Scratchbuild an HO scale coal dealer
justing the colors, I again printed copies of my artwork on white decal paper. I applied all the decals in the usual way, using lots of Microscale Decal Sol to get the large letters to settle down and around all of the silo bands. All that set- ting solvent made some of the ink run on some of the decals, but where it looked like weathering I left it. Where it looked like an ink run, I washed it away with a wet paint brush. Weathering the complete structure was easy: I used black powdered pastel chalk fixed in place with Testors Dullcote.
Though shortened to just four silos (the prototype had six), the model nicely captures the lines of Sargent Brothers coal yard, its inspiration (above). The decals were made on an inkjet printer using Micro-Mark paper oversprayed with Dullcote. The large silos and roofs of these buildings made great billboards (below).
Before I could consider this project complete, I had to make a between-the- rails coal dump pit. While I had plans for a Fairbanks Morse pit for a locomo- tive servicing installation that would work, because the interior couldn’t be seen readily I freelanced the pit for the model using .060″ sheet styrene and followed a similar one I had pho- tographed several years ago in Trexler- town, Pennsylvania. I supported the rails where I removed the ties with Evergreen ³₁₆″ (.188″) I-beam. The grat- ing is K&S SSM-49 1.5 mm square etched screen, and the perimeter of the pit is made from ¹₈″-square strip styrene. The pit’s wooden access cover is nothing more than some basswood sheet that I scribed at one-foot inter- vals. As with other parts of the struc- ture, I painted the pit with Floquil Aged Concrete and the grating with Floquil Rust. The wooden access cover was stained with some old, now discon- tinued, Flostain Driftwood.
of each silo and then shaving off three bands in the resulting rectangular area. I glued two 2′-9″ lengths of 4″×4″ strip styrene to the edges of the marked area with two strips of 2″×12″ styrene between them. These strips were filed flat and glued to a 4′-6″×2′- 9″ piece of .010″ sheet styrene; the coal chutes I fabricated at the workbench were attached to them.
The extended sides are triangular bits of .010″ styrene 12 scale inches high by 4′-9″ long. I filed a slight angle on the extended chutes and scratch- built the discharge doors and levers us- ing Evergreen ⁵₁₆″ diameter No. 230 tubing and 2″×4″ strip. There should be a pivot rod running through the sides of the chute and the short lengths of 2″×4″ strip where they meet, but I decided to forego that detail.
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After washing all the sub-assem-
blies, I airbrushed the silos with Flo- quil Aged Concrete, the conveyor house and bucket elevator with Floquil Gray Primer, and the roofs with Floquil Grimy Black. I brush-painted the coal chutes with Grimy Black. I printed my own decals on Micro- Mark white inkjet decal paper. The let- tering for the words “Dunellen Coal & Lumber” is in a bold Copperplate Gothic font. I don’t recall what font I used for the large “C-O-A-L” letters, but after I had printed them in the generic Paint program that comes pre-loaded on most PC’s, I outlined them in black and changed their inside color to white. I found the Old Company’s Lehigh logo on a matchbook cover that was being auctioned on eBay. After erasing every- thing around the circular logo and ad-
The coal pit would normally be covered with planks when not in use. There was a gate in the side wall to the lifting conveyor.
JUNE 2013
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