Fig. 4
though .005″ brass cuts well with scis- sors, I find .010″ brass distorts with scis- sors, so I prefer to saw it out oversize than file it to its final dimension. After soldering, the brass assembly
was painted with Floquil’s SP Letter- ing Gray and weathered with a thin wash of Grimy Black. Join the exten- sion to its brick base with contact ce- ment. You may now glue the chimney onto the roof, taking care to keep it true. A square will be useful in this re- gard. To simulate flashing around the base, cut out paper and paint it with SP Lettering Gray.
After the glue sets, reinforce the interi- or walls with similarly-modified 12″×12″ stripwood as illustrated in the drawing,
including all corners.
Consideration must be given to the re- cessed second floor windows which con- flict with a vertical brace extending to the roof’s ridge. With this in mind, it will be necessary to add as many four- ply Strathmore shim strips as may be required to provide sufficient clearance for the windows. When it comes to bracing the interior of a model struc- ture, there are no precise rules to fol- low, but generally more is better than less. For additional structural strength, measure the inside dimensions of the walls at the bottom, lay out, then glue a floor cut from four-ply card so it fits precisely into the building from the bottom. This will greatly increase the overall rigidity while at the same time keeping it true.
Since I decided against modeling the building’s interior, I painted the entire inside flat black. After all, the last thing you want to see when peering through the windows on a finished structure is a lot of white. Finally, cut and install corner trim boards made from pre-painted 1″×6″ one-ply card as you did with the window frames.
Roof, shingles and chimney Working from the plans, lay out the entire roof, exclusive of the lean-to addi- tion and vestibule, but including both halves of the main roof, on two-ply card. This may seem a little flimsy, but once cemented to the building, it takes on
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
added strength. Instead of preparing a separate fascia or trim board and ce- menting it to the north and south roof edges, I laid it out as one with the rest of the roof, then scored it with a sharp knife and bent it to the proper angle. The roof is similarly scored along the center line or ridge at the same time and bent to shape. After gluing the roof to the building, adjust the fascia boards to be vertical and stiffen them by attaching an appropriately-sized piece of strip- wood on the reverse side. I found it con- venient to pre-paint the fascia boards prior to attaching the roof assembly. The lean-to and vestibule roofs are handled in a similar fashion.
The east and west side fascia boards are fabricated from individual one-ply strips and attached to the roof with a stripwood brace on their inside surface. The brick portion of the chimney is fabricated from a scale 16-inch square length of basswood. Start by cutting shallow, horizontal grooves with a fine blade in a jeweller’s saw. Cut into the wood on three-inch spacings while keeping the mortar lines true by guid- ing the blade with a small metal square. Use a needle held in a pin vise to scribe the vertical mortar lines. To sim- ulate a brick color, paint the chimney with a coat of Floquil Boxcar Red, then weather it with a thin wash of Grimy Black. For the stovepipe extension, I used eight-inch outside diameter brass tubing and fabricated a skirt for it made from .010″ sheet brass (see Figure 5). The stack’s cap was fashioned from .005″ sheet brass and the entire assem- bly was then soldered together. Al-
The shingles on my model were made from individual strips (see Figure 6), fashioned from printer paper. Since the shingle strips overlap by 50 percent, you will need a little more than twice as much paper as you have roof area. I found one sheet of 8½″×11″ paper was more than enough for the section house’s relatively small roof. The color of wood shingles can vary a great deal but tends to darken with age. For the shingle paper I mixed two parts Floquil Engine Black with one part of their Roof Brown, and then, using a piece of cloth, rub-stained a sheet of paper with the mixture. Try to obtain a streaky, ir- regular pattern while doing this. For ad- ditional streaking, apply a few strokes of Floquil Grimy Black with a paint brush, ensuring that the new streaks flow in the same direction and are ap- plied randomly. Now, mark off spaces at six-inch in- tervals up both edges of each sheet. Draw the first line across the paper six inches from the edge then skip over the next six inch mark and line the paper at an interval 12 inches from the first line. These lines and those following must run across the streaks previously applied. Continue with this procedure of skipping over every second six inch mark until the paper is lined continu- ously with 12″ spaces between each line. Start preparing the individual shingle strips by slitting the paper from its edge to the first six-inch line as per Figure 6. Although I specified a six-inch width for the shingles in Fig- ure 6, they can vary somewhat, so one should not be overly concerned if they are not uniform in width. However, I find they look best if kept between the range of six to nine inches. With the en- tire row slit, and using the six-inch marks as a guide, cut off the strip so that it is 12″ wide. With a view to the overall weathered effect of the com- pleted roof, I like to shorten two or three shingles in each row slightly by trimming them with a sharp knife. Again referring to Figure 6, draw guide lines at six-inch intervals across the roof. These will assist in keeping
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