Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

Today I finished work early due to the substantial rain we are receiving. Just to give you an idea of the rain, between 9pm last night and 9am this morning, we have had over 4 1/2" of rain in the area...

So, whilst at home I have continued on with the build. This morning I have added conduits, distribution boxes and switches to the wall. This is all fine rod I'm using. The larger rod is Evergreen Styrene #220 (0.88mm) and the thinner rod is #219 (0.64mm) diameter. The distribution boxes are varying lengths of Evergreen Styrene strip #158 (1.5 x 4.8mm) and the switches besides the doors are #145 (1 x 2.5mm).

Now these are in place, I'll work on other conduits along that will run along the wall above where the awning will be positioned. Once these are in place, I can paint the building and weather it accordingly, before I add the awning and awning hangers.

Back soon...

Cheers, Gary.

ps. Not wrong Gormo, my eyes were feeling it last night !

 

Thank you for your kind words. I try and add a detail description as it helps anyone else who wishes to scratch build.

As for the roof, I have had the roof gutters and valley cleaned from leaf build up. The ceiling still needs repairing. Luckily with all this rain, I haven't had more water come through. I found out why the water comes in..., it is partly due to heavy rain and high winds. The roof has less than 1% fall and when the wind blows in the right direction.... Well, you can guess what happens.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Moving on from where I left off earlier, I had added more conduits, an electrical cabinet and two water mains.

The water mains are 2mm styrene rod (#212) that had been bent using hot water and a cigarette lighter. The collars where they join the wall are 4mm styrene tube (#225). All of Evergreen styrene rod and tube fits into one another, like a telescope.

The electrical cabinet is 4mm and 6mm styrene strip glued into a U shape. The top was sanded to for a slanted roof. A strip of 10 thou sheet was cut to fit onto the front as a door and a strip of 0.64mm rod for a full length hinge. I did place two door handles on the cabinet. These were made of more 0.64mm rod and a cigarette lighter. Another piece of 10 thou sheet was glued to the top as a roof to the cabinet. This was just a little wider than the cabinet.

Gate rollers were made up from 2mm diameter rod (#212) and styrups from 1mm x 0.25mm strip (#102) and glued to the gate tops.

After all this had cured, it was time to give the building a paint. I use cheap artist acrylics for this. The colour I chose is 'Bisque' from the Sullivans range of all purpose acrylics. The whole building was given a once over, allowed to dry, then another coat followed by some touch ups where the super glue had formed a hardened non stick surface.

The sliding gate rail was then painted with Mig 'oil & grease mixture' and allowed to dry. The awning roof was also painted with the underside the smae 'Bisque' as the building and the roofing iron a lightish grey colour.

The loading platform face was painted 'Bisque' as well and the top of the platform was done in a deeper grey. The roof of the building was done using the same grey. Whilst the paint was still damp on the platform surface, I dry brushed in some lighter grey (left over from awning roof) to give the surface a weathered look.

Whilst this was all drying away, I painted the sliding gates with silver from a rattle can. Once these had dried, I weathered them using powders and isopropyl alcohol.

Once all the paint was dry and the gates finished, it was time to glue the gates on in place, some closed, some open. The awning was added and the whole lot weathered once it had cured. I still have to add the awning styrups (support rod), but I couldn't do that until the roof was in place. It was also easier to weather the building and awning roof without them in the way.

Cople of pics of what the lot looks like now. Not I also added some fork lift wheel marks to the platform surface using powders then sealed it all in with matt clear.

from the platform ramp end...

from the opposite end...

awning roof and platform weathering...

close up of the weathered gates and under awning roof detail...

So, as I mentioned earlier, I need to add the awning supports, the personnel doors and a interior, which shall be a photograph of a store room/cool room.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Jim.

Most of the buildings on my layout are related to those that I find on google maps (street view). This one above is loosely based on Miami Produce located at 2142 NW 12th Ave, Miami...

Cheers, Gary.

 

My latest youtube video... I can't believe it has had over 6000 views and an increase of 25 subscribers within 48 hours !



For anyone who is interested in the Control It 'printed circuit board sleepers', you can check them out here : https://controlit.net.au/controlit-pcb-sleepers.html

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Phil and Gormo for your kind words.

I like how simple these are. I would like to see them made a little longer for crossing baseboards at an angle. Maybe I should suggest this to Martin.

Cheers, Gary.

 

I found them to be quite sturdy in their design. It saves you, the modeller time purchasing PCB and cutting it to size etc. These can be simply araldited into place and away you go. One thing to note is that the sleepers are slightly undersized compared to the width of Peco sleepers. This isn't an issue as once they are painted and ballasted, it would be hard to spot.

Overall, a great product.

Cheers, Gary.

 

I have started on another building. This one will be located between the two curved tracks that run onto the peninsula section.

There will be very little detail as compared to the larger building I just built, but this one is more involved on the design/engineering of its odd shape.

First up I highlighted the position of the building on the layout with a Sharpie pen.

I then laid out some baking paper and traced the perimeter.

The walls that I had cut previously were then lined up against the traced lines and a new inner wall line was drawn as these walls are not a fluid curve, but slightly angled to the next.

Both long walls were drawn up onto the tracing paper.

Now having these co-ordinates on the paper and showing where each corner is located between the wall sections, I used a sharp pencil and pin pointed these points off the tracing paper onto heavy 3mm thick grey board (box board).

You may be able to see the reference points in this photo.

I took a rule and pencil and connected the dots. What this gave me was afloor and roof piece that fits between the walls. Basically it becomes the fixed template of the building shape.

These were cut out using a sharp Stanley knife.

I glued one wall, making sure it started square on at one end and progressively moved around the floor adding drops of super glue as I moved along each wall. They were kept square (perpendicular) using a block of wood.

Before gluing the shorter back wall (?) on, I measured the distance between each change of wall angle and cut spacers. This will have two benefits, 1. to keep the walls perpendicular and 2, to hold the roof piece in place.

Now I haven't added windows or door details as yet, but you can see here that the roof fits inside the walls, same as the floor piece. The roof is 5mm below the coping of the exterior walls, as per the construction of these buildings around Miami.

Still plenty to do yet !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Back to the building...

In the previous post, I showed the window and door apertures that I had cut out. Now if you have ever tried scratch building in thick card, you would have found that the card does not like sanding. A simple trick I use (borrowed off Gormo), is to apply super glue (CA) to all cut edges of the card, allowing it to soak in. This gives the card a stronger, plastic like feel and it takes sanding/filing quite well.

I applied CA to all edges and once cured, I remeasured the apertures and used a sanding stick to smooth out the edges. The window apertures were sanded smoothe so they would take the windows I have chosen.

I have had quite a few of the large 'engine shed' style of windows (Grandt Line HO scale) in my stash, but they are double hung. I want to put these in horizontally so I made some amendments to them as follows.

The windows in question...

You can see in this photo the frame of the double hung window...

A simple trick is to cut them as shown here...

Roll the cut half over and fix in place with MEK, making sure they are square...

This photo shows the difference between the originals and the amended...

Now, back to the building itself...

The roller door opening was also sanded smooth and a few strips of Evergreen Styrene (ES) angle (#292) was fixed into position.

Water mains and lines were added using ES #8102 strip for cleats and ES #211 1mm rod for the water lines and ES #212 2mm rod for the mains.

A small extractor fan was crafted from scrap styrene sheet and some fine mesh that I had in my stash box. In this photo you can also see the CA around the window edges...

Back at the roller door, a small landing was knocked up using a scrap piece of 'concrete' left over from a Walthers kit. Some 1mm x 2.5mm EV styrene strip (#145) was used as bearers and a few pieces 4mm diameter tubing, ES #225 was used for supports. A switch box was added to the wall for the exterior light...

For the exterior light, I chose a 12v pre-wired 5mm diameter LED...

This was sanded down to a small rectangle of about 3mm x 2mm...

It was tested before I built a shroud/light cover around it...

Now knowing all is good with the light and having painted the 7 x windows (# x large 8 x 5 pane) and 4 small 4 x 3 pane) and a roller door made from EV corrugated sheet (#4526) a mid blue colour, it was time to paint the model then glue the windows in place.
I don't have photos of the painting stages, but it was painted with some cheap white artist acrylics and weathered accordingly. You will also see the light shroud has been fitted too...

Full building...

Individual detail : roller door/landing/switch box/window...

: water lines/windows/extractor fan...

So the only thing to do on this building now is the roof and associated details. Then I'll start on the next building...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks mate. I do enjoy the challenge of a scratch build (and a cheap one at that !). I believe it doesn't matter what a model is made of, as long as it is durable and looks the part, it will fit in with the theme.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Next building on the go...

The black tape is temporary so I could work out the shape and dimensions of the floor and roof. Since this photo was taken, I have only added a bead of CA to the window and door apertures. Hopefully I can have this one completed over the weekend.

Cheers, Gary.

 

I progressed a little further with this build, but there is still more to do...

I cut more window apertures into the medium length wall. This wall faces the main tracks on the baseboard and rather than have a blank wall, it needed some interest.

After all the window and door apertures were cut out, they were all lined with CA (super glue).

This enabled me to sand the apertures for a perfect window fit.

Next up was to scratch build some down pipes. These were made from 2mm x 2.5mm styrene strip (ES #165). A small length was cut and glued to the top and shaped to form a funnel. Strapping (or cleats) were made from 0.25mm x 1.0mm styrene strip (ES #102). The cleats were softened with MEK which allowed them to flex around the rectangular down pipe.

These were glued into place along with some conduit and a small junction box. The conduit is 1mm diameter rod (ES #211) and the junction boxes are off cuts of 2.5mm x 6.3mm styrene strip (ES #169). Before gluing these in I added a weather strip to the top edge of the building. This is simply a strip of 10" x 1" HO scale Evergreen styrene, #8110.

All this was then painted. I first painted the building a yellow, which to me seemed way to bright. I decided to mix a little sandstone coloured paint with the yellow and now the building is much more of a milk coffee colour. In the next two photos you can clearly see the original yellow.

The paint was allowed to dry overnight. I studied google maps once again and I liked the idea of a two tone building, or I should say two colours. I had some red acrylic, but it too was too bright so I mixed a little maroon into it and a touch of white.

The building was masked up with painters tape and the red was applied. The weather strip along the top edge of the walls was also painted red.

I needed to scratch build a landing and stairs for the personnel door that is situated on the right hand side of the building. I foraged through my scraps box and found some of SE Finecast OO scale brick sheet off cuts and this formed the base of the landing. It was glued to a heavier off cut of 1mm thick styrene sheet.
The stairs were simply made with ES #292 2mm angle and a strip of ES #9030 0,030"/ 0.75mm thick sheet, as shown in the diagram.

The sides were then covered with a strip of #9030 and once it had cured, I took the scalpel and notched out the stairs. Everything was pieced together and the top landing is an off cut of 1mm thick styrene sheet (ES #9040)

The roof was made from a small off cut of ES corrugated sheet (#4526) and two small strips of channel (ES #261). Supports were made from two lengths of 1mm diameter rod (ES #211). When all this had cured, it was glued to the landing.

A separate hand rail was bent up from ES #220, 0.035"/0.88mm rod and glued into place. It was all painted prior to fitting to the building.

The personnel door is simply an off cut of 0.030"/0.75mm sheet which I sanded with coarse sand paper to give it some grain and then used the scalpel to create rot at the base of the door. A door knob was made form a small length of ES #220, which was touched lightly by the flame of a cigarette lighter to form the knob.

The rooler door is once again a piece of ES #4526 corrugated sheet.

Weathering was next and I opted first with dry brushing a little light grey over the exterior, followed by darker tomes, especially between the individual wall panels and along the base of the building. A little green was used sparingly at the base of the down pipes to simulate mildew/mould etc.

Next up I'll add the windows and glazing then get onto the roof and the roof details.

Cheers, Gary.