P5se Camelback's 2010 Summer Structure Challenge GERN Plant

[P5se Camelback]

I’ll not be getting my building completed on time for the voting –- I just have too much still to do! Being away from the hobby (and building models) for 18-20 years has made me forget how long it takes to accomplish things when you scratch-bash a foreground structure with a partial interior. That meant that my game plan, the time line/schedule that I had developed for fabrication was totally inadequate for the amount of work involved. With what I have rediscovered and a couple new things I’ve learned, I’ll hopefully be able to develop a much better plan for the next Challenge!

I had never ever tried the alcohol/ink wash weathering method before so it was a big risk that I took trying it for the first time on this structure! I paid for that risk by being bitten … big time! But a couple of you guys stepped up and offered some pearls of advice. The fix suggested really does work as described and I'm be even more angry at myself for wasting an entire day trying to clean up what I thought was "bleed through" white from the spackle "grout" (another technique I had never tried before, sticking my neck out in a highly visible build.) I could have used the time to build the pairs of double-buck doors for the four doorways, two pair of which will be in the open position (opening out, I guess ... I'm still not quite sure) and two doorways will have the doors closed. Those pairs of doors will be built as single units but appear to be a pair.

I still have to finish shingling the roof ridge and stain and weather it with dry brushing and the alcohol/ink wash, paint the two windows and glaze them, paint the exposed roof rafters on the loading dock side (plus the first two or three on the “unseen” side,) assemble and paint a bunch of crates, clean up a dozen or so poorly molded 55 gallon drums and paint them and some equally bad wooden barrels, then assemble the whole thing and place a few LPB’s, working for a living.

I'm doubt I’ll do any landscaping, at least until the building is actually "in situe."

I gave up the charrette at 03:00 hrs this morning and hit the rack … it was obvious I wasn’t going to make it … there was still too much to do and I was exhausted! However, I said before that I would photograph what I had in this morning's first natural light. That light was less than usable for photography this morning (too much moisture in the air) so I waited for the humidity to drop a little, to “burn off,” prior to dragging a piece of Luan plywood out to rest on the rails of “Horace Dodge Pick-up” and snap off a few photos. The results of that exercise now follow …

Final weathering on the Corrugated Entryway Roof …



Next, a tip of the hat to Gary, doctorwayne and Andrew ( ) … an additional coat of Dull-Cote did, in fact, fix that “nasty whitewash” on the end wall. Now, to remove all of the several layers of paint, both Krylon and Dull-Cote, to expose bare plastic so as to solvent-weld the Corrugated End Roof in place …





And then a quick test fit … just to see how it looks …



The Loading Docks have now been weathered with the Alcohol-India Ink wash …





The following photos are the ones I took after I gathered together all of the assemblies completed so far, placed them in what will be their assigned places when the structure is completed, set them up on that piece of Luan out in the driveway on Horace’s rails and pushed the Canon’s button a few times.

















So there you have it … the current state of the "Big Blue 2010 Summer Structure Challenge" build in Lehigh Acres, Florida … woefully incomplete at deadline time.

I will of course continue to work on this structure – I must! There are seven or eight more lined up behind it to become the Lehighton, Penna. GERN facility to be serviced by the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western Railroad.

As I look back at my first-ever “model railroad model-building competition,” I have had fun … I have gotten back into model railroading and building models again after a hiatus of too many years. I have also learned (check that … re-discovered) the amount of time it takes to do things when you don’t just open the box and follow the directions! I’m into it now, back building models and enjoying model railroading as more than an "armchair model railroader" until it becomes too strenuous for me to breathe …

In this Challenge we have Gary, who builds the most incredible-looking bridges in what seems like the blink of an eye at one end of the scale, and yours truly, the slowest model builder you have ever run into. (Actually, I’ll get a little faster the more I get back into it!) At any rate, here’s what I have so far. With any luck, I’ll have this thing finished before the next Challenge is issued!