Continuing Saga …

Trainman2001,

 

Here is the "how to"

 

Hope it will help you

Sorry! I made a mistake

Thanks Spence!

 

In this iteration, I made a rectangle that was the floor plan size of the building. Then I used the offset tool to draw a rectangle inside that one that was .155", the wall thickness. I then thought that I push-pulled this outer .155" zone up to the wall height. What was funny that it formed its own ceiling, which seemed strange to me. I think that's where the error occurred. I probably didn't just pull up the walls, but the entire rectangle which formed a big, hollow box without any wall thickness. I'm not going to re-draw this, but will watch out for this error in future builds.

You pull up certainly the rectangle inside the walls; anyway, it's a good looking building! 

It was exercise day today so that cuts some shop time, but I did almost finish the grouting. Just one more wall section to do.

 

I did the chimney, which was another finicky space. It looks a bit ragged, but with the wash it will darken down and look much better.

 

 

Next, I finished the long wall section on the right side.

 

 

I also got to the rear wall...

 

 

The picture gives you a good idea of the number of individual lines that were drawn in Adobe Illustrator. I only created a small section and then just kept copying/pasting larger and larger sections until I had a wall full of bricks. But... Illustrator treats each line as a separate object and the computer response got slower and slower. I finally split up the large file into four smaller ones. Only one file had all the major walls. The rest contained all the other parts. This sped things up considerably. Notice how the grout takes on a reddish tone after wiping with the wet rag. Quite a bit of pigment is dissolved by the joint compound. I actually like it this way.

 

I finished the session by grouting the front section of the left wall (no pic). Tomorrow's the weekend so I'll do that on Monday.

 

A diversion: One of my consulting clients (a roofing company) just came into some wonderful luck. His son, the company's CEO, was at a pre-construction meeting at an old theater. There was this organ that they were going to trash and asked if anyone wanted it. My client plays the organ so the son, for the price of $20 to have some guys move it into the pickup, brought the organ to his dad.

 

The organ is a Hammond B3 with the Leslie speaker cabinet. It plays! For anyone with a jazz/rock background, you know that the Hammond B3 is the quintessential jazz/R&B organ. I went on eBay and found them listed for between $6,000 and $22,000. They are no longer made, but still highly coveted. I'm bringing my guitar over to his house tomorrow to have a little jam session. In my R&B band at Michigan State from 1965 through 67, we had a Hammond M model that was mounted on a movable dolly so we could drag it from one venue to another. A B3 is a little big to be portable.

 

If anyone wants to see a terrific, up-lifting movie, go see Ricki and the Flash. The old guy playing keyboards in the Flash is playing a Hammond B3. Meryl Streep will knock your socks off!

 

Speaking of guitars. I had a pretty nice guitar in my professional days.

 

That's me on the left. Bryant Mitchell, my bassist and still friend is on the right. The amp behind me was a Fender Single Showman. It was also a fabulous piece of equipment. I sold that the year after I got married in 1969. Priorities change.

 

It was a Gibson ES 175. I bought it about the same time that Steve Howe (of YES fame) bought his. He still has his, I sold mine in 1972. In 1992, and having more money than a newlywed, I bought a Fender Strat Deluxe Plus. It's a stunning instrument which is still in like-new condition since it's never been on a gig. After seeing the movie, my wife realized how much that Gibson meant to me and is making noise of about re-buying one. I paid $660 in 1965 for that guitar. That was a small fortune! Well... they're still a small fortune with new ones costing around $4,000. But we're at an age that bucket lists start to come into play, and re-aquiring this guitar is on my small list. I'll keep you posted. I'll probably never have my Corvette, but maybe I'll get this guitar...again.

Myles, 

   Nothing on your building looks ragged at all. It looks great.

   What was the name of your band?

 

Tom 

Ditto!!

You're all very kind. And thanks for asking about the band.

 

The band was the Sounds and Sondettes. We were probably one of only mixed race bands in the USA in 1965 when we "found" the girls. We started doing R&B and Motown simply due to good marketing practices. There were about 40 bands at Michigan State in the mid-60s. 39 of them were playing British Rock. Only one, us, was playing Memphis, and Motown. We went and saw James Brown and the Famous Flames at the Cobo Hall Arena in downtown Detroit and when he performed "Please, Please, Please" with the backup singers, The Blossoms, we thought we should look into getting some girls for the band. Then we saw Ray Charles in Lansing shortly afterwards and when he performed with the Raylettes, we were sure we had to have some girls. The question was, How? We put the word out to every African American guy we knew that we're looking for some soul sister backup singers and didn't care if they ever sang together before. One of these guys found these three very attractive girls who said they'd like to audition. And audition they did! We met them in our bass player's dorm music room. They performed to the Supremes, "Stop in the Name of Love", and we were floored. They were awesome. We asked them to join us, they did and we worked together for 2 years until some of us graduated (2 of whom went to Viet Nam).

 

All three girls went onto professional lives, with Kathy Wilson (now Kristy Love) joining the Platters road show ending up at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas at the Platters, Coasters and Drifters Review. She was there until they razed the place a couple of years  ago.

 

 

Left to right, Patty Burnette, Martha Taylor and Kathy Wilson. We put on a heck of a show. If it wasn't for Nam, who knows... I found out fairly recently, that a Detroit able was trying to book the girls, but they didn't like deal. We were hoping to add some horns and then we would have looked like Blood, Sweat and Tears, or Chicago. Chicago's lead guitar was significantly better than I was.

When will you cease....to amaze!

 

 You had me at Yes.

The rest is hometown icing on the cake.

 I'll keep an eye out for your billings on local show posters

Did you play the Masonic? That would be some neat brickwork.

(same with the roads).

 

Ok, I cant pull off getting you a guitar, but here you go...

 

 

 

 

Now how do you think we can tempt you to into covers of some train tunes? 

How long did it take you to put in ALL those emoticons? Seriously? But thanks. Glad I didn't bore you all to death with all that nostalgia stuff.

 

Monday is shop day.

 

Grouted the remaining wall plus the two clerestory walls and then slathered alcohol/India Ink on the whole thing. Some parts are better than others, but it works by immediately making the building older and more industrial. If I was doing a residence, I wouldn't want it so dark.

 

This didn't take long, about 1.5 hours. Then I cleaned up the mess that all that joint compound made and prepared the area to start making windows. Lots of windows. Hooray. Building windows is like real model building. You know, gluing all kinds of little pieces together to make bigger more interesting pieces.

 

 

I stuck all the roofs on just to see how it looked.

 

 

And then I stuck the kitchen on the side for another look. This is similar to the angle of the ancient photograph.

 

 

For comparison:

 

 

When it's all done, I'm going to try and duplicate this photo with the correct angles using my Canon EOS.

 

I'm also making progress on building the 3D model of the Nighthawks Cafe. In some instances it's actually more challenging to make stuff in a drawing than to make it in real life, but the exercise is useful in teasing out design difficulties before paying for laser cutting.

 

After making an inquiry on SketchUp's Knowledge Base, I found the easiest way to get the mansard roof skins to conform to the formers lying underneath. It involved the Follow Me function, just like I use to make the turret cones. I was annoyed that I didn't make the connection of using Follow Me on this roof as I did on the cones. That's why you ask for help.

 

 

Whether I market this or not, it's fun to build it like this and, since it's all brick, probably will end up being laser cut. The cones will be cast it resin. I turn the master on the lathe. This should be a fun kit since it will have an interior that emulates Edward Hopper's masterpiece. While it will be interesting, it certainly won't be as big or complex as the distillery. If this gets kitted, I plan to work with River Leaf Models on any future production.

 

 Turrets, as a stand alone, might make for interesting additions on some other buildings too.

 

(How long for the "audience"? A only a minute or so. I made maybe 5 max.(?) in a row, then copy/pasted/pasted/pasted, then I did fresh copy of those twenty and each paste after = 40,60,80 etc)

 

 

 

Just one question, wher is the connection you're talking about? Is there near the turret?

JPV, I was referring to the mental connection in my head that would have steered me to using the follow me function for the roof skin, just like I did for the turrets. I wasn't referring to any "physical" connection in SU, just my frustration of not picking the right tool without asking for help. It was a figure of speech, but thanks for asking. It means you're reading what I scribble very carefully.

OK, I had not understood that!! sorry!

 

If I can help you, even I'm far away, it will be with pleasure (but I don't know all about SUP and technical worlds!!!).

 

 for your work and...your band! Gibson, Fender... souvenir, souvenir!!!

JPV, having lived in Europe (Düsseldorf, Germany jan. 1999 - Mar 2002) and working for Henkel, my wife and I got into France many times. Over the years and working for another international company, Engelhard (now BASF), I also had the opportunity to travel in Europe. All told, I've been to Paris at least 8 times. We even had our favorite restaurants and such. We also visited Nancy, and the Cote Azure (Nice and Cannes). Once I was in Lyon, but it was long ago. I also took French in High School (should have taken German), and some of it stuck. It was enough to get me through the many Parisian visits, but not enough to conduct business. C'est la vis. I am not afraid to ask for advice from no matter how far away it comes. The Internet is an absolute marvel, n'est pas? As we converse more, I'll see if any of my francais comes back to me. D'accord?

D'accord!

 

See you soon

Today was Window Day. I got about 1/3 done and perfected the building sequence. I immediately went back and changed the instructions I'm writing to reflect the process.

 

After separating lots of parts from the frets, I lightly sanded any areas that had nibs sticking out. I learned that making the nibs too big doesn't improve holding the parts into the frets, but does make it more difficult to remove them. I'm going to go back the drawings and ensure that they're modestly sized. I also learned that you don't need to apply the MicroMark Pressure Sensitive Adhesive to both the frame and the glazing. Just putting it on the frame and letting it set up holds the glazing securely enough and makes a much neater installation.

 

 

Lots of parts. I sometimes have to pinch myself that I'm not building a commercial kit, but one that is entirely of my making. Having laser-cut parts makes it feel like I'm assembling someone else's product.

 

Now that there is a backing plate piece to hold the window assembly to the back of the brick wall, it required a change in assembly sequence to make it all work nicely AND keep everything glued up in the flat. Here's the diagram I've prepared for the instructions.

 

 

The front frame glues to the backing piece and then all the rest goes behind it. The lower frame extension on the upper sash provides a nice gluing surface for the lower sash. Glazing is 0.010" clear styrene. I built 10 sets and installed the 8 on the building's right side. Instead of use Aleen's to glue the frames together, I'm using Pacer Formula 560 Canopy Glue. It's much thinner, easier to control in small quantities, and dries very clear. I am using Aleen's to hold the frames into the model. The higher viscosity provides an advantage in this instance.

 

 

I neglected to cut a backing plate for the two doors so I glued backing strips cut from the edges of the Laser Board fret. The laser board is only 0.024" thick, and yet is quite strong. It makes terrific windows. I'm going to use it for a lot of the trim parts going forward. The only thing I don't have is self-adhesive window parts like Bar Mills uses. But, in my defense, they always recommend adding glue for reinforcement. If you need to add glue, why not glue it together in the first place.

 

 

Notice that three of the windows are open.

 

Here's the backing for the front door.

 

 

Window making is time consuming, but rewarding since it suddenly looks like an inhabited building. Next session will finish the windows and get into shingling the roofs. Before installing all the upper windows, I'm going to prepare the first floor lighting and install the 2nd floor. Since the windows protrude into the building interior, I don't want them to block the installation of the flooring. So all that lighting will be in and the floors in place, and then I'll finish installing the windows on the upper floor. After those windows are in I'll install the roof truss system. Before the roofs go on, I'll shingle them. It's much easier to do that off the building.

It is looking really great!  Yes, I can see where you may forget for the moment that it is your own kit you are assembling!  Very well done!

Trainman2001, you are a PITA--it's so difficult to follow this 26 pages, 40,000 view thread because you refuse to edit the thread title to include the date of your latest update.

 

Do us a favor and simply edit the thread's title to include the date of any new updates.

Carl,

I know you're kidding him-as you may know, he has a 'core' group of us who read his thread religiously.  

 

What a talented man.

Yes, we go through withdrawal when he goes on vacation.

Yes, Myles is indeed a PITA...a Perfectionist, Idolized (and) Truly Amazing! 

 

Tom 

You're right Mark , LOL !
But he does get back us back up to speed rather quickly. I can't wait to read his next entry.
Mike

Absolutely amazing! Gorgeous!  Sine qua non!

 

The structure is reminiscent of the Cornwall & Lebanon depot in Lebanon, PA:

 

 

 

Do you think you'd have room for this on your layout?

This looks like the same craftsmen built it. Are the buildings from the same area? 

I use Tichy Train Group windows for my buildings; these ones: do they come from?

That building is gorgeous. No, I don't have room for it, since I've already got one complex, Victorian Station there. But... that would make a hell of kit, wouldn't it. It's even more ornate than the distillery. The distillery is from post-Civil War Louisville, KY. So, while they could have been the same architect, they're certainly not in the same area. That station still exists so getting a look at the un-seen sides wouldn't be too difficult.

 

JPV, while I made the window openings for Tichy Windows, I ended up designing and having laser-cut my own windows. This way I was able to have that arched top trim. 

 

Speaking of windows, I finished all of them, but as noted yesterday, only installed those on the first floor. My hunch was right regarding clearances. I fitted the 2nd floor to test the lighting (more on that debacle follows), and if all the 2nd floor windows were in, they would have gotten in the way and probably wrecked.

 

I realized that I hadn't drawn backing plates for the front windows or the dormer windows so I reverted to adding trim pieces cut from fret scrap.

 

 

I had to be careful to keep the overhang very small since the windows frames are quite thin and I didn't want the backing to show. I'll add them to the drawings for Andre to cut. Here's all the rest of the windows waiting to be installed.

 

 

The front windows don't have the arched crown. I really got the routine perfected to not only make solid windows, but also keep the glazing as clean as possible. I found that using lens wipes (the kind with the alcohol/detergent) is a good way to clean the styrene just before sticking it down to the frame. I also no longer handle them with fingers, but use tweezers only. To make tweezers that grip better and don't mar the surface, I put some small diameter shrink tubing on the tubes and shrunk it. I'm also adding all the glues off of the surface where I'm fastening the parts together. This keeps the excess glue from re-fouling the work as I'm putting stuff together. I'm doing all the gluing with the Formula 560 since it's easier to handle than the thick Aleen's.

 

I installed the front and rear doors along with the windows to finish out the first level.

 

 

With the main windows complete, I got to work on wiring the LEDs for the first floor lighting. I'm using the mini 2mm, warm white LEDs. I'm wiring two in series for each room. A 330 ohm resistor is placed in series with the negative outgoing lead to limit current using a 12 vdc source. I drilled some small holes in the ceiling and put the LEDs through the holes, spread their leads a bit and soldered it all together. 

 

 

When I applied 12 volts to it... nothing! Nada! Careful inspection revealed that one of the LEDs fractured at its base due to the sideways pressure created by the hole spacing being wider than the LEDs. I cut it out and got another. I tested this one first using a 470 ohm resistor in series and it worked perfectly, so I soldered it all back together and tested it, and again, they both lit.

 

So it was time to prepare the power leads using small pieces of shrink tubing to hold it together. I inserted the 2nd floor into the building (NO GLUE) and tested it.

NOTHING, NADA, BUBKISS!

 

It was getting time for dinner so I gave it a cursory inspection and suspect that again, internal mechanical damage occurred due to lead stress. I will rebuild a 3rd time tomorrow. This time I'm going to pre-bend the leads so they're going into the holes perpendicular, and we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I'm running out of LEDs and shrink tubing. This was frustrating! I've put in dozens of LEDs on this railroad project and this is the first time that I two consecutive failures. I must be losing my touch.

 

I get the LEDs from LED Switch.com and shrink tube in larger quantities from Jameco Electronics. Both products are not expensive.

Actually, I'd like to add something to the thread title, but how does one do that?

 

Anyway, the third time's a charm. I got the first floor LEDs installed and working. The secret to not wrecking them is don't bend the leads near the LED. This time I kept the leads straight for about 1/4" and then put a offset bend and then straight which separated the leads to the hole spacing going through the ceiling. I tested everything multiple times to be sure that all was good before gluing down the floor. Once I glued the rear floor down, it dawned on me that I painted myself into a corner (so to speak) by not having any way to get the 2nd floor lighting down to the hole in the base plate.

 

First, here's the lights on in one section.

 

 

Those slots are for the kitchen corridor connection and the hole is to pass the kitchen wring into the main building, which as I'm now writing this will have to be threaded through a non-existent hole, yet to be drilled in the base plate, since the 2nd floor is glued in. Whoops! That shouldn't be too hard to do. Famous last words.

 

The ceiling for the front section has a single LED so it has a 470 ohm current limiter in series with the negative lead. I wanted to bring the 2nd floor lighting down to the base plate, but once the ceiling is in place it's next to impossible to fish wires through to the bottom....that is unless I did something clever.

 

 

I drilled the ceiling and the base plate to accept a 5/16" inch brass tube. This will act as a conduit and take 2nd floor wiring directly though the base plate. No fishing! It's a trick used by the RC model airplane guys. I also bored a hole in the mid-wall to pass wiring from the back section to the front so those too can go down the pipe to the basement. With the ceilings in place, I can now glue in the rest of the windows and install the roof truss system. Then I add those LEDs and we can start buttoning up the building.

 

To facilitate lifting the ceilings when I was putting them in and out messing with the lighting, I put a wood screw into it. Once the ceilings are fully cured, there's no removing them with or without the aid of the screws so I'll take them out.

 

 

 

I only was in the shop a little more than an hour today, but it was pretty successful.

 

Tomorrow will be a full-session and I expect all the electrical will be finished. I did go back and change the drawings for the front windows incorporating the mounting flanges like on the rest of them. All in all, I've made probably 50 changes to the drawing set.

 

To facilitate LEDS, I modified my 12 VDC power supply cord. I put a little terminal strip on the negative lead end with two outputs. One goes straight out to test LEDs in a circuit that already has a current limiter installed, and the other has a 470 ohm resistor soldered to it, to test individual LEDs before installing them in circuits. It's much easier than trying to hold the resistor and all the leads at the same time.

 

 

Question:

The instruction set is coming out quite well and is turning out quite long due to the fancy illustrations I'm creating for it. What would say if a short version was included in the kit, but a more comprehensive set would be available as a PDF download? It would save money, trees, and make the kit more affordable.

Your LED test jig is a good idea, especially for those of us who are dexterity challenged.  I think that idea sounds good having a short version in the kit and a downloadable .pdf available online.  

+1

Okay, based on the response, I will plan on a condensed version with the model and the expansive version on line as a PDF.

 

Now onto the work at hand.

Finished putting all the windows except the gables and dormer. Using the mounting flange method makes installation very easy and actually replicates 1:1 practice.

 

Got all the lighting installed today AND WORKING! I made bus bars to support and power the LEDs using n-gauge flex track rail laying around from the grandkids' n-gauge layout we built together before the train project began. I drilled the roof trusses to accept the rails. Installed the trusses and then sprung the rails into place. This was for the short room which only has two trusses. For the large room with three trusses, I glued in the two end trusses, and then threaded the rails through the middle truss. I snapped the rails into the end trusses' holes and then glue the middle truss in place. All the holes with rails were then liberally doused with medium CA and cured with accelerator. Gluing and fitting the front room trusses was annoying. These were the ones that I drastically modified to accommodate the front windows and the clearstory walls and roof. My mod wasn't 100% and when I started doing some serious fitting of all the various parts, I had to trim and adjust various places. I'm going to re-check my drawing changes to make sure I've got these mods correct there.

 

 

After carefully forming the LEDs' leads, I soldered them between the bus bars. The far bar is the positive terminal. I also soldered the current limiter (330 ohm) resistor on the negative bar next to the mid-wall. When I went to solder the second LED I realized that I couldn't wire them in series and therefore, the 330 ohm resistor was incorrect. The bus bar arrangement forced me to wire them in parallel. In this instance each LED would receive the full 12 volts so I clipped off the 330 and soldered a 470 in its place. After soldering the second LED in the same polarization, everything lit as it should. 

 

In the front room I was only installing one LED so again, the 470 ohm resistor was the correct value.

 

 

I cabled all the leads together and ran them down the pipe and out of the base plate. I stripped and combined all the various leads together and crimped on a red and black ferrule to keep the polarity straight. After powering it up, here's what I got.

 

These are warm white LEDs which I prefer unless I'm simulating florescent lighting. In the picture below, you'll notice light emanating from under the roof edges. That was the next challenge this pilot presented to me.

 

 

It works out that the rear truss sets were .158" too high. Not the trusses actually, but the supports that hold them up. I had a assumed that the support should be level with the building wall and had made modifications to the first and 2nd floor supports to adjust this. It turns out that it should lie below the wall enough so the truss angle coincides with the roof edge. Since the trusses were glued in solid and no longer removable, I'm now in the process of some artistic filling of the space. I've chosen balsa wood strips laminated to the correct thickness. Balsa is easy to carve and sand. Once the correct contour, I will harden the edge with this CA and incorporate it into the roof when I put on the shingles. I was going to use the excess building edge as a rain gutter, but now I'll have to add separate gutters like I did with the kitchen.

 

I laminated the strips with Aleen's PVA and then went back and applied thin CA to the top piece that's just hanging out there. The roof sits tight against the lip that you see, and when shaped the whole deal will appear as a single surface... or that's how the plan says it will work. Again, on the production model, this will not happen.

 

Weekend coming up so no more shop work until Monday.

 

If anyone wants a preview of the instruction manual, let me know with a private eMail. It's 11 MB, but google mail can handle up to 25. It describes the intro, kitchen and corridor. Can't write about the main building until I figure out how to build it...

For those that asked, I found out how to modify this thread's title and will be doing so to keep people appraised of what's going on... for those who aren't regulars.

Had a rare Sunday and Saturday nite work session due to #1 grandson being here and wanting to work in the shop dismantling an old Canon Printer/Fax/Scanner. While he was destroying something, I was in the creative mode.

 

So I got the roof edge mod done. It took balsa, CA, filler and lots of sanding to get the contours smooth and correct. I felt like I was building an RC plane again.

 

 

It looks awful, but looks are deceiving. It's actually pretty smooth. When I awoke this morning I was thinking about how to approach the roofing. I'm going to first cover the entire surface with black construction paper. I'm going to let it extend a bit up all the edges and use the pinking shears to cut the herringbone pattern of the counter-flashing. Then I'm use the Rusty Stumps Victorian style shingles on the "tarpaper". This will obscure any holes, mis-fits, etc. and make the roof look very tight.

 

I also drilled a hole in the roof inside the dormer to add one more light in there. I'm not going to light the gables since they're not opened up on the inside and it would look funny.

 

On Monday, I'll wire that last light... definitely my last since I've run out of LEDs and just ordered  bunch more 1.8mms from LED SWITCH. I also ordered more of my favorite shrink tubing from Jameco. I use the 1/16" the most since it's the size to insulate the LED leads. Jameco sells shrink tubing in convenient 36" lengths instead of the little pieces you get at the likes of Radio Shack. You waste a lot of material with those short lengths. Then it's time to glue on the roofs and cover them.

 

I also need to get cracking on making the resin molds and castings for the stacks and vents. I'll need them for this model and for the kits to come.

Monday is work day... at least I call it "work". 

 

But I'm working on the recumbent bike and the elliptical for 1 hour on each every other day, so today was also an exercise day. That left about 1.5 hours in which to build a distillery.

 

As I noted, I decided to add one more LED (my last one) in the roof house. I ran the leads from the bottom, through the tube, the mid-wall and then left enough slack to enter a hole I drilled in the roof under the house.

 

Once I thread the leads up into the house, I retained it with some foam servo tape. That stuff grabs well and kept the wire from falling back into the interior. At this point it was time to glue the big roof on. I applied Aleen's on all the mating surfaces. While it was impossible to directly clamp the roof in place, I was able to indirectly clamp it by putting the clamps on the parapet walls pressing down on the roof proper. This pic also shows putting on the front roofs, and was taken after the lighting, which I describe next.

 

Again, I turned to n-gauge track as bus bars to facilitate adding lighting, resistors and wires. I didn't want to drill through the outer walls so I made some inner pieces which support the bus bars. 

 

 

Having taught a couple thousand people how to do mil-spec soldering always comes back to serve me well. 99% of my joints still show the contours of the conductors through the solder coating which is as it should be so you can inspect adhesion and conductivity.

 

I also added the clerestory side walls. They were both a little wide so I re-measured them and belt sanded the excess. I used a big clamp to squeeze the walls together so these parts were well seated. 

 

 

At this point I got all excited and was going to glue the last little roofs in place. That would have been a BIG mistake since I hadn't assembled or glued in the windows for the dormer and gables. Clearer minds prevailed and I put the on brakes. 

 

These little windows were another part that I had neglected upon which to add a mounting flange, so I had to add some pieces of laser board on the lip at the edge with thin CA. Here's one set inset into the dormer and you can see the added flange. Again...and this sounds like a broken record, I've modified the drawings to add the mounting flanges. You have to look closely to see the flange since it's kind of dark in there. I got two windows finished and installed. Next session I'll add the remaining two and THEN I'LL BE ABLE TO ADD THOSE LITTLE ROOFS. I like that I almost made the tabs disappear by re-engraving the bricks into them. For the production version, I'm eliminating the tabs for these little structures and am going with beveling the mating edges.

 

 

 

It's all these details that prevents me from submitting the next drawings to Andre, and for completing the article on its construction. Once I've fully built the pilot will I feel comfortable to take it to Phase 2. Once the roofs are on I'll get the roofing crew started and gets some shingles down so this building will be weatherproof.

 

Concurrently, I'm continuing design work on the Night Hawks Cafe. Here's the drawing I finished last night on SketchUp.

 

 

Drawing the 3D is time consuming, but fun. And it also showed where I had some design inconsistencies. For example, I had the cafe floor at street level. But in another view, you see that this building has cellar windows, and there are 4 steps going into all of the doorways. So I added a true first floor and raised the main store window to reflect the correct height above street level. If I hadn't been making this drawing, I wouldn't have caught this error and would have sent off a cutting plan to River Leaf. I wouldn't have discovered the error until getting back (and paying for) pieces that wouldn't work. With the improper floor height, the building would go together correctly. In Hopper's painting the floor level is street level. I'm sure he'll forgive me for elevating it a bit to conform to a different structure.

THANK YOU, VERY MUCH!!!!

You're welcome!

 

Had less than an hour today, but it was enough time to get the last two windows in and all the roofs on.

 

So officially, all the structural parts of the main building are done. Now it's on to roofing, detail painting and resin casting the stacks and vents. I'm very close to being able to send the final drawings to Andre.

 

 

The fit of the clerestory roof was a little narrow compared to where it intersects with the clerestory walls so I added some styrene strips to make fascia boards. The gutters will be fastened to these boards.

 

It's a pretty hefty structure, and this is not it's final resting place. That will be in the back part of the "town". I want to purchase one more Ross #4 switch and run a short spur to meet up with the distillery for a loading track. It shouldn't be hard to implement since there's little or no landscaping at that location.

 

 

Here's where that spur could go...

 

 

I'd love to do this on RR Track, but it won't work on Mac and there's no chance that there ever will be. It will be long enough to fit one grain car.

Good, good work as usual!

 

For track plan have you tried ANYRAIL software?

Myles,

I realize it is not in its final position on the layout, but it does look mighty good sitting there to give some perspective as to how it will look when in its final place.

 

 

JPV, I just went on Anyrail's site and they don't seem to have a Mac version. I sent them an inquiry to see if they make one. They just answered me... they don't make Mac either. I'm almost ready to buy a factory-reconditioned Windows laptop for $250 from WOOT just so I can run my RR Track and some CNC software to do model cutting on a friend's machine. I love the Mac and I dislike that dirth of design software available for it. I was led to believe that Mac was the "design machine", but apparently it's only in the graphic design and music fields.

 

Mark, I'm about to put the buildings on at the bottom boards and then I'm going to try it out in its final location. I hope it will fit...

I am from Louisville and vaguely remember some old distilleries, most out at Bardstown, and not that building.  It just screams Old World architecture, as though

it was a brewery (I have to keep reminding myself it is not a brewery) put up by

"brothers off the boat from Muenich in 1878".  I can only be redundant and say that

is superb modeling and detail!