J-1, J-2 (as built), or J-3 - certainly among the most photogenic of any steam locomotives.

Gary, your plan for the headquarters building sounds good. Contact cement (I prefer Lepages Gelled Contact Cement, although it's available only in quart or gallon cans) should work well for laminating plastic to the plywood. I've found that "prepping" the styrene with a coat of lacquer thinner before applying the contact cement seems to help the latter adhere better - the styrene is then less likely to draw the solvent out of the contact cement, which can result in a poor bond on the styrene.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne, how do you go about applying the lacquer thinner? Am I correct to think it can craze the plastic? I was thinking of using epoxy, what are your thoughts on that?

Gary,
When I did the drydock for the Ntrak module, I used water based contact cement to glue basswood to the foam base, and then styrene sheet (concrete) to the basswood. It's been several years since, and I still haven't seen any separation, either from the foam base, or of the styrene sheet from the basswood.
this pic shows the basic drydock, with the ship it was designed for. The styrene sheet "concrete" hadn't been attached yet when this was taken. [attachment=2396]

I find a sheet of plastic, such as styrene, is good place on which to mix epoxy, as, when cured, the residue will lift right off. Epoxy is okay to affix styrene in place, as long as there's also a mechanical connection, such as pins or an interlocking fit between parts.
The lacquer thinner can be applied with a brush - I use a 1" brush when I'm working with larger surface areas. Just paint it on the rear face of the styrene brick material, wait a minute or two, then brush on the contact cement. Make sure to let the contact cement dry to the touch before joining the two surfaces, though, and to be sure of the proper alignment, as contact cement does not allow repositioning. The plywood sub-structure may need two coats of contact cement, as the wood often absorbs too much of the initial application to give a good bond.

I used this method some years ago to place all of the styrene streets on the plywood layout top, and have had no issues of lifting, warping or deformation of the styrene.








Wayne

ooo, thats an amazing building. Me like alot.

Thanks Wayne and Pete, looks like contact cement is the way to go, I am only concerned with getting the sheet on alighned correctly. I haven't had a chance to do any work on the projext since I last wrote, and will be away for a few days so nothing will happen till the end of the week. Once I've sanded the plywood I should be able to form the brick sheet around the corners with the top course of brick parallel with the top of the plywood. The top is level but the bottom is not as the subroadbed is on a grade. As long as I can get the brick sheet to go around two corners and leave me with vertical edges on the long walls to butt up against on first attempt I should be ok! Shouldn't be a problem to put the bends in the sheet and make "dry" runs to make sure all is correct. Thanks again for the info, I can't wait to get back and get going on this.

Gary, one way to get some "fiddle time" when using contact cement is to place a sheet of waxed paper between the two surfaces to be joined. Because it's semi-transparent, you should be able to line things up, then slide the paper out. It helps, of course, if you've pre-fitted the brick sheet so that you can rest it either on the "ground" or against temporary stops installed at the top of the plywood sub-walls - that way, you need be concerned with only the lateral alignment.
If your "brick" sheet is flexible enough to bend around the corners, it sounds as if it may be the Holgate & Reynolds product - there's no need to use lacquer thinner on this material, as, if I recall correctly, it's impervious to the thinner.

Wayne

Hi Wayne, I'm back from my short trip. I do have some of the old Holgate and Reynolds material, which is vinyl. But I was planning on using the styrene brick sheet by Model Builders Supply Line, part of N Scale Architect. I believe when you were here you took a close look at the Quinn Ball Bearing plant. It uses the Holgate and Reynolds material. The powerhouse on the other hand uses the Model Builders styrene sheet. The pic below show a couple corners on the powerhouse. Note the sharp corner by the loading door split when formed, as you might expect. The corner of the building did not, but is a bit rounded, not a tight 90 degree corner. This seems to be the dilema of using styrene versus the vinyl. However, I experimented and it seems possible to get a tighter corner with styrene by heating the styrene with a hair dryer. Before I went away I cut a piece of the vinyl material and bent it to 90 degrees, and heated a bit of the styrene material with the hair dryer, and bent it to 90 degrees. I used Barge cement to attach both pieces to a piece of wood. Barge cement is basically a contact cement, I think. I bought and use it for glueing rail to both plastic and wood ties. I have never (over several years) had any gauge problems with track laid this way. So I thought I'd give it a try. Upon coming home four days later, both the vinyl and styrene brick are securely attached, and the styrene was not affected adversely. The heated styrene sems to have tken the 90 degree bend well. For reasons of ideal material consumption, I would love to use the vinyl material for the "basement" walls as shown earlier, and styrene for the main bldg, as I would not need to buy more of either. However, the size of the bricks depicted by the two products are very different, leading me to believe I should not do so. You can see the size difference in the pic below, I quicly brushed on some thinned black paint to make the brick sizes more evident. Do you agree the difference is too stark?

[attachment=2438]

[attachment=2437]

A good trick to remember for doing the corners, Gary.

From my recollections, the smaller bricks are the H&R ones. In my opinion, it would probably look better with the larger bricks for the foundation, although not necessarily. While many "structural" bricks were oversize, the same could be said for ornamental types, too. Colouring can play a big part in making this look "right". Depending on how much of the foundation will show on the "public" side of the building, you could probably get away with using the H&R bricks for the foundation if they were at least a slightly different colour - around here, bricks used as part of a support structure are usually very plain-looking - all the same colour, usually a very bland shade of brick red. You might try adding a stone or concrete sill between the two types of brick, too - a simple strip of styrene, scribed if it's meant to represent stone, should do the trick.

Another way to de-emphasise the difference in brick sizes is to use a mortar colour that is fairly similar to the colour of the brick, especially for the foundation. I know that this sorta defeats the purpose of using brick as far as the detail and relief is concerned, but some weathering should still allow the detail to "pop" sufficiently.

Wayne

I think that the larger "brick" shown in the photo above would work well as a cut stone foundation when used in conjunction with the smaller brick pattern. Painted like stone instead of brick should further help viewers "buy-in" to the illusion.

Andrew

Thanks for the replies guys. I should have noted which was which in the bove photo. Wayne is correct, the Holgate and Reynolds is indeed the smaller brick of the two. In the photo, it does look almost as if the larger (styrene) brick is a type of cut stone. I believe this is due to the huge difference in size when placed side by side. The powerhose wall in the photo above shows the larger styrene brick. Here is a photo of the ball baring plant wall, I think in both cases the bricks look like they are sized correctly, but the ball bearing plant using the H&R vinyl are actually too small.

[attachment=2445]

Unfortunately, I cannot use the smaller brick for the main structure, I do not have enough and I do not believe you can get it anymore. When I bought all I could for the ball bearing plant in 2004, it was already discontinued and hard to find. I don't really like working with it anyway. The relief on this product is very shallow, and the spackle method of applying mortor does not work, at least it did not for me. I went back to Zealot and found the original thread for Quinn Ball Bearing, here is a link.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.zealot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101799&highlight=quinn+ball+bearing&page=3">http://www.zealot.com/forum/showthread. ... ing&page=3</a><!-- m -->

I wrote a small book on my attempts to get this material looking good. I eventually did, using a method summed up on page 3 of that thread. The styrene sheet and kit walls by Walthers and DPM seem very friendly to the spackle method, which I by far prefer. Anyway, the size of the vinyl material I have on hand is ideal for the foundation walls, but less than desirable for the main walls. As Wayne pointed out, I had planned on using a concrete sill between the walls to visually seperate them to some extent. Wayne asked about how much foundation will show on the public side (I assume front) and the answer is none. As you'll recall Wayne, the foundation wall we are speaking of faces both the aisle, above the control panel for the yard, and more importantly, they are the center of attention where the tracks pass beneath the rear of the structure. The front and other side of this bldg are at the same level as the engine facility, so have no visable foundation.

I wonder if a variation of what Wayne suggested (mortor color similar to brick color) would work in regard to minimizing the size difference of the brick. Many brick walls I see are painted, so the brick and mortor are the same color. Thoughts?

Another thing to keep in mind is that mortar can be tinted to almost any colour. All of the brick structures shown below were painted with Floquil reefer orange, then different shades of mortar were applied, and slightly different weathering methods used.








This particular shade of orange brick was quite common in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, although many structures appeared much darker on account of airborne pollutants. If you use the spackle method of applying mortar, you can pre-tint it with acrylic paints, or simply add a wash of the same after the "mortar" is in place.

Wayne

All I can say is magnificent!!! That's some fantastic modeling. Thanks for sharing the photos and the great tips.


Ben

Thanks Ben, and welcome to Big Blue! You'll find some very good modelers here who are also willing to answer all the questions you can come up with. I take advantage of them and you can too. Hope to see more posts from you, take care.

Hey, Ben!! WELCOME!!!