Hydrocal / Wood Kit Build - Berkshire Valley Update 11-12

Interesting - did not know that any Berkshire Valley kits were Hydrocal - always thought they were all resin....  Have to check in on progress...

Looking forward to seeing how this comes out - hopefully, no more short bents !

"multiple sets of same ice house for same customer". Interesting.

Did some more work

Glued another side on to the main building. I cut spacers this time to make sure the walls lined up. As stated above every thing is glued with white Elmer's Wood Glue.

I painted two doors (interesting one is plastic and one metal) plus a plastic roll up door.

I started with a dark gray base coat then misted on dark taupe followed by khaki. I am going to mix a solution of black paint to make a wash and see if I can enhance the grooves in the 'wood'.

I started the roll up door with a black base coat then followed up with dull aluminum.

I finished the second side of one bent (see below) then stopped. I was searching the net for finished photos of this kit and ran into one in which the builder (Gralnik??) added an A-frame roof. I am thinking on this but if I do I will need to make new bents with taller posts or see I can cut the post on these bents once the floor is added.

That is a challenging build for sure! I am enjoying watching you go through the steps....

Great work!

Peter

Will be following this build.  The client must have plenty of reefers to need multiple ice houses.

Glued the last wall in the main building and started the small annex

One thing I learned working with wood was always dry clamp before committing to glue. It is no different when working with plastic or hydrocal. Even after initial sanding I found some air gaps due to wavy edges and promptly sanded those smooth. Not shown is one glue joint on the main building I applied some Squadron putty to. I will take a photo once I sand it down. Depending on how it looks I will apply putty to the other glue joints.

I continued to glue the deck bents. I have decided to build them to instructions then later see if I can build a separate roof structure. I took one roof post from the Atlas O Ice House kit to use as a measuring tool for the Berkshire Valley kit.  This post measures 2 3/8 inches or about 9 feet.

According to the instructions I am to start gluing the individual bents to the annex and main building in order to complete building the deck however I have chosen not to do this. I will have to figure out another way to complete the deck for two reasons
1. I don't want to ship the structure with the deck attached to the building as I think this will present a major  issue since the deck is made from very light fragile wood.

2. The instructions assume the building has been painted and all the wood has been stained. I plan on building the entire deck first then painting.

The instructions call for gluing the first few bents to the ice house then proceeding. since I will ship the deck separately I made a glue jig instead.

The horizontal outside beams come in 10 and 12 inch lengths (total deck length is 22 inches). I clamped each bent to the jig in its proper location then using super glue and wood glue attached the four beams. I got a little concerned here since the deck started looking like a roller coaster superstructure instead of sitting flat.

Once I started adding the diagonal bracing things started to settle down. I used super glue here since there is very little glue surface and it would take too long for wood glue to set.

This is where not gluing the bents to the ice house was an advantage. It was a lot easier gluing the inside diagonals with the deck separate and upside down then trying to glue them with the bents glued to the building.

The instructions call for gluing floor joists. I was not sure how to interpret the instructions so thought it would be a good idea to glue a set of joists against the deck posts then space the remaining joists. I ended up cutting an extra joist to make things look better. right now the deck is built according to instructions. I am going to contact the customer and ask to be allowed to add a roof. If I do so then I will need to trim some of the posts to end up with a flat surface once the deck flooring is attached.

I made also add some reinforcement to the deck joists since I need to plan for shipping. Once the decking is attached the extra wood should not be visible.

With all the floor joists glue din I went back to the ice house. I had filled in the joints of the main building with Squadron putty. I decided to use spackling compound on the joints of the annex. After sanding both I really could not tell any difference - however the spackling compound is a whole lot cheaper than Squadron putty.

After sanding the top and bottom flat I added the roof supports then glued the annex to the main building using my highly advanced proprietary clamping tool.

Great work as always and thanks for sharing Joe.  These threads are always inspirational...

Looking good, Joe. Are you using an accelerant with the CA super glue ?

No sir no accelerate -  I need the time to ensure position.

@EmpireBuilderDave posted:

Great work as always and thanks for sharing Joe.  These threads are always inspirational...

Thanks Dave

Great work Joe.  

Thanks Dan

Had to put this job aside to finish up some building fronts but will have more photos tomorrow

Did some work on the base and roof structure.

I added the cross bracing on the base

Then built the sides for the roof structure. To make the posts line up with the base posts I marked positions on the the '2x12' ledger then used a right angle to glue the posts on.

I'm still not sure how I am going to glue the roof posts to the base floor. Every thing is going to be a butt joint. If I had known at the start I was going to make the roof the posts would have been sized to include the roof.

Nice work, Joe!

Below is the roof structure. I used super glue to attached the roof posts -

then used wood glue to attach the horizontal beams plus some end rafters. Tomorrow I will see if the sub-roof is strong enough on its own not to bend. If not I will need to think of more supporting rafters. Either way I will probably need to glue supports to the sub-roof to keep it from curling up during paint.

I started to glue in the flooring. As can be seen the scribed wood sections are warped. I used super glue at the ends and wood glue in the middle then weighed down the sections with 123 blocks.

I finished gluing in the floor work and added the sub-roof to the roof structure. Again I used super glue and wood glue. Once I get the fence railing on, the roof structure should stiffen up considerably.

I will sand the roof smooth than plan on using 'tar paper' (heavy black paper I first paint black then gray then sand off the gray in spots to reveal the black again).

Wonderful project and documentation.

Thanks for including the "Update 9/11."  

Great work, Joe..........these are very challenging kits to build. You are an accomplished modeler and the time you take to share your thoughts and illustrate what you do is greatly appreciated!

Peter

The railings were glued on (super glue) yesterday. I will be designing a swing gate for the track side today. There will be three. The holes in the railing where the swing gates go were cut out after the railing was glued on. Gluing one piece is much easier than trying to align and glue separate railings.

Looking good, Joe - what did you use to cut out the three openings ? They look very even and consistent.

Very nice Joe.

@Richie C. posted:

Looking good, Joe - what did you use to cut out the three openings ? They look very even and consistent.

410A Flush cutter - have not done it yet but I will clean up the ends with a fine file

I designed a drop down 'swing gate'. I was unable to find working hinges in O scale so ended up with the design below.

After gluing the gate planks together I glued an 1/8 inch spacer to the bottom then some 'stem' wire to the spacer. I drilled holes into the ends of 1/8 inch bass wood, rounded the ends then cut them to length. When I tried gluing the assembly to the platform the wire came off the spacer. what you don't see is an 1/8 in angle I glued over the wire and onto the spacer.

After gluing the gate to the platform I ended up gluing an 1/8 piece further down as a stop so the gate would not drop straight down.

With stop this is as far as the gate will swing down. I still may buy some chain to attach the ends of the gate to the posts.

Some views of the platform

I started work on the ice conveyor. The kit comes with two white styrene strips that once thin vertical pieces are glued on gets painted black. since the conveyor was going to end up black I used some black styrene stock I have then wnet over it with flat black paint.

I needed to let the paint dry so started the Atlas O ice house kit. I was going to give this a separate post but it is a pretty easy build (at least the house). Every thing is basically keyed to fit its mating piece. below was about 40 minutes of work. The base has slots that main building fit into. One is supposed to glue the walls into the base and with each other however since I want to paint the base a different color I did not glue the building onto it.

I installed the ice conveyor but built it differently from the instructions. Instead of gluing the black styrene to the platform and having to figure out how to mask it when I painted, I glued to bass wood right angles to the platform that the styrene will seat into. The black clips are old oven clips I used to use to clamp lids on ceramic microelectronic packages when sending them down the sealing furnace.

I put the Berkshire Valley kit aside for a day or two so I could assemble one the two Atlas O ice platforms. While a little more involved than the ice house the platform was fairly easy to assemble. I have it in sections to accommodate painting like items. Only issue I ran into was (probably missed reading this in the instructions), there is special end U-shaped cross brace that has holes in it for a ground level platform. It is still sitting on the bench. I could have either drilled holes (most likely mess up position) or just cut off the pins on the platform. I chose to cut the pins. I will be shipping the platform separate any way. The customer can line up the conveyor to the main platform and glue in place.

Above is the bottom of the upper deck. The cross beams have holes in on the bottom for the U-shaped cross beams and holes on top for roof the posts. I glued the cross beams to the upper platform then glued the platform to the U-shaped posts. As a result I had difficulty mounting the roof posts in correct positions. Next platform I will glue the cross beams onto the U-shaped posts first then use the roof posts to position the upper platform on the cross beams.

The ground level platform is on the left and the base (will be painted concrete) is on the right.

Above is the assembled platform. The stairway on the left is not glued to the platform. the roof panels are not glued in place, the ground level platform is not glued to the upper platform and the conveyor structure is not glued to the platform as yet. also the little white shed is not glued in as yet.

I have been assembling the second Atlas O platform which is going much faster than the first. Learning lessons from the first build I deviated from the instructions and instead of gluing the floor supports to the underside of the floor sections I glued them to the U-shaped platform supports first. I found out from the last build that gluing the floor supports to the flooring first did not ensure holes on the supports would line up with the holes in the flooring for the roof posts.

Meanwhile I painted the plastic roofs for the Atlas O and conservation boards for the Berkshire Valley buildings. I stated out with flat black then misted on some dark gray followed by a textured paint called wrought iron. The gray tends to add age to the roofs.
Since the Berkshire Valley roofs are flat I may glue on some N scale black ballast to give a rougher appearance.

Lookin' good, Joe.

Thanks Richie

The second Atlas O platform is done. Now comes paint. The platform consists of three separate parts not yet glued together - roof, platform, and base. The small office is also not glued in yet.

All three kits are done -

Berkshire Valley Kit

Atlas O kits

Will they be side by side on the layout?

Great job, Joe - they look terrific !

Joe:

I don't know but I will ask the customer for photos. There are three of them.

@coach joe posted:

Will they be side by side on the layout?

Yes two will be side by side and one on the other side of my layout.  If anyone is thinking about using Joe to build you anything I highly recommend.  He has built me some impressive structures so far and getting back in the que to start another project soon.

Everything Joe has posted on this forum is top notch.

@coach joe posted:

Everything Joe has posted on this forum is top notch.

Thanks Joe - I appreciate

Joe

My ice platform built a couple of years ago. A fun project.