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O Scale Mill Engine & Boiler House
I have started a "Kitmingle" of Kit No. 300 the Mill Engine & Boiler House as part of of the heavily modified Schomberg Scale Models "The Forney House".
Is this a thread you would like ?
Is this a thread you would like ?
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Then work, Summer chores, hunting seasons, now back to the trains....
Here is where we start.
Download XnView here: http://www.xnview.com/en/xnview.html
When you run the program, open the picture that you want to resize and click "Image" at the top left-hand side. Scroll down to "resize". Most of us resize to a width of 800 or 900. Check the boxes "keep ratio" and "resample" then click OK. After it resizes the image, save it and you're good to go. That's the basics without any cropping or fancy stuff.
As you will see I have heavily modified the Roundhouse.
-rotated the walls 180 to put the windows higher
-went with a much more "bland look"
-painted walls a auto parts store "Primer" ruddy brown
-the work-cabinets are painted "Woodland Green" water colour and then after two weeks given a wash of black leather dye dissolved in 95% alcohol
-I extended the roundhouse to the back to make a "shop" area and will use kit #300 to put a boiler et.al to power the shop
-I am going to model the rafters and smoke catchers with no roof so all the details can be seen easier (why model a roof just to be removed to show people)
-as I have commented in other threads, I will try to use the inspiration of the excellent modeling on this forum to do justice to Brett's kit
I went back and edited your original post with the large picture so that it's down to a managable size. If you look to the right of the attahments, it shows the size of the picture (not dimensional size, but data size). The original picture was 3 Meg (4000x3000 pixels). That's a big file! Using XnView, I resized it to dimensions of 800x600 which reduces the data size to 83K--about 400% smaller.
It looks like you got the hang of it now. One suggestion I'd make is to go even a little bigger than the size of your last post. The reason being that when you get to the point that you're posting nice detail work, people (including me) will want to see a larger picture. If you look at my Mill thread, the forum will load the pics at a size of something like 600x400. But, if you click on it, it expands in a new window at the full 900x600.
Okay...enough boring tech talk! This should be cool to see what you do with this project. You're build may be the motivation for Brett to put out an SW round house kit (no pressure!)
I will use your advice on the detail pics later in the build.
I am this close [ ] to ordering the machinery from Brett for the shop.
I think I will talk to Mrs. Santa CLaus tonight after work................. :-)
and replace frequently !
Here is a picture of the Sierra West kit castings before I start the paint / weathering process. I commend Brett on how crisp they are - - well done.
Karl.A
Your pics are a great inspiration - - I will try to do this justice.
I am in research mode this AM and the "Ahah" moment was how close together the equipment and men were. Then I remembered that "on job safety" back then was "...you get injured you are fired."
The patina is awesome.
See the handles and hinges on the smoke boxfront.
Karl--once again, your work is enough to tempt me to give up HO and switch to O (dear God, I HOPE those are all O scale! I may join the rest of you in that knitting hobby if they're HO). Each picture I see of that engine makes me do a double-take. That, my friend, is true artistry!
Karl.A
Now if I can just fit in time at the workbench between work, commuting, sleep, etc...
I am working through the manual... drilled the holes; next step Brett said was weather ("Blacken-It" BI ) the metal castings.
I thought this stuff will be messy. Read the instructions on the BI and thought Humm. I asked myself how do I control / not lose / weather all the small bits? How do I do the water rinse and not lose the castings? How do I reuse the liquid and get the casting out in the 30 to 90 seconds BI says to?
Bought a bin to do the dipping in - to control the splash.
Bought measuring cups (MCs) to hold the liquid in small quanities.
Bought cheap wooden spoons to stir, pick-up, hold and move the stuff in the liquids.
The large bins are for when I do the soak staining (see one of Brett's manuals re these instructions for wood). Drilled holes in a MC so can use as a strainer. Modified a spoon by drilling holes and thinning down its nose to be sure to get in the corners.
Placed some BI in a MC; placed some parts in the BI in the MC; after 30 seconds of swirling held the MC with the drilled holes over another MC and poured from the first MC the BI plus parts into the holy MC; swirled the parts in the holy MC in the blue pan of water; poured the BI back into the first MC; placed the parts on the blue shop-towel and patted dry; then repeated;
Using Robert's Mortar I did the mortar lines in the walls. Too fast too many at one time so...
I was unable to get the excess off the brick faces.
After thinking about it for days I came up with an option.
Laying the wall sections almost flat I again spray painted the red again. It went on just hitting the bricks and lintels leaving the mortar lines off white.
Then I hit the stall doorway lintels with soft sprays inside and out with Tamiya Nato black to represent the soot of the engines in and out.
I will look at this for a few days as I continue working on the mill engine and boiler castings. If I can live with how it looks then I will weather further, put the off-gray lower wall paint for the interior (friends tell me this was to help make the shop brighter), vines on the exterior, and then put the walls together. I have found doing these tasks when the wall units are flat on the workbench life is easier.
P.S. the dates on the pictures should be January 14th not the 07th.
A suggestion, if you don't mind. The color on the bricks seems too uniform. I think if you add a few orange ones here and there and some deeper red ones you'll see that it adds variety and realism. I have only limited experience with brickwork, but the way I'd do it is get a couple shades of orange and red chalks that are fairly close to your brick color and apply them randomly using alcohol to individual bricks.
I'm sure others will have some ideas how to do it, too.
Since January work on the trains was more thinking than work done. In late January the other members of the module group asked me to "drastically" change my pieces. This caused a major re-think on location of the shop part of the roundhouse. I am still working this out.
I am working on the Sierra West engine. The boiler is coming along and I painted it Tamiya TS-63 Nato Black. The shop and roundhouse will be very well maintained so the weathering / rust / age on the boiler, engine and shop machinery will be more "aged" than derelict. You may be able to see extra holes in the smoke-box. As you can see in the boiler pic in December, there were four dogs holding those doors closed and I liked the look. So I will be putting on 4 dogs. I did warn you I tend to modify all kits.
I did research roundhouses and found many painted the lower walls to make the building brighter. After masking the walls I used Tamiya TS-7 Racing White to spray the lower walls.
After they dried for a week I laid the walls flat in the paint-booth and shot almost horizontally over them with the Tamiya TS-63 Nato Black.
I sprayed the window frames Tamiya TS-7 Racing white. After they dried for a few weeks I glued the frames into the walls with MI9 Micro Kristal Klear.
The wood mullions were painted Tamiya TS-7 Racing white as well. After they dried for a few weeks I glued them into the frames with MI9 Micro Kristal Klear
In April I cut "glass" for the windows from a clear page protector sleeve. This plastic is thin, low chemical content (so they do not contaminate paper), and cheap. I buy them by the 100 from Staples (for work and another hobby). The "glass" was glued into the window frames with MI9 Micro Kristal Klear.
This is the current status and with still working 12 hour days, the yard work, fishing season starting, and just wanting to be outside this may be as far as I get till Fall.
I was just wondering if any of you could tell me what tyvek is?
I have no idea what to ask for, I believe its a material that is used to make envelopes or packaging of some sort. When I go to my local big box office supply store, they look blankly at me and say that they cannot help. I suppose I need a description, so that I can start looking for an alternative, or a maker's name that is known here is Australia. Many thanks, Greg
Runner, I notice from the link that you sent that there apparently are at least two types....copied from the link page..
>Very durable product. Soft cloth type of tyvek as opposed to the hard paper like version >used in FedX and other mailer packages.
Which one do I need...? I am assuming the more rigid type, if we are using it to simulate belts to drive various equipment.
Bye for now
Greg
The type you want is the soft cloth type--not the rigid ones. The rigid type that the person is talking about in that comment is just the flimsy traditional paper or thin cardboard envelope.
The Tyvek envelopes will have a slick, soft feel to it (almost like a bag) and like Brett said, have visible fibers:
Here in the States, it's also used as a moisture barrier on houses. So you may want to check at a building supply place or swing by a neighborhood with new construction going on:
I have a few clues where to look now.
Thanks, guys.
Greg