Large Scale Central

Jim Rowson's 2018 Mik challenge log

Jim, great progress, nice attention to detail. I have one suggestion change to Titebond III it’s waterproof, Titebond II is water resistant. Looking forward to the finished product.

To “cap” my siding, I just used a square piece of wood, butted up to the ends of the siding.

thats a very good solution to that problem David.

Looks good to me, Senor.

David, that is exactly what I was describing! Thanks for posting the picture. I wanted to post one for reference but still haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

Steve

That was my build for the challenge back in 2014.

http://largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/20611/mlk-fairhaven-gas-station/view/post_id/231332

Lots of clapboard work today. Wow, that’s tedious. Hopefully it was worth it.

Here’s a picture of the clapboard being put on one of the more complex walls:

Note that I felt that I had to add some extra framing to pull the door and window out since the clapboard is fairly thick

Steve and David both suggested adding some square trim at the corners, and that sounded good to me, so here’s what that looks like:

This is what the side with door + window looks:

And here’s how it looks in place (but not the final spot of course, and it’s crooked, egads!):

Moving to the right a bit:

From the other side:

How they relate to the original shack:

Next up: roof treatments, painting, doors/windows, and some stressing. Then figuring out the steps so the decks can be finalized, add the decking and railings, building the steps. Then the final installation with supports, etc.

Still too much to get done. But maybe the tedious time consuming stuff is kind of done and the rest will go faster. One hopes :-).

Those look great Jim. You may have said back at the beginning and I missed it; what species of wood is that? Interesting grain / texture.

The clapboard looks really good. Seeing it next to the board and batten, makes me want to change the siding on my cookhouse but its way to late for that. Once you get all the stairs and ladders in place these will be a focal point on the layout. Great job.

Thanks Dan, Jon.

I’m enjoying the clapboard now that it’s done. But wow, lots of work :-). I’m hoping that the contrast between board/batten and clapboard, each painted a different color, will help make this interesting. That and different roof treatments.

Jon: this is redwood.

Jim you get a thumbs up that is looking great…

Really looks great Jim! The contrast between the 2 buildings already looks good, can’t wait to see how you finish them.

I’m regretting not entering the challenge this time! I have some old growth redwood that’s already ripped down to usable size too. I just couldn’t think of a good project and didn’t want to waste my supply on any old idea.

Steve

Started building the first set of steps, from lower platform to upper platform.

I started by cutting out a form from an old cereal box.

Transferred to wood and installed between lower platform and an extension to the upper platform.

And in place to make sure it fits around the rocks:

Putting the steps and railings on now, then figuring out what to do about decks, railings, and some firewood storage. Will also do another extension off the lower deck to a set of stairs going down (toward the outhouse).

Whoa…whoa there, Kemosabe…what do you mean you “transferred to wood” from an old cereal box cutout??? You waved a magic wand? If you have some easier way of cutting stringers out of wood than the torture I have in mind, please let me know!

(By the way, the build is coming along great and I love the transom over the door, sweet.)

Ha! By “transferred to wood” I meant “used it to draw some pencil lines” :-). Then I very carefully cut along the pencil lines with my band saw. Very carefully. Still, once I had a cardboard mockup, the transferring/cutting part only took 15-30 minutes or so. Not too bad (particularly compared to putting on clapboard!).

The hardest part for me was figuring out how to size the steps and get them “straight” on the stringers. I chose a 1/2" run and a 3/8" rise (not precisely to code, but then the setting here is “before code”, in the “who cares” era). So I got a 3/8 piece of wood and measured 1/2 in along it, then laid it on the piece of cardboard so that the 1/2" mark and the opposite corner of the 3/8" wood were along the “top” of the stringer, and used that to mark up each step. Seemed to work well enough. And the easy part for this is that I needed a 3" rise, at 3/8" per step that’s 8 steps.

This was my first time building steps, so if there’ s a better way to measure, mark, cut the stringers, I’m all ears. I have plenty more to go.

(Thanks for the kind words John!)

Here’s the handrail on the steps and, more importantly, paint on the shacks.

And on the layout:

Looking very nice!.. Keep up the good work…

Got the decks on the platforms, along with railings.

Started:

And finished… note the sandpaper-roof on the lower shack, and the start on wood shingles on the upper:

I’m starting to look at details now, before I build the other steps and supports in the final spot. One thing I want to do is to build a crooked metal chimney. This photo is upside down but is how I’ve started to build that chimney:

Any suggestions for how to create the cap on the top of the chimney? There are a few styles: cone shaped, round over the top. Any others I should consider? How do people build cone shaped caps? I was vaguely thinking of forcing some heated styrene or some thin metal into a 1/2" countersink hole but I’m not at all sure that’s going to work.

Happy Miking!

Looks good Jim. The clapboard siding and wood shingles are really what makes the whole model come to life. As far as the chimney cap is concerned, an inverted V would be the simplest to make.

Dan:

By “cone shaped” I meant “inverted v” …

So how do you make it?