Ray,
I just went thru all 4 pages of your posts and what you have done is amazing. The buildings and detail is second to none. Keep up the great work, I look forward to it.
Ray:
The phone looks perfect. Very realistic! I hope you realize that I has just poking a bit of fun at you when I mentioned the six number dial.
Stove looks good too.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Great work.
It seems to me that when the door was open, the light was off and only came on when you got inside and closed the door. I could be wrong, it's been a long time since I been in one.
hon30critterAs far as attaching it, how about putting a small dowel into the bottom of the phone booth in order to 'peg' it into place?
That's a thought. I could even use a small bolt, then secured it with a nut under the floor.
hon30critterI do have to ask you about the phone dial. Only six numbers?
Yeah, that's the result of me screwing up the paint job, then trying to fix it and making it worse. :(
Ray Dunakin but closed be easier
Excuse me Ray!?! Since when have you ever taken the 'easier' route????
The phone booth begs to be open, that is unless you plan on putting someone in it. Then you could also model a customer impatiently waiting for the phone to be free. Otherwise, I think the depth that an 'open' phone would add to the scene would be good.
As far as attaching it, how about putting a small dowel into the bottom of the phone booth in order to 'peg' it into place?
I do have to ask you about the phone dial. Only six numbers? Must be a pretty small exchange! Seriously, the phone is really well done! So is the writing on the inside of the booth!
Looks very realistic Ray!
Ray, I like it!
Thanks and regards, Peter
Awesome work, Ray! I was just at Ely a couple moinths back, and can see the influence on your model. The stonework really looks great.
Rob Spangler
Good to see you back at it Ray, and very, very cool as usual.
Thanks, Peter
Great progress. Everything looks really good. In fact, it is a work of art!
I have to ask a question about the prototype Nevada Northern's Ivy depot. Are those hideous black bars with what looks like shark's teeth designed to stop loitering? I'd hate to brush up against one!
Regards,
Well, after a lengthy hiatus due to family issues, I'm finally starting to get back into modeling and have made some more progress on the depot...
First off, I finished painting all of the tan-colored, random sandstone. I also painted the balconies to look like concrete, and painted the wooden beams, rafters, and eaves a dark brown. I painted the roofs too, and also put on a coat of base color on the large quarry stone blocks. Here are some pics of how it looks so far:
The sunlight really brings out the texture of the faux stone:
The structural frame of the bay window has been painted white, then slightly weathered:
The flat roof over the waiting area was given a "tar and gravel" treatment. I painted on a couple coats of flat black house paint. While the final coat was still wet, I sprinkled on some white, decorative stone grit from the craft store:
The Spanish tiles were painted a terra cotta color, with subtle variations on several random tiles:
I'm planning to give the quarry stone blocks a colorful, banded sandstone look, similar to the blocks on the Nevada Northern's depot in Ely, NV:
However, I want to change the color a bit. I'd like to match the colors in this sandstone fragment I brought home from one of my Nevada trips a few years ago. Below is a test piece. The color is very close but not quite there yet:
That's all for now. Enjoy!
Ray.
That looks great. It is going to really 'pop' when the roof is painted. I assume it will be the same colour as the roof drains.
Just b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l, Ray!
On Saturday we had an open house for our club, the San Diego Garden Railroad Society. Although the depot wasn't finished, I put it out anyway and got a few photos of it on the layout:
Then back to work… I needed to find a way to paint the stone walls faster. I decided to try dry brushing the base color to get most of the stones covered, then just touch up by hand as needed. I tested this out on a wall inside the covered waiting area, where it wouldn't show too badly if it didn't work out. Fortunately it worked pretty well and did speed things up a little. Here's the wall after two coats of paint dry-brushed on, followed by touching up individual stones:
Next I added various shade of color to a few random stones, then finished it off by lightly dry-brushing the highlight color. It ended up a good match for the one wall I had previously painted the slower way:
With that settled, I continued on to the more prominent walls, taking up where I had left off. In this photo, on the left are the stones that were hand painted. On the right is an area where I've applied one coat of dry-brushed color:
Here's the same wall after a second dry-brushed coat and touch up:
And here it is finished:
Another area done the same way:
And here are a couple shots of how it looks so far. Still have a lot to do but at least it's progressing at a somewhat more tolerable rate:
Me thinks you might benefit from setting the project aside for a little while. It sounds to me like you have put a lot of pressure on yourself to meet an arbitrary completion date. Give yourself a break! Modeling is supposed to be fun.
Regards
Nice work. I should be at the SDGRS meeting tomorrow to see this up close.
- Erik
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
There are times with a project this big, that it really starts to feel like it's sitting on my head and crushing it. This is one of those times. :) I had hoped to be nearly finished with the depot by now, but there's been too many other things going on and even when I do get to work on it, it just seems to take forever.
But anyway, I finally started making some progress on painting the "stone" walls of the depot. I began by giving all the walls a coat of thinned, sandstone-colored house paint:
Next I brushed on a dark concrete color. Before it dried I wiped it off with a paper towel, being careful to leave as much paint as possible in the mortar lines. This has to be done one small area at a time, or else the paint will dry before you can wipe it off:
The walls are supposed to look like a very light sandstone, similar to this:
So I had to go over each stone with another coat of sandstone paint, using a fine brush. I mixed in a small amount of white to lighten it slightly, and varied the mix so that the stones aren't all exactly the same shade:
Next I applied thin washes of various shades of rust and brown. To finish it off, I lightly dry-brushed the whole face of the wall with a mix of white and sandstone. I still need to go in with an extra fine brush to touch up some of the mortar lines, but I'll do that later:
That's one wall done, and only about 37 quintillion more stones to paint. Or so it seems. :)
Did get started on the next portion:
Looks incredibly real!
Ray, you should use this project towards an NMRA Master Models designation.
I had hoped to be a lot farther along on this by now, but some major family issues have kept hobby time to a minimum. Anyway, I did manage to paint the floor of the waiting area. I used custom mixed, flat, indoor/outdoor house paints to make it look like terra cotta "Saltillo" tiles:
Thanks, guys!
I made the crown molding from strips of quarter-round, L-angle and .020" thick styrene. These were cut and mitered to fit each wall, then painted, prior to being glued in place:
Originally I had planned to just have a simple ticket counter. But after I built the counter, I found some photos of depots with ticket windows built into a kind of room divider with door, separating the customer area from the station agent area. I liked the way these looked and decided it might be a good choice for my depot. So I whipped up a crude mockup made from scrap matt board:
The divider/ticket window assembly was built up from various strips of styrene. Here's a test-fitting:
The rear of the ticket window will be partially visible through the bay window on the south side of the depot, so I built up both sides of the door, plus a separate piece to fit around the windows:
The security bars for the ticket window were made from .020" and .030" styrene rod. It might have been better to use brass but this was easier to work with and a lot less sloppy than my rudimentary soldering skills would have done. The bars were painted to look like polished brass"
Here's a close up of the finished ticket window. The rippled privacy glass was made from .015" slide cover glass, with clear gloss medium dabbed on the the back to create the rippled look:
And here are couple shots of the room with the divider/ticket window installed:
Here's the back of the ticket counter. This will only barely been seen so I didn't put too much effort into it, however I do plan to add a few items setting on the counter:
The interior still needs a safe, stove, signs, lighting and other details, which will be added later. For now I'm going to go back to work on the roof so I can get that finished and start painting the exterior of the building.
Absolutely fantastic!
You sure are modeling in the right scale for scratchbuilding!
More excellent work. Its hard to tell that the stairs are actually a model!
By the time you are finished the station I will have run out of accolades.
I finished putting tiles on both sides of the main roof, and capped the ridge. The gaps under the ridge tiles were filled with Dynaflex to simulate mortar:
I managed to tile most of the north side of the baggage room roof, then ran out of styrene tubes and couldn't make any more tiles for a while. So while I waited for an order of tubes, I went to work detailing the interior. I built some stairs out of 4mm and 1mm Sintra, plus some .020" styrene for the baseboard. Here's a shot of the stairs under construction:
A few years ago I bought some 1/24th scale balusters from a dollhouse supplier, and put them away until I found a use for them. Much to my amazement I was actually able to find them now that I needed them. I drilled a hole in the bottom of each, and glued in a short piece of brass rod:
The handrail was made from a 1/8" styrene tube. I sanded two sides of it flat, and plugged the end. Then I drilled holes into the underside and fit it over the tops of the balusters. BTW, the floor is a photographic image printed onto self-adhesive vinyl:
After I built the stairs I sprayed them with white primer, followed by a very pale, yellowish color to match the walls. When that dried I masked it to paint the dark trim color:
The interior walls will have wainscot. These were made from .020" thick, V-groove styrene sheet, with trim made from styrene strips. This one is designed to fit the stairs. The wainscots were not glued in place until after they'd been painted:
Here's how the room looks so far. The stairs are finished and painted, though not yet glued into place. The wainscots and other trim have also been painted and installed:
I still have to make the crown molding, the ticket counter, and other furnishings.
Nice tile job. I can't wait to see the station when it has got colour on it.
After spending a few days cutting up styrene tubes and turning them into Spanish tiles, I was ready to start gluing some to the main roof of the depot...
I'm using Dynaflex 230 paintable sealant to secure the tiles to the model. Naturally, the concave, "bottom" rows of tiles must be put on first. I began by gluing a single tile at the beginning of each row, in order to test that the spacing was correct. I determined that spacing them on 1/2" centers would be just about perfect:
The bottom rows must be placed with the narrow end of the tile facing "downhill" on the roof. I goofed and did the first row, on the right, the wrong way around. Since it's on the end and not very noticeable, I just left it that way:
After all of the bottom tiles were glued in place, I left it to dry:
Then it was time to add the top rows of tiles. First I used more Dynaflex 230 to fill the spaces between the bottom rows. I only worked on 2-3 rows at a time:
Each of the top tiles was partially filled with sealant prior to placing it on the model:
The top tiles are placed with the narrow end "uphill". Excess sealant can easily be cleaned off with water and a small, cheap, craft paint brush:
This side of the roof is now complete. It took 200 individual tiles for this. I figure in total, it'll take at least 1000 to do the whole job: