Builder's Railroad Project: in the Beginning...

[JAD_333]

You've made a lot of progress since you began posting. Nice work. I like the way you solve problems. Reminds me of my company's home remodeling work.

[Builder 2010]

Thanks! I guess one of the major reasons I like this kind of hobby is the continuous thinking that's required to get it right. I often put myself to sleep at night or just when awaking in the morning solving problems or working on the next steps in my head. It's amazing how the morning thinking is so creative. For example: yesterday I woke up thinking how I was going to get the green in the decals to match the green I had mixed up. My green was too yellow and too brown. Thought that I could scan both colors, but them into Corel PhotoPaint and analyze them to see where they each fell on the color engine. I could then slide the mixed color to match the decal color and see what hues were being added (or subtracted) to match the colors. As it worked out, my grandson was playing on my laptop so I didn't apply my idea, but it should have work. I continued mixing them the old fashioned way and did get a color that was close, which I used to retouch the decals stripes that were missing or damaged.

While removing the masking tape for the stripe fix, I pulled off part of the "Sinclair" decal right smack in the middle of the front. My older grandson admonished me not to try and repaint it, but offered that I used the big "Tires, Tires, Tires" decal that came with the set. I took his advice (he's a good problem solver too) and put the banner over the half-missing Sinclair sign.

Today I made a big step... I prepared the base and glued the building to it. I scribed around the inside and outside of the walls and then scraped the paint off the resin base between the scribed lines. I found that when I glued the shelf to the back wall that the glue would stick to the paint, but the paint wasn't sticking so well to the resin substrate and the whole thing was very easy to knock off, so I didn't want to take any chances with this major assembly.

I used the Formula 560 adhesive to do this. It's supposedly good for joining dissimilar materials, dries somewhat flexible, so it seemed like a possibility. Gorilla Glue, while very strong, foams when it cures and seeps out of the joint area. Epoxy seemed like overkill. CA is too unforgiving, brittle and doesn't facilitate moving things once they're in place. I clamped and weighted the two parts. When I unclamped after an hour, the joint was not yet set. I'm now letting it sit overnight. The label says "3 hour set time and 24 hour full cure". I also glued the soda machine on the sidewalk which served as my test to see if the glue was holding.



I you look closely you can see that I scraped off the paint at the door sill to the Ladies room. I'll touch that up later. You can also see the "Coke" bottle sitting on top of the Coke machine. The kit came with two bottles along with a half-filled case of Coke. I painted the bare pewter with Tamiya clear green which produces a very believable green glass bottle. The other bottle is glued to the workbench.

I also glued the stuff for the gas island; pumps, trash can and oil can locker.

Next I turned my attention to the office shelf unit, gluing all the little bits and pieces in there. I'm going to paint them once the glue sets firmly. I also used the F-560 cement for these parts.



Next session I'll touch up the base, and start preparing another base that all this stuff goes on. I've been using foam core as bases for the building. It will need to be painted asphalt color and have a sidewalk built. Since foam core is a paper covered, I can't use water-based paints directly on it. I'm going to prepare the surface first with an oil-based primer. I'll probably go with the Krylon I used for the building. I may install a concrete pad with the tank filler plates, but I'm not sure if this it the way gas stations did it in the 50s.

[Builder 2010]

Just one picture today... I'm now building the baseboard to hold the entire diorama. I also glued in all the detail pieces including the tire air regulator using Walthers' Goo. It's a very versatile contact adhesive that's good for sticking details into buildings. The garage looks very busy.

I'm keeping about 10 scale feet on each side, 15 scale feet in the rear and enough space for 2 cars, the gas island and a 4-foot sidewalk with a 9" curb. I cut a piece of thin styrene sheet that will be the sidewalk. I'll scribe the expansion joints in it and then paint it concrete gray. I also have to figure a way to make believable curb cuts where the driveways will go leading into the gas station. It's on 3/8" foam core so making the slopes is not a straight forward activity. It my be best to cut out the foam core entirely and carve a piece of balsa or use some other moldable material to shape the entries. I have a couple of options here including Sculpy and Sculpt-a-mold. The latter works like modeling clay and then you bake it in an oven for 15 minutes which makes it almost as hard as ceramic. As I'm writing this (and thinking out loud), Sculpt-a-Mold might be the best way to go. It could also be carved plaster of paris.

I took this picture using the focus stacking software to give a very deep depth of field, but since I took it without flash, the brightness from one exposure to the other varied a lot. The software got the focus correct, but it messed up the lighting so some of the pieces ended up looking awful. I then when back and picked parts of each individual exposure and cut them out and pasted them to the composite. This worked pretty well—took a lot of time too—and gives a close approximation of the station as it is at this stage.

The baseboard was painted with Krylon Gray primer to make it water-proof and then airbrushed the base with Model Tech "Grimy Black" water-based paint. Model Tech is great stuff, but very hard to find. I airbrushes with no odor at all and dries quickly. I'm going to use some weathering powders next session to age the asphalt a bit. I'm also going to glue some styrene circles to simulate the gas tank filler locations (Regular and Hi-test). There was no "un-leaded" in 1955.

I also selectively brightened up the interior by masking it (digitally) and lightening that area. Here's a before and after look without editing and with it. You can particularly see the distortion in the gas pumps, the lamppost, the left shadow side of the building, and the halos around some objects. These are all artifacts of the focus stacking software.

Before


After


The white strip in the front is the beginnings of the sidewalk. You can also just see the edge of the foam core. The curb will cover this edge.

And one more thing: the chimneys are almost done. Today I added some "tar" flashing around their bases (and the waste stack) using a mixture of Aleen's Tacky glue (a high viscosity white glue) and Tamiya flat black acrylic paint. They blend together nicely and formed a thick, black caulking that looks very real. Next I'm going to paint the stacks a "galvanized steel" looking mixture of gray and silver, then using some rust powders to age them.

[Doktor]

I thought we gonna see the rail first, maybe a station then the businesses would pop up later.

Guess this is the easier way, when you have planned it all.

Or maybe I missed something?

[Builder 2010]

Nope, you didn't miss anything. As I explained earlier, the gas station was a project that was supposed to occupy my 8 year-old grandson with something to build while I worked with his older brother on a neat F-35 Raptor. However, the station turned out to be much more complex and difficult than I thought and—being the obsessive model builder that I am—I took over the project to drive it to completion. Meanwhile, I did buy nearly $1,700 in track and roadbed today which will arrive some time next week. This should have the effect of getting me back to the railroad post haste.

Today I continued work on the gas station base trying to build a decent set of curb cuts to allow cars to enter and leave the premises.

I decided on the Sculpey method. Sculpey is a modelling clay like material that hardens to ceramic-like hardness after you back it at 275ºF for 15 minutes. Some of you may recall my use of this product to carve the flight crew for the B-17. I made a mold box based on dimensions that I estimated would work for the height of the curb (9 scale inches) and the thickness of the foam core. This mold box picture doesn't show the front dam that I added to set the front edge thickness.



After stuffing the Sculpey into the box I attempted to shape it to resemble a concrete curb cut that one finds leading into everything that enters off of a paved road with a sidewalk. This station's going to sit in an urban environment with streets, curbs, and sidewalks.

Here's what the raw sculpted pieces looked like



After firing, I didn't like how lumpy it was, so I used some trusty DAP filler—the kind that goes on pink and turns white when it dries—to level the curb cuts. I traced the pieces and cut the foam core to accept them. After using CA to hold them firm, I noted that they didn't match the heights after all—so much for the mold box idea—and I put another layer of DAP to give a nice slope right up to the pavement. Next session, I'll sand it smooth and get ready to paint. I also added the sidewalk (a scale 4' wide) and engraved expansion joints every 4 scale feet. I'll use the same "aged concrete" color as I did for the gas station base. I'm spraying the dried curb cuts with Dulcoat lacquer before painting. The paint I'm using is water-based and it could soften the filler without this barrier. Also, you'll note there's no paint where the station and the gas island sit. I masked this off so I'll be gluing to native foam core surface rather than paint, just to be more secure.



Here are the cuts installed with the added filler and the pavement in place. Once painted it should look pretty believable. What's not believable is the 90º sharp turn that cars will have to make after leaving the gas island in order to leave the station. The base should have been 6" wider to give a realistic curve. But I didn't want it to take up that much real estate so foreshortening is allowed.



I'm going to glue some curbing on the front edge to hide the foam core's interior and finish it off. When I mount the piece into the layout, the street surface will come up higher on the edge and hopefully will set the the 9 scale inch actual curb height.

While all this was drying, I installed the florescent light and it's starter into the station. Both the lamppost and the florescent light require 12 volts. The florescent needs DC, the incandescent light can use either AC or DC. So I'm going to buy a cheap HO power pack to provide the DC. I could also use a AC Adapter that generates 12 volts with enough amps to drive this building AND the Parkway Diner. This is another project waiting in the wings that is a completely photoetched product of a nice modern stainless steel diner with a full interior and both florescent lights and a Electro Luminescent panel that lights up and says "Diner". I'm not starting that kit until the trains are running, but it will also need 12 volt DC.

[Builder 2010]

Diversion Complete... now back to work!

Gas station is finished. My young grandson painted the sidewalk 2 coats of Model Tech acrylic "Concrete Gray", but it didn't look good enough so we masked it off and airbrushed a 3rd coat. We then glued all the pieces down to the base. When this set, I took the "builder's photo" and put it on the shelf to wait for the layout to be capable of handling it. I used some weathering powders on the new concrete to age it a bit. Those curb cuts look reasonably believable.



I got back to the railroad and mounted the first two official joists and their risers. The joists are laid out 16" on centers, just like a stick-built home.

I already made a mistake... not a big one, but one that was good to catch this early. I re-checked my railroad schematic and realized that the difference in height between the lower level and upper is 5.00", not 5.50". So I'll remount those two risers and get back on track. 5.5" would have created a grade steeper than I would have like given the length of run back to base level. The grade ends one track length before switches at each end. I didn't want the grade to continue through the switch. The base level riser is 42.50" off the floor which matches the existing riser height. This will produce a table height a little over 43". The riser heads are cross-level, and then each riser head is leveled to the one next to it. There's one long screw holding each end of the joist to the girders. That's all that's needed since the load is straight down with no side forces. You actually wouldn't even have to screw the joist to the girder once the risers are all screwed into the OSB sheet above it. The screws just keep everything in place until the OSB is in place. I'll establish a riser at the lower end of the grade just before it hits the curve. Then I'll run a string line to the upper most riser and use that to set the heights of all the intermediate risers so the grade will be nice and smooth. I can also use the string method around the curve, but I'll need to install pins to hold the string around the curve.


Once I get underway, this part will go pretty fast.

[Doktor]

I like it how the Citroen CV2 fits perfectly in the garage. :whome:

[Builder 2010]

I like it how the Citroen CV2 fits perfectly in the garage. :whome:

That deux ce ve is a great little model. The problem is this. Model diecast cars are 1:43 scale, which is British O-scale. American O-scale is 1:48. The garage is 1:48 so the diecast cars, while looking okay when on the street, stuck out of the garage door. The Citroen fit perfectly.

[Doktor]

I knew there is a good explanation for this.

Keep the good work.

[Builder 2010]

Setting the Grade...

I had a rare Sunday work session today and got more work done on that first part of the back layout. I set the grade with a series of risers based on the dimensions that were called out in the RR Track design program. I made that plan into a GIF file so I could import into the CorelDraw image of all the infrastructure. For the uninitiated, GIF (and PNG) files allow to save files with a transparent background. In this way, the layout can sit above all the plywood in the drawing, but you can still see what's beneath. This diagram gives me good reference points for the location of grade start and stop, and critical check points. Here's a slice of that drawing showing the track grade heights. The heights are shown from the track section's end. An important reference point is the L-girder that extends from the jog in the back wall. The entire layout is being keyed to this point.



This next shot shows how I use a level to align risers of equal heights. Again, you can't have enough quick clamps. They make working alone very easy. All you do is bring the next riser up to the level, clamp it, put one screw it it, and check cross-level, unclamp and put the second screw in and re-torque them to ensure their tight. All the other joists along this part of the layout are all screwed down. I did them all while sitting on the scooter so I didn't have to keep getting on and off of it.



This last series shows how I ran a chalk line (without the chalk) from the last riser at the 5.0" elevation to the riser at the start of the left end curve. Beyond that riser you run into the area where the bridges are going. I'm not doing anything there until the work along the entire back is roughed in. Once that end is closed in, the only other way into the middle without using my scooter... or being 8 years old... is at the opening on the front right end where the swing-out section is going. It's a long railroad and walking about the entire perimeter each time I need to get in or out, is a lot of walking. Once the back is done with it's track and roadbed, I'll close the left end in and create the bridges. This also goes for the track that crosses in the middle which will also be a bridge.



I really don't care about the heights of all those intermediate risers. Once I establish the start and finish points, the chalk line ensures that all the intermediates are at the correct elevation.



This is a very accurate way to set up grades. When I sighted down across all the risers, I noticed that the last one I put in was slightly lower than the others. I fixed it. The quality of the OSB fit is directly related to how smoothly and evenly the risers are installed.

[Builder 2010]

As I stated last night, once the girders are up, construction moves along quickly. You get into a rhythm. I finished all of the risers for the middle OSB sheets and started bolting them into place. This started with the elevated portion and moved down to the base level pieces. As you can see, I added extenders to several joists that didn't extend far enough out to support the edges of the panels.



In the picture, the continuing pieces of the elevated section are just clamped in place to see how it looks. By not having the panel seam at the crest of the slope, leaves a nice smooth transition from grade to level. This was not planned. It just happily came out that way.



The portion to the right of the panel shown below has risers exposed. I'm probably going to add some surplus OSB going forward to support landscaping and buildings. The track is not going out that far as it stands now.



I'm including a closeup pic of the DeWalt bruiser that I'm using along with the flexible drive. I'm using the flexdrive almost exclusively working underneath since it can work around obstructions. It's a bit difficult to handle when you try and put the final torque on the screw since it wants to wrap up the flexidrive into a pretzel. It's a huge drill motor, and probably weighs about as much as it could before I really couldn't handle it well. It has an all steel chuck, has a quick locking feature which clamps bits and drills very tightly. It also has terrific battery life. I get a full day's work between charges. One battery is always on the charger. Compared to this machine, all the other cordless drills I had were toys.



One annoying problem that I have to correct is when using a screw that's too long. The riser heads are of two different kinds of stock (and thickness); the original German pieces (thin) and the ones created for the second iteration (thicker). Even when I use the correct length, they still penetrate enough to be a safety hazard if you happen to lean on the layout in the wrong place. What I do is take the Dremel with the big cutoff wheel and cut them flush with the OSB. It's not hard, just a pain in the butt and you need to wear serious eye protection.



Got the word from Hobby Innovations that they got my check and my roadbed is on it's way. So I have to keep cracking to get enough OSB down that can receive track. I also want to paint all the Ross track running rails. I bought this cute little paint roller at York some years ago that I'm itching to try out. On the old rail, I'll have to clean it pretty well. Shouldn't be too hard on the new rail.


Attachments

[Gun Grape]

Dewalt Hammer Drills. Nothing beats them

[Gun Grape]

Like Jadd mentioned, As a builder I am really enjoying seeing how you tackle this project. See lots of things you do that doesn't make me want to go "Ooh, he should have done this" or "Thats all wrong". What I am seeing is things that make me think "Cool, Never thought of doing it that way".

And the gas station build was pretty cool too.

[Builder 2010]

Thanks Grape! I'm glad I'm helping folks see new things.

I could swear I posted this last night, but it didn't show up so here it is again. Had a good long session (now yesterday) and got more done. I completed the left side of the rear layout high line, then mounted the lower base level that runs sort of parallel. I also screwed down the middle piece that I fitted yesterday. I used Simpson Strong-tie plates to join OSB panel edges to stabilize the edges.



Now that the OSB is screwed tight, this part of the layout is becoming rock solid. It is enormously strong. I frankly don't know why folks use 2 X 4s in an egg-crate arrangement, when L-girder gives such a strong, light and uses much less resources to make it so.



After this session, I got the Dremel out, put on the goggles and the dust mask and cut all those dangerous screw points that were protruding from the surface. I used the dust mask as well as the goggles since the last time I did this without the mask I was blowing my nose and getting steel dust in the results. I didn't like that.

I cleared all the junk off of the panels that were just lying on the left rear end and moved them out of the way. I then started laying in the joists and building the high-line in that portion. This portion is a constant 5.0" above the base. Again, joists are 16" on center. I'm using joist stock from the previous iteration of the layout. I've stripped the previous risers and heads from them, re-cut the joists to a new length and will reattach the risers. I'm replacing all the phillips head screws with the Star drive ones since they're so much easier to torque properly especially when working underneath. Notice my scooter... I'm getting back in shape getting my butt up and down onto it by using the girders to hoist myself up. The layout's getting stronger as more members are in place so it's a firm thing to hold onto when getting up and down.



Here's the right end high-line being fitted.



USS Wisconsin suggested that I set the camera up in the same spot and take pictures as it progresses so we can edit into a time-lapse movie. So here's a long shot showing progress so far. Once the rear panels are all in place, I will clean off the table in the back of this picture and reconfigure it to be installed at the right end. Should be there in a couple of days.



I'm getting quite a pile of old joists that are too short for this new design. I have new lumber (1 X 3s) for this purpose, but I want to conserve it so I don't have to buy more. Therefore, I may simply splice short ones together to make longer ones. If the overlap is enough, they're very strong. The screws I'm using have a 350 pound sheer strength. Three screws = over 1,000 pounds. Plenty strong for joists on a model railroad.

[Builder 2010]

Risers... stinking Risers!

Today's session, while very important, doesn't photograph so well. First let me say that the additional track arrived from Ross Custom Switches. Once the vinyl roadbed arrives we'll be able to start laying track.

I fastened the right rear high-line and spliced it to the existing piece.



Then I started preparing more risers... lots and lots of risers... using the old risers and some new stock. I have almost 60 of them now, but will probably need more. Here's the pile of joists without their risers from the old layouts. As I noted in last post, I will probably splice these together to make longer ones so I don't consume precious resources.



And here's the riser pile. When possible I'm using the torx screws instead of the old Phillips. Many of the old screws already are suffering from cam-out problems. I opened up all the screw holes in the riser piece to 11/64ths clearance for the #8 Spax torx head screws. While you don't even need a pilot hole for this brand of screw, I find that having a clearance hole on one piece makes drawing the parts tight much easier. If you don't use a clearance hole, and if the parts are not tightly clamped together, it is possible for the screw to be tight without the parts being drawn together. If you try to torque it tighter, you actually have to strip the threads out on the riser, which is hard to do and it may also strip the threads out of the joist.



Next session will be more interesting since I'll be actually mounting stuff on the railroad.