Last week I posted how pleased I was with the Woodland Scenics Deuce's Bike Shop. It looked like an auto garage I often saw with my Dad, when I was a young kid, so I modified it into what I remember, having fun a bit doing it. I named it Lucus Doolin's garage (Lucas Doolin is the character Robert Mitchum played in Thunder Road) and so its a moonshiner's car garage. I extended the W.S. platform to 12 x 14 inches, graveled the drive and storage yard, etc.,, and added details, some shown in the photos below. I particularly like the V8 and six cylinder engine blocks in the storage yard, and the headers/exhaust parts still waiting to be installed in the '50 Ford (see photos below) - all scratch built: the rusty yet shiny-oily patina I got on the engine blocks took a lot of experimenting to get right.
This is one of those projects that works out just like you hope it will!
The short video below shows the Miniatronics welding kit at work (under the '50 Ford) and the very even lighting the Woodland Scenics four LED set up gives: I think it will be challenge for those who buy the Menards unlighted kits to add lighting that works better, although they can probably add it for less than the difference in list prices.
The photo below shows it is on my desk in the study, where I videoed the lights working. I removed the roof sign, added another chimney (metal pipe), did the electric lines, etc. that's a Lionel utility pole modified to be a proper electric pole with two-bank three-phase service to Doolin's,
I had commented that I thought the storage yard needed more junk in it. I made the engine blocks and added a bunch of other automotive stuff along with lots of barrels (Geez, Lucas, what could be in them?) and a different guard dog since I moved the Rottweiler outside. I washed some but not all parts of the roof with a 20% testors rust/80% thinner and it realy woke up the galavized panels, making the whole roof look very realistic.
Here are some details. Woodland Scenics figures throughout. I position them by drilling a tiny hole up a leg and using fine wire projecting from ahole in the the wooden pallet base to hold them there. Cool leash on the dog isn't it? Pulled tight - he's an eager guard dog. Welder, headers, and exhaust parts add a lot to the fun of the Miniatronics welding light under the Ford.
Here it is where it will go on my layout - the only building in the rural, and unfinished (almost unstarted) mountain section of my layout. That tracks near Doolins' Garage are old fastrack (with a very deep rusty Simple Green surface now) that will be covered entirely by the new terrain. My two main loops, now Atlas track, loop around this little valley in which there will a lake with a slow moving fishing boat (Doolin will have a small fish and bait shop just to the right of the garage, eventually) and a loop of super/EZstreets country road, custom made form Atlas track, that loops around and back across the entire layout to the industrial area of my downtown, as shown at the bottom, for my 18 wheelers to run on.
