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Comments
Marty
Thanks Karl, James, Wes, Dave, John, Bryan and Marty, always appreciated. Moved back to the main dock and installed the pilings. As you can see, I’ll need to pick-up some more Rembrandt 408.3 chalk pretty soon. The pilings are pretty straight forward, first the staining of the dowels:
I used this block of wood to make the jig. The template and square was used to align the guides:
Pieces of ¼” stock were glued to the base of the block in order for the jig to sit on top of the deck ribs and clear the beams:
While the jig was drying, applied the barnacles to the bottoms of the pilings (first 3 rows), I really should’ve done this after the pilings and braces were installed.
Starting from the back (sure wished the block was just a bit longer…)
Completed pilings.
Test fit to ensure correct height.
Well braced and weighted to dry:
Onto the bracing of the pilings, as you can see I’ll need to come back and apply some more barnacles around the bottom of the bracing. Now that I’ve done it, I should have barnacled the pilings with the bracing applied since I had to scrap off quite a bit of the barnacles to attach the bracing.
Next will be to finish the piling and bracing, and then it’s onto mixing some sculptamold and getting messy (I should have installed a sink in the work-shop when we built the house….)
'til Next
Paul
'til Next
Paul
Dave
That's beautiful. Am I correct thinking the length for the pilings is perfect with one inch foam? I plan to check foam thickness available to me soon - actually before I begin that dock. I like your jig and plan to copy it. I see more accuracy than what I am using. Thank you for the idea.
With benefit of hind sight, can you speculate a way to hold off barnacles until the pilings and cross braces are in place? It appears they all attach to five long square beams. Do you think I could delay attaching those beams to the dock so I could first glue the pilings & cross braces, dip each in barnacles and then glue that affair to the underside of the dock? I wonder if I have asked that clearly? Your thoughts, please . . .
Respectfully,
John
Much appreciated, Dave, Wes, Bryan and John. John, if I were to build the dock again, I would do everything according to Brett’s instructions, but hold off the barnacles until all the pilings and braces are applied. Once all is dry and secure, it would be easy to apply (brush on) a little diluted white glue to each piling (and brace) and then sprinkle the barnacles (ballast) on (I find dipping the pilings in the barnacles leads to clumping).
As for the height of the dock, it would be best to check on the diorama the exact length (height) of the piling rather than rely on the template, foam thickness may vary.
I had to clean up the work-shop (… already) in order to be able to pull out the work bench so I’d have access all around. Here’s the results:
Ok … I will this week start the scenery (just a few more pic’s of finishing the pilings and barnacles to come).
'til Next
Paul
Now were talking a beautiful job there. Looking forward to the scenery part .
Jerry
Nice looking setup overall. Thank you for answering my questions - I shall heed your advice. The barnacles are already on the 6 derrick dock pilings - I will proceed as you advise. I bought my MDF and the foam is exactly an inch. I really like your two bench setup. I am trying to figure out a way to do the same.
Respectfully,
John
A very organized work area. Do you have a painting area?
Are all those boxes of unmade freight cars?
Marty
Thanks Jerry, John, Bryan and Marty much appreciated. Bryan, you should see the rest of the house, my better-half insists everything should be neat, clean and tidy ( no kidding…). Marty, we prepared a room in the basement for a future bathroom (no sink, shower or toilet yet, just the electrical/sheet rock/ventilation fan/plumbing are in). Unfortunately, at the moment it’s full of stuff that usually goes in a cabana in the back yard. Hopefully next fall I’ll be able to clean it out and put in a sink and spray paint booth). The boxes on the shelves are mostly Accurail boxcars, all built, most are weathered, which I pick from for running trains at our local club.
Moving right along with the main dock, I’ve finished the pilings and barnacle’ing, here’s how it turned out:
Finally the time has come (according to the superb construction manual) to start the scenery aspect of the Shipyard (and the most daunting for me at the moment). First, the retaining walls are epoxied on the left and right side of the pit. Scratched my head a few times regarding the brick wall at the end of the rail spur, discussed with Brett, and finally chose to cut off the bottom row of bricks to make the height equal to the long retaining wall:
At this time I gathered all of my collected (many years worth…) scenery materials and sorted them on the new (now cluttered) work bench (I’ve quite the stock pile of empty Becel margarine containers, more keep coming down from the kitchen every week).
Instructions call for coating the Styrofoam with PS Earth, of course that’s one PS color I (nor the LHS) had on hand, so I’ve substituted DecoArt craft paint Tan.
Next, painting the front of the diorama (water area) dark using DecoArt Black and Navy Blue.
Then it was onto mixing the Sculptamold. The instructions called for 1 cup Sculptamold…, I took that as 2 dry cups Sculptamold and 1 cup water (2:1 mix:water as per package instructions) resulting in 1 cup of ready to use Sculptamold. In hind-site, it really doesn’t matter, if you do run out there’s plenty of time to quickly mix up another batch (as Marty says, it takes a while for the Sculptamold to dry, plenty of working time). The instructions also call for mixing PS Earth (ArtDeco Tan) into the Scultamold, I found mixing the Tan into the water and then mixing the Sculptamold made it a bit easier mixing:
Once the pit was filled with a gradual slope to the rear, the keel forming template was used to contour the pit to match the keel:
After the pit area was treated, moved onto under the main dock area. First filling the trench (ledge) cut earlier in the Styrofoam
in front of the main building’s foundation:
I added a few plaster rocks that I had lying around and moved onto applying very fine brown earth (mixed with a bit of sand).
Once the dirt and sand was applied everywhere on top of the Sulptamold, it was time to plant the main dock…, and of course most of the back pilings were hanging in mid air. This was easily corrected by applying more Scupltamold and dirt.
The next step in the process is to plant the ship (while the Sulptamold is still wet), this will be my next post (hopefully tomorrow) since I’ve got to get going on prepping for my better half’s Birthday dinner tonight (roasted Lamb chops…might even BBQ them…).
'til Next
Paul
I would like to thank you for your excellent postings in building this kit. I find them very valuable as I assemble mine.
Best regards,
Mitch
John
Thanks, Mitch, John and Bryan. Time for sinking the ship into the Sculptamold …this was done right after applying the Sculptamold, took a bit of time and eye-sight in lining the ship, oriented with the bow in the rear of the pit and angled slightly to the left. After setting the ship, dirt was applied around the keel supports (partially burying them).
Once all the dirt was in place wet water was applied over the dirt (with cardboard shields to protect the docks from over-spray).
After the wet water was applied, thoroughly drenched the dirt area with 50/50 water/white-glue mixture using a syringe:
After a night of drying:
That’s it for the Shipyard build this year. Coming next will be the scaffolding around the ship and then onto completing the diorama.
All the best to everyone in the New Year.
'til Next Year
Paul
Now were talking a beautiful job there. Looking forward to the scenery part .
Jerry
Great update. Thanks.
Karl.A
Brilliant.
John
Thanks Brett, Jerry, Karl, Bryan, Dustin and John, always appreciated.
Bit of a side track here and a few pic’s on the railroad progress (I’ve a general track plan but have yet to finalize) and the future location of the Shipyard. The room is L-shaped, so there’ll be a peninsula down the middle 2/3’rds and the then along the walls. Second level is a possibility, but this will require a helix in the work-shop. As for the Shipyard it will be located just after an inside corner which should allow for decent viewing of all sides (there will be a scenery divide down the middle of the peninsula). The main line will be passing behind the shipyard but at a higher elevation (with a possible river/bridge). I should have a sketch soon…
Back to the ship, time for getting the keel supports in place (before the ship keels over). This is where I diverged from the instruction manual a bit (which I was not intending to do…). I read the instructions on planting the ship frame in the sculptamold (quite a few times, but I stopped at the end of the section), I should have turned the page and read on since the instructions call for installing the Keel supports “while” the Sculptamold is wet (that way you can sink the Keel supports into the sculptamold). The scupltamold was rock hard by the time I got around to installing the Keel supports. It wasn’t that bad though, using a very pointed tweezer and pin-vise, I was able to dig down a bit to make the support look like it was sunk into the dirt (required a bit of trimming of the keel support). I did notice that this was not really a mistake since the ship was securely locked in place by the dried scupltamold, which meant it never shifted while placing the supports. OK… now for the pic’s, first a bit of staining and the then placing the stern keel supports:
Tools used: pencil, tweezers, pin (vise) and file for trimming the supports. It was also nice that the two docks were firmly held in place since they made for nice resting places to stabilize my shaky hands.
Placing the Keel supports:
All braces in place on the port(?) side:
The two Keel supports at the front…
…and the brace at the back (I presume to avoid having the ship slide into the water)…
Next will be placing the scaffolding (and finishing the layout bench-work…and finalizing the track plan...).
'til Next
Paul
John
Thanks Wes, James, Bryan and John always appreciated.
Moving along with the Shipyard, time to assemble the scaffolding. Starting with the walk-ways, stained, brushed and scapped (with the end of a #10 blade to give a well worn look) 1/32”x1/8” strip wood.
Not forgetting to distress and stain the ends:
Ready for assembly:
Assembled and now to apply the treads and positioning on the ship (not glued yet):
Next will be the scaffold supports (5/64” sq brushed and stained) located around the ship at various heights:
At this time the scaffolding was glued to the ship:
The height of the bow scaffold brace was checked with a ruler:
The 5/64” (extra) bracing was used to gauge the height of the bow scaffold support:
A few more final touches (support bracing, scrap wood chute, ramps, ladders, clutter, dirt, sea-weed) and I’ll be done with the ship andthen it’s on to finishing the diorama… starting to think I’ll make it for the 2016 FSMR expo (gives me extra time to build the Sea Port Model Works Workboat/Lighter, Juneco flat-car and box-car that will be on the diorama).
'til Next
Paul
Respectfully,
John