Continuing Saga …

Of course it's not there, it's gone. No really... don't bother looking. It's disappeared from our world. I'm going to write a short story about this...

outstanding job, Myles!

you are close to say done!!

Andre.

Little pieces have always a tendancy to go for a walk when you want them by your side!! it's the same thing everywhere!!!

No other world.... It's still there

Hiding, and laughing at you

Yes... it's still there.

I put the distillery in its spot of the layout to see if it actually will fit. I kind of thought it would, but it would good to know if it actually does. It did! There's not much room in back, but there's enough room for a drive to get to the loading doors. There's also enough room to build the shed roof in the front. Instead of a RR track going to the front, off-loading will take place in the back. The front will be for truck and auto traffic.

While I was preparing this shot (with the Canon EOS) I wanted to move a train into position behind the building. This meant maneuvering the train into position which required it to make a full circuit. This in turn required the train to traverse the swing gate. You may see where I'm heading here... I had opened the gate to carry the building to the back of city (inside the layout). Now normally, the interlock should cut the power to the tracks all around the now open abyss, but the GG1 with flywheels and a 15 car train had enough inertia to keep it moving just enough to push the engine over the edge. I watched the whole thing horrified!

The engine landed with a "splat" squarely on its back. The power was off to that block so the interlock hadn't failed. I took the engine to the shop and immediately saw that on pantograph was toast. Luckily I had another new one from a mishap that happened years ago. I replaced that one and refit the other one which was out of kilter. 

When I put it on the tracks to run, the computer functioned okay, but the motion was sluggish, under load and not very good. Back to the shop. Pulled the housing and turned the two motor flywheels. One spun freely while the other was binding badly. I pulled the motor and the gear train was fine. The motor was still binding. 

The impact pushed the motor to the engines roof which in turn pressed the flywheel further down the shaft until it was rubbing on the upper motor bearing. I was able to apply even pressure to push the flywheel back up the shaft and the motor was free.

Then one of the two screws that hold the motor mounting plate to the motor decided to disappear into the quantum rift. I first thought it dropped into the electronics. I searched and searched with my LED headlamp and couldn't find it. Swept the area. Still no screw. But guess what? I found the door knob! It came back while the screw left. Apparently only one mass can be in the quantum rift at a time.

Luckily, I have a pile of metric engine screws from all my 3rd Rail engines and there was one that was a match for that MTH screw. With the motor reassemble, I just ran the chassis on the track to see if the problem was corrected. It ran well so I put the body back on. I really love MTH since you can drop the chassis out and run it without worrying about all the wires to lighting like other manufacturers.

All of this took better than an hour. I did get a nice pic of the building then brought it back to get working on it again.

I decided it was a good time to put on the laser-cut signage. I wanted to work on that with the downspouts/gutters in the way. I had masked the letters to prevent them from being painted green since they were on the same laser board fret as some of the windows. With this tape still on, I completely taped the reverse side to hold everything in place. I then went and cut all the letters free.

I air brushed Tamiya flat white all the lettering while still in the fret. 

I trimmed the laser board close to two mating edges so I could align them correctly on the model's surface. The letter "I", the square "period" and the "Tilde" had fallen out of the fret and were gone a long time ago. So I traced through the opening and hand cut the period and letter I. I used the tildes from a previously-cut 1/32" ply fret which has been replaced with the thinner and cleaner laser board.

The tape left residue on the letters, especially the big "Bernheim Bros." text, which I removed with Goo Gone, and then removed the Goo Gone residue with alcohol. There still must have been some residue.

After the paint was dry I taped over the top of the letters so I could remove the tape in the back. I then liberally applied MicroMark's PSA. I stuck the letters to the model and attempted to remove the tape from the front. On the "Registered Distillery" sign it came off well and the letters looked terrific.  

But on the other lettering, first, they didn't want to release from the fret even though I had carefully cut all of the retaining nibs, and then the tape pulled off a substantial quantity of white paint meaning the my clean up wasn't so hot.

I went back and hand-painted white onto the missing spots and then got the fret to release.

I actually like what the chipped paint did to the sign. It made it look much more industrial and not so fresh and new. Prototypically, this signage would have been painted directly on the bricks. To do that for the model I'd have to get custom decals made. Ink jet decals won't work because their white. Does anyone know a source for custom decals?

The GG1 repair took so long I only had time to do this one side. Tomorrow I'll get the other side done. And I'm changing the scheme. I'm going to tape the front and remove the fret before placing on the model. Pulling off the fret caused a lot of problems that can be avoided.

Myles,

  The building looks great to begin with, the lettering takes it to another level. Looks very professional.

  Sorry about your GG1! 

Tom 

The building looks great in its place on the layout.  Wow that was a lot of work to get the train behind it.  Glad you were able to get the GG1 fixed.

A great recapture of Louisville history.  I was wondering what you'd need a tilde for on

a non-Hispanic sign, but I see it there after Bernheim in your sighwork.

The GG1 survives, although there's a small boo-boo where the pantograph impacted the housing. I can touch that up. This was my first engine of my modern railroading era. I bought it in 1995 before cars, track, transformer, platform or buildings.

Regarding those tildes... It's on the original building. Look!

Now that I look at that pic again, I'm not sure it's a tilde. But I don't actually know what it is. If it's a hyphen, it's a curly one. The picture's very grainy. It could even be a window, but you can see its edges. Since each letter is separately applied, I could probably exchange it for a hyphen or something... but not a window.

There it is!

 Check that your pilots still sit flat. My few "flops" have gotten them tweaked by their weight alone.  

 Being familiar with applying graphics, but not being familiar with those particular supplies, I can only suggest a de-tack of the tape, so it barely holds them in place, and a cutting of almost all nibs before aligning/ and sticking (I keep two nibs, one top, one bottom, on difficult letters).

  Applying the graphics in the fashion you have chosen, will be the best way to keep things the straightest, and letters properly spaced.

I played with the photo a bit with a photo program.

  It may be a tilde or special dash.

Not a "required one", so much as decorative. Possibly used to "balance" its looks.

   It may be a swung dash. Dictionaries use them to separate things.

  It can also mean "are" or "is" in some old Bohemian texts.

I don't think its a window.

  There is a streak that runs from the top of the S diagonally towards, and passing just over the period, that looks to be something in front of the walls face.

 That and other unbroken streaks, kind of rules out a window, or other structure there. 

   I screwed with bright/contrast/noise and effects, and I might see something else.

It may also be a sign painter's sun hat. More likely a tilde, but you know how/where to look at it now because I think I might see a roof board, and a figure up there at the signs far right. Crouched/ kneeling / leaning, low, facing the wall, left arm reaching to the S at the point you would add a serif. If it is a person, they are in dark cloths.

It may just be shadows and light streaks, but I don't see similar in the other areas of the photo.

 Its not uncommon for someone to paint while dressed in contrasting cloths to the paint colors being used. If you get some on you, you know its there, and wont spread it.

 I've also used foot boards, and have been it that position, kneeling, shoes on the board, big sun hats, (courteously supplied by "the Old Man" we painted for). They are needed to keep from getting "snow blind" staring at bright tones all day with the sun behind you.

  Also, it can keep the paint from skinning over in a spot, before you can get a brush dipped, and back on the surface.(oil dries slow, but can skin very fast in direct sun)

Anyhow that's what I think I might see. Hat or tilde, regardless, I think I might see a person. 

Myles,

The building is looking great.  Your on final approach now. Almost done. 

Almost complete. Outstanding.

I googled images for the distillery and came up with one other image..

http://modernthirst.com/2015/0...lection/#prettyPhoto[gal_2]/0/

Not much more help, but thought you should see it. I also found lots of photos of whiskey which made me thirsty, so tonight I will have one and toast your project.

Fantastric work which comes to the end!

Bravo!!! 

I pulled up that whiskey site above and see that the brand still exists as property of

a group of brands owned by another distillery  (when I went through one distillery

near I-65 west of Bardstown, I was surprised how many brands had been bought and

merged into one company).  Price of the stuff is eyebrow-raising, too; I decided to

keep throwing my money away on trains.  I do wonder when the building was torn

down in Louisville, as I once had relatives who would have remembered it.

Well folks... since we can't agree on what that shape actually is, I'm going to keep the tilde. If it was a Bohemian symbol. Isaac Bernheim was a German immigrant and may have used that symbol. As to when that building was torn down, I will find out tomorrow night. We are breaking the Yom Kippur fast with the family that owns Heaven Hill.

I tried another, slightly different, approach to getting the letters on the building. In this instance, I used thinner Tamiya tape to hold the letters in place and then separated them from the fret. It worked... sort of. The narrower tape didn't pull off as much paint (but it still pulled off some) and gave me much less control in placing the letters.

Again, I liberally applied the PSA to the back side.

I had a minor screw-up during this due to my lack of attention. The corner castle was coming loose and I was attempting to re-glue it. But the edge of my hand touched the lettering and it stuck to me. I almost lost the whole deal as the tape twisted around a bit. I got it sorted out and applied to the wall, but the "I" and "E" had fallen off the tape. I got them on too. I did set it on the wall off-center. Again, I wasn't paying as much attention that I needed to do.

With my window placement on the building's left side of the building I didn't have room for the "registered distillery" signage so I didn't install it. I think I'm going to go back to large tape, but only after I'm sure that the paint was done properly and if I detach the fret before attaching to the wall.

With all the lettering out of the way, I built the downspouts. I'm getting better at these.

I measured and cut the channel and cut the end caps using a nibbler and the MicroMark heavy duty sheet metal cutter. These two tools don't put as much curl into the metal as a normal tin snips. After flattening the pieces a bit more, I first tried using the mini-torch to tin the caps. I'd forgotten that the RSU actually works better for this. I'm using my highest temp solder on the end caps so they stay put when the other pieces are added. Before putting on the end caps I drilled the 3/32" holes for the down spouts and .032" cross-holes for the attachment rods.

Xuron rail cutters were used to trim the excess from the end caps, then the remainder removed with the belt sander followed by some filing.

I soldered the .032" attachment brass wires using 60/40 rosin-core solder. I only have to solder one side. These wires are trimmed close with flush cutters and then filed smooth on the outside face. At this point I had to make sure I was making rights and lefts. The down spout holes will lie against the mid-wall. 

The down spouts again are the copper tubing. The main roof spouts have a cranked bend to bring them closer to the building, and an angled output pipe.

As i did with the Kitchen's storm water handling system, I made saw cuts in the pipes where the bends were to go and then widened the cuts with a triangular file. After bending I used 60/40 solder to hold the angles.

I measured the first pipe holding the gutter in its approximate final position and cut the pipe. I then used this as a template for bending the other three main down spouts. These pipes are all soldered to the gutters with the TIX low-melting-point solder. Between the RSU's speed and the lower temp solder, nothing else de-soldered in the process.

The other gutters were the ones running along the clerestory roof. These pipes did not need the cranked bend. There are no eaves extensions on that roof to warrant bending the pipes back towards the building.

Tomorrow's Yom Kippur so I will not be building. But I will on Thursday. I'm going to try "Blacken It" before using the patina Rub-n-Buff instead of primer and painting. 

Tomorrow is also the day that the guitar is coming. UPS ground from Eugene. OR takes a long time. I'm not good at waiting, never have been, so it's been hard waiting for it all week. Meanwhile, I've been playing guitar every day, building the callouses, and re-establishing long-forgotten skills.

  Old fonts were my thing long ago...  I've been busy downstairs looking at the use of old ligature marks in some 1890s hymn books, 1920s Lutheran new and old testaments, 1930s encyclopedias, ad cut books, and online too

 Its like it was written by MacGyver's Great Grandparents.          

G'mar Hatimah Tova !

 I do hope great things are sealed up tight for you Trainman 

Myles,

I think you said in an earlier post that the prototype sign was painted on the brick. If that is so why not paint the sign on the brick instead of applying lettering? You have a stencil already. Use the fret as a stencil, lightly glue the middle of the O, R & B using something removable like rubber cement and spray over the stencil. I sprayed lettering on the building roof pictured here. I used a peel back adhesive paper and printed the stencil on my PC. I used a font that didn't have many letters with a hole like the "P" & "R" to make it easier. I cut the letters out with a sharp hobby knife. This was my first attempt at this kind of lettering and I think it came out OK. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Thanks for the New Years wish. And the same to everyone else. "May you be written in the Book of Life for another year!"

Stenciling is a great idea... which I also entertained yesterday, but frankly couldn't figure out about the center of letters like R and O. And that I just didn't have the guts to try it out for fear of making a mess that would have ruined the model. You basically solved the center-of-letters challenge by just sticking the centers in place. I could stick them with the same PSA that would hold the stencil in place. Regrading my courage (other than seeing a Wizard who would provide it) I think I'll try it on a spare piece. If it works, I would do the application after treating the bricks, but before windows/roofs/details go in. That way I don't have to worry about overspray too much.

If the test works, this is how I'll do the next iteration for the visitor's center. And suggest others to do when building the kit. As far as this one goes, that train has left the station.

 Both techniques yield a different look.

The stencil provides a great whitewashed, or weathered/faded oil base.

 The vinyl will closer resemble fresher oil base. Like its thickly applied.

Sharp edges on the text, etc.

Like many other lines of work, real life sign painting can methods varied widely.  

 A whitewash cost about half the price of a "real" sign job too.

  The chipping, and loss of thicker paints on brick can happen quickly. In just a year sometimes. Spring is touch-up season. I think the "less than perfect" texture on some text, is actually an unexpected bonus.

The building was razed during Prohibition. And now it's being recreated in the 21st Century in a slightly smaller version.

As I noted when doing the gutters for the kitchen, that I painted the brass copper color, but left the copper spout in the raw state. Then when I applied the patina it took well to the paint, but not good on the real copper. I wasn't pleased with this. 

This time I used "Blacken It" to chemically darken the assemblies. It made the copper and brass appear very similar, and when the patina was applied, it looks real and very consistent.

Here they were after the chemical treatment.

With the Rub-n-Buff green patina wiped on, it looks pretty authentic. I spotted the pin location for the fascia board and drilled it with the Dremel flex-shaft. It was just balsa wood so that tool was overkill.

I also got them installed on the entire left side.

I used the Loctite GO2 Glue, because of the multi-media task, and got some on the rubber gloves I was wearing and then got it on the roof shingles. When I do this again, I'm going to temporarily cover the roof with paper to protect it during this operation. Since this is for my railroad, and not a visitor's center, I'll mask it with some selective weathering. I don't like it when I do that. 

They really look like copper gutters and spouts (to me). Notice in this pic that I found a place for ht other "Registered Distiller" signage. You can see the seam on those side walls and I'm really happy that any further versions will have one piece sides. The spouts will be finished tomorrow and I'm going to start working on the base plate. Once the base is done, I'll build the front shed roof and work on any landscaping.

Oh yeah... and those resin castings. Once the stacks and vents are in, the building itself is finished. If I wasn't making more than one, I would just install the metal ones and that would be that. But, alas, I have at least one more, plus prd

Finished the downspouts and plunged into resin casting the vents and stacks. Luckily, we didn't throw away any of our son's Legos, and I used a lot of them to build the mold box. It all started with mounting the various parts to a sprue that would feed resin to the parts. I also had to add vents that would let the air escape the mold while the resin pours in. 

I hope that there's enough space between the two small vents. The silicone should be pretty tough and not change shape between this smaller cross-section.

It's quite remarkable that the clay that I bought (Sulphur free) was the same width as the mold box. I just had to slice it height-wise to make a container for the top part of the mold.

After shaping the clay as best as I could, I added another three layers of legos. Plus I added a series of registration indentations that will hold the silicone mold halves in line.

I'm using the Smooth-on OOM25 two-part silicone. This blend cures in 6 hours, doesn't need vacuum de-gassing and mixes 1:1 by volume. I used Smooth-on's volume calculator to determine how much material would be needed to fill this cavity. I made a mistake here and had to quickly mix up some more. When I added in the numbers for the model's volume, I greatly exaggerated it. The actual volume is very small in comparison to the box's volume.

After the pour I brought the mold upstairs into the sun room so it would cure better. The basement is a little chilly for the silicone which cures best at room temperature 

I did not spray the bare mold with mold release and I hope that wasn't a BIG mistake. I know I need the release when pouring silicone against silicone, but forgot to do it now. The parts are relatively simple so maybe it won't be a disaster. I will be able to pull the clay later tonight. I just checked it and it's curing nicely, unlike that mess up I made when I was trying to cast the fireman's boots. I would recommend Smooth-on if you're contemplating getting into resin casting. They have very good documentation and support systems. Prices aren't bad, but it's not inexpensive.

This is a terrific thread. The more I read the more I learn. Having no experience with molding parts, I really appreciate this section. Why is it necessary to add a spru to the castings? 

This will be a closed mold. Now that the silicone's cured for the bottom of the mold, I will take apart the box that surrounds the clay leaving the master in place and then (after using mold release) I'll cover the model with additional silicone. Before doing this I'll have to rebuild the sides of the box to contain it. When cured, I'll have a two-part mold with hollow spaces where the vents and stacks should be. The mold will need to be clamped together and then liquid resin poured in through the large sprue. The vents are needs to allow air to escape the mold and also to give an indication when the mold is full.

It's analogous to sand casting metal, where you have the sprue to allow metal into the cavity and risers to let metal flow out thereby ensuring a complete fill.

I'll give more details when I actually do this later today.

Lots happened today. The mold is complete. I started to prepare the site for the Distillery, and began construction on the scratch-built shed roof. The production version will have the shed roof parts laser cut.

To cast the top part of the mold I had to disassemble part of the Lego mold box to expose the entire block of clay. The clay came loose with the model parts, but this caused no trouble. I spent some time cleaning up the bottom half of the mold opening up the vents and sprues a bit to ensure that material would pass in and out.

I then turned the mold box over and rebuilt the box 3 layers up. I positioned the model back into the now-silicone cavity and added some clay around the funnel inlet so it would be symmetrical. Before filling the top, I used the mold release that I also purchased from Smooth-on. I mixed the next batch using a different value in the Smooth-on volume calculator and re-filled the top part of the mold. It cures in 6 hours, so when we got back from dinner I was able to take the mold box apart and see if it worked. (keep reading... we'll get there.)

With the mold curing, I started working on how I'm going to place this model on the layout. I'm using some fairly thick foam core that I adopted from a project at Henkel when I was in Germany in 1999 - 2002. These were display boards used in a big Knowledge Management fair that we ran. After it was over, I was given those boards and have been using the material for model work ever since.

The pieces I had left weren't big enough to cover the whole area so I had to piece it together. I used the same method as used when gluing the balsa skins for a model plane. I butt the pieces together. Tape one side, bend it at the tape to open the joint, add glue, and then put it flat and tape the other side. It makes a strong joint. This patchwork is now large enough for the distillery and future structures on the plant site.

The base overlaps some areas of previous grading. I'll re-grade those areas and build some retaining walls next to the track. The curb height is a little high, but the alternative is to remove the foam base already in place, and then laminate 3/16" Masonite to this piece to built it up to curb height over the street. I don't have that much Masonite laying around and didn't want to buy more just for this project.

With the building on the base you can see that there is room for a drive to come up the back to the loading doors.

 There is room at the front for the shed roof. I measured this before positioning the building. There's room on the right for the Boiler house. My plan was to put the Warehouse across Main Street. Alternatively, the boiler house could be across the street with a pipe trestle to bring steam to the distillery. Then the Warehouse (Rick House) could go on the right side. I have time to worry about this since neither of these other structures is getting cut any time soon.

I was cutting the foam core for wire clearance, but I had another thought. Why not raise the structure a bit off the surface and add a little bit of landscape topo to the edge of the bricks. This would be done by the Ashe Rawls method like I did with substation.  You protect the building with Saran Wrap or Stretch and Seal, plaster up to the building, and after it cures, you have a perfectly fitting socket that supports the building without obvious attachment, but yet the building can be removed for repair or sale. It makes the building look like it's actually on a foundation planted in the ground.

To raise the building I used some old cork floor tiles that were left over from putting it on a work surface (also from my German experience). I still have the bench. It was an artist's work table and storage unit that I bought in an IKEA in Venlo, The Netherlands.

This raises the building about an 1/8", clears all the wires and will look good when landscaped. I wish I could landscape the panel off the layout. It's easy to get to the site's back, but the front is not easy to reach. But the panel is too flexible and it might not hold up well. It's something to consider. The cork is held with PSA.

With this as far as I could take it today, I started working on the shed roof. I drew plans in Illustrator over the screen views from the SketchUp master. After printing out the front and side views, I fastened the plan to the work surface and covered with polyethylene sheeting so it wouldn't stick to the plans. This is the same as I did when building the bridges oh so many months ago. After cutting the verticals to length using the razor saw miter box that I have permanently fastened to the work bench and using a stop held with a C-clamp, I sanded the ends dead square so there was ample gluing surface. My work surface is Homasote, which is an excellent surface to stick T-pins in and hold things still. I also kill the sharp edge on the post tops to help the solvent cement's capillary action.

The main timbers are 3/16" square, the angle braces are 0.040" X .125" and 0.040" X 0.080". The fascia board is .020" X .250". It's all styrene. This is as far as I got before going to dinner.

After dinner (Bonefish Grill), I couldn't wait to pull the mold apart and see if it worked. I was apprehensive since I had such an awful experience with the Aluminite material before. I pulled off the Legos... BTW: there are more efficient ways to construct a mold box using a series of "L-shape" legs that are c-clamped together. If I was going to do a lot of mold making, I might be forced to use this method since this is the biggest box I can build with my Lego supply.

The material seeped into the Legos, but didn't cause any trouble.

Pulling it apart took more stress than I would have expected and I got a little worried having deja vu from the last time I tried this, but then the whole thing opened up and there were the perfectly formed cavities.

I cut a couple of Masonite boards to act as stiffeners. The mold is very flexible and simply clamping it together could distort the small areas between the parts. I then put the mold together using some quick clamps, but it was easy to see that mold was crushing and distorting so I switched to rubber bands. This looks okay. I'll experiment with how much pressure is needed to keep the mold tight.

Tomorrow, I'll mix up some resin and attempt to make some parts. Stay tuned...

I'm sure all of my followers have been anxiously awaiting the results of the first resin pour. No? Well... I certainly was. I made three pours today. Each took about 45 minutes. All were successful to a degree with the last being the best. It really worked quite well. While it was curing each time, I continued building the shed assembly.

It takes very little resin to fill this mold meaning that I can get lots of parts for the bottles of Part A and B that I bought.

I could design the material flow through the mold better. I found some areas with air bubble and other voids in the finished parts, and had trouble getting the air bubbles to come up during the pour. In this pic you can see resin in both the fill sprue and the air vent, as it should be.

The mold release worked perfectly and the molds parted beautifully.

The mold filled completely, but the vents needed some help. There was an obvious void at the shape angle on the big vent. This point needed venting so the resin would flow into and through this point. 

I made the fix by simply cutting an addition vent in the silicone mold.  

Meanwhile, I attempted filling the various holes with CA and micro crystal filler. It worked, but was a pain to re-shape. I took the first run and stuck them on the building just to see how they looked. They're a bit rubbery even after the full cure, but tonight I noticed that they're much more solid.

When they're painted and weathered, you won't know that they're not metal parts. I may add some E-Z Line wind bracing to the tall stack. I'm also going to make some flashing for the lower edges of the roof penetrating parts. I'll make the flashing out of wine-bottle foil, which is wonderful for making thin metal details.

The next run came out better. The extra vent did the job.

There were still a couple of bubbles that seemed to be due to lack of material flow. So I went back again and made a couple of more vents. The last run seemed to have most of them fixed.

It's much easier to file off excess resin than to fill up holes. You can see that the 3rd pour definitely has less porosity than the other two.  

If I do this again, the venting will not be an afterthought. I will do more analysis of the model's shape and develop a flow pattern that ensures a good fill. Injection molders have high pressure at their disposal to force material into small spaces. In resin molding like I'm doing, you're dependent on gravity alone. It there's entrapped air, it will block material from proper filling. In looking at the mold, I think I don't need to make it so thick. Probably half that thickness would work fine especially since I'm supporting the mold on both sides with those MDF plates before using the rubber bands.

Regarding the shed, I finished the angle bracing on the long wall, and then constructed one end and partially finished another. I bought one of those scratch brushes from MicroMark which I'm using to add wood-grain texture on the plain styrene.

The lip behind the fascia board is where the joists and roof rafters will lie. If I use 16 scale inches on center, there will be 30 of them.

And the other end being glued in place. I use lots of angle blocks and clamps to attempt to hold things in the three axes. I think I'm going to use the Evergreen Standing Seam roofing on this part of the building. It's got enough shingles.

This resin experiment really excited me! It opens up a whole new modeling world. If I want to make some fancy corbels or other architectural custom details, All I have to do is make one good one and cast the rest. Amazing. The Smooth-on product is very good.

I made a decision. I'm going to attempt to landscape the distillery base off the layout. I've got sufficient work space to do it, and the joining of the panels turned out very strong and the panels are stiff. 

Third time is the charm!  Very nice!

Very interesting.  Thanks for sharing it with us.

Cheers

I've heard of using talcum powder brushed into the mold cavities. A thin dusting supposedly breaks surface tension and prevents air bubbles from sticking to insides of the mold.

---PCJ 

What a great thread!  I've learned so much from it. The description of the molding has given me an option to mold parts for future projects of mine. Thanks for your continuous posting of this project and your thorough description of the steps you are taking. 

There are a couple of other tricks to take care of those pesky air bubbles that adhere to the mold undercuts in these sorts of molds.

Try putting the mold on top of the dryer and let it run for a bit,   That can work if you are using a resin that takes a bit of time to cure (that also works for making the mold itself!).  And, there's another bit of info on resin casting - use a resin that takes a little longer to cure so you have a bit of time to futz with it and do not have to rush to pour it too fast, generate bubbles, and end up with voids - I use resins that take 6-20 minutes to cure.  I've found that every mold has a particular preferred way that pouring the resin into works best.  If the mold is not working, I've found most often I was using it wrong,   Lastly, I've found that using a very controlled introduction of the resin almost always helps to minimize voids.

Good Suggestions! I did add the talcum powder and further diminished the entrained air. I did a 5th pour and the results were very good. I think I've got it figured out going forward. While pour #5 was curing I continued work on the shed roof. The roof is complicated by the contours of the building's front. It's not flat. I needed to build a ledger board on the back to support the rafters next to the building. I'm using the 3/16" square stock for this and it needed to be stepped around the contours.

These styrene joints were very weak so I needed to reinforce them with some more styrene plates. Once again, this "simple" building's complexity adds another literal wrinkle to what should be a simple construction.

To further support this structure before it's glued permanently to the building I added another couple of legs since the back was sagging a bit and that would have made adding rafters and the roof a bigger problem.

These legs really would be needed once the structures tied to the building, but I'm gong to completely build and paint it off the distillery.

The rafters consist of a joist and rafter assembly. These two aren't as simple as they appear because they have to be built with four different lengths again to conform to the building contours.

I made a couple of gauges to hold them apart 16 scale inches. There will be 30 of these. The roof will be Evergreen standing seam, which in itself a project since the little standing parts are separate styrene strips that fit into grooves on the building. This sub-project will be completed sometime next week. 

I still want to make a nice chimney master for the kitchen and then, (using my new found resin skills) cast it in resin for the kits.

Very nice and well done; 

Thank You and mercy beaucoup!

Finished building the shed today and started a very little resin casting project: the concrete footings for the shed.

I did have a short time to work in the shop this weekend and got all but three rafter sets completed. I finished those remaining today. I then built the Evergreen Styrene standing seam roof. It consists of a piece of .040" thick stock that's grooved to accept some very fine styrene strips. The strips are included in the package. The milled slots run lengthwise with the sheet. This roof is narrow in width so the pieces had to be cut and joined to form the full sheet. I used the tape, bend and glue method to create the seam, but before doing that I needed to cut another milled slot at that junction. I used the Duplicutter to make a cut very close to the edge and then, using the #11 blade, cut a horizontal slice on the sheet's edge to form a small L-shaped groove.

The strips demand a Touch-n-Flow solvent cement applicator. You really can't lay down a perfectly applied bead into the junction of these tiny strips and the roof proper without it.

You'll notice in the above that the roof has been notched for the building's face. I first fit a piece of cardboard to it, and transferred this to the styrene. Cardboard's cheaper than styrene standing seam roof. 

I glued the roof in place when the frame was up against the building to ensure that everything was in its final position during gluing. I used Testor's tube cement to tack the roof in place. After it set a bit, I took it to the bench and used the solvent cement with the applicator. Before gluing the roof, I turned the frame upside down on a sheet of sandpaper attached to a surface plate to level all the rafters.

Here's the shed fit tightly against the building's front.

And a closer look at the fit. I probably need some NBW casting to finish this off.

The shed needs feet. I decided to try another resin casting exercise, only this time a much simpler process. A single-part mold should suffice. I formed the master out of sulphur-free clay, made a dam around it an poured the silicone mix.

The mold is situated on a piece of Plexiglass. It didn't take much silicone to fill this mold.

I will probably have to do a bit of post-casting sanding to true up the sides, top and bottom to each piece when their cast. It's takes 40 minutes per piece so it will take a couple of days to make the 10 that I need. While they're curing I'll be airbrushing the shed.

The shed's color will be aged wood (Gray/brown) and the roof will be first rusty brown, over-coated with weathered black. I'll then lightly sand the black down the roof panel's centers to bring up the rust. Some weathering powder will finish it up.

I'm also going to paint and weather the vents and stacks similarly, and install them. With that, the building will be ready for installation on the base and doing the landscaping.

Casting the footings is proceeding. It uses a very small amount of resin. So small that I barely can measure the two parts in small plastic measuring cups. This pic shows the resin in the mold and the amount remaining in the cup. A finished footing is also shown. That notch you see in the mold is where air was trapped. Should have pour the silicone into the hole first to make sure it was full, then filled the rest of the mold. Live and learn.

While these batches were curing (made five so far... half of what I need), I finally got to painting the shed and finishing up the stacks and vents. 

The shed roof was painted a rusty red color (Tamiya Red Brown and some Insignia Red), and then air brushed with some off-black. I then masked the roof and painted the timber a mixture of black and brown. All of this was air brushed too. After all was dry (forced with the heat gun) I used some wet and dry fine grit abrasive and carefully sanded off the top layer of black exposing the rust underneath. This worked pretty well but was too deep in some areas. I then went back and hand brushed some artist acrylic Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber which makes very convincing rust.

I still have to go back and shoot it with some Dull Coat. I will then added some weathering powder on all of the model including this roof.

The stacks were first painted with Krylon Grey Primer, then the rust and then the black. Again, I wet sanded the black down to rust and, and in some cases, down to the primer. It actually even looked better. I then dry-brush some more acrylic "rust". I glued them into position and will go back and add some soot and rust stains on the chimney tile that's below the stacks. The vent in the back was primer, rust and then Tamiya gloss white from a spray can. I then dry-brushed acrylic rust. It came out nicely.

In the above, only the small stacks are glued in. I next made the flashing for the tall stack using wine bottle foil. I tucked it under the up-roof shingles and then glued it in with medium CA. I hadn't yet made the flashing for the white vent. I'll do that tomorrow.

In addition to the flashing, I added three small eye bolts to the stack for the guy wires that will be added using E-Z Line when it arrives from Berkshire Junction. The end is definitely in sight.

Nice weathered roof, stacks, and flashing!!

Thanks Mark! You want flashing? Get a load of this flashing. I permanently placed the vent. This pic also shows the mild rusting that I applied.

I started working on the site prep today. I cleared off that IKEA work table so I could

work on all the site stuff under good lighting.

I have a digression about this work table. I wanted to have a work table to do hobby stuff while we were living in Germany. IKEA had this neat one in their catalog. My wife was back in the States and it was a German holiday. German holidays meant "NO STORES OPEN". The IKEA in Venlo, the Netherlands, was open. I got there around 4:00 p.m. and faced crowds that compared to the last shopping day before Christmas. It was a madhouse! It took 30 minutes to find parking and the store closed at 5:00. I found the table in the warehouse, pushed the cart to the long lines at the cashiers and finally just got to check out pretty close to five o'clock. Then she tells me, "Cash only!" Not just cash, but Dutch Guilders. Imagine that! An IKEA that doesn't take credit cards. Inconceivable! "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

I asked if they had a cash machine. Nope! I asked where the nearest cash machine was, "Don't know." I left out the back door, got in the car and drove to Venlo Centruum. I figured there had to be an ATM in the town center. There was. I took out 300 guilders, drove back to IKEA, went in through the loading dock since the store was now closed, but there were still check out lines. Found my stuff on the cart where I had abandoned it, and made my way back into the line. TO THE SAME CHECKOUT GIRL! You should have seen the look on her face when I reeled off the 275 Guilders and bought that work table. It was a 45 minute drive from Düsseldorf, Germany to Venlo. I wasn't leaving without that table. You never experience this nonsense as a tourist. You've got to live there.

Along with the bench came a neat roll around 6-drawer thingy that I use to hold my machinist tools for the lathe. The bench is 7-ply European Plywood, not MDF.

While I was working on the site layout, I was also casting shed footings. I've got 7 done so far and will produce four more. (6 + the one in the mold)

I'm laying out the site plan using drafting tools and a Sharpie. I sat and stared at this board for a while to decide on just how to approach the topography. The front caraway is 15 scale feet wide and the rear drive is 12 scale feet. There will be three curb cuts of varying contours.

The boiler house will lie to the left of the main house. Obviously, I made that decision. After moving the whole deal rightward, I realized there was enough land behind the kitchen to get a drive up to that loading door. That was all the assurance I needed to decide that the boiler house will go where I originally designed it to be with the Rick House across main street to the complex's left.

I have to figure out how to pave the drives and at what elevation. I'm going to mask around all the drives, so when I plaster there will be a sharp break to the roads.

To hold a space for the as-yet-not-designed boiler house, I made a MDF 10" X 10" plate which is the boiler house's footprint. I will put Press-n-Seal on it like the real buildings and plaster up to it to make a socket for the future building. The boiler house is a much easier to design and build structure than any of the rest of this creation. It too will have a covered walkway to the main building. I'm thinking about scratch-building the boilers inside since its windows will be much larger.