Large Scale Central

In-ko-pah Railroad - Another new building

Modeling
#41

Got a lot more done…

I filled in the area above the main arch, cutting some of the stone castings to fit as needed. I also added castings on either side of the upstairs windows:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7848/IMG_7848.jpg)

Between the windows and the attic vents, are stone slabs which are smoother than the other stones. I made these from strips of 1mm PVC. I used a rough rock to give the “slabs” a little texture:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7863c/IMG_7863c.jpg)

The slabs are sandwiched between extra-wide stones. I made these by gluing together three regular stone castings, then using putting to fill the indentation between them. At first I used Squadron White putty, but it was too soft. Later I switched back to using the automotive spot putty:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7874/IMG_7874.jpg)

I shaped some stone castings to fit around the attic vents, once again using a crude drawing as a guide:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7888c/IMG_7888c.jpg)

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7878/IMG_7878.jpg)

After I finished the arches, I added the narrow, vertical stones near the top of the building. Alternating stones are mounted on strips of 3mm PVC. Before these were glued in place, I made sure that all the vertical stones would fit as intended, with a raised stone at the center, and a lower stone at each end. Once the vertical stones were in place, I filled in the remaining area, cutting some of the stone castings as needed to fit around the arches:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7897/IMG_7897.jpg)

The next step was the fancy trim at the top of the building. For part of this trim, I needed a special shape that was built up from two strips of 3mm PVC. The narrower strip was cut at an angle along one side, and then glued to the wider strip:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7906c/IMG_7906c.jpg)

The first “layer” of trim above the vertical stones is a row of thin stone castings. The next layer was done using 1mm PVC, with the same texture as the slabs. I built up the fancy bits at each end and in the center, using short segments of the contoured strip previously assembled:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7908c/IMG_7908c.jpg)

In this closeup you can see some of the texture:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7911c/IMG_7911c.jpg)

The two-piece, contoured strip that was assembled earlier, was smeared with putty and sanded using sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. I also applied the same treatment to the short segments that were already attached to the building:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7916/IMG_7916.jpg)

The last “layer” of trim at the top of the building was made using a .250" x .375" styrene strip as a base. Short sections of 1mm PVC were added to create raised areas:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7921/IMG_7921.jpg)

The top strip was finished with the application of stone castings:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7934/IMG_7934.jpg)

And here’s how it looks so far, nearing completion:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7940c/IMG_7940c.jpg)

I still need to make some protruding thingamajigs for the top of the building, at the center and on each end. I also need to work on the quoins on the side of the building, as well as a few other small details. Later, I’ll work on the interior details.

Stay tuned!

#42

Ray, that looks nice!!! Regards,Ron

#43

WOW… Sure looks like a typical cut stone building from all over the SW. We find a lot of these in the small old towns dotted every were in New Mexico.

#44

Wow…I’ve gotta try this…question though, when you are designing a building do you have dimensions that you work from when not having measurements? Or do ya just eyeball it? Is there a certain height for each story and whatall?

#45

I know I’ve already commented, but I’m amazed by your buildings Ray. You truely have a talent.

#46

Excellent work Ray!!

I’m with Bart, I gotta try that!

#47

Bart Salmons said:

Wow…I’ve gotta try this…question though, when you are designing a building do you have dimensions that you work from when not having measurements? Or do ya just eyeball it? Is there a certain height for each story and whatall?

Usually I start with the dimensions of the spot that the building will occupy on the layout, since I don’t have a lot of room. In this case, I’m limited to 7.25" wide by 7.5" deep.

Then I do a very simple drawing of the front of the building, to work out the size and placement of the doors and windows, as well as the height of each story.

Most of these old-time commercial buildings had very high ceilings. This was probably due to lack of air conditioning – since hot air rises, a high ceiling lets the hottest air accumulate above head level, keeping the lower parts of the room cooler. Anywhere from 10 to 12 feet seems to be typical.

For this building I had some guidance from the prototype photo. To get the rooms to match up with the features on the outside of the building, meant using 10 feet as the height of both the ground floor and the second story. This allowed me a small amount of space between floors for wiring lights, and some “attic” space. I also have a tiny bit of space below the ground floor.

On some of my other buildings I’ve used 8’ ceilings in the upstairs rooms, with more height on the ground floor. For instance, on a house.

One thing I should have paid more attention to on this structure was the dimensions of the stone castings, since this dictated the location of many of the building’s features. Fortunately I was able to make “adjustments” as needed, such as adding a row of extra thin stones.

BTW, the height of the front of the building came out to 14.75"

#48

Very nice and extremely realistic. Thank you for sharing all these neat techniques you use too.

Tom

#49

Dang Ray,

If you keep it up your going to get pretty good at this :slight_smile:

Rick

#50

That just freakin rules !

…(http://www.freethoughtnation.com/components/com_comment/joscomment/emoticons/funny/images/smile.png)…

#51

Wow, I have to up my game.

#52

…Wot Vic sed… Nice work, Ray!

#53

That there structure is what ya call, “museum quality,” Ray. Superb-o!

#54

Yeah, What Joe said… and then some!

-Kevin.

#55

A little more progress…

I added pieces of .020" thick styrene sheet to the front corner of the side wall, to represent quoins. These were lightly textured by tapping on them with a rough rock, after they were glued in place. Because the resin rock castings ended up with different spacing than I’d originally planned, the quoins didn’t match up with the scribed stone pattern on the side of the building. So I also had to add new scribing to fill in the blanks:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7976/IMG_7976.jpg)

I built up the three decorations (crennelations?) at the top of the building, using layers of PVC foam board and some resin castings:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7957c/IMG_7957c.jpg)

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7977/IMG_7977.jpg)

Now it was time to do something about the missing stairs and sidewalk in front of the building’s foundation. I began by building a form out of 2mm and 3mm PVC. Here’s a shot of the form, lying upside down. I scribed the inner surfaces to simulate wooden planks:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7961c/IMG_7961c.jpg)

I bent a short length of brass tube and connected it to a small hole in the front of the foundation. This will provide drainage when it rains. Then I set the form in place, and secured it with hot glue. I used small scraps of foam core art board to seal gaps, particularly along the lower front of the form:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7967c/IMG_7967c.jpg)

Here’s a closeup view of the form, so you can see how it was put together. I had to make sure that no parts of the form would be trapped between the foundation and the concrete casting:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7968c/IMG_7968c.jpg)

Then I mixed some high strength mortar and added a tiny amount of concrete colorant to give it a slightly darker tint. I poured this into the form, filling it about half way. When the first batch began to firm up, I mixed up some more and filled the form to the top. I skimmed off most of the excess mortar and then covered the top of each step with a strip of foam core art board, taking care to avoid trapping any air bubbles. I used a large piece of foam core to cover the sidewalk at the top of the stairs:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7970c/IMG_7970c.jpg)

The following morning I pulled off the foam core strips and exposed the upper surfaces of the concrete. The steps turned out ok but there were many small air bubbles in the larger sidewalk surface. I sanded it down and eliminated most of the pits, then filled the rest with a thin layer of fresh mortar. When this set, I sanded it again, lightly, to smooth the surface a bit more:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_5280c/IMG_5280c.jpg)

Then I dismantled the PVC form and removed it. You can see some of the impressions left by the “planks”:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_5283c/IMG_5283c.jpg)

Next I used a 1/8" masonry bit to drill some holes into the sidewalk and steps. (I wanted smaller holes but this was the smallest masonry bit I could find.):

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_5298c/IMG_5298c.jpg)

I cut short segments of 3/32" brass tube and glued them into the holes, using paintable acrylic caulk. Sections of 1/16" rod were inserted into the tubes to aid in making sure the glued in as vertically as possible. Later, the excess caulk will be trimmed off, and eventually it will be painted to blend into the concrete:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_5302c/IMG_5302c.jpg)

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_5304c/IMG_5304c.jpg)

When the caulk had set up, I removed the rods, coated them with solder, then reinserted them into the tubes. Then I soldered a scrap of square brass tube across all five rods, so that they could be removed and remain aligned. This temporary piece would be removed later when it was no longer needed:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7984c/IMG_7984c.jpg)

Then I cut the tops of the rods off to the desired height and soldered on the horizontal piece across the top, following by the top angled piece. The end of the angled piece was bent around and soldered to the side of the upright rod at the bottom of the stairs, to form a simple handle. At this point I was able to unsolder the temporary piece of square tube. Then I soldered in some shorter pieces of rod to create the lower rail. My soldering method is pretty crude and results in lots of excess solder on the material, so when I was finished I filed and sanded down the excess:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7986c/IMG_7986c.jpg)

The finished handrail was cleaned, then primed and painted gloss black. Later I will weather it. I also have to detail and paint the tubes that support the handrail, and eventually I will extend the sidewalk at each end, and weather the concrete. But for now, here’s how it looks. Oh, and I used a Dremel to trim off the drain pipe:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7992c/IMG_7992c.jpg)

I hope to begin painting the building soon.

#56

Ray, please stop. You’re making my head spin. :slight_smile:

#57

yea, what he said…:wink:

#58

Fantastic workmanship. Good tutorial on foam molds and mortar too.

Tom

#59

Another great Model Ray, your ability to create awesome models never cease to amaze me,

thanks for you sharing your techniques.

Another food for thought on you cement steps, you could use a regular drill bit to drill smaller holes in your steps after it was set for only 1 or 2 days.

Thanks , and waiting to see your finished project.

Dennis

#60

Another update!

To simulate the look of rolled roofing, I cut a large Tyvek envelope into strips and glued them to the roof of the building. Then I sealed with acrylic gesso. (This is the stuff used to prime artist’s canvas.) I made an access hatch from scraps of PVC foam board, cut away the Tyvek, and glued the hatch in place. I also cut the Tyvek from the spot where the smokejack will be mounted:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_7993c/IMG_7993c.jpg)

The smokejack was made from brass tubes and a block of PVC, sheathed with thin styrene. I also made a vent pipe:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8001c/IMG_8001c.jpg)

At last, I could move on to painting. I sprayed the structure with a light coat of white primer.

The first thing I would need is a good “concrete” color for the mortar. To me, concrete has always been a tricky color to match. We tend to think of it as being gray, but aged concrete is usually more of a very light brown, often with a slightly greenish tint.

To aid in getting the color as accurate as possible, I took a small piece of old concrete to the hardware store and had them scan it on their color matching system. Part of the problem with concrete is that it’s not a uniform color, but rather speckled. This can also make it difficult to match with the digital system. The color they came up with was pretty close, but too dark. So I mixed in some white paint. Here’s the concrete sample with some of the paint dabbed on at the bottom end:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8006c/IMG_8006c.jpg)

This looked pretty close so I decided to go with it, and painted the side of the building. I thinned it with water so it would go on thin and not clog up all the texture details I had so laboriously created. On the building, it seemed even darker:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8016c/IMG_8016c.jpg)

I went ahead and painted a few of the stones, to get a better idea of how it would look. The next morning I took the model outside and photographed it on the concrete patio:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8025c/IMG_8025c.jpg)

In this closeup photo, the “concrete” paint seems to match the real concrete pretty well, but as miniature mortar, it just didn’t look right to my eye. I also wasn’t very happy with the painted stones:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8026c/IMG_8026c.jpg)

So I added some more white to the “concrete” paint, and brushed it on over the first coat. I had to use a fine-tipped artist’s brush to paint the mortar between the painted rocks. When this dried I retouched the rocks, and painted more of the rocks. Here’s another closeup shot on the patio. As you can see, the revised paint is lighter than the real concrete, at least in the photo, but to me it works better as miniature mortar:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8054/IMG_8054.jpg)

Here’s a closeup of the stones. I found that the key to making them look right is not to use a single, solid color on each rock. They need some variation. And in this case, where there will be a real stone wall next to the model building, it was crucial to match the real rocks as closely as possible. In this shot you can see just how much detail I painted into each stone:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8058/IMG_8058.jpg)

This next photo shows the building temporarily in place on the foundation. Although the real stone wall is in shadow, you can still see how closely I was able to match the look on my painted stone wall:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8048c/IMG_8048c.jpg)

Here’s a closer view:

(http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR_Mineral_Ridge_1_files/Media/IMG_8044c/IMG_8044c.jpg)

That’s all for now, more later. Enjoy!