NCL Ltd Depot in OO scale

[nomisd]

This as the title suggests is the building of a OO scale NCL for my layout. The building itself is a bit of a late addition to the layout. I have always had a hankering after some sort of parcels based location. I remember seeing Leicester parcels depot when it was still working and it certainly has its appeal for a modeller looking to run more trains! This is sort of the inspiration.

 

The starting point is the Walthers Rail Express Agency building. My intention is to build it pretty much out of the box but try and Anglicise it. What I am doing is painting it before I put it together. One thing I want to try is a ghost sign for the Greta Western Railway Depot Greenford Green. I have got some dry rub transfer printer paper so am hoping to do hopefully a fair rendition of this. So far all I have done is take the walls and windows and undercoated them using a rattle can of Vallejo black. This is a departure as I have always undercoated in grey. I put it down to watching people building tanks on Youtube. I have then done the walls in a Vallejo rattle can of brick red and the windows and canopy supports in white.

 

What I an impressed with is the way you can go over black with white. I am in a bit of a dilemma of which way round to do the lettering for the ghost sign. I had thought that white lettering with a black surround would be the obvious, easier{?}way to go but having gone over the black with white I am learning this way. Coloured transfers though.This is the inspiration for the ghost sign, when the sign in the picture was far from a ghost. I am currently engaged in painting shelfs and lintels concrete. I'll add some photos later. 

 

 

 

[nomisd]

The results of the painting session. I have painted most of the lintels. I have not done on the side of the building that is getting the sign. I decided that it was probably easier to do those once the painting is done. I also worked out that about half of them on that side wouldn't need painting as they are under the sign. I have also masked up ready to start the process of the sign. This is probably the most masking tape I have ever put on a model. I have also tried to paint different areas of brick work different bricky colours. How successful this is I am not sure. 

 

 

 

I also han a go at the loading doors for one side. They come shut but I have cut a few out to represent opened shutters. I am currently in debate with myself as to what colour to paint the shutters. There is a voice that whispers chocolate and cream for the doors and window frames. But another that says green doors and white window frames.  Haven't decided yet.

 

 

 

Next its the black block...

Edited December 5, 2022 by nomisd

[nomisd]

Well that was an odyssey! I started off with Plan A. Sprayed the top half black. The idea was to then make myself some rub on transfers which I would then spray over in white and use tape to take off the the transfer and leave the letters in black underneath. 

 

 

I was going to make my own rub on transfers using rub on transfer paper that I acquired from Amazon. I decided that in keeping with the the idea that the fictional location of my layout was built in the 1930s, using an Art Deco style font would be nice (putting aside  in reality the building would probably be an Art Deco concrete building if it had been built in the 1930s...). So I found a font in Word called Phosphate that had a suitable Deco feeling to it.

 

So I followed the instructions to make the transfers (failing completely with the first attempt as I peeled the backing paper off just after I printed it thus rendering it useless!) and cut them out and placed them on the model to check the spacing and positioning.

 

 

Whilst I was doing this, I realised what the flaw in this plan was. I would essentially be rubbing a entire block on for each word so when I took off the transfer, I would be left with a rectangle of black rather than each individual letter. I thought about it and decided what I needed to do was to cut out each individual letter and rub them on individually. So went to Plan B and I printed another sheet out and started to d this. I gave up after about three letters. Whilst the Ts and Is were easy, I soon realised the the Os and Gs were going to be very difficult (for me) to do. So I reassessed  my plan and came up with Plan C.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2022 by nomisd

[nomisd]

Plan C was what the idea had started off life as - using Letraset. I scoured Amazon (which living in rural France is really my option for getting exotica like that) and found some suitable letters. There were were essentially Times New Roman which was a shame but thats life. SO I ordered them and waited a week for them to be delivered. When I got them, I cut them out individually and used normal sellotape to make up the words on. This was for two reasons. The first is that it made it easier to place the word on the the model in one go. The other was to ensure the letters were kept in place whilst putting the letters on the model and they didn't move or wander while rubbing them on. 

 

 

I then sprayed the whole top white.

 

 

I then started to try and remove the transfers with tape. Put succinctly, it didn't work! It did but it didn't really take enough off and was laborious. I did think of using some chemical aid but had the jeopardy of a) finding the letters and b) the fear of messing up the white paint. Hmmmm, Plan D then.

 

That was to put the Letraset onto the white paint and use that the lettering. I had sensibly ordered two packets of letters as I had foreseen mucking things up so I had enough letters. So another set of words were made up. The other thing that I tried to do was position the words better so the space at the ends and between the words was better distributed. The first go hadn't been but by the time I realised this it was too late. This time rather than just a by eye exercise, I measured it. Fat lot of good that did!

 

 

As you will see from the top line, my measuring was a waste of time as I took no notice of! I think that what happened was my brain decided that the measurement between the words Great and Western was Xmm when what it should have been was ½Xmm. This was perhaps the lowest point. The moment I realised what I had done there was swearing and then reflection. What to do now? 

 

 

 

 

[nomisd]

After spending some time thinking about it I came up with Plan E - a stencil. This would mean that I could go back to the Deco style font. So I printed out a page with the letters on and using a scalpel blade I cut the letters out.

 

 

This was only meant to be a test to see if it was viable and I was going to do it on a thin card but by the time I had done it, I decided that the paper would probably work just as well as card. I painted over the rubbed on letters in white. I then cut the words out and taped them to the model with masking tape a drew the outline in pencil. I then used a rotring pen to out line this and add the middles of the Os and Rs and As and then filled it in with black paint. ANd do you know what? I am pretty happy with the eventual outcome.

 

 

Its not perfect but I think it conveys what I was trying to achive. The rough edges of it will be smoothed out with a bit of weathering. I seem to have inadvertently created an actual ghost sign behind the with the rubbed on letters. Quite why I didn't go down the stencil road to start off with, I have no idea but I suppose we have to work our way to the answer through trial and error.