Large Scale Central

The Burke - Devon's 2023 Mik

The MIK - Annual Build Challenge
#1

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So this years challenge was Taylor made for me (pun intended). I had decided to restructure the “theme” of my outdoor railroad last year. Instead of doing a representation of the Coeur d’Alene Railway and Navigation Co. I am doing a semi fictitious sister railroad the Canyon Creek Railroad. It existed on paper to help the CR&N gain right of way up Canyon Creek to Burke Idaho. It never laid a single rail or owned a single piece of equipment. Once it was established and granted right of way it immediately leased the right of way to the CR&N who eventually “bought out” the Canyon Creek RR. And since my layout is small and I want lots of buildings and scenery I decided the entire layout will be Burke Idaho and be more of an industrial switching layout.

Fast forward to Mik 2023 and the “downtown” theme. The entire town of Burke is downtown. Its a one street town. There are several iconic (at least to me) buildings that just yell “burke”. One is the “The Burke” which was a saloon, billlard hall, and hotel. There is a great photo of it that I have seen once and no longer have my copy of it. All the rest are difficult to see it in. But this is probably the next best photo of it.

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Building in the background. Foreground is the Oregon Railway and Navigation Co. (U.P.)

A simple false fronted two story building with a balcony/covered porch.

I have no illusion of creating an exact replica of this. But to capture the essence of it and begin my very crowded street section of Burke.

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#2

This will be an interesting build, Devon. I love the old photo. Looking forward to seeing it come together, especially the miniature pool tables, cues and billiards :crazy_face:

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#3

You know if Mr Dunakin was doing this build there would be billlard tables with perfect scaled and painted balls. As for me you will have to imagine them.

#4

So I have been busy with working my side hustle (Door Dash delivery, I can explain if need be) But I have managed to get a little work done. So this year like last, I will be combining both old school and new school technology. About the only new school tech I am using is doing a rough mock up of the project in CAD. I am also 3D printing various details like doors and windows. The main construction will be styrene, wood, and possibly pop cans depending on which direction I go with the roof. It appears the real building has split cedar shakes. That’s the route I am leaning towards. Corrugated pop are a possibility but not likely. The other route I wanted to play with is trying a “rolled asphalt” idea I have. I did use CAD to make my windows and doors for printing and then used them to get an idea of the proportions. I used a Piko building I have to give me rough dimensioning. I was going to go 1:24 but I have so many PIKO models that will be next to it that it has to match with them. So I sized the doors and windows and overall dimensions to be inline with them. Here is what I have so far.

Burke quater

The real building is a 3 story affair. It has those nice little arches over the doors and windows. So that was all added to my CAD designs and they windows and doors are printing as we speak. The first floor windows will not be as depicted. I have another design I already had made and the windows already printed and will use them. They are double 12 light {pane) windows tha I think have a better “store front” feel.

Over all foot print will be 16" wide, 24 long, and 17" tall at the peak.

#5

Side hustle for more model trains? I approve.

Side hustle because of bills? I don’t approve and that sucks. :joy:

I’ve always been curious if those things actually make money. People are really “that” lazy in Post Falls to not go pick up their own food? I can see Spokane and C’dA… :roll_eyes:

#6

As for the “side hustle” I don’t NEED the money. My career pays the bills. I started doing it as a way to stay busy and just have something to do. What it HAS done is allow me to buy me a mid life crisis “toy”, a 2015 Jeep Renegade for doing some adventuring. The side hustle pays for the payment and added insurance costs. It has also afforded the wife and I a new opportunity to take a weekend vacation once a month. We have went to Lolo Hot Springs in Dec. This month we are going to South East Idaho to an Ice Palace and weather permuting do some cave exploring. In February we are going to Jasper, Canada to do a “Ice walk” through a frozen river canyon.

As to making money, well it is contract work. So I will have to pay the taxes and I have to buy the gas and I have wear and tear on the vehicle. That needs to be considered. But I am averaging between 20 and 30 and hour, gross. I have set a personal goal of 250 a week and that is pretty achievable with most of the work coming on my days off. I do work a couple hours a week after my real job.

But I don’t have kids in the house. Being an independent contractor the rules on what I can and can’t do are pretty lax. I work when I want, if I want. I stop when I want to stop. And the wife can ride along. We call it our “dashing date”. Gives us time to sit and visit, giving each other our undivided attention. She actually enjoys it. And its not work. You have no boss, no schedule, and you drive around listening to music. Little to no interaction with people, and you don’t have to handle or worry about carrying cash. Its really actually quite fun. For us it is pretty much a family affair. My daughter started it, she was the first. Then I started and the wife joined me. Now my son does it as his side hustle. I hear his girlfriend is also doing it.

Most are lazy. But I also deliver to single parents who can’t just run out and get food. I deliver a lot to people at work. I deliver to elderly and disabled people who have a harder time getting out. So while most are just lazy many find it a convenience. Either way their money spends the same. Not my place to judge why they use the service. And it has afforded me some opportunities I otherwise might not be able to take advantage of.

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#7

And yes trains

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Thanks to Pete for turning me on to this. THE F4U Corsair is my favorite plane.

#8

Can’t give you too hard of a time as I told the wife I was going to sub on my plan period this year. Works out to about $80 extra for each plan period I cover. Not a lot but it’s helping save up the extra funds we need for a roof replacement. :frowning:

With little kids at home, extra work hours are kinda hard to find outside of the normal work hours.

#9

I have worked a second job almost my entire life. I started “working” around 11 years old. That was the age they would allow you to start a paper route if you had adult help. By 13 you could deliver on your own. I raked leaves, mowed lawns, shoveled snow, and collected night crawlers to sell for fishing. When i turned 16 and got a “proper” job many of those other things I continued to do as well. Even after arriving at a career and was set I still did things like cut meat and deliver pizza on the side.

When I had little ones in the house I did taper that back considerably and for a long while was down to one job. Especially in their teen years when they were active. But now that they are raised and on their own I find myself antsy if I am not working at something. Most of my second jobs are things I don’t mind doing or actually enjoy doing. When I no longer enjoy it, I quit and find something different to do.

#10

And to think, I thought you were considering buying a real plane when I saw you and Pete talking about the corsair :grinning: Well, darn. I was looking forward to seeing the video of you flyiing a WWII era plane :upside_down_face:

Now back to our regularly scheduled program: I really like the Burke building, Devon. All the windows with the little arches on the front will give it a lot of character. I do have one question, however. WHy is the one window , second from the left middle row, lower than the other at that level??

#11

My wife asked the very same thing. Its not a window, its a door with the same architecture. When you look at the photo it becomes apparent. In my model it loses perspective because I don’t have the balcony in place. But on the real building and eventually my model that door opens up to the balcony.

But on that note one thing I did discover about the 1:1 building is that the windows are not at all symmetrical with the building face. As I started laying out my rough interpretation I could not figure out where I was going wrong it just kept looking “wrong” then I realized I was trying to center everything off of the building center line. The real building does not do that. It bugs the OCD part of my brain. But since I am not very OCD I was able to get past it and make my mock up like the 1:1 and not worry about symmetry.

As for buying a real corsair. . . You keep mentioning me winning the lottery. It will be high on my list of purchases

#12

So to get back on topic, at least for a little while, I have all the doors and windows printed. The other printed piece I will likely make will be the metal chimney top. From what it looks like in the only picture I can see it in, it looks like one of those metal "smoke jacks (not sure if that is the right term) that caps a brick chimney. So I will make the brick chimney with some rolled rubber brick stuff that I have and cap it with a printed topper.

I will take pictures of the windows tonight. Its the only visual progress that has been made. I have a cut sheet for my styrene but will need a helper to get the rough sheets cut so I can then work with them on my mini saw. Thanks to Craig I now buy styrene in 4X8 sheets. While far and away the most cost effective way to buy it its not the easiest stuff to handle and get little pieces from a giant piece.

#13

Score and snap the sheets into smaller chunks. I’ve found that snapping the large sheets is possible if you bend past the snap line. Either place on the table saw (or truck bed), and bend. I’ve even stood on the sheet on the ground, and grabbed the other section, and bent it with my feet. It’s certainly a tad awkward, but once you do it once or twice you get the method.

I tend to cut the chunks a few scale feet bigger than what I need, so I can make the correct measurement a clean cut. And the leftovers just get added to the scrap pile. :wink:

#14

That never even dawned on me to try. Certainly easier than trying to feed a floppy 4X8 sheet on a table saw. Good call.

#15

I try and cut down no smaller than 2’ square. Still big enough for most projects but small enough to handle. I’d I had to store them this way, I’d do 2’ SQ.

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#16

Well that worked much better than expected. I clamped my aluminum straight edge ro it and made two passes with a razor knife and was able to snap it pretty easily by hand. I have it in 4- 2x4 foot strips. I have a spot for my sheet materiel in my hobby room. So that size will store nicely. So progress was made this evening at least in as much as I have workable material now. I also have all the windows and doors printed.

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Next up is to cut the walls and roof panels and start roughing out the holes for the windows and doors.

#17

Windows and doors turned out well, Devon. Looks like the arches printed fine. Hows the detail?

#18

I do want to give a thank you here to Craig. He has an even bigger fondness for styrene than I do. And he turned me onto the idea of buying it in 4x8 sheets from wholesale plastics dealers. I use a company called Laird Plastics. I have no idea id that is local or national. But they manually supply sign shops and the like. You can buy 4 x 8 sheets of any thickness you want for the cost of a few sheets of Evergreen or Plastruct. They sell ABS and styrene both in sheets as various rods.

If you have the patience to scratch build then the very minor inconvenience of dealing with the big floppy sheets is well worth the giant cost savings.

On a final note ask them about cut offs also. My company will do custom cuts so you don’t have to buy an entire sheet. And they will then sell smaller cut offs at a discount. So far I have not been lucky enough to score any but the salesmen said if I am diligent and call frequently I could score some.

#19

I plead the 5th on styrene hoarding…
This is only 1 drawer of a few… :roll_eyes:

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#20

So just to let everyone know, Dan is asking about detail because I learned how to make moulding detail along curved line. So the doors and windows have moulding at the top where the arch is…now to answer Dan’s question it didn’t turn out worth a damn. Its just way to fine of detail to print nice. If you look close you can see that it tried to do it but it just all blended together. Not a real surprise even with an 8K resolution machine. Neat trick to have in the bag and I might try making some larger moulding for the porch and for the top of the false front.