Scratchbuilding Wesolowski Chemical
building from a foundry to a chemical plant, so this seemed like the perfect structure for me. Except for one thing: it was far too large for the layout space I had available to put it in. As modeled in HO (my scale), the foundry would have measured about 13″×10″. On my layout, the structure needed to occupy a space between the backdrop and a track spur that measured a scant six inches deep. So it looked like it was time for some selective compression of a building that was already selectively compressed in the original article. To get a sense of exactly how and where to compress the building, and be- cause I find it difficult to visualize three-dimensional buildings by looking at two-dimensional building elevations, I first made a photocopy of the plans from the original 1980 article, cut them out and mounted them on cardboard, and mocked them up as a crude 3D building. This short, easy exercise gave me a really good sense of the architec- ture of the building and let me see ex- actly what its distinguishing features were. More important, it allowed me to figure out exactly what could be short- ened and compressed without ruining the essence of the building. I literally took a pair of scissors to the mockup, trimmed here and cut there, and “re- engineered” the building to fit in my al- lotted six-inch space. To my eye, there are three very dis- tinguishing features of Wayne’s origi- nal model foundry (which, as I think about it, was really my prototype). First was the dormer-style roof inter- rupting a long expanse of wall; second were the series of repeating windows and third were the four tall stacks. So I
The board and batten was laminated to basswood and then marked for windows and doors. A corner punch attached to a drill press made clean cuts for the corner openings (above).
knew I had to keep those features on my re-engineered version. For the rest of the building, I’d try to retain the fla- vor of Wayne’s original, but needed to change things to accommodate my lim- ited depth. In addition, Wesolowski Chemical would be a shipper and re- ceiver on my layout, so it would need to have a rail-side loading dock, and that dock would have to be adjacent to the face under the dormer roof–the only wall tall enough to accept a dock and loading door.
Given these factors, it was time to build a second mock-up. To do that I scanned Wayne’s original plans into my computer and did some manipulation in Adobe Photoshop®
. I first moved the
ground level door on the face below the dormer roof to loading dock height, a
Since the Wesolowski Chemical building has long walls, the sid- ing must be butt jointed in various locations. This is done at one of the battens for a more seamless look (below). The building was constructed in two sections (right) and ¹/₄″ square pine was used as bracing and ¹/₁₆″ sheetwood was used for the walls.
11′-0″
Wesolowski Chemical Full size for N scale: .075″ = 1′-0″; 1:160 Drawn by Gerry Leone
74
JANUARY 2014
8′-0″
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