both of those cowlings had to be custom measured and cut. To transfer the proper angle to the caps, I set one on a piece of wood next to the building and rolled a black marker down the roof, writing on the cap as it descended. I did the same for the dormer roof cowl- ings, which has identical angles. The caps were then carefully cut with a ra- zor saw and sanded flat. I used pieces of Evergreen Scale Models .035″ diam- eter styrene tubing for the stacks themselves and cut them about 1″ longer than I needed. I then drilled a tight-fitting hole in the cowlings and used five-minute epoxy to hold them in place. It’s critical that the stacks are perfectly perpendicular to the cowl- ings, and that the end of the tubing in- side the cowling doesn’t protrude be- yond the cut angle.
Getting the tops of the stacks to line up with one another once they’re mounted on the roof, another distin- guishing feature of the structure, is where it gets a bit tricky. This is why I cut the styrene tubing longer than I knew I’d need. I temporarily tacked the stack assembly to the roof with adhe- sive tape, then held a ruler horizontal- ly across the whole building and used a pen to mark the styrene tube on each stack. Before removing the stacks, I next lightly traced the cowling outline on the roof with a sharp pencil. The styrene tubes were then cut in a miter box with a razor saw.
The cowlings for the stacks were made from caps from Zap® adhesive containers. They
had to be cut to the correct angle for the roof. To do this the author placed a black mark- er on the roof and slid it past the stationary cap (top left). The cap was then cut along the line. The four stacks were made from styrene tubing and placed at a uniform height to each other. Guy wires made from E-Z Line were attached to eye-bolts at the joint lo- cations for each stack and then to eye-hooks in the roof (top right). Afterwards, the roof was weathered (above) with powdered white, black and rust pastels.
Gray and scratchbuilt and weathered it with a thick slurry of “sweet and sour” steel wool dissolved in vinegar. When dried, the slurry created visible, bumpy rust patches. The tank’s platform was built using 2″×10″ pieces
scale of stripwood,
stained with my india ink and alcohol solution. I built it in-place to accommo- date the slope of the roof, and Tichy Train nut-bolt-washer castings were put on as an added detail.
The stacks It was time now to add the third and final distinguishing feature of the building, the tall stacks. I can’t exactly justify their presence in a chemical fac- tory. Perhaps
old man Wesolowski RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
bought a former foundry to house his chemical company, or maybe he’s boil- ing chemicals with noxious fumes. Ei- ther way, I wanted to include these de- tails. They proved to be one of the most challenging parts of the building. One of the details that makes the
stacks so interesting is the fact that each of them contains a round cowling at its base. I turned my train room in- side out looking for something that would make a suitable cowling, and, bless my packrat soul, came upon sev- eral caps from some Zap®
brand cyano-
acrylate that I’d stashed away for “someday.” Someday was now, and these caps would be perfect. Keep in mind that the angles of the left and right roofs are not the same, so
A word of caution at this point. If you look down at the dormer roof from above, you’ll see that the angle of the valley on the left-hand section is more acute than that of the right-hand sec- tion. What this means is that you must first find the position of the dormer roof’s left-hand stack, mount it, then line up the right-hand stack with it. I originally did it the other way around and discovered that the dormer roof stacks wouldn’t line up with one anoth- er because I’d placed the right-hand stack too far from the front of the building. I had to pull up and re-mount both of them. That’s a messy job. To create the joints on the stacks, I cut very thin strips of masking tape and mounted them at equal intervals on the styrene tubing. I discovered that, while the caps were indeed the perfect size and shape for the cowlings, they were made from a type of plastic that all-but repels paint. To help me solve this problem, I called on my painting expert buddy, Chuck Diljak, for some advice. He sug- gested I first sand the cowlings with 320-grit sandpaper, which would give them some “tooth” to better hold the paint. Good idea! I primed the stack/cowling assemblies with gray au-
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