CPR Engine House

[Sumpter250]

"I was thinking some 1.5 grain of wheat bulbs but thought maybe they would be too small? Like I said some suggestions would be good."

A grain of wheat bulb, is approximately 6" in diameter -in HO scale-, and throws a lot more light than a "prototype bulb"....
I wouldn't go any larger, and would use a reflective "shade" above the bulb.
Light, like water, doesn't "scale" well, and is usually too much more than it appears.

Besides, if one of your LPB's stumbles in the reduced light, and falls, I want to know how you got it to walk in the first place !

[rrinker]

Might I suggest instead some 12V GoW bulbs but run them on about 8 or 9 volts. They will have a dimmer yellow glow more suited to the era instead of being blindingly bright, and a 12V bulb on 8V should last virtually forever.

--Randy

[tetters]

RE: Lights. Thank you very much for the input on the lighting. I found some 12V GoW bulbs at my LHS on Sat. I wired up some to a 9V PS and I am happy with what I have seen so far. I think they will work out quite nicely. I have some brass lamp shades that I can throw over top of them which should work out very well.

Slow and steady wins the race. I finished the lumber details for the Engine House this weekend. Installed all the 2x6 blocking on the walls. Re-built the doors for the loco bays which took a considerable amount of time, cutting and gluing the individual planks. I picked up some Birch crafting plywood at Micheal's on Saturday and used it for the door panels. I'll also cut out the two roof sections using the same material. It's light, strong, and because its not too thick measures 4-5 scale inches (about 1.5 mm) surprisingly easy to cut with a carpenter's knife. I look at the number of parts involved just to build the basic structure and I can't believe I've been able to stick with it this far. I finally feel like I'm just about done.

Next step is painting and assembly of the walls, windows, doors and roof supports. First I'll apply a light coat of grey primer to the walls and then mask off certain areas before I begin applying the actual colours to the exterior and then interior walls. Wish me luck.



** I added the blocking to the back wall sections after I snapped this picture.

[Sumpter250]

Next step is painting and assembly of the walls, windows, doors and roof supports. First I'll apply a light coat of grey primer to the walls and then mask off certain areas before I begin applying the actual colours to the exterior and then interior walls. Wish me luck.

OK, Good Luck!
A good paint job is less the application of the color, than it is,the application of the masking.

[MasonJar]

Next step is painting and assembly of the walls, windows, doors and roof supports. First I'll apply a light coat of grey primer to the walls and then mask off certain areas before I begin applying the actual colours to the exterior and then interior walls. Wish me luck.

OK, Good Luck!
A good paint job is less the application of the color, than it is,the application of the masking.

Yup... the ol' 80/20 rule applies - 80% preparation and 20% actual painting.

Looks great! The addition of blocking is fantastic.


Andrew

[mountaingoatgreg]

Tetters,

All the parts look great and I can't wait to seem them with a coat of paint. Keep up the great work on your project and keep us posted!!!
The blocking in the walls looks great also and makes it look a lot more realisitc.

[tetters]

No paint... yet. Instead I decided to make the two piece roof sections. The roof will be removable and will open along the width of the Engine House. Once all the roof structure is in place, I think this will offer the best support and ease of accessibility if I need to do any work inside.

[Sumpter250]

That is really coming along nicely. Like how you have the interior accessible, with an opening roof.

[mountaingoatgreg]

Tetters,

Coming along nicely!!

Have you done any more figuring on the lighitng situation?

[tetters]

Thanks guys!

Greg, I think I am going to go with Randy's suggestion and use some 12V GoW bulbs and hook them up to a 9V power supply. That should work nicely.

[faraway]

That is a real beauty. The walls from the inside are outstanding.

[tetters]

Things are slow going, but I'm still making some steady progress. I'm glad I didn't jump right into painting as there are / were a number of final details that I needed to address or built before I start into it. I don't want to do all the prep and paint work and have to go back and add details.

This weekend I finished off the roof supports beams and assembled them into one piece. The missing post to the left in the foreground is deliberate. It would exist off layout and was left out on purpose. I've also decided to make the roof one piece. I'll have to fabricate some pieces to join the two halves while still making it removable for maintenance reasons. Shouldn't be too difficult, just need to be careful.

[album]3926[/album]

I added the blocking for the roof rafters after this photo was taken. The final thing to be completed is to cut and fit the rafters to support the roof and then... then, I can begin to add some colour.

[doctorwayne]

One of the biggest challenges, at least for me, when making a removeable roof is to ensure that it doesn't warp (and this applies just as much to styrene as it does to wood and cardstock) and to devise a way to hold it in place securely, yet still allow it to be removeable.
Both of these requirements are somewhat related, so the solution for one may also solve the other. One method is to add vertical stiffeners to the underside of the roof. On your structure, I'd suggest running them from door-end to blind-end. Make one to fit along each sidewall, and as deep as is practical without hiding interior framing detail - they should extend down at least to the top plate of studs on the exterior walls. Also, they should be positioned so that they make a snug fit inside the side walls and should be full-length so that they give a positive and repeatable method of replacing the roof in the exact same position every time.
I'd also add similar-size stiffeners at each row of support posts - make them as pairs, so that when in place, each of those longitudinal beams is trapped between a pair of them. The roof support rafters can then be cemented in place on the underside of the roof, perpendicular to the beams. Glued to both the underside of the roof and at their ends to the stiffeners, the roof should become relatively stiff and stable.
If you find that, even after all of this bracing is added, the roof still does not seat properly, drill suitably-sized and -located holes through the exterior walls and through the stiffening webs, then add wire pins or brass nbw castings (representing tie rods) to hold the roof in position. Make them a snug fit to keep the roof in place, yet still allow it to be removeable merely by removing the pins/nbws.

Wayne

[tetters]

Hey there Wayne!

The 8x16 purlins on the inside edge of the roof panels at the left and right plus the addition of the strip wood used to make the soffit on the outside inconjunction with the wall panels is what holds the roof in place presently. It's also how I designed the foundation. Sort of a tongue and groove design. It also conveniently allows me to disassemble and reassemble the model several times to test fit all the different components. So far so good.

The idea I had/have for the center support was to make a shallow block with angles sanded into it with same pitch as the roof angle. These same blocks would butt end to end and also fit snugly inbetween the two roof purlins located near the pitch. I may add some additional members to fit across the the underside perpendicular to the blocks and cut and tie them all into place with the Purlins. Together that should provide a believeable structure, but help stiffen the whole thing into one solid piece. Once I complete the reinforcing I'll take some inside shots.

[tetters]

Seems to be a habit of mine to ressurect threads these days. Besides I don't like cluttering up the board with duplicate posts.

I'm making the rounds with this one... no pun intended of course.

I'm having a bit of a conundrum here and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for or need on my own.

The issue I'm having rest squarely with the floor on this one and as you can see by the picture posted I've started it over again because I was not happy with how the first one turned out. I also slightly increased some of dimensions which means doing some of wall pieces over again. When I measured it "to the inch" the first time, my loco's barely fit into the door openings and gave me concerns as to how much clearance would be left once the doors were installed. So I added about a scale 1 1/2' to each side of the door openings to allow for a bit more play. Over all I don't think this will really hurt the look in the end. So the back wall will have to be redone too because I increased the width of it relative to the front sections as you can see in the photo its now a few feet too short. Oh well.

Now, I've got a couple of ideas on how to accomplish the floor and achieve the finish I'm going after, but I could use some second opinions. I also need to build up the floor surface by about a 1/4 of an inch to closely match the height of the rail head inside each stall.

1) Use 320 Wet/Dry sandpaper glued to hardboard (masonite) and cut to the appropriate sizes and shapes to fill in the floor. The only concern I have with this is that the floor might look to uniform in appearance or not look right at all.

2) Use the masonite to build up the floor, but paint it a flat black and "dust it" with some Scenic Express cinders which I picked up at the LHS a while ago.

3) Use the masonite to build up the floor again, but perhaps use some fine sanded grout to dust up the surface.