American Hardware Supply build - Part 2

Made a little more headway on the American Hardware Supply building, but it feels like it's been slow going overall.  Weathering the walls as I go, and then modifying the loading dock.

First off, those loading doors are all rather small, so I cut out some of the brick wall to make one door larger.  I used a spare roll-up door from my spare parts box, so that all worked out well.  The other door I intend to leave as the smaller size, and was thinking of putting a sign on it to say "Do Not Use.  Closed.", or something like that.

I thought I'd like to extend the loading dock across the entire length of the building, rather than just reach from one dock door to the other as it's designed.  I made an extension the proper length out of scraps of .040 styrene, and put a concrete block facing on it just to make it appear that one section or the other had been re-built at some point. This worked out too, but took me some time, as the first time I made the dock section it turned out too tall. I'm not sure how I got that so wrong.

The windows on the left hand side have been permanently filled in with concrete.  I used actual concrete patch material for that.  A quick brush over with thinned dark grey toned down the look of that material.

The building wall had a bit of a warp in it.  I've seen this often before with Walther's structure kits.  I used some small C-clamps I had to get the original section of the loading dock to stay welded (glued) to the building. I also reinforced that bond by adding some scraps of styrene angle underneath the dock.

This view shows the loading dock's two sections as installed.  I had also put a few gouges in the edges of the dock to show a bit of damage, and ran some weathering streaking down from them.  The two brick sections are wall sections for the head house (?) on the rooftop.

You get spare or alternate support parts for the water tank in the kit.  I kind of like this steel one.  It might make a nice change from the concrete supports that I've used for the Walthers water tank on other kits in the past.  Some cutting and filing will have to be done to use it though, so I'm not sure I'll actually do that. We''ll see.

Hoping to get to the window glazing and the roof next.

Wouldn't want you to miss this new YouTube video of the Miami Downtown Spur layout from Lance Mindheim and his friend Tolga Erbora.  Lots to see and soooo many great structures and scenery ideas.  Here's the ;link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4QyVZv6TZU

That's it for this time.  Thanks for looking in.

This and That for February 2023

I was pretty happy (make that excited) last week to hear from Kevin Smith that a photo from my JSSX has made it into the March issue of Model Railroader magazine.  It's covers pages 62 and 63, in the Trackside Photos section.

Also newsworthy, George Dutka, who of course has the White River Division blog, now has a book out appropriately called "Model Railroading with George Dutka".  It's published by White River Productions, who as we all know are the publishers of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine.

Here's a link to the White River Productions web page for George's book.  You'll be able to read the bullet points of his book's contents, and order it if you'd like to do so.

https://shop.whiteriverproductions.com/products/mrgd

In other news, I suppose everyone has seen video of the giant NS derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.  Another separate problem took place in North Carolina last week.  I thought this image from the news was a bit of an eye-popper...

National Salvage & Service, a used tie storage facility in Wayne County, North Carolina had a fire last Saturday.  Those fire trucks look awfully small, and that fire looks awfully big.  I hope that no one got hurt.

Click on this link below to read more about it, keeping in mind that it's dated last Saturday, the 11th.

https://www.goldsborodailynews.com/2023/02/11/firefighters-on-scene-at-large-fire-on-old-mount-olive-highway/

Last September I showed this image here on the blog.

Below is the first "update" for it.  The painting sat in it's packaging for the rest of the fall and well into January before I finally got started actually working on it.  Here's a look at what's been accomplished so far.  This is after probably about 10 - 12 hours actual working time at our dining room table.

 

This thing isn't easy. I'll show more again in a few weeks, hopefully with a bit more progress.

I'll close out the week now with this view of JSSX 813 on the spur alongside South Industrial Blvd.  I just wish I could get that chain link in focus too.

Maybe I can go back and try again to improve the focus, but the neighborhood looks a little sketchy

A Start on the American Hardware Supply Kit Build

 We'll get to the American Hardware building in a minute, but first I wanted to show the picture that Brian sent this week of his new diorama he's been working away at.The main structures and silos are the Walthers Bakery kit.  I like the dark colour Brian has used here, and I kind of like that some of the ties on the spur are missing too. 

Brian also found time to double back for another picture of the gondola that I posted here a couple of weeks ago.  Not sure how he did it, but this time he managed to grab a shot of the interior.

Rails, gravel and dirt, and some broken ties.  Maybe these ties are the ones missing from the rail spur on his diorama.

As for me, I got a bit of a start on one of the structures that had I picked up at the Woodstock Train Show 3 weeks ago.  I really like assembling or kit bashing these type of structure kits, and I've looked at the American Hardware Supply kit in hobby shops and on-line for a long time.  I was pretty happy to run across this one at a friendly price at Woodstock.

I also watched a video of how another modeler assembled the same kit. Not saying I'll do the same things, but there's a couple of ideas that I might try out for myself. The video is a half hour long, but there are some interesting ideas in it.  Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK5t6gbq9_w&t=988s

Below is a look at the structure's walls while they're still on their sprues

Pretty much the same view again below, but I've painted the concrete pillar areas with a darker grey.  Sort of pre-weathering, or pre-shading I think it's called

And the same picture yet again, but with the brick areas painted.  I used CraftSmart Brick Red craft paint applied with a flat brush for this. 
 

That's as far as I've gotten with this building so far...next up will be to darken down the brick a bit with a dark wash.

Ground Hog Day

 

Looks more like a cartoon beaver to me, but maybe that's just me being Canadian

An internet acquaintance (Monty) had this Atlas boxcar for sale last week via facebook.  I'd didn't think I'd ever seen this particular paint scheme and reporting marks on a boxcar before, so I decided rather quickly that I'd like to add it to the roster here.

Atlas NSC 50 foot boxcar, decorated in Youngstown & Austintown paint.   Ooops, just now noticed the wheels off the rails.  That's not good.

I haven't yet found any photos of these cars in this paint scheme on the interwebs, so I'm not sure how this one will be weathered. I'll keep looking though in order to get some ideas.

I brought this Bowser SD40 out of the cupboard this week.  It's not the type of thing that the JSSX shortline would buy for itself, but could have a chance to show up around here from time to time as a leaser.

An excellent model that I've seldom operated with here. How 'bout that fuel tank though?!  I believe that the prototype engines were sold off to a leasing company.

Of course I would like to patch this one as a lease engine, but it's another model that I've had trouble finding photos for.