-00 Industrial Brick with black mortar​

    Glued the plain rear support to the platform first, covered the platform surface, covered the front wall and then finally glued the front wall in place. Probably would have been better to have covered the top first before attaching the rear support for easier top surface fitting. Pritt Stick (the original) appears to be very good at sticking even to the gloss white foam board and any slight lumps can be eased out if you progressively attach the printed sheets.

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    The really tricky bit I find is to make sure that brick courses stay level, I still have a terrible knack of seeing the slightest error even when wearing modest strength glasses!

    Before fitting the platforms I painted a faded white line at the platform edge using Vallejo 70.993 White Grey, masked with Tesa 43330001801 Precision Sensitive .... tape. This gives a hint of a worn painted edge, the acrylic paint has a slightly translucent appearance if applied lightly.

    The platforms were then glued in place with UHU, the whole assembly being placed on my glass surface plate to ensure that the base of the platform matched that of the parent structure.

    The finished platform in one bay.

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    Continued in Part 4
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2023
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  4. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 4

    Replacement Windows


    One normally equates replacement windows with replacing old with new, but here I decided to replace new with old. The rationale is that large 6 ft high windows would not have been fitted to Victorian era buildings, the necessary physical qualities the glass required to make that practical was still a long way off. Instead window panes were often small and many.
    However fabricating these from scratch would have been brain cell destroying and I cannot afford to lose many more.

    The answer was to design and create them using 3D CAD and printing, this was undertaken on this thread.

    https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/inde...ng-land-a-tale-of-an-oap-vs-3d-printers.6395/

    After fettling the new frames they were sprayed with Expo light grey primer from the outside surface only but including the full depth of the frames.

    A dusting of Expo white primer was then applied mainly to colour the top (outer) surface of the frames to give some impression that they were not as thick as they are.

    The next operation was to remove all the vertical bars from the wall panels where these new frames were to be fitted.

    A miniature keyhole type saw and sharp knife was used to remove the vertical bars and the cut marks on the remaining frames touched in with paint.

    The 1st floor frames fit into recesses due to the double skinned walls that support the roof covering, larger ground floor frames just fit into the apertures in the single thickness wall.

    These were glued in place with Deluxe Materials Super Phatic adhesive applied with a brush. Although a pretty strong glue when it sets it soaked in rather too fast, leaving little to grab the frame when it was inserted. A second pass was required to actually secure the frame reliably, the first application just made the plywood surface less porous.

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    The resulting effect part done

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    Glazing?

    Mucky windows time, I did not intend to model any interior for these warehouses except for the loading bays as the windows would probably be quite dirty and in reality the interior too dark to discern objects within the building from outside.

    To simulate this I 'printed' some mucky glazing. These glazing panels were dimensioned to stick to the rear surface of the window frames, natural PLA which although is a milky white shows little colouring (the PLA I have) at least up to 4mm. These were printed as simple panels 1mm and 2mm thick for the 1st floor and ground floor windows respectively.

    The inward facing surface of these panels was then sprayed with Expo dark grey primer. Although they show diagonal rows of printing lines the panes are too small for it to be really noticeable. I had intended orientating them so the print bed side would be facing out giving a smooth finish but unfortunately join lines between rows of masking tape on the print bed were rather noticeable on too many. (Note to 3D printer self, use a one piece print bed covering next time).

    These glazing panels were then glued to the frames using Deluxe Materials Plastic Magic (I am not being sponsored, I just find that their extensive range of products are very good).

    The result is that a glazed appearance is seen at the frames and the painted rear the shadow of the interior, which IMO gives a better effect, some depth, rather than just having e.g. a black sheet of material fixed to the rear of the frames.

    Inside views, also showing both faces of the panels.

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    Part completed outside view.

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    Frame Colour Change

    Up to this point I had left these frames which would have been iron or steel with a white surface, unfortunately I then saw a post from Kimbo that implied in various photographs that the frames may well of been painted colours other than white or just another light colour.

    https://historicengland.org.uk/imag...england/the-railway-goods-shed-and-warehouse/

    Looking further into the finish of such windows it appears they would also have been painted to protect the putty retaining the glass to the frame, not just a protective coating of some kind on the metalwork, I should have remembered that from painting windows at my parents house decades ago, I was lucky enough to be able to fit uPVC windows to my place and avoided such maintenance pleasures, especially with upstairs windows.

    Also from the photographs it became obvious that the metal frames containing the glass did not appear to have wooden frames around them, they were directly fitted to the brick or stonework.

    My warehouse windows so far look as though they are surrounded by a wood frame, this looks wrong, at least I could fix this issue, rework the one frontage completed so far and update the remaining frames yet to be fitted.

    I did not want to cut out these 'wood' frames, as an alternative what if I painted the 'metal' frames the same colour as the original 'wood' surround then I could believe that the frames and surrounds were all one piece.

    At this stage that it is the best path to give acceptable results without a major rework, originally I wasn't going to detail these buildings much, just keep them simple, which I haven't!

    Painting the Frames

    I decided to use the damp pad approach as used on my coal tippler building.

    https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/index.php?threads/mineral-dock-1-coal-tippler.5158/

    This had old school glazing where the clear plastic had a slightly raised frame and to paint them a cosmetics pad was used to pick up some paint from a palette, in this case a piece of old glass from a long defunct clock, and dab it lightly on to the raised surface so it did not reach the plastic representing the actual clear pane.

    This was applied as below to the unfitted frames.

    36.JPG


    Carefully, to avoid marking the brickwork, I painted the already fitted frames using small clean offcuts of previously used pads, the effect was much better.

    Fitting the Remaining Frames

    Using the Super Phatic adhesive was a little unpredictable, i.e. getting sufficient wet adhesive in place when fitting the frame into the walls to adhere to the glazing.

    An alternative that proved much easier to apply and gave the required results was to use a thicker clear adhesive used to glue and waterproof seal joints in laminate flooring. This 1/3rd full container is quite old and it applied like RTV silicone but was thick so it stayed in place, very tacky and dried relatively quick in the open. I cannot remember if this was the original consistency of this possibly 11 years old adhesive. It was possible to apply it in small dobs, 2 per edge with a brush, and the brush was actually able to be cleaned with water afterwards.

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    This worked well so I used it for installing frames in the remaining warehouse frontages.

    Circular Windows

    Two of the frontages have a raised section that include a circular aperture, this was just a facade but I have decided to increase the roof height at those places so a circular window was required. These were created simply in SketchUp, and then printed, painted, fitted and glazed as the other windows.

    38.JPG

    Continued in Part 5
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2023
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  5. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 5

    Nearly caught up with the action now.

    Roof Supports

    The front edge of the roofs are supported by the inner skin of plywood as part of the kits, to support the rear edges and for the full depth kit parts centres foam board panels were profiled to match them. Mostly 3mm plus two of 5mm left overs, reason I did not notice it was 5mm until fitting, I need stronger glasses or a brain that uses what my eyes see more effectively.

    Each profile has right angle scraps of foam board attached to aid strength, keep them upright and provide additional anchoring to the floors.

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    Glued to the half depth frontages with Foam 2 Foam adhesive.

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    One of the full depth warehouse assemblies needs a cut out through the roof and platform through which a layout framework support needs to pass. So the warehouse parts were taken out to the shed to determine what needed doing and to check how the loading bay platforms looked.

    Loading Bay Platforms Revisited

    Oh dear, a clanger, the platforms are constructed with track facing edges flush with the internal walls so are 12mm too far away from wagons on the loading bay tracks, not glaringly, but annoyingly wrong, arrgh!

    I cannot keep it like that so out come the platforms, not too difficult to release in whole units so they can be used elsewhere, the Minix Motor works requires some for a start.

    How not to Stick Textured Paper to Foam Board

    I tell of my oh dear moments as well as the successes, so here is another (oh dear) one, the thought crossed my mind about an alternative way of glueing the texture paper to the platform surface as these replacements are larger. Another Deluxe Materials product for sticking backgrounds to walls may be worth trying, their View Glue Back Scene adhesive.

    Well it is very wet and should be applied liberally, consistency is much like very thin wallpaper paste, so I applied it to a black foam board platform, the ones with an absorbent paper surface and then wrapped the paper around the front edge. Hmm, started to bow a bit so I applied a small MDF board and a weight on it for a while to start drying. However not long after I released it from being held flat it curved badly as drying continued, paper was shrinking and taking the top surface with it. Hey presto, a banana platform as below.

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    Judging by the wrinkles in the texture paper it suggests that the shrinkage was more due to the paper surface of the foam board rather than the texture paper itself, either way, only fit for the bin and back to Pritt Stick. On a rigid base material this adhesive probably works well as initial smoothing out of the texture paper was easy.

    Creating More Platforms

    So having cut another platform panel the replacements were built much as before, but most platforms are covered with weathered concrete paper before attaching the supports and the necessary cut out to accommodate the layout support made to one platform.

    Another change in passing was that the brickwork for the front of the platforms jarred my eye a bit due to the bright colouring, so a more sympathetic brick type is substituted which looks much better.

    Finally I have caught up with the history of the warehouse construction so now the action is as it happens!

    As the platform protrudes from the building's end and dividing walls to the track the brickwork under the platform edge now requires corners, so the main straight part is shorter and two end pieces are cut from 3mm foam board, chamfered at 45 degrees and all 3 glued together.

    The use of a modellers powered disc sander set to the lowest speed and working near the centre of the disc is great for the chamfering the ends. A Scale Model Scenery assembly jig protected with a strip of masking tape aids alignment of the parts briefly while the foam adhesive starts to grip, 10 to 20 seconds is enough.

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    Wall Paper

    This time I have used the Scale Model Scenery TX269-00 Grey Random Stone Ashlars, as a bonus the 15mm height of the brickwork panel lines up well with a brick course line, to be darkened with some willow charcoal it looks more in keeping with the building stonework.

    Rather than fully wrapping this face I have just cut and glued a strip along most of the board and around the exposed corner. A second piece joins that and wraps around the opposite end corner. These printed texture sheets sold as A4 prints are always too short even for 1:76 and disguising the joint can be quite tricky so some thought is required to find the least likely place it will be seen. In this case the platform end nearest the centre of the frontage. Supplied as metre, or even just 0.5m rolls would be a useful size.

    New platforms before fitting and darkening the walls.

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    Continued in Part 6
     
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  6. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 6

    Roof Support

    The middle roof supports in place shown on one of the two loading bay sections.

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    Two back panels which will sit on the rear edge of the platforms.

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    New Loading Bay Platforms


    New platforms fitted to one of the warehouse frontages with loading bays.

    This pair are glued in place with UHU, whoops, foam board edge to laser cut ply, previously the texture paper wrapped over the edge so the UHU was gluing paper to plywood, there seems to have been no problem with the solvent based UHU and this foam board.

    Darkening the brickwork, charcoal as applied at centre, before to the left, after a rub with a tissue right.

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    Darkens the grey, but doesn't really affect the white mortar, I think I am just going to have to put up with this mortar mismatch unless I treat the rest of the building, i.e. colour the mortar lines nearer white, a visit to the shed to view on site is required.

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    Inside and underside view including the cut out for the layout support post to pass through this buildings platform and roof.

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    UHU (solvent version) on Foam Board

    The Clairefontaine foam board I use is polystyrene based, model aircraft typically use a different material and model landscaping Styrofoam, a type of expanded polystyrene.

    So I have just tried a mitre joint as used above for the loading bay platform brickwork just to see what general purpose UHU might do with a foam to foam joint, in all cases the adhesive was applied lightly to only one of the two parts to be joined. It took a few hours to firm up but it was sound.

    However I would not use UHU or polystyrene cement on expanded polystyrene as they are too aggressive, Foam 2 Foam is not.

    There does not seem to have been any issue with fixing one pair of these platforms, albeit by accident, with solvent based UHU, although the instructions for the foam board I use say not to use solvent based adhesives.

    Just seen on the web confirming that there can be issues with solvent based UHU with foam board, but note there are a variety of plastics used for the foam.

    https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/135032-uhu-and-foamboard/

    It seems there is a specific UHU available too, UHU POR for bonding Styrofoam which is described as quick setting, however it is an impact adhesive requiring 10 minutes between application and then bringing the parts together. I wouldn't have the patience for that, and woe betide you if the parts are misaligned when brought together. Which for building construction is a potentially significant job breaker if sides misalign, as opposed to lumps of landscape which can be carved
    .
    https://hltminiatures.com/products/uhu-por-50ml-foam-board-adhesive-glue-49015

    If it is suitable for 14 year plus it must be safer to use than Deluxe Materials Foam 2 Foam.

    I think I will stick to Foam 2 Foam, pun intended, it allows adjustment on bringing parts together, grips quickly and is set in and hour or two, can be handled carefully after approx 15 minutes without problems.

    I would be interested to hear of other modellers experience of bonding foam boards together and to other materials.

    Continued in Part 7
     
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  7. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 7

    Platform Brickwork

    Back in the shed with the buildings to get a feel on how the platform brickwork looks in practice.
    After about 20 mm into the building there isn't much to see, as the brickwork is very much in the shadows.

    Looking at the images, I still haven't filled those spare holes in this end of this warehouse, ground floor middle and 1st floor rear edge. Originally I was going to bump up some different warehouses to this one but thought better of it so painted the end fully.

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    The other end of this warehouse and the other full depth kit have this rear half obscured as can be seen in other images below so this was not an issue.

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    Further options considered are to make the platform brickwork look as though they have stone or concrete ends, much like the brickwork fills in the gaps between stone pillars and the concrete first floor.

    Spare Hole Filling at Last

    So while I consider what to do about the platform brick work it's out with the filler to deal with those holes, at this stage is not a good time to apply filler but no other choice. Thin masking tape in position and filled with Deluxe Materials (DM) filler, bulk of the hole in first pass and finish off with a lighter layer.

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    As these walls are already painted the excess filler was rubbed down with fine abrasive paper with the masking tape still in place, although this would leave the filled surface slightly proud it is minimal due to the very thin nature of the tape I have used and as these are stone blocks it's not an issue with appearance. Painted to match the stonework, image shows more work required to blend them in better.

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    Did you notice that the platform brickwork has changed again!

    Platforms Again!

    After a few days the grey Ashlar looks increasingly wrong, the bright white mortar is at odds with the dark mortar of the external brickwork, even trying to darken it with charcoal it still stands out. I really cannot see myself repainting the mortar lines dark, I'm not completely mad but I am working on it.

    Okay, forget what the textured paper is for, walls, roofs, or floors, which paper looks best.

    This time SMS TX184-00 Mixed Grey Roof Slates, which I had bought as a possible for another model, this looks much better, so that is what is used now. It represents weathered and slightly ragged edged slates, (more like old clay tiles to me) but unless you look closely this is not apparent, my eyes cannot see the ragged edges without magnification. The tones and appearance are much better match to the buildings superstructure, and remembering that most of this brickwork is in shadow with only the platform ends visible it's good enough for me.

    The filled in holes looking better, but annoying that a recently bought bottle of this grey appears to be darker than an old plastic 'tinlet' I finished up, nevermind, move on.

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    Enough of the platforms on with the roofing.

    Continued in Part 8
     
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  8. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 8

    1.25mm mount board used is for the roof panels Ref 3.8.1, coloured side is black, reverse is white.
    The SMS (Scale Model Scenery) slate paper, not including the ridge tiles, is glued to the white side of the mount board with Pritt Stick, smoothed down and sandwiched between my surface plate and a weighted piece of board for 15 - 30 mins, just helps to smooth. But still has a slight curve as before attaching the paper but not an issue. The ridge tiles need to be kept as paper only for folding over the roof ridges. At the moment I just overlap the panels at the ridge as the card does not mitre easily, the supplied ridge tile strip hides the cut white edges, not perfect but satisfactory for this task.

    But not totally happy with the result on the green warehouse (colours as shown in the track plan at the start of this thread) but it is difficult to view close up when in place due to the layout framework above it which is the reason for trying the roof construction on this one first.

    This is good enough for a first attempt where it is sited, the rest need to be better.

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    Fitted the downpipes that were 3D printed a while ago (Ref 3.8.2).

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    And so that the there is not a view of the layout structure through it's loading bay a piece of mount board is attached, black face forwards to give it that shadowy back ground.

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    Red and Blue Warehouse Rear Walls

    These two include the platforms and have roofs that are deeper than the green and yellow frontages plus a higher peaked section spanning the equivalent of two of the usual roofs.
    The red (next image) has a section cut out of it due to a layout support passing through, so the back panel was cut full size as and then the piece to be removed split from it. To aid glueing the back panel in place the cut piece was taped back on so that part to remain could be anchored in place to glue to the platform and centre wall just like the blue warehouse (following image).

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    References

    3.8.1 Clairefontaine - Ref GMB3/120Z - Goldline Mount Board (Pack of 10) - A3 Sized, Acid Free, pH Neutral, 1.25mm Thick, 750gsm - Black - Suitable for Model-Making & Framing.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LXHUR3A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

    3.8.2 Warehouse Downpipes

    https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/inde...le-of-an-oap-vs-3d-printers.6297/#post-103320

    Continued in Part 9
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2023
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  9. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 9

    Improving the Appearance of the Roof Ridges

    So how to mitre the mount board edges, a hand held cutting aid would be useful for the ridges, the valleys are not an issue and can stay as right angle cuts, time for another 3D print?

    The idea is to hold a standard knife blade at an angle of 53 degrees to cut the roof panels whist holding the blade holder against a straight edge. Therefore the body of the holder must have a vertical face against a straight edge. Ideally the protrusion of the blade tip should be adjustable for depth as the blade cuts through the 1.25mm thick card, a nominal cutting depth of 2mm at an angle of 53 degrees.

    Version 1

    First attempt holds the blade at 53 degrees to the horizontal but perpendicular to the line of cut, is easier to see in the image,

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    However, not too good as the angle of the blade to the paper covered card is too steep and tends to tear the paper, normally when we use a blade it is nearer 30 to 40 degrees from the horizontal when run along a straight edge.

    Version 2

    Back to the drawing board to add a suitable cutting angle, e.g. 45 degrees seems reasonable, but oh boy this proved difficult in the CAD tool (SketchUp Make 2017), getting to grips with compound angles is a minor nightmare or in this case it was a daymare.

    Eventually I managed to create the version below, and bearing in mind the relatively low accuracy of a basic printer with a 0.4mm nozzle some parts became undersize and needed a bit of filing, a bit of attention with a knife and two sliding top parts later, I had something that works. The next image shows the resulting tool which speeds up the cutting of the roof panels enormously and makes for better ridges, more information on the design in Ref 3.9.1.

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    77 DSCF1566.JPG


    Blue Warehouse

    Here is the blue warehouse frontage with the roof completed and the 3D printed down pipes fitted in place.

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    My Busy Benches

    The main bench in use for assembly and the Workmate set up for cutting the roof panels, I have just started the roofing of the red warehouse.

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    References

    3.9.1 Warehouse Roof Mitre Tool

    https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/inde...le-of-an-oap-vs-3d-printers.6395/#post-104875

    Continued in Part 10
     
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  10. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Part 10

    Red Warehouse

    The roof and down pipes fitted.

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    Yellow Warehouse

    The roof construction adopted for the last two are to first glue the ridges of two panels together with UHU whilst loose on the roof supports. Let them set for a short while, 30 seconds or so and then carefully remove them from the roof supports and apply Foam-2-Foam adhesive to the roof supports.

    The roof panels were then fitted as a pair to the supports, the UHU joint is still flexible at this time allowing angular adjustment as they are pressed onto the glue on the roof supports.

    Ridge strips are pre-folded in half along their length, opened out flat again and dragged across the top of a Pritt Stick twice, once does not seem to be enough and then applied to the roof ridges. A fiddly process that I am glad to get it over and done with.

    Any points where the ridge strip hasn't stuck can be fixed with Pritt Stick applied with a knife, any surplus is easily rubs off of the surface.

    The completed yellow warehouse.

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    That completes the basic construction of the four warehouse frontages, the next stage is to plant them and add activity in the form of merchandise and crew.

    Continued in Part 11 (Gallery of in-situ images)
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2023
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  11. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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  12. jakesdad13

    jakesdad13 Staff Member Moderator

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    Cracking build diary Jim, excellent work!! :thumbs:
     
  13. Jim Freight

    Jim Freight Full Member

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    Thanks, my next task on this dock is the inset rails for the two gantry cranes, a work in progress which I will post about shortly.

    Jim :)
     
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