A tiny freelance platform shelter for Sandy Shores
Even on the blissful fictional spit of Sandy Shores, where it's seemingly sunny year-round, the passengers of the SSLR still need a roof over their heads. As would be expected from such a fledgling line run by volunteers, there simply isn't the money to build anything grand; so all buildings are built on a shoestring budget. When it was proposed that the tiny halt at the end of the spit would need a small waiting shelter, a local carpenter came up a simple, yet rather elegant building; reminiscent of typical Southern Railway design. Clearly a railway enthusiast himself, despite the utilitarian nature of the building, it still has some rather nice features; such as the finial, and the curved bracket holding up the roof (as of writing this, I've just realised I never fitted the finial!). Interestingly, whilst there are window frames, there is no glass!
In reality, I wanted a structure that would echo typical seaside quirkiness, whilst remaining relatively simple. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the platform shelter than inspired this build; all I remember is that it was larger, and covered in flaky white paint! Anyway, after some doodling, this was the result:
Above: With the design settled, it was time to test it out by producing a paper mock-up. The easiest way is to produce a net, as the photo above shows; complete with tabs to glue it together.
Above: It's a good job I did build a mock-up, as it turns out that my original plan (not the one shown at the top of this post) was far too large, and far too overpowering. It didn't help that I forgot to account for the platform height, so it ended up being well over a metre larger than it should've been.A comparison of the two mock-ups shows how much more in-keeping the newer, smaller one is.
There was then a gap of 4 months (sounds familiar!) before construction began. This is where a big box of lollipop sticks (bought many, many years ago when I partially built a pier railway!), and a handheld chopping tool came to the rescue. This combination will see a lot of use throughout the construction of this layout, so get used to me mentioning them:
Above: The handheld chopping tool makes chopping up lollipop sticks a doddle, and it's surprising just how thin you can cut them down to!
Above: It wasn't long before all the components were cut up. Note the curved brackets, which will need some sanding; either by hand, or with an attachment on the Dremel.
Above: The wooden components were all glued together with PVA. I didn't even bother sanding a lot of the components; as I was after a really rustic appearance anyway. Note the bench made from some ludicrously small pieces of lollipop stick! The roof sections were also cut out, again from South Eastern Finecast vacuum formed sheets (as used on the loco shed in the previous entry). As each panel needed to be overlapped, I believe that I glued the pieces together as straight sections first, and then cut the angles with the handheld chopping tool.
Above: The roof is not attached in the photo above, and will eventually require some sort of ridge, as well as painting.
Above: A floor was also produced (from 2mm wide lengths of lollipop stick, also cut in half depth-wise).
Above: After a suggestion on NGRM-online, I also set about producing a set of steps to access the shelter. I really wanted this to look pretty worn, so I found a suitably bent lollipop stick from the pile, and trimmed it to size. The edges were also heavily sanded, with more taken off the front edge of the step to simulate years of footsteps wearing it away. Note the bottom step, which has a support added half-way; to mitigate any further bending of the step! The idea behind the need for a raised shelter on a platform is to prevent sand blowing from the sand dunes, and accumulating in the shelter.
Above: The wooden sections were then painted with Vallejo Model Color paints. I'll show a walkthrough of this in the next blog, but the premise is simple; first a wash of dark grey, then a wash of 'brown sand', then a mix of both colours in a slightly thicker consistency. There were also thin washes of either green or yellow applied, to suggest paint that has long been faded by the sun!
Above & below: Of course, that meant the next thing to be painted was the roof. Having been inspired by a trip to the IoW, I decided to portray this as a seriously rusty bit of roof, with some quite bright patches of rust. The approach was very much the same as was done on the loco shed in the last entry, but the short of it is a mix of two colours in varying quantities; following the prototype as closely as possible for reference.
Of course, that just left us with one more thing to add; the ridges...
Above: These were actually done in March 2019, so not far off 3 years later! As such, the difference is quite stark between the two photos above! It's amazing though how the addition of such simple ridges (formed from the waste of the SE Finecast corrugated iron sheets) makes such a drastic difference. All it needs now is that finial!
And there we have it, another structure complete for Sandy Shores!
If you enjoyed this entry, please do go ahead and rate the post, and comment below. I'll answer any questions you may have, and if you'd like to see something specific, or can think of any improvements; do let me know!
Next time, I'll show how I made the grounded van scene.
Till then,
Happy New Year!
Jam/Jamie Warne
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