Station Building Progress 4 (Getting by with a liitle help from my friends!)
I've mentioned in previous posts in my blog, that although I was happy with the basic construction of the station building body shell, I wasn't sure how to best tackle the awning brackets or valance. William Clarke's station buildings have a distinctive valance style, which I wanted to capture in my model. The canopy brackets are also quite ornate, some of his designs had a monogram of the railway incorporated in them. The first thing I needed was a decent photo of the bracket style, ideally a good close up.
Thanks to this forum, Tim V sent me a link to photos that he'd taken of Brislington station. One of these is a great close up of one of the brackets
Brislington station awning bracket
As you can see its quite a complex shape and I still couldn't decide on a good way of making one in 7mm scale, let alone the six that I needed for my station building!
Once again the forum came to my rescue! I was contacted by one of our members, crankpin who said he was willing to draw up the bracket in a CAD package and then use a laser cutter to fabricate the brackets from layers of card. I provided him with drawings and dimensions and this is what he came up with!
Card components laser cut to make bracket.
These 5 layers are then laminated together using PVA glue to form each bracket. Once dry the bracket is trimmed to give the finished bracket shape.
Once sprayed with primer its easier to see the fine detail and accuracy that crankpin has acheived.
To say I'm pleased with the result would be a huge understatment! There's no way I could have made brackets using traditional methods to any where near this level of accuracy and consistency. That crankpin is a very clever chap! In addition to him making the components for the six brackets, he also drew up and cut from ABS sheet the required valance.
Once again i would have found it impossible to capture the planking width and the square shaped holes as accurately as the laser cut has managed.
With the Valance and Bracket construction problems resolved, I felt inspired to make a start on the Awning.
On the prototype building, the awning was supported by six steel beams that ran right through the building and terminated on the rear wall. As the awning is nearly as big as the building that is attached, I decided to use a similar method to support my model version. Holes were cut in the front of the building and rectangular section brass tube was used to represent the beams. These were glued in position using epoxy resin.
The awning was constructed using plastic card and the valance attached using Butanone, which appears to bond the ABS to the plastic card well.
Well that's progress so far, I've still got to represent the ribing on the awning roof and make the gutters and downpipes. Once thats done I can start painting and adding all the little details, that will hopefully bring the building to life.
Thanks once again To Crankpin for all his skill and work on my project and to Tim V for his drawings and photographs of William Clarke buildings.
Until the next thrilling instalment!
Best wishes
Dave
- 20
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