To mix the chemical compounds at Wesolowski Chemical, gravity fed tanks had to be placed on the roof. The horizontal tank (above) came from Walthers. The supports were cut at an angle and the
milled siding for $1.75 was…mmm. It took me a second to realize the im- plication of what I was about to say. I’d bought that piece of board and batten siding in 1980, shortly before I left the hobby to play in a weekend rock band. So I was building a structure from an article published 30 years ago, out of materials I’d purchased 30 years ago. The synchronicity was almost too much to contemplate.
Sometimes
things are just meant to be. Today you can still find board and batten basswood siding, thankfully. It just costs just a little more than it did back when I bought mine.
Walls, windows and weathering Wesolowski Chemical is a long build- ing and to make construction easier, I opted to build it in two different sec- tions. Even though the siding had to be butt-jointed across the face of this long building, it was easy to do seamlessly by joining them at one of the battens. I transferred the dimensions of the
walls to the siding and cut each of the pieces to shape using a sharp hobby knife. To make sure the walls didn’t warp and the joints stayed stable, I laminated the board and batten walls to some scrap basswood siding (oddly enough, also circa 1980) using white glue. As a result, the walls turned out to be ¹/₈″ thick and very sturdy. Before I started cutting holes for windows, I went through my stash of Grandt Line and Tichy Train window castings and found sizes that approxi- mated those used on Wayne’s model: Tichy No. 8056 9/9 double-hung win- dows for the right side of the building, Tichy No. 8069 4/4 double-hung win- dows for the shed adjacent to the dormer roof portion, Tichy No. 8071 8/8 double-hung windows for the left side and sidewall of the building, and
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
pipes (above right) were made from copper wire. Pieces of heat shrink tubing were added to simulate the pipe joints, and the pipes were bent around a pen before being attached to the roof.
Grandt Line No. 5280 six-lite single- sash windows next to the loading door. I cut a Tichy No. 8054 9/9 double-hung window in half to create the large win- dow next to the loading door, and added a sill made from 2″×6″ and 2″× 4″ styrene. I marked spots on the face of the sid- ing for the inside dimensions of each of the windows, and then used a ³/₁₆″ cor- ner punch (one of my favorite tools, available as part No. 82394 from Mi- cro-Mark) in an unpowered drill press to chisel clean corners through the sid- ing. Adding a layer or two of masking tape to the back of the sheet prevents the siding from splitting. I assembled each section of the building using lengths of ¹/₄″ square pine as internal bracing. Since I knew the long roof would need adequate in- ternal bracing, I also cut several side profile pieces out ¹/₁₆″ sheet wood. Once the main walls were in place, I used a two-step technique to create a weathered wood exterior. I first stained the siding with undercoat made from ¹/₂ teaspoon of india ink in a half-pint of 90 percent isopropyl alcohol (this isopropyl alcohol contains less water than typical drugstore 70 percent iso- propyl, and thus is less likely to warp the wood). When that had dried, I gave the siding a light drybrushing of Polly Scale Reefer White. Wood buildings that sit on or near the ground in the real world are sponges for water, which eventually migrates up through the wood and de- stroys the paint and eventually the wood itself. Wayne’s model had that look, and I wanted it, too. So I loaded up a paintbrush with a solution of one teaspoon of india ink in a half pint of alcohol, set the paintbrush down on top of a piece of styrene, and then set the wall of the structure on top of the
paintbrush bristles, letting the wood naturally absorb the dark stain. (The styrene keeps the solution from being absorbed into the top of my work- bench.) While it’s a slow process, the ef- fect is tremendous. I did this around the entire perimeter of the building, varying the amount of india ink solu- tion I let the wall absorb. I found that it’s important to do this step after drybrushing on the Reefer White paint, since the paint seals the outside of the wood and prevents too much ink from bleeding through. As a bonus, the ink also nicely discolors the white paint.
The window castings were then painted Wisconsin Central Maroon, and
lightly drybrushed with Polly
Scale CP Gray to give them the same weathered look as the siding. I used microscope cover glass, cut to size with a diamond scribe, to glaze the win- dows. The glass was held in with tiny dabs of Micro Glaze applied to the in- side of the frame. Then, I used Formula 560 Canopy Glue to affix the window frames into their respective openings.
The roof
Since roof sections on this structure are such a challenge, I decided to first dry-fit cardboard sections to the struc- ture, and use those as templates for the styrene that would form the sub- roof. I was able to cut and test, over and over until things fit just right. In a few cases I needed to tape pieces of pa- per to the cardboard roof sections where I’d mistakenly taken too much off. To hold the cardboard sections in place as I did the testing, I used Wood- land Scenics’ Scenic Accents glue. Once the cardboard fit properly, I used it to cut sections from .030″ styrene. Although Wayne’s model was made of interesting roof material, I decided
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