LGB and USAT model train boxes… simply amazing, I’m in awe of your family!!
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Same as Cliff, I will be using this idea when it comes time to interior detail some buildings on the layout. You guys always inspire me , keep it up!
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I only buy LGB original boxes in the original cardboard sleeves. Please tell me you saved those cardboard sleeves…
True story, sold a guy LGB empty boxes that did had the original cardboard sleeves. He was over the moon, or rather was willing to pay $90+ for shipping flat boxes to him. That certainly was the strangest thing I’ve ever had someone pay for.
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Post a video of tearing one apart , they will have heart attacks!!!
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Thanks everyone for your kind comments! More minor work today, to include a commuter style car courtesy of Kid-zilla to go behind my F-unit!
Eric
LGB and USAT were the easiest and most recognizable brands to make! I would have done HLW, but they are gone, and PIKO is less recognizable from viewing distance.
Eric
Nice progress on the details. The train shop looks great!
Eric,
I think they were perfect choices. I don’t buy much in the way of new rolling stock. I have gotten almost everything I have second hand (I have only bought one car that was in a box). But I do know exactly what an LGB and USA Trains box looks like. The others I certainly would not have keyed into. So your choice was spot on and Kid Zilla did a bang up job of imitating them.
I think the trains stand out so much because we are train people. But I don’t want to ignore the rest of the clan either. I think the model airplanes are fantastic (but O.S. if you want extra brownie points I love the Vought F4U Corsair). And the cast fruit is very cool. And O.D. will be our next Ray. Has she ever had any interest in doll houses. My wife did a few and I always thought I might want to start making fine doll house furniture. But I don’t need another hobby.
Thanks again, everyone, for the comments! Not much progress as we approach the middle of the last week. I guess this weekend will see a mad press! I am curious to see if O.D. can bring something together in the last minute. The rest of us are pondering details. I did get some cheap drawer knobs to serve as bollards for the pier. O.S. sealed them, and I painted them flat black, adding a new layer of rattle can primer to the Palm of Spray Painting.
@Devon_Sinsley I did lay down your challenge for O.S.; for the moment, he declined! O.D.'s current focus is music, and, alas, she too has too many hobbies! I was lucky to rope her in this year!
Eric
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This is it! I got called into the office tomorrow, so I am pau (done). The 1:1 crew knows that they have until tomorrow evening to finish what they have. To get everyone caught up…
O.D.
She made a little progress. Today, she asked me to cut a base for her market stall. I decided it was time to drag out a long forgotten foe, to the horror of the 1:24 guys, and wrestle with Jig Saw…
…to make a 5"x5" base. As the right hand picture shows, it was not as bad as most of my cuts. O.D. now has to do something with that hard won victory over saw and wood!
Y.D. / Kid-zilla
There was some painting throughout the week. Today, they mounted her beautiful clay “fruit.”
I think they believe they are done. I should have taken a photo.
O.S.
Devon ( @Devon_Sinsley ) , you will be pleaed to know, he has undertaken that Corsair! He used scrap balsa for the gull-wings and the three bladed prop. He refused my idea of a bit of dowl as the core for the fuselage, preferring instead his own pile of scraps.
He did upgrade the looks of the stand, too. He decided to add striations in his foam to make it more wood-like…
…and pointed out how he left some glue in place under the paint to give the roof a bubbly, rusty look.
Yours Truly
Kid-zilla decided at some point last week to offer some help, cutting down a bit of scrap…
…and painting it go behind my mini F-unit (I had to swap out his wood core). He decided to go more for a commuter look than a “Golden Age” streamliner look.
He asked that I point out the detail penned onto the roof.
I didn’t know you could add text to pictures on my phone. Moving along, he also wanted me to feature the end details.
Today, I mounted the “boxes” and, at the recommendation of O.D. and CINCHOUSE, gave the stand a wash of red-brown paint. Alas, this caused my carefully applied blue trim and some of my signs to run! I should have sealed the whole stall in matte paint. Ooops… I’ll touch it up tomorrow, but, for now, it looks like this.
Kidding aside about my carpentry skills, I am pretty pleased with my first framed structure, though I am much more comfortable with craftsticks-on-foam!
The Dock
We wanted all of this to fit on a dock. Today, I took my blackened drawer knobs…
…cut off the heads of the wood screws, tapped in some holes, and screwed them in place. They are now bollards by the exacting standards of 1:24-ish PLAYMOBIL scale.
Later in the day, Kid-zilla and I let loose the “digger men” and a couple MOW trains to emplace some old paving stones to serve as a foundation. The 1:24 crew set to with a will…
…with a bit of help from their 1:1 supervisor.
We carefully poured (or placed, depending on your scale) the foundations…
…as Mike Bananapeal joined Mack (seen above) hauling the gravel spoils away to fill low spots along the mainline.
Due to the threat of rain, we used the 0-5-0 method to move the last couple loads!
Kid-zilla took over to carefully level the dock after we removed the spoils.
We also had to rework that siding, as the new dock made things pretty cramped. You can see Mack pulling a box car as part of a clearance test while the 1:24 gang starts to unwind at day’s end.
Up close, it looks pretty good, actually.
I do wish, however, I had thought of a means to countersink the bollards so it looked like they were rising from the foundation and not sitting on the planks. Oh, well.
The crew knows that they have until tomorrow evening to polish off their projects, but I think we are probably as done as we are going to get.
Good luck to those of you pulling all-nighters tomorrow!
Eric
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Ha. . He couldn’t resist my challenge huh?.
This is such a cool project. It will be a great warf scene when all assembled and the location looks great. The building next to it adds to the feel
Those bollards look perfect! And maybe later on us few them find a drill bit the size of the base ad drill down a little, slowly so as to not rip the wood apart, or
wrap some 1/24 ish rope around the base and hide the connection point
And…pau hana (work is done)! What will go into the coming “glamor shots” is crafted, the glues are sealed, and the Dremel lies silent on our lanai.
O.D.
Keeping in the spirit of being a teenager, she laid aside a few hours at the last minute for painting and detailing.
I do wish she had budgeted her time better over the last month, as I think she only scratched the surface of what she could do.
Y.D. / Kid-zilla.
The declared themselves pau Sunday. It is too dark to take a good photo now.
O.S.
He had Dremel-ed and glued over the weekend…
…and had a credible mini Corsair by day’s end today.
He also declared himself pau.
Yours Truly
Being in an overtime rich environment, I am glad I had Saturday to bring this project into port.
All that is left is to bring the market pier to life for the “glamor shots.” We may have a PLAYMOBIL figure or two to help us with that!
Mahalo nui (Thanks a bunch) to Dave (@Dave_Taylor ) for again volunteering to push a string up a ramp to host this contest! Each year, I learn a lot, stretch my skillsets, and wrangle the 1:1 crew towards achieving a single end!
Eric
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Okay O.S. I am impressed. I would call it more than credible I would call incredible. Extra points for sure for indulging me. I love it. Don’t know if you saw it on my build but last month I had the opportunity to see one in person. And yours looks just like a miniature of the real deal.
Thank you sincerely for taking the time to take me up on the challenge. Greg “Pappy” Boyington would have been honored to fly that plane.
Eric and family , you all never cease to amaze me,
Awesome builds ! Everyone should hi 5 and go get a pizza!
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I was studying the pictures and got a question, what is the guy in Black carrying? A Spear/ gun/ light saber and a door?/ shield/?
The details and fun on this are off the scale! Well done Mueller family
Pete,
There is A LOT to study in those pictures (trust me I hit quite a few adult beverages while analyzing )!! BTW you missed the kid with the bat at Eric’s train stand!
I saw him, and just guessed he really wanted a locomotive and was keeping others away
He is a member of the HPD’s Tactical Response Unit and came with full riot gear, to include his tear gas launcher. The port authorities were quite suspicious of that inbound boat of adventurers!
And Rooster (@Rooster ), I think that kid is holding his “mom’s” hand, but, to be fair, I had to study that one a bit!
The 1:1 crew was having a lot of fun setting up the market for the beauty shots, and I am sure there are sight gags that I missed. Between my Wild West stuff (some of which dates to the 1970s), the girls’ fantasy stuff, O.S.'s Warriors Through the Ages, and Kid-zillas first responders and “digger men,” we have a lot of options when we bring scenes to life. PLAYMOBIL offers all sort of detail bits that make it easy, too. As @Bill_Barnwell has mentioned, though, PLAYMOBIL does not hold up to the sun, so we cannot leave the 1:24 gang exposed to the elements.
Eric
P.S. And, yes, we will celebrate!
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