The Furness Valley Railroad

[chaz]

More progress on the depot building yesterday.

 

I started adding the trim and discovered a small annoyance. When it is lined up with the bottom of the walls, which makes it sit accurately around the door and window openings, there is a small gap at the top.

 

 

This doesn't matter too much as it will disappear under the roof overhang but I do wonder why my kit parts aren't the same as the ones in the photographs on the instruction sheets.

 

Another use for the steel block and magnets.

 

 

This is the base of the cupola. It's worth making sure this comes up square as it will then fit properly on the roof.

 

More later.

 

Chaz

[chaz]

Researching wagons I found a few useful pictures on the net including this...

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=freight+wagon&lr&hl=en&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&imgil=YaVavrszTCnNAM%253A%253BIbNqq2LeZnVOsM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.hansenwheel.com%25252Fcustom-showcase%25252Fcustom-vehicle-showcase%25252Ffreight-wagon%25252Fore-freight-wagon&source=iu&pf=m&fir=YaVavrszTCnNAM%253A%252CIbNqq2LeZnVOsM%252C_&usg=__ORSRYT-inaiQ6kXKZuuQC5C4KN0%3D&biw=1600&bih=761&ved=0ahUKEwjvmLqz2pvRAhXcc1AKHVc6CwMQyjcIPg&ei=ljZmWO_1ENznwQLX9KwY#imgrc=YaVavrszTCnNAM%3A

 

Shows the axle ends nicely and also the brake lever. It's a bit difficult to work out how the lever puts the brake on - there must be a linkage to reverse the action. Any ideas?

 

Chaz

[Donw]

Difficult to see Chaz we are used in our cars to pulling the handbrake up but on British railway trucks it goes down to put it on so the wagon brake lever could go either way. I wonder if some wagons had a brake like a caravan where pulling the hitch took the brake off but on an overrun such as down hill the pressure on the hitch applied the brake it would protect the horse on a steep slope.

 

Don

[chaz]

Difficult to see Chaz we are used in our cars to pulling the handbrake up but on British railway trucks it goes down to put it on so the wagon brake lever could go either way. I wonder if some wagons had a brake like a caravan where pulling the hitch took the brake off but on an overrun such as down hill the pressure on the hitch applied the brake it would protect the horse on a steep slope.

 

Don

 

Quite so Don. Even just adding the brake lever and a bit of nonsense between it and the brake shoes might serve, but my inclination is to pursue the research to get to an appreciation of a typical mechanism. My recollection of episodes in westerns is that the lever is pulled up to apply the brake.

 

Chaz

[chaz]

More progress on the depot building. It's such a clean project that Sue has no objection to my continuing on the lounge table. Although for the next bit - which generated some fine wood shavings - I banished myself to the roof!

 

When the roof panels are fitted a small gap is left along the edge which is filled with some square section wood. Once this is securely glued in place it must be cut at an angle to match the slope of the roof.

 

 

This could be done with glass paper (preferably held tight around a cork block) but a block plane does the job faster. Care must be taken at the corners where the plane blade tends to push the opposing strip away, but the basswood cuts so nicely that this is no problem. A difficult thing to portray in a photo'...

 

 

The next photo' shows the parts of the cupola.

 

 

At the back, in front of the glue bottle, is the base. The two halves previously assembled using the steel block and magnets are now glued together to complete the square. To the right the next section, with slots beautifully cut with the laser, is similarly glued up on the block in two halves.

 

Two squares pieces have to be laminated. These have slots which must be accurately aligned.

 

 

I held the two pieces of very thin ply' between thumb and forefinger and and pushed offcuts of scrap ply' into each slot. This ensured the alignment while the glue was added round the edges. The aliphatic glue is thin and runs into the joint. I pulled the scraps of ply' out of the slots while holding the two layers firmly together so that they should not be glued in place.

 

Later, with the glue dry I assembled the cupola. Putting it together dry and then adding the glue in the joint corners is rather like putting polystyrene parts together and brushing a solvent along joint lines. The tabs on the parts are a very snug fit in their slots so a delicate assembly such as this is easier if the tabs have their corners and edges rounded slightly.

 

 

I couldn't resist trying the cupola in position on the roof. The base will need a little shaping to get it to sit accurately.

 

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I started this kit as my Christmas project. If I finish it before the end of new year's day I will be happy - with it all coming along nicely it looks possible. Fingers crossed!

 

Chaz

Edited December 31, 2016 by chaz

[chaz]

I noticed yesterday that the side walls of the depot were slightly curved, concave to the outside. I cut a piece of balsa for an internal wall and glued it in.

 

 

It has done the trick.

 

 

I fitted the doors and windows yesterday. once I had figured out how to stick the various layers together (helped by a couple of sketches in the instructions) this was a simple job.

 

 

The window frames are peel-and-stick but the door parts need glue. In the picture above they have a first coat of paint. I wondered how well the sticky tape faces of the frames would take acrylic paint - the answer is "well".

 

One other small job done yesterday was to shape the base of the cupola so that it sits nicely on the peak of the roof.

 

 

The basswood that most of this kit is made of cuts very nicely and I was able to slice the two edges to an angle with a scalpel - no problem with grain.

 

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New Year's Day today - Happy new year to you! - I'm not sure if the kit will be finished today but it will be close! There certainly won't be any interior detail as I will need to scratchbuild this and have no idea what this should be like. Anybody know?

 

Chaz

Edited January 1, 2017 by chaz

[AJon30]

Happy New Year Chas

 

Attached is a photograph of the actual depot on the Sandy River railroad.

 

 

As you can see there is a separate freight shed.

 

Looking at your building there appears to be only one access for passengers in the middle of the depot, so that would lead me to believe that the area with the bay windows is a waiting area, with seats (benches?), with the middle area having some form of ticket window?

 

The area with the doors must be a staff area rather than being a primarily freight shed, especially as there are quite large windows, which would not be common in an area used for storage.

 

One difficulty is the position of the chimney stacks which imply the fire places are in the middle of the building, where the door openng are?

 

Rgds Andrew

Edited January 1, 2017 by AJon30

[chaz]

Happy New Year Chas

 

Attached is a photograph of the actual depot on the Sandy River railroad.

 

Sandy River Strong Depot.jpg

 

As you can see there is a separate freight shed.

 

Looking at your building there appears to be only one access for passengers in the middle of the depot, so that would lead me to believe that the area with the bay windows is a waiting area, with seats (benches?), with the middle area having some form of ticket window?

 

The area with the doors must be a staff area rather than being a primarily freight shed, especially as there are quite large windows, which would not be common in an area used for storage.

 

One difficulty is the position of the chimney stacks which imply the fire places are in the middle of the building, where the door openng are?

 

Rgds Andrew

 

Thanks for posting that photo' Andrew - very useful. Of course I am not forced to use the chimney stacks, I could instead put in a couple of stove pipes in different positions. If I use them the white metal castings for the chimney stacks will need a fair amount of work to get them up to scratch.

 

I did Google "railroad depot interior" and this threw up a lot of useful stuff. Of course I am not modelling "Strong" or indeed the two foot Sandy River so I can change the model to suit myself - what I am looking for, and what the Google images may give me, are typical arrangements for interiors with details.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=railroad+depot+interior&lr&hl=en&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&imgil=jynB75gntOxjDM%253A%253BtLV99Uuuk1YQuM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fberkshirescenicrailroad.org%25252Faboutus_exhibits_yokunblockstation.php&source=iu&pf=m&fir=jynB75gntOxjDM%253A%252CtLV99Uuuk1YQuM%252C_&usg=__Hvc1J4Uj4lorgeLC8eI8xNKoabg%3D&biw=1600&bih=761&ved=0ahUKEwjjx9mS4qHRAhVTOMAKHS5XCb0QyjcIJw&ei=A2RpWKO6HtPwgAaurqXoCw#imgrc=UBkyFbTR5mUxuM%3A

 

Many of these pictures are much too grand for the FVRR but there are some which may well give me a basis for some nice detail work. The model has an internal wall between the bay window fitted section and the rest - could this be because that section is where the railway staff work and the bay windows allow them a view up the line etc? (Like the Littleton view on the Google page). Many "westerns" with scenes by the depot feature the classic telegraphist sitting at an open window and tapping out morse code...

 

Chaz

Edited January 1, 2017 by chaz

[AJon30]

Hi. Yes I did wonder if there was a despatcher based there and they would normally sit in the bay window looking out over the tracks. Just seemed a bit strange that the office did not have its own entrance without going through the public area, if the central area was a waiting area.

 

As you say its your railroad so Rule 1 applies!

 

Rgdsa Andrew

[Jeff Smith]

I stiffened the tops of the walls with square strip on the Laserkit depot I built.

[chaz]

Looking again at the photo that Andrew posted of Strong depot I see that the laser cut model is at odds with it. There is only one chimney and this is further from the cupola and on the other side there appears to be only a stove pipe. But the depot at Stoke's Ferry, although almost identical to that built at Strong differed in some respects....

 

While a brick built chimney has to be vertical a stove pipe need not be.

 

OK, the whitemetal chimneys can go into the might-come-in-useful cupboard and the square holes in the roof will be filled. A stove pipe or two can be fitted, once I have decided where the stoves would be.

 

Chaz

Edited January 2, 2017 by chaz

[chaz]

Nearly there...

 

Started putting in the brackets that go under the overhanging roof.

 

 

I found the bracket itself to be a useful set-square to draw a couple of pencil lines to set the bracket square to the wall. With the model upside down and the roof in place I could work my way round fixing the brackets, using fast acting PVA.

 

 

I wanted to keep the roof detachable so I could only glue the brackets to the wall. This meant that some of them would not stay square to the wall but the still-soft glue allowed them to move - I kept them at the required angle by putting a bulldog clip on the roof edge so that the bracket rested against it.

 

 

Some photos of the model in position...

 

 

 

 

 

 

That last a helicopter shot, not very realistic but it does show the depot in relation to the tracks and the baseboard edge.

 

The roof can stll be lifted off.

 

 

In some of the pictures above it's very obvious that the model is an empty shell. I will detail the inside at some point but until the layout around the Stoke's Ferry station is more complete (scenic background, ground cover, track ballasting, switch stands etc etc) this will have to wait.

 

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As I have decided to ditch the white-metal chimney stacks I have plugged the square holes in the roof with balsa wood.

 

 

Note the direction of the grain of the balsa (just visible in the snap) - such a soft wood will only plane along the grain - a cross grained piece will split badly when planed. Once the glue has hardened off I will plane the inserts down smooth with the surfaces of the roof. The joints will disappear under the shingles.

 

I have used two types of adhesive on the assembly so far - Fast PVA for most of the work. Often I don't apply this directly from the nozzle on the bottle but squeeze a blob onto a piece of plastic and then apply small amounts with a wire. Some of the trim was in the form of a large net of connected strips and the wire would take too long so I put the glue on directly from the fine nozzle on the bottle - removing any excess with a finger tip before lowering the piece carefully into position. I use a fine paint brush dampened from a water pot to wash away any excess glue that does squeeze out.

 

The other glue I use is the Aliphatic. This is very good at penetrating a joint as it is so thin - it can be applied with the metal hypodermic-like nozzle along the joint line whilst the parts are held securely together.

 

Both types of glue will leave the surface of the model with a varnish-like shine if any excess has been removed with a damp brush. A quick retouch with the acrylic paint restores the flat finish.

 

A few jobs remain to be done...

 

The roof and cupola need the shingles adding

windows need glazing

door handles (round headed pins) need fitting

stove pipes need making and fitting

name boards need making up (a computer job) and applying

 

...but I am happy to have got the kit this far over the holiday period. Next job will be a low planked platform on which the depot will sit.

 

Chaz

Edited January 2, 2017 by chaz

[chaz]

The depot is a fairly simple building and the laser-cut parts are very accurate but even with a careful approach small errors seem to creep in. The bay windows do complicate the assembly and on my model there are a few minor gaps and misalignments. I'm not going to get too twitchy - looking closely at the photograph of the completed model on the instruction sheets shows that whoever built this had similar problems. He (she?) even fixed a section of trim upside down on the bay window - betrayed by a slight misalignment of the horizontal strips.

http://www.bantamodelworks.com/BSC4105.html

 

However it is a very nice kit and has been a joy to build - I am pleased with the result and will certainly look at other kits from the same source. In the future I will need quite a few buildings for the town area which I plan to put around the wye junction.

 

Chaz

Edited January 3, 2017 by chaz

[chaz]

One small task completed this evening. A few minutes with my block plane...

 

 

The planed balsa wood doesn't have a good enough finish to paint but it will certainly support the shingles and stop them sagging.

 

 

That's quite enough for now. Shingles next! (Tomorrow...)

 

Chaz

[chaz]

There will be a pause as I have discovered that Kitwood Hill models do some nice laser cut shingles. These might look nicer on the depot than the thin paper ones provided in the kit. I will buy a sample sheet before I decide.

 

So the next part of the station will be the low platform - I feel a paper template is needed...

[Jeff Smith]

Chaz, as you are not doing a model of the actual Strong depot the choice of shingle type is up to you.

 

Thin asphalt shingles, of the type commonly used in modern US roof construction, were introduced around 1901 according to Wiki. These would be represented by the paper strips provided in the kit. Wood shingles (sawn) or shakes (split) are thicker, an inch or more, and would probably be less even in appearance. Wood shingles and shakes were considered a fire risk so often replaced.

 

I stuck my depot building onto a 1/4 inch cork tile cut to the platform shape I needed and then clad with thin 1/8 inch wide strip wood to represent decking. Decking is generally 4 to 6 inch planks.

[chaz]

Chaz, as you are not doing a model of the actual Strong depot the choice of shingle type is up to you.

 

Thin asphalt shingles, of the type commonly used in modern US roof construction, were introduced around 1901 according to Wiki. These would be represented by the paper strips provided in the kit. Wood shingles (sawn) or shakes (split) are thicker, an inch or more, and would probably be less even in appearance. Wood shingles and shakes were considered a fire risk so often replaced.

 

I stuck my depot building onto a 1/4 inch cork tile cut to the platform shape I needed and then clad with thin 1/8 inch wide strip wood to represent decking. Decking is generally 4 to 6 inch planks.

 

Thanks very much for that information about roof coverings Jeff, very useful and particularly so as you live in the US and are therefore well placed to know.

 

The intelligence about plank width is useful as I might well have assumed a plank width of a foot. I will be stripping up some 0.6mm ply' to plank the deck and will therefore cut this to a scale 6 inch!

 

Whatever I use for a base I think I will cut the planking to fit around the depot building, rather than have it run underneath. This will help to hide the join between building and deck and will also mean that I don't have to fix the depot in place - if I later build a small layout to take to exhibitions the depot can be "borrowed" if it's not fixed down.

 

Chaz

[N15class]

Chaz, as you are not doing a model of the actual Strong depot the choice of shingle type is up to you.

 

Thin asphalt shingles, of the type commonly used in modern US roof construction, were introduced around 1901 according to Wiki. These would be represented by the paper strips provided in the kit. Wood shingles (sawn) or shakes (split) are thicker, an inch or more, and would probably be less even in appearance. Wood shingles and shakes were considered a fire risk so often replaced.

 

I stuck my depot building onto a 1/4 inch cork tile cut to the platform shape I needed and then clad with thin 1/8 inch wide strip wood to represent decking. Decking is generally 4 to 6 inch planks.

Does asphalt burn less readily than timber??

[chaz]

Does asphalt burn less readily than timber??

 

Probably the biggest threat, apart from fires starting inside the building (cigarettes etc), is sparks from the locomotives. Whether a spark lodged on an asphalt shingle would start a fire more easily than on a timber one is a moot point.

 

What is more relevant to me is whether the change was a general one and the FVRR complied with the trend....

 

Chaz

Edited January 3, 2017 by chaz

[chaz]

I made a paper template of the platform.

 

 

Then I cut some packing - black foamboard and some black card laminated together to get the thickness - about 6mm.

 

 

Black is a good idea - white will show in the gaps between the boards - black just looks like the expected shadow.

 

I spent about half an hour cutting some 0.6mm ply' into strips 3.2mm wide - that's 1/8th of an inch - a scale 6 inches.

 

 

And then I made a start on planking the deck.

 

 

I did stain the first couple with diluted indian ink before I glued them down to get some variation in tone between adjacent planks - looks OK but it slows the process down so much it's not practical - so I will glue them down first and then stain them.

 

Chaz

Edited January 3, 2017 by chaz

[AJon30]

Hello Chas

 

A trick I have used where there will be a lot of "planking" is to mix up Isopropyl alcohol and brown or black show dye and then paint it (both sides) onto the sheet of plywood then cut into strips. With a bit of careful variation in mix you can get a variety of "weathering". Then just mix up the planks and you will get the required finish (without it looking too zebra like), with subtle variations between the planks. The problem of trying to weather once its laid is that you tend to get a similar colour arcoss the whole area. 

 

 

Rgds Andrew  

[Jeff Smith]

The platform planks may well have been creosoted in those days. This would leave a fairy uniform dark colour. This would gradually weather to a light grey, however any replacement planks may we end up darker unless the whole platform was re-creosoted. New planks could then appear lighter...... I believe I did mine with a grey stain without any significant variation. The longest planks available now are 12 feet, it's very likely, as the US keeps things very consistent, that that has always been the case.

[Londontram]

Brilliant thread just sat for over an hour and caught up with it. The whole railway captures the atmosphere completely. I'll keep my eye out for more updates now.

                            Steve

[chaz]

Brilliant thread just sat for over an hour and caught up with it. The whole railway captures the atmosphere completely. I'll keep my eye out for more updates now.

                            Steve

 

Thanks for that Steve, it's encouraging to receive such positive comments.

 

Chaz

[chaz]

It's been a while since I posted details of my progress, but that doesn't mean I haven't made any. Having grown tired of storing the materials for the central peninsular under the baseboards I thought the best thing to do was to make them up.

 

As I will be walking around the end I decided that the end board should have curved corners.

 

 

I cut a couple of strips of 3 ply with the grain going "the wrong way" - more flexible but still reasonably strong. The photo' above shows the curves glued up ( good quality PVA) and cramped in position. I left this for 24 hours before removing the cramps.

 

 

The next two pictures show the central peninsular, on which will be the terminal station, seen from opposite ends.

 

 

There is still some work to do - the plywood tops need fixing on the second board with maybe some packing here and there to get the levels and joins right.

 

 

While I was waiting for the glue to gain full strength on the curved ends I did some more planking on the depot platform.

 

 

I am cutting all the planks to no longer than 3 inches (a scale twelve feet) as suggested by Jeff.

 

 

The different tones of the planks are a bit too pronounced - once the whole deck is done I will apply a wash which will tone it all down and should subdue the contrasts.

 

Chaz