Cornish Engine House

[Gwiwer]

Thanks to Kernow MRC's enterprise many modellers who have Cornish-themed layouts may now include an excellent ready-to-use engine house of the sort which dot the landscape in various states of ruination or restoration.  Personally I have made several attempts at scratch building a decent engine-house to no avail so this product has been very welcome.  

These are ready to plonk on a layout out of the box but I have taken mine a step further and blended it into a landscape which has existed for several years.

The item out of the box and just placed on the ground



The terraforming here was done with the intention of placing a building here at some future time.  It is plastercloth over balsa supports with newspaper balls in the voids.  This makes it easy to cut into with a sharp blade traced around the edge of the new building.



The surgery shown with the land surface lifted revealing the substructure



Buildings sit in the ground not on the surface so I want this to be embedded and sitting in what is slightly uneven ground.



To ensure the building stands level and on a firm base a "biscuit" of Woodland Scenics "Mold-a-Scene" plaster was placed into the hole and allowed to go off



Note the extensions to this plasterwork along the ground; we shall come back to these.

Next I mixed the finer Woodland Scenics "Casting Plaster" product which is normally a dazzling white.  I want the finished base to resemble old concrete.  The inside and immediate surrounds of many engine houses are now covered with a thick concrete cap over the shaft to prevent anyone entering the old workings.

I have added a few grains of grey weathering powder making use of the fact that this is powdered pigment which disperses through a liquid (in this case water used to create the wet plaster) and have also added a few grains of fine black ballast as I want an uneven texture and I don't want it brilliant white.



The casting plaster is then laid over the coarse base and the building lowered into position.  It is pressed lightly into the soft plaster which embeds the lower layers of stonework and allows it to sit happily level on this uneven ground.  

The casting plaster mix is also wiped out beyond the "footprint" of the structure and now we can see that this is the beginnings of a pathway.  There is one leading to each entrance.  The footings also have the plaster worked in with a fine blade or other suitable object so we are in effect replicating the construction technique of stone in mortar.



A gull's eye view showing the concrete floor in position.



Having allowed the plasterwork to go off I next set about detailing the building and blending it in.  Weathering powders have been applied to represent green slime and lichen growth, the orange mineral leaching often seen from exposed granite and some greys just to vary the tone of the stonework a little and lightly wiped over the brickwork too.  Spots of various powders have been allowed to fall onto the white plaster and are left intentionally where they fell.



Another angle showing the application of weathering powders and the uneven ground into which this building is being settled.



Once again the gull's eye view now with a fair degree of mould and leaching affecting the interior walls and staining the floor



The final stage is the placing of low vegetation growth around the walls and to provide a suitable access the creation of a couple of new paths across the land.  The vegetation around the whole scene has also had a slight refresh with a sprinkle of some lighter greens.



From the other side



NOW it looks as though it's been here for a long time



Re-shooting an image I took a few days ago now that the engine house is "installed"



Yes - I'm happy with that!

 

[steve howe]

Very nice use of a commercial model, Kernow are to be applauded for introducing a long-overdue product. May I make a couple of observations? Assuming this was a pumping engine house, there is invariably a deep pit which covers about a third of the internal floor area, immediately inside the bob wall (the wall with the flat top where the beam rested) This was the 'bob pit' and contained the weights suspended on steel rods from the valve levers which controlled the automatic sequence of valve events. When the engine was in- situ, the pit was boarded over, but in ruined houses it is a feature of the ground floor, usually about 12 feet deep. Also usually visible are the massive granite slabs to which the cylinder was bolted.

 

Also it is likely (unless the area has been "conserved" by the local Authourity - before the World Heritage status was conferred) that there would be some evidence of the shaft below the bob wall. Even where this has been filled in, there is usually some evidence of a depression, or a concrete slab if it was capped. From the evidence of the period suggested by the rolling stock, I would think that the shaft would still be there, probably surrounded by a rather inadequate post and barbed wire fence!

 

Steve

[St Enodoc]

Just received one of these from Kernow together with one of the Model Rail special pagoda sheds - Greg at Kernow very kindly combined these into a single parcel to minimise postage costs to Australia. A nice surprise in today's post considering I only placed the orders on 19 December.

 

The engine house is quite small (as has been remarked on elsewhere) but when sitting on a knoll behind Pentowan station I hope it will provide a little forced perspective. The shed will sit on a wooden platform at Indian Queens Halt.