Hi All

I have been building part of the boiler house for the Chagford Dairy of the Cooperative Wholesale Society. Or should I say a quarter of it as the rest is off scene.

The model building is based on the boiler house kit from Kestrel. The basic shape is correct, but the windows and the door construction are wrong on this kit. This type of construction is called scratch bashing, as I am modifying a kit, but adding feature which are built from scratch. The end of the building was first cut in half using a raiser saw. The large door into the building where cut out and replaced with a plain sheet of plasticard fixed to the inside. The lapped door was then built up on this base.

Next I turned my attention to the building side, the widow less side was cut in half. An aperture slightly too small for the window was then cut out, working from the back of the sheet. Then the sides were filled to size, at this point the bottom of the aperture was lined up with a course of bricks.

Next a piece of clear plasticard was glued to the reverse of the sheet. Using very thin strips of plasticard the window frames were built up. Small amounts of glue on the clear plasticard will smear it, but window in industrial building were never kept as clean as house windows, so this doesn't matter.

The building was then carefully assembled, making sure that the corner was square. After the glue dried the building was offered up to the corner of the layout to check that it fitted as required.

The boiler house will of course need painting and weathering and the back corner of the roof will need to be radiused to allow the curve on the extension backscene.

Lisa