As I had mentioned in a previous post, I have been working on the background scenes along the lower level. Noticing an uptick in work on the actual layout, my wife asked what I was working on downstairs. When I explained that I was finishing the background scenes after having all the foreground scenes in place.

She just looked at me and said “wouldn’t it have been easier to do the background scenes before finishing the foreground scenes?”

As I have said before here, yes, it would have been. But when planning and building the benchwork I had pretty much envisioned the foreground but not the background. So that’s what got done first.

The biggest hole was at the north end of Jackson. The biggie here was the support post that came right up through the benchwork.

As you can see, it is right up against the backdrop. The track plan for Jackson was lifted right from a Model Railroader track plan. I had changed out a lot of the industries as they didn’t fit my local. The spot where the post is was a mobile home park.  That wasn’t going to work.

Going through my stuff I came across a Design Preservation kit that I had gotten and never done anything with. It was their #35500 Tera Surplus Window Warehouse. Design Preservation is now a division of Woodland Scenics.

Initial layout and construction…

It was a big bag of modular pieces. I started by laying out the pieces along the backdrop and around the post. This gave me an idea of how many modular sections I would need. Height was determined and what each wall would look like – blank, windows and door locations. I then determined what I had and what I needed. And than off to the LHS for the missing wall sections. Being rail served was out of the question. There wasn’t any way to squeeze a turnout and track in there.

So it would be a large (tall) industry that was not rail served. I came up with a design that had a south wing three stories high. The section around the post was five stories and the north wing, shorter than the south wing, was also was five stories.

Assembly went quickly. If you haven’t worked with these, a straight edge is all important to keep wall sections even. As with  with the caboose, progress outpaced photos. The first photo is of the raw walls assembled and set in place.

You can also see the sheet styrene that acts as the foundation and extends out as the driveway. I then added the outside steps, base for the external tanks, smokestack and loading docks. Once those were placed or figured out I trimmed the base styrene. Then I placed it along with cork sheet (to bring it up to level to match the roadway)  and marked the cuts. That done I cut the cork and nailed it in place.

With that done I started adding more details. I added a roof over the loading dock and cut and fit roof sections to the different parts of the building. I also planned out external details and drilled holes to mount them. These included roof vents and blowers, external wall mounted blowers and duct work. Additionally, there is a pair of external tanks with piping.

The last photo is the base for the for the tanks. The numbers there are not measurements, rather they are the window count. Yes, there are 82 windows as well as  2 exterior doors and 2 dock doors. The actual roof over the dock was not added to the frames at this time to make painting easier.

Off to the spray booth…

Then it was off to the paint booth. The building was bigger than my paint booth and made painting interesting. As the primer was drying I cut the windows and doors off of their sprues. I cleaned up all the flashing on the parts and then they headed to the spray booth also.

After the primer was dry I airbrushed the building the final color. I also airbrushed the windows, doors and details. I hand painted the window sills (concrete under window frames). The smokestack was painted at the same time. I then masked off the side wall for the company name (sorry, should have shot pictures for this). This is done by masking off a large section and painting it white. I then mask off the white border and I then apply vinyl stick-on lettering for the company name. It was then over coated with the black. I let the black dry for maybe 15 minutes and then start peeling (carefully) the lettering and masking tape off.

And here is the painted building on the bench.

With the paint done and before the final details were installed it was time to install the lights. Instead of any kind of interior details I decided to use the Woodland Scenics Light Diffusing Film. The instruction aren’t as straight forward, but once you figure out what they want you to do they made sense. I would add that you should wipe down the interior to clean any paint dust off the surface so the glue dots (supplied) will stick. I use Polly S plastic prep, but as the whole Polly Scale line of paints is gone you would have to find an equivalent. Also, I found the supplied glue dots did not hold well and bought some “heavy duty” glue dots that worked better.

The first piece installed:

Lighting it up…

After applying the film to the first section, I had to figure out lighting. I had ordered from Amazon a pack of wired LED lights. They are surface mount warm white lights. They are mounted on a 1cm x 1cm circuit board with a resistor and are rated 12v to 18v. There are 20 LED’s for $14.00. Here is a link. For the back wall I used white 1/4″ foam core board. It’s easy to cut and glue in place.

The question was where to mount the lights. The original plan was to mount them to the rear wall facing the front walls. I tested this by mounting a couple with doubled sided tape. There were very bright windows with the light fading to the other windows. I then mounted them to the front wall facing the back white foam core wall. The lighting was more balanced through all the windows.

There are four LED’s mounted in this section evenly spaced. Like I said the light is evenly distributed with no bright spots.

With that figured out I finished applying the window film to the rest of the walls. I mounted the rest of the lights to the inside of the walls and cut and fit the foam core to the rest of the building. I additionally used two of the lights mounted up in the roof over the loading dock. In total there are 12 LED’s lighting the building. I also added two goose neck lamps over the two exterior doors, these are from Woodland Scenics.

And with the overhead lights off.

As you can see before these pictures I had also added the rest of the detail parts. These included all outside ducts and blowers, fire escape, roof access ladder and external tanks and piping. I also did some light weathering, dirt, dust and light rust.

And then it was done.

Haven’t decided yet as to wether I’ll pull it out and paint the upper portion of the support post sky blue yet. Just happy to have it done.

With this building done, all the buildings for Jackson are done along the backdrop. Now it’s time to start completing the scenery along the backdrop.

Up next, we start this process.

Till then, stay safe and happy modeling…

 

 

 

 

 

So, here we go with catching you up with the various projects that I’ve been working on. I believe that they should be pretty much in the order that I worked on them, not that it matters.

I started first with the kits from Scientific Models that I had received for Christmas in 2020. As I had mentioned before, they were the Protestant Church #89545 and The Parson’s House #89546. I had built a couple of smaller kits from them, a corn crib and bleachers for the ball park and enjoyed them enough to try some of their larger kits.

Starting with the church. The fit was very good except for two things, will touch on those in a moment. Since I was trying to recreate a childhood memory, I was hoping for a church with the steeple centered on the front of the church. The steeple in the kit is offset to the left of the church. Thought that maybe I could modify the kit once I had it, but not so. The left side wall (looking at it from the front) is shorter because of the steeple and I would have had to track down matching siding and make a whole new wall. So I went with the kit as is.

As they always say in reviews, the fit was excellent and the order of construction is logical. The problem I ran into is the steeple. In particular the roof. The roof frame is two pieces that slide together to gives you a base for the for the roof panels to glue on to. At the bottom is a tab that fits into a slot on the top of the steeple base. That slot is the first problem. It should run on the diagonal from corner to corner. It does not, but is offset. Which then means the roof section is not square with the base. I had to enlarge the slot to get the roof to set right.

My first thought was that this was a “one off” problem. But thinking about it, since this is a laser cut structure, the CAD drawings had to be wrong. And since they had one assembled for the artwork, they would have caught the problem and corrected it for production. At least that’s the way it works in my world. The second problem was the actual laser cut roof panels for the steeple. There is a gap on all four sides. Looking back, I should have taken a bar sander and created beveled sides and then the panels would have sat better. Despite the gaps, this should be easy to cover with shingles.

Other than that everything fit well. If you look at the picture of the top of the steeple, you can see everything fits well and tight.

The church assembled and painted.

With everything painted it is ready for final assembly and shingles. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to go about making stained glass windows.

I was also working on the Parson’s Home kit at the same time. I could work on one while the glue dried on the other.

It was full steam ahead on the Parson’s Home when I quickly realized a minor problem and stopped.

The house is built around a core structure, with all the outer walls glued to it. What I realized was if I had taken it to the point of the church, I would not be able to add lights to it when done.

There are basically four rooms with an additional two with the front and back extensions. I stopped because I want to figure out the rooms and add lights accordingly.

The house as it is and a preview (of sorts) of what it will look like.

You can see from the photos that the porch and porch roof structures a quite heavily framed. The upside is I should easily be able to hide a light in the roof structure to act a a front porch light.

And that’s where I stand with these two structures. I have researched the stained glass windows. I found an Etsy site that has a downloadable Jpeg for them. Probably the way to go.  Haven’t moved forward as I have been refocusing on finishing the lower level (mostly) and these are for the upper.

As I said, love the kits. The kits from Micro-Mark’s Scientific line of structures are of very good quality and fit. And there is a great selection of railroad themed structures.

Till next time, stay safe and happy modeling…

I finally received the interior rooms from Roomettes Lighting. I didn’t realize that the company was located in Ontario ( and no, I don’t have a problem with Canada, I used to work for a company based in Toronto ). It’s just mail between the two usually takes awhile. In this case, almost two weeks. So if you want to order, you should know this in advance.

The other thing you should know ( and it’s not a big deal ) but they only accept payment by Paypal. Again, not a big deal, I’ve had a Paypal account for years and it’s usually one of the payment options on all websites. Just was a little surprised when it was they only option.

The sets that I ordered were the Broadway Apartments set for the Walthers Parkview Terrace Background Building( 933-3177 ). I had bought and assembled two of these quite awhile ago and was getting ready to throw some lights in them when I came across the Roomettes Lighting website. I thought individually lit rooms with interiors showing would add far more interest. Just took awhile to get around to ordering them.

Finally here and what you get…

I ordered them on May 25th and when I got the confirmation and shipping information a day or two later I was surprised to see the estimated arrival date of June 10th. In addition I was a bit thrown when I saw the tracking info from Canada Post. That’s when I did a quick check of where the company was located. If you’ve ever tracked a shipment ( and who hasn’t now that everyone gives it to you and it’s easy ), you’re going to find Canada Posts tracking info a little vague and even more so once it hits the States.

But, it finally arrived.

Opening them up and it’s what I expected as they have a pretty good description of what  you are getting, plus pictures of the rooms.

So what was included in this set? Well you get ten rooms plus ten Woodland Scenics LED Stick-On Lights ( JP5741 ). The four sheets of rooms are glossy and printed on heavy paper ( cardstock ). There are kitchens, living rooms,  bathrooms, bedrooms and an entry (I think).  They are die cut and release form the sheet with a quick pass with a razor blade to cut the little tabs holding them in place. In addition the rooms are perforated along the fold lines.

Putting them together…

In the instructions they note that there are column numbers by each  room. In this case, 1 through 6. This matches up to the six columns of windows (from top to bottom) on the building. I decided to place the rooms as displayed on Roomettes website for the first building. I’ll mix it up on the second building.

As I said, they pop out pretty easily. A quick fold of the tabs, a little white glue and they were together. OK, so I had to hold the tabs while the glue set, but they do go together pretty quickly. They also suggest running a little glue along the perforated edges for strength and light blocking. Did this also. I numbered the rooms with a column number and a floor number just to make placement easier.

I thought about ( and they suggest it in the instructions ) of adding some 3Dness to the rooms. An example would be there is a headboard in the bedroom, I thought about adding the rest of the bed. Or adding addition chairs in other rooms. Seemed a bit much for something that is against the backdrop. And the rooms have a pretty good 3D look on their own. Would do this on something with bigger windows and near the front.

I added the lights. Their suggestion is to use a high quality tape to hold the lights in place. I opted to glue them in place. They also suggest painting the outside of the rooms black to block light. I decided to wrap the rooms with painters tape. Reinforces the lights and blocks light. Probably not necessary, but did it anyhow.

The last step before installation was to dress up the rest of the windows, the ones without actual rooms.

Adding the rooms…

After the other windows were taken care of it was time to add the rooms to the apartment building.

Nothing special here, I used Elmers Tacky Glue to glue the rooms in place. The fit was perfect. This is evident in that the corner rooms have cut outs in the side walls for the windows on the building sides. They lined right up.

In addition to the room lights I also added the Woodland Scenics Just Plug Entry Wall Lights (JP5655).  Roomettes had shown these on their finished model on the stairway landings and I liked the look. This is something that would have been far easier before the stairways were added. Spent a whole night getting them fitted in place working around the stairways and support posts.

Next up was what to do with the wires. With ten room lights and four wall lights there were plenty of them. First thought was to simply pull them through the floor and hook up everything under the layout. Bad idea, as the underside of the layout is always pretty congested. Looking at the empty space in the building I began wondering how much I could fit into that space. My plan was to hook everything into 3 Port Sharing Devices (JP5681) and then wire those into a Light Hub (JP5701) . From there the Light Hub would wire into an Expansion Hub (JP5702) for power.

What I could fit into the back was the three Port Sharing Devices. This cut down the number of wires from 14 to 3. Acceptable.

Hooked the 3 wires into the Light Hub and then it was time to power it all up. I used the Woodland Scenics Power Supply (JP5770) and this is what it looks like…

In planning the lights I had looked at a couple of options. One was to add the Sequencing Light Hub, but I felt that the lights would sequence far more often than normal. The second thing I thought would be cool that is offered by Roomettes is a LED RGB module to simulate a TV.  The module itself is inexpensive, not so much the controller for it. At $100+, I could buy a real TV.

And it’s ready for the layout.

Now on to the other building. And after that I will look the layout over to see if I can add a set to something close o the front with larger windows or open doors to show off the interior. The kits are reasonably priced and I would encourage you give one a try.

I would like to take this time to apologize for the amount of time it took to finish this post. Between the actual work and committing the work to the written word, it has been close to 2 months. For whatever reason, the number of household projects has been far more than usual this year. And there are still plenty to go. I will update you as I find time to get things done. If nothing else fall and winter are on there way and that is definitely a return to the basement.

Till later, stay safe and Happy Modeling …

Much like the rail cars I have been building and reviewing most of what I present to you was purchased back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. While at a train show during this period my wife picked up for me pretty much the whole selection (at that time) of Woodland Scenics metal structures.

They are: The Pharmacy D221, Gas Station D223, The Dr. Office – Shoe Repair shop D224, Floyd’s Barber Shop M111 and Tommy’s Treehouse M107.

These are great little kits. I just always thought them a bit small  when put next to other HO structures. Not out of scale, just small. And that’s why I never did anything with any of them except the treehouse.

Anyways, I came across them (again) and decided it was time to put them together. Once I did start working on them I figured out exactly where and how to use them. The pharmacy, Dr. Office and shoe repair are basic 4 walls and roof kits. The gas station comes with the outside details and the barber shop comes with both outside and inside details.

I won’t go into great detail on how I assembled them. Basically cleaned the castings. Then using a T bar sander squared up the walls. I used CA to glue them together. Primed and then painted them. I stuck with the advertised colors for the buildings. The barber shop required painting the interior before assembly.

The barber shop painted and going together.

And the pharmacy, Dr. Office and shoe repair.

The buildings will be going into Addison and form the core of the downtown area of this small town. The structure size does work well with the other buildings in the town. I am in the process of putting together this scene and should have photos soon.

Till then, stay safe and Happy Modeling…

 

This will be a quick little review of a couple of small filler projects. I had seen these kits in the Micro-Mark catalog. They are from their Scientific Models brand. The line was reintroduced back in 2018 and they have been adding a new kit roughly once a week. They have some great kits in both O scale and HO.

The two kits I got hold of were the corn crib for the farm scene and a bleacher set for the ball field.

I started with the corn crib. The kit itself is a pretty straight forward laser cut kit. The parts remove easily from the sheet they are cut from and the fit is very good. I did run into a problem with the wood for some pieces being pretty brittle. This happened in the frames for the structure, but they have extra frames so it worked out.

As i said it went together rather well and needed very little sanding to even up corners. I hit it with a light coat of flat white, without primer, as i wanted it to show some age.

Before gluing on the roof I plan on painting or dying with possibly food color some rice. It should stand in for corn cobs rather nicely i think. Once I figure out exactly where it place is, I’ll add a bit of weathering to age it a bit more.

The bleacher set is for the ballpark, or rather along the right field line of the ballpark.

The kit went together quickly with no problems. I still need to figure out how I want to paint it. Probably paint the railings and the supports and leave the benches a weathered wood.

Again, they were great little builds. Micro-marks line has become rather extensive, from little scenic adds to some nice small structures. And granted, they were only sitting around for months and not years (decades), it was nice to get them built and off  the workbench.

Next time will be something more substantial. Till then…