The lasercut parts have arrived!

Thanks to my friend and fellow modeler Pit Karges, I now have a bagfull of parts to build my addition to the packing house.

The wall sections and windows are 2mm MDF

The grey parts are actually the corrugated tin sidings. They are lasered from corrugated carton.

As an aid, Pit scored guide lines on the MDF walls to line the corrugated carton. The sheets overlap each other by 2 mm.

This is really a nice kit and I can't wait to continue its assembly.

As always stay tuned for more!

Los Rios District (Lupe Combs Adobe)

 A quick update on my adobe houses along Los Rios Street

 Painting and weathering of the Lupe Combs Adobe is almost finished. I just have to add the windows and scenick the surroundings

That's the spot where the house will be on the layout.

Now I'll have to dig out some more pictures of adobe houses. The problem is that they are only shown from one side, so I have to guess and use modelers license. After all on the layout the houses are only seen from the front side. That makes things a bit easier.

In case you doubt if this house is really an adobe structure, here's a close-up. The addition to the right is wood.


Stay tuned for my next project. The parts for the Packing House Addition have arrived!

Los Rios District

A couple of adobe houses lined the tracks just across the depot, so I need some of these tiny buildings on my layout also. They will be prominently visible along the aisle.


On the homepage of the San Juan Capistrano Histocial Society we learn that the street is on the National Register of Historic Places and includes those houses facing Los Rios Street. A street that has not changed all that much since it first became a location for the homes of the Acjachemen/Juaneno Indian neophytes who were not confined to the Mission. This in itself was unusual. At most Missions the neophytes lived in reed huts, “kichas”, which were burned when old and rebuilt as needed. Of the original adobes, all were built about 1794, once lined this street, only three left: the Silvas, Rios, and Montanez Adobes. The Rios Adobe has been continuously occupied by descendents of the original owner.

The first adobe house I build is the Lupe Combs House. It's located at Verdugo Street near the railroad crossing and is the first house of the Los Rios Historic District. It was built in 1878 in Forster City and was moved to San Juan in 1882. On the photo above we see the adobe house which was mainly build with adobe bricks. The walls were painted white. The addition to the right was build of wood.

I usually start with .040" plain styrene to build the basic walls. Depending on what kind of finish my structure will have - brick, clapboard, board and batten or stucco - I just laminate these profiled sheets on top of the plain walls. The plain walls are cut to the exact size that the building will have. Using my windows and doors as a guide I score the dimensions on the walls. 

 

Then I drill an 8mm (.30") hole in the center of the door and window locations to insert my nibbling tool. Working along the score lines I bite pieces of styrene off until the opening is cleared. A few passes with a sanding stick and the openings for the doors and windows are ready.

Then I glue the plain walls to the desired siding. In my case it is Plastruct HO Brick sheet, that I use to represent the adobe walls. After the glue has set thoroughly I cut the walls out leavin .060" overhang on the long walls. These "noses" will cover the thickness of the side walls with the brick patterna also and give the assembly more strenght than just a butt joint. (see the right picture above)

Then I drill small holes in all four corners of the door and window locations. I cut the openings free with a couple of passes with a hobby knife.

Then I glue the wall sections together using a Mico-Mark metal gluing jig. The magnets fix the pieces in place and square until the glue sets.

I repeated the process for the wooden annex building.

This time I laminated the sub walls to a sheet of Evergreen Board and Batten siding. Again cutting the window openings out as discribed above.

Finishing, painting and scenicking the first adobe house will be covered in one of my nexts posts.

Stay tuned!

Work around the depot

While waiting for the final version of the packing house addition, I started to detail the surroundings of the Capistrano depot.

To avoid that passenger vehicles would roll onto the platform and then on the tracks, there were wooden posts spaced approximately 5 to 6 feet apart all along the platform. To model these I've cut 5 scale feet long pieces off of a wooden stick (12 x 12) and rounded the corners of the end that would be inserted into the base. The posts stand roughly 4 feet tall above the ground. I've painted them with a white acrylic color.

The end of the platform that meets Verdugo Street also had 2 posts. The bases for the depot, freight house and Maintenance of Way shed are finished. The next step will be the ground cover around the depot and ballasting of the tracks.

The depot I've build a couple of years ago represents the original as it looked in 1894. For the 1940's I am modeling, I will build another one with the belltower and part of the roof covered with weeds and ivy. Therefore either depot version will be removable.

Last week-end I ballasted the tracks around the depot and scenicked the parking lot and the right-of-way.

I ballasted the tracks with a mix of medium grey ballast from Woodland Scenics, aquarium sand and tan colored tile adhesive (that's the powder you mix with water and pour on the fresh laid tiles to fill the gaps between the tiles - well I don't know the exact description of this process but I believe you get the clue what I mean).

For the right-of-way and the parking lots I also use this powder and sprinkle it over a coat of white glue that I brushed on the baseboard. Then I mist the whole area with wet water (a few drops of isopropyl alcohol mixed into the water - I've got away from dishwasher soap because it bubbles too much). The powder acts like an adhesive and dries hard, leaving a tan or brown surface depending on the color you choose.

For the areas between the tracks, I used an eye dropper to wet the ground with diluted matte medium (2 parts matte medium, four parts water and two parts of isopropyl alcohol). Then I sprinkle Woodland Scenics medium green and dry grass on top and let everything dry.

Meanwhile I also build the cantilever signal bridge and the train order board to be placed near the depot.

The cantilever signal is an NJ International Plastic Kit and resembles the type of signal standing next to the depot during the 1940's. I inserted a a styrene square tube into the mast, to give the signal more strength and a pin to insert into the baseboard.

The train order board comes from an American Limited kit which is a semaphore signal. I made the mast using 3 different diameters of brass tubes that I inserted one into the other, instead of the plastic mast supplied in the kit. The train order board in Capistrano did not have a battery box, so I just cut the top off of the box and used it as a base. The ladder and head are from the kit. I also modified the blades to resemble those of an upper quadrant train order signal until I have a better substitute. It only needs some silver paint. Maybe I will replace it with a Tomar Upper quadrant train order signal (#H-843).

As always, stay tuned.

Addition to the packing house

As mentioned in an earlier post about the AFG packing house, I received the first cut walls for the addition from my fellow modeler and friend Pit Karges who has cut the sides following my drawings with his laser cutter.

 

 

He used 3mm MDF for the subwalls. The walls will be covered with corrugated siding.

I just taped the wall sections together to get a feel how the future building would look like and also to make necessary adjustments or corrections.

The additions has almost the same length and width as the original (old) packing house. My loading track is a bit short to line up completely with the 3rd and 4th loading door. I will probably alter the prototype situation an build a small wooden platform to reach to the tracks.

A closeup shot with the reefers next to the loading doors.

As always stay tuned for updates. I'm very excited about this and hardly can't wait to contiue on this project.

LCVP flatcar load

For another modeling project I was researching Higgins Industries and their famous Landing Craft aka Higgins Boats. The Library of Congress has several b/w photos showing the building and loading of their boats on railcars. Higgins also produced the LCP-R's and the PT Boats.
Just in time for the D-Day Celebration this year, I will try to get some of them on the rails.

The b/w pictures above are from the collection of the Library of Congress. You will find more of them including construction scenes at Higgins Boats in New Orleans.

The above and the following photos are just to show that they will fit on a HO flatcar without too much overhang. I need to build a suitable cradle for the landing craft again using the Technical Manual drawings. These also show the dimensions of the lumber used, so it is a snap to recreate them using scale lumber strips.

This is the rear view. The stern of the LCVP is even with the flatcar deck.

The bow of the LCVP has only an insignificant overhang and should clear most structures along the tracks.

The final view is from above and confirms the previous shots. I think they also had a small overhang on the prototype.

In my seach for suitable models I found that the 1/76 scale sometimes still looks good compared to real HO. Todays 1/72 models are more accurate in the scale than the older models. If you place them next to each other there are significant differences in size and height.

The LCVP on the pictures is a snap-together model from Pegasus Hobbies. It's easy to build and also comes with a crew of 15 troops plus a coxswain, engineer and crewman who man the 2 machine guns.
The Airfix or Heller LCVP kits a tad more detailed, but the age of the molds makes more cleaning necessary. The Pegasus kit is molded very clean and fits the bill for this purpose as a load.

The drawings above show the construction of the cradles and the blocking for securing the landing crafts on railroad flatcars. The Technical Manual TM-55-2200-001-12 has all the necessary dimensions and drawings, although some blocking might be too tiny in HO to build. A bit of modelers licence must be used here.


As always, stay tuned for updates.

Landing Craft, Boat and other military loads

Inspired by John Barry's ATSF Valley Division blog and his recent post about building a Santa Fe WWII fleet, I'll give you a sneak preview of my cars loaded with military vehicles and boats.

A train loaded with military vehicles and landing craft is pushed into the USMC military base in Old Town San Diego on my home layout. Missing information about how the prototype entrance looked like, I used the guard shack and gate from a Walthers Cornerstone kit. The flag pole comes from IHC. The MP is from the 1/72 Airfix USAF personnel set. I will cut the bases off, so they will be closer to 1/87 scale. I just suspect that the guards were taller and stronger guys anyway :). Some of the military vehicles at the gate are place holders for the moment. I will replace them with more specific ones for the USMC.

 
To model military loads in a train, you'll need plenty of flatcars. Unfortunately almost all kit and ready-to-run models come like the one on the picture. The deck is painted the same color as the car. To correct this, I painted the decks with Vallejo Pale Grey, but you might also use whatever brand you're comfortable with.

After the deck had dried, I gave it a Vallejo black wash. Here also, you may mix your own wash and apply it to your liking.

At the bottom of the above picture is an Athean flatcar with the weathered deck.The slots in the deck are for fixing the boat cradle. (On normal Athearn flatcars these slots are closed)

These cradles are molded in black, so I painted them with a tan color to look more like wood. I inserted the cradles into the slots and the car was ready to accept a boat.

Now for the boats, these come painted in red, blue, yellow and green. In the Book "Rails to Victory" I saw a picture with similar boats loaded on flatcars and they were supposed to be small motor tug boats. The photo as a guide, I fashioned the lettering using different numbers and printed them on clear decal sheet. So I have plenty to letter my boats. I airbrushed the boats with Navy Gray paint - whatever this gray may be - between pale and medium gray should work.

Some years ago I found a Technical Manual on eBay from the US Army Transportation Corps, showing the riggings and fixings for every piece of military vehicle and boats on railroad cars you could imagine. Although the manual was from the 1970's, it contained many drawings of WWII equipment. Meanwhile this manual is also available as downloadable pdf-file thanks to John Barry

I added the ropes as per the drawings and also a rear support to keep the boat from shifting during transit.
Above is my first car rigged for transport, but I need to tighten some of the ropes.

Another interesting load I found on a picture is an LCM-3 landing craft loaded on its side in a drop end gondola. There are quite a number of LCM models on the market, but the only one that fits the gondola almost perfect is the Airfix 1/76 model that also includes a Sherman M-4 Medium tank. I only had to leave one railing away. The steering house and ramp was loaded in the hull anyway. I added some bracing using strip wood. The gondola is a Walthers/Life Like Drop Ends gondola. I only need to tie it down with some ropes.

Another unusual load is the 155 mm "Long Tom" Howitzer. Because I had no ROCO model of this gun in 1/87, I used the Hasegawa 1/72 model. If you avoid to put a scale HO truck next to it, the difference in scale is not visible. Again I used the Technical Manual for the blocking and bracing of the gun.

Tanks, Trucks, Jeeps and Trailers are a common sight in military trains, so they cannot be missed on my layout. The loading diagrams on hand, these blockings are easily made from strip wood using a model truck as a guide and glued to the flatcar deck.

The finished truck load.

The DUKW load is a model from EKO. I had to trim flash away on some spots and gave it a new paint job. The canvas top doesn't fit out of the bag, so a little trimming and filing is necessary.