Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

Just when you start on building a new model for the layout, then a video of super detailing gondolas come along...



Cheers, Gary.

 

I spent most of yesterday detailing one of the buildings (Graulich International) whilst listening to the Second Section Podcast. I have done this exact technique on quite a few of the original buildings on the layout and it certainly lifts the look of them immensely.

Along with this, I scratch built a set of stairs from 2mm Evergreen styrene angle (#292), 1mm styrene sheet (scrap) and also a hand rail for the stairs from 0.64mm styrene rod (219).

I drilled a 0.7mm hole in the door frame to locate the hand rail and then glued the whole set of stairs into place.

Now to start on detailing the Trujillo & Sons building...

Cheers, Gary.

 

I had the day off work today so I started on a little scratch building for the Trujillo building.

First up is a tank that sits on top of the lower section of the building.

The other scratch built item is using a lot of 'modellers license' as I can not clearly see inside the pump house.

This is the air pump for unloading the plastic pellets from the silo to the industry. A rather large separator (rectangular box) and motor with associated pipe work. Lots of fiddly bits has gone into this as I was using 0.25mm x 0.5mm styrene strip for the electric motor flutes (round unit) and the side flutes on the separator.

The aperture of the internals on this part of the building is a scale 11' x 10' or 38.5mm x 35mm....

Still have to add the internal conduits etc...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks for the kind words Tony. I'll sure make mention of it at the Goulburn Model Railway Exhibition in late August !

Cheers, Gary.

 

More and more details are being added to the Trujillo building. Quite a lot of pipe work, conduits and two new windows...

First up, I needed to make the breathers for the fuel tank that sits on top of the roof. This was done using Evergreen styrene rod #219 (o,64mm diameter) and applying a little heat via a cigarette lighter...

With the breather being fixed to the tank, the next step was the plumbing from the tank to the building. Here I used Evergreen styrene rod #211 (1mm diameter). This was bent to shape using heat.

Styrups were added to the pipe and a hole drilled in the tank in readiness to being secured to the roof.

I studied the photo below and noted the two open windows, which had to be modelled.

I made these from clear styrene sheet, some painters tape to mask off the clear glass and some rattle can black enamel.

After peeling the tape off, this is what I have...

These were cut apart and trimmed up...

I'll set these windows aside and move back on to the pipe work and conduits.

On the front of the building, there are prominent pipes that run up the face of the building. For the larger pipe, I used Evergreen styrene rod #222 (1.6mm diameter) and made the all the stirrups from Evergreen #101 (0.25mm x 0.75mm). The other conduits are Evergreen rod #219. Small junction boxes were made using a piece of Evergreen strip #154.

The small pipe at the very front is Evergreen rod #211 (1mm diameter) with three small pieces of Evergreen tube #223 (2.4mm diameter) to form up the top valve and the base rings. A 0.7mm hole was drilled into the top valve section and using the lighter method, a tap was formed from Evergreen rod #219 (0.64mm diameter).

Other junction boxes were made up from Evergreen strip # 155 (1.5mm x 2.5mm) and #179 (2.5mm x 6.3mm). The conduits running from both boxes are #219 with #101 strip for stirrups.

The tank and windows have not been secured as yet. This is what it is starting to look like...

It is all coming together nicely !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Hi Tim,

It is these little details that bring a mundane flat wall to life. I am working off the prototype pictures (courtesy of Google Earth), even though my model has been compressed to fit the area. If one fills the model full of the most noticeable items, then it becomes much more realistic to the eye. Feel free to steal, borrow beg anything from my layout threads !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Absolutely Ron !
For me details matter, after all we have locomotives and rolling stock with all the super detailing, so why shouldn't everything else include all the necessary little details !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Gormo. I also like the challenge of scratch building particular items too. The air conditioners I will hopefully have finished by tonight (if I can purchase the correct sized styrene tube) is one of these items that need some thinking about, as it isn't just a square box with a fan and a few vents !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Back on the 23rd September, I started building a model of Pan American Paper (see post #638) and finally I have gotten back to working on that structure again...

I needed windows for this building and there is nothing off the shelf from Tichy or Grandt Line that would suffice. The answer lays in carving up some large industrial windows, making two smaller windows from one.

These smaller windows were framed using 1.5mm Evergreen styrene angle #291 around all four sides.

The window apertures I had cut into the wall of the building had to be enlarged in width to accommodate these windows, which meant more cutting and sanding of the card.

Eventually they fitted snuggly into the wall.

The prototype has a few external details that I wanted to capture, such as the electrical box (?), the drainage pipe and the two lengths of I beam on the roof. I have circled these on the pic below...

The electrical box is a small section of 4.8mm Evergreen styrene square tube (#253), which I capped off with a small offcut of styrene sheet and drilled four 0.7mm holes in the corners.

The holes had small pieces of 0.64mm styrene rod (#219) glued into them, leaving them proud of the top cover piece. Once the glue had cured, the styrene rod was trimmed down within 0.5mm off the top. These represent the bolts/nuts holding the cover piece on.

The next detail is the drainage pipe. This is a piece of 2mm diameter styrene rod that I drilled the centre out of.

Both the electrical box and the pipe were fitted to the wall.

The third detail is the I beams that run across the roof at 45 degrees. Here I used Evergreen 3.2mm I beam (#274) and cut the ends at 45 degrees to match the face of the wall. Two 7mm lengths of 1.5mm x 0.25mm strip was glued to the ends to replicate the brackets.

I let all this cure before adding roller doors inside the door apertures. Here I used Evergreen V GrooveSiding (#2040). The middle door is in the open position. Once the roller doors had cured, I added the scuff plates to the concrete edge of the door openings. I followed this up by giving the whole model a spray with Primer/Surfacer.

As the sun was warm this afternoon, I set the model outside in the sun for the paint to dry. Once dry, the model had received a splash of colour, which is pale green, the colur of the building back in the early 2000s. This is the first layer of paint, maybe one more layer (maybe not ?) and tomorrow I will move on with the weathering.

Cheers, Gary.

 

It is getting there Ron ! I like to add the details that make the building recognisable, maybe not to those in Australia and the UK, but our American cousins may see the similarities !

Cheers, Gary.

 

So, the model has had a second coat of colour applied, the deeper green band along the bottom and a touch of weathering. I still have more weathering to do, but that will be for tomorrow !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you kindly ! It is a reasonable representation of the prototype, although my choice of green maybe a little stronger than the prototype !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Tonight I got onto weathering Pan American Paper and in my usual style of weathering, I have made it look well worn, in fact it is possibly in need of a repaint, in which the prototype did get a make over in 2020.

The prototype for comparison...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Now I have completed the Pan American Paper building, I turned my attention back to the Trujillo building that I started piecing together back in May 2024, not long after I relocated. You can find the start of the build back in post #564...

I was hoping to create the big industrial air cons or HVAC that sit on the single story of the complex from inserting and gluing different sized styrene tube together.

I got several diameters together all glued within each other, forming a nice 11.1mm thick tube. As I was to file a nice angle to the top, this is when things went sour and the whole lot destroyed itself...

Another plan was needed...

I was thinking of 16mm conduit would be ideal, until I found out that conduit is measured on the inside diameter and what I thought was 16mm, was in fact 20mm. Way too big !
So I wandered around Bunnings and in one of those shelves they have at the end of the isles, I found some conduit end caps. Sweet, these are 16mm in diameter !!

In the photo below, you can see the end cap on the left, the eventual legs (1.5mm angle) and a cap I have layered several pieces of 1mm thick styrene sheet and sanded to form the mound or peak as shown on the prototype in the photo above. The circular piece of styrene is the lower tray of the unit.

After gluing the legs on, which were aided by the formed strips on the oustide of the caps, I added small 1mm sections of styrene strip to support the lower tray section.

The tray glued in...

Flipping the unit over, I added a N scale radiator fan grill (thanks Michael Grace) and a port for the power supply.

This was then painted with flat grey.

Now that job was complete, I got onto painting the building with a soft orange colour. Unfortunately the orange paint I mixed in with the yellow cream colour, had small lumps of hardened pigment and when I started painting, these pigments dragged bright orange paint across the face of the building !

I let this dry before adding a layer of neat yellow cream. Now the building has more of a salmon colour to it ! I just can't win...

Oh well, on with the build. During the time of this drying, I took to the scratch built oil tank, see post #663 for this.

I gave the model a spray with some black enamel out of a rattle can before following this up with weathering powders and IPA. The result was pretty good and resembled the prototype ! Finally, a win with this continuing build !!

The prototype...

Here is a photo of both the tank and air con sitting on the single story roof section...

There are a few touch ups to do to the building here and there which include painting a few of the elctrical boxes and conduits white and some of the larger pipe work silver.

Next job on the list is to finish the Bay Rag building I started back in post #583..., then back onto the pellets silo....

Cheers, Gary.