4mm Timber Tracks GWR 2-Road Engine Shed Kit Build

chrisb

Western Thunderer
I usually build structures from card (primarily) with brickwork embossed by hand and painted with watercolour paints (the photo below shows an example).
overbridge.jpg

But embossing and painting the brickwork is time consuming and so a little while ago, as an experiment, I built the 4mm version of the Timber Tracks GWR coal stage kit.
cstage1s.jpg

cstage2s.jpg

cstage3s.jpg

cstage4s.jpg

I was reasonably happy with both the result and the build speed so I subsequently purchased the GWR 2-road engine shed kit.

Here goes...
 

chrisb

Western Thunderer
One thing I learned from building the coal stage is that the kits are, at least for my needs, a little light on detail. For example, the rear wall of the coal stage is quite plain as supplied - I added the recesses and used the cut out pieces of laser-cut MDF to create the buttresses (along with bits of balsa and card).

So the first step with the engine shed was to add some additional detail to the walls - interior and exterior.

eshed2s.jpg

eshed3s.jpg

The round louvres and stone surrounds are from York Modelmaking (http://www.yorkmodelmaking.co.uk) - much more on their products later.

The wall interiors were then sprayed with gesso - a perfect base for applying watercolours.
 

chrisb

Western Thunderer
Thank you for the likes and kind words.

... have you got any more to show us

I've posted photos of some other buildings/structures in the Gallery forum (http://www.westernthunder.co.uk/index.php?threads/4mm-buildings-structures.4493/).

Moving on with the engine shed, the kit comes with two inspection pits which were embedded into the model base (a piece of 1/2" birch ply). Embossed styrene sheet was used to build up the shed floor to the top of the rails:

eshed4s.jpg
 

chrisb

Western Thunderer
The roof trusses supplied with the kit are pretty chunky:
eshed5as.jpg

I spent a lot of time looking at photographs of shed interiors (not that there are many) and found that roof trusses for the shed design represented by the kit (Churchward brick-built) were made either entirely from metal or from a combination of metal and wood.

So, with oddments of brass wire and tubing sourced from my spares bin, I hacked off most of the MDF truss as supplied and mocked up a replacement truss:
eshed5bs.jpg

Not perfect but I felt the result was encouraging enough to proceed by building a small production jig for the seven trusses needed.

Here are the original trusses:
eshed6s.jpg

and here are the replacement trusses:
eshed7s.jpg
 

chrisb

Western Thunderer
Thank you all for the kind words and the Likes!

Based on my examination of the photographic evidence of GWR engine shed design, I decided to move the skylights from their position over the roads in the kit to their more likely position at the apex of the roof. This meant scrapping the central longitudinal support beam shown in the previous post and adding some extra detail to the trusses to provide support for the skylights:

eshed8s.jpg

eshed10as.jpg
 

chrisb

Western Thunderer
When I built the coal stage, I replaced the windows supplied with the kit with some etched brass 'factory' windows that I had in my spares box. The windows supplied with the kits are, again to my eye, a little heavy.

But for the shed I couldn't find any suitable etched windows available either commercially or in my spares box so there was only one thing for it...

image.jpg

...a crash course with Google Sketch Up and subsequently the help of York Modelmaking:

image.jpg

I can't honestly say Sketch Up is frustration free but it's pretty easy to pick up enough of the basics to produce the 2D exports needed by York Modelmaking.
 
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chrisb

Western Thunderer
...could you tell us about your avitar...

John, it's a 4mm scale L21 match truck with a B-type container based on a specific prototype - a bit more detail available at
http://muchmeddling.com/wagonsvans.htm

So with the shed roof in fair shape, at least for now, time to solidify the interior. The trunking, junction boxes and light switches were painted grey with white detailing and the lower brick courses that weren't originally whitewashed were very crudely colored with water colour pencils:

image.jpg

Followed by a liberal but uneven coating of Polyscale weathered black to simulate a lot of grime:

image.jpg
 

chrisb

Western Thunderer
With the walls painted and weathered, time to work on the base which had previously been sprayed with grey primer.

Coats of Polyscale weathered black were applied (sprayed) alternately with dustings of talcum powder to create a very sooty/ashy layer.

Once dry, piles of ash made from blobs of white glue and real wood ash were deposited in places together with puddles of Vallejo black glaze to represent spills of oil and water.

With that done, I started adding some detail...

image.jpg

I'm ashamed to admit that I'm not 100% sure what this is called...water stanchion maybe? Anyway, two were jobbed together using odd bits of brass rod and tubing, styrene, washers, whatever I could raid from my spares bin. A lick of off-white base coat and ready for some grime once dry.
 

Ressaldar

Western Thunderer
Hi Chris,

in an earlier post you mention that you prime your models with Gesso - do you dilute the Gesso or use it neat? I have bought a tube of Reeves Gesso for acrylics to use on laser cut card and am thinking that 'straight from the tube' it may be a bit thick and clog up the cuts for the mortar courses - any thoughts?

cheers

Mike
 

chrisb

Western Thunderer
...you mention that you prime your models with Gesso - do you dilute the Gesso or use it neat?...

Mike, I initially tried applying neat bottled gesso with a paintbrush but I found the gesso was too thick to be applied smoothly and it filled the mortar lines, obscuring the detail. Thinning it didn't really help - it still tended to fill up the mortar lines as multiple coats were needed in order to get an evenly opaque finish.

I discovered on-line that gesso can be sprayed but it has a tendency to clog the airbrush. Apparently there is a type of airbrush that's suitable for use with gesso but luckily gesso is available in a spray can (http://www.amazon.com/Krylon-Gesso-11-Ounce-Aerosol-Spray/dp/B000HFQ70U/ref=sr_1_1?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1432103196&sr=1-1&keywords=krylon spray gesso) - so that's what I used instead.

P.S. You mentioned that you're using laser cut card. If the card is white and paper-based then you probably wouldn't need to use gesso. I only used it because I needed a bright white surface on which to apply the watercolour paints and some of the detail I added was cut from styrene which doesn't take water-based paints well.
 
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