The Yard Office: Update: 6/17/24: Major Progress

[Bomber_County]

1 hour ago, Peterpools said:

Thanks Rob, so very much appreciated. Yup, the mojo is back and in full swing - thank goodness for that. So glad you're onboard for the rail journey and enjoying the build. Back in the day, I predominately built HO and O scale craftsmen structure kits from basswood and hydrocal, as both have always been my favorite mediums to work in. Hydrocal brick and masonry walls are more work as they need a lot of clean up and getting them to have the proper look takes time and an artistic eye, which you surely have. 

Looking forward to you tackling and working your magic on a few plaster structures down the road.

 

This one passed me by completely, great your mojo is back and some stunning structures work. Like you, another passion of mine is finescale 4mm (00) locomotives and rolling stock. Mixed media’s, white metal, brass, styrene etc so much fun can be had. We moan about instructions on IM kits, all of the cottage industry kit suppliers just give you one sided badly drawn 3D scribble and say go for it. Enjoy and let’s see lots more pictures……

[Peterpools]

Phil

Welcome onboard;  Outstanding! Would love to see some photographs of your work as we're expanding the scope of our modeling interests now on the forum. The Yard Office is a multi media kit, four hydrocal walls and basswood, everything is cut to size by the builder and carefully glued in place with either Elmers Glue-All or Titebond Yellow Glue. Of course, brush painting is the name of the game and hopefully after all these years, my weathering will be realistic. 

All the casting I'm working on are white metal ort even 3D printed these days - amazing for sure.

 

 

[Peterpools]

Paul

Prety cool, I never saw live steam actually run and it seems to run well. Is there a way of changing speeds so it can run on a layout?

 

[Peterpools]

MAJOR PROGRESS

Since the last update, the Yard Office has turned the corner and is now in the home stretch. After quite a bit of fussing and tweaking the four hydrocal walls were glued together using Titebond II Wood Glue, with the inside corners reinforced with 1/8 sq basswood. After allowing time for the walls to dry, the wooden portion of the structure was glues into place again with Titebond for extra strength and then entire assembly left to dry overnight.

The loading platform was built up with weathered strip wood (Drafting Ink and Alcohol). Of course, I didn’t follow the instructions, just winging it so it looked good and then glued into place. Being a craftsmen style structure kit, all the parts are located by eye and feel.

Before the cardboard sub roofs were glue on, I decided the shed roof needed some rafter tails for some extra interest and they were cut and added. Being a model railroad structure, it’s more important to go for the look and feel and not worry about accurate prototypical constructions practices.

The kit comes with a small sheet of paper that has the tarpaper strips printed on it and needs to be cut out. Each ‘role – strip’ was glued on with white glue, a slow process taking extra care not to smear the glue all over the place. I added some patches for effect and wear. The tar paper was painted a weathered worn black and dry brushed to pick out the details.

The printed roof sign was just plain paper and I built the roof sign around it, again, winging as I went. I wanted it to look old and had seen it better days, so it was glued into position not level as if it had been repaired more then a few times over the years.

At this point, all that remains before crossing the line :

A good deal of touch up trim painting needs to be done

Painting and weathering all the castings, lightly weathering the structure and waiting for the extra castings I ordered to arrive.

 

[DocRob]

The Yard Office looks fantastic Peter. Your brother will be proud to have it as a part of his railroad. Nothing better than a motivational build, whatever it is to regain the good modeling vibes. Thank you for showing something different here. I took mental notes for when my first wood and plaster kit looms.

Cheers Rob 

[Peterpools]

Thank you Rob so very much for our kind comments on the Yard Office. It was absolutely a fun build and thank goodness, unlocked my modeling mojo. 

I'm planning on doing a structure diorama after the A-10C in O scale and the details with that kit is amazing. I'm finding that by alternating between venues, it keeps everything fresh and I'm eager to sit and work at the bench again.

 

[CANicoll]

Peter, I'd swear you had the exact building to model from when you did this amazing work.  I am blown away at how excellent this is!  Just awesome.  Definitely agree with your views on changing up the venues to keep things fresh - you have mastered that. 

Every time I go back and look at your pictures, I see something else that is amazing.  Great job!!  

[Peterpools]

Thanks, Chris so much for the wonderful comments on the structure kit. Today I plan on adding the last of the castings as they are now in hand. Some finally weathering and the yard Office is going to cross the line. Absolutely was what I needed to get the juices flowing and the mojo into gear. Seems at this stage of the game, spice and not doing the same type of builds one after another is the path to follow.

 

[belugawhaleman]

On 6/16/2024 at 4:03 PM, Peterpools said:

Paul

Prety cool, I never saw live steam actually run and it seems to run well. Is there a way of changing speeds so it can run on a layout?

 

There is a rotary valve between the cylinders that controls direction and

can , in a limited sense, control speed, but no, you can't get this thing to run

slowly. Your build looks great. 

[Peterpools]

Thanks, Paul for the info, as I always wondered if there was some sort of throttle built in.

So glad you liked the structure build, just a fun project and I have another one planned in O scale and this time am planning it as a diorama, even with some figures - now that's tempting fate for sure.

 

[Spitfire]

That looks absolutely superb, great modelling.

Cheers

Dennis

[Peterpools]

Thanks Dennis, so very much appreciated.

A great alternate build project and mojo builder. I built the Yard Office for my brother's model railroad and I have a few more structure kits but in O scale and will be working them into my 'build schedule' down the road. Just a lot of fun and these types of kits are more imagination oriented and allow for a lot more freedom in who we choose to build them as compared to scale models where accuracy and details are the name of the game.