Building two SP depots
Less ornate than Glendale’s station, the one at Santa Barbara (above) required less condensing. However, when reducing the
enlarged. I had no drawings or even di- mensions of either depot. Instead, I worked from photos found on Flickr.® Although I had to guess at some de- tails, rough scaling from the photos worked out pretty well. The Glendale station was the first, and adapting it was a rather
straightforward
length, the height had to be taken into account to maintain the pro- portions. The O scale model (below) is also done with Balsa Foam.
task.
However, the Santa Barbara model needed more compression and, being two stories, it presented a different problem. Both length and height need- ed to be taken into consideration. It couldn’t simply be cut down in length without also addressing the height. Af- ter a bit of massaging, a rough drawing was sent for approval. Alas, it was still way too long. After more compression, it was finally accepted and construc- tion started. It still ended up being longer than I thought it would be. As mentioned, both depots were made from a material called Balsa Foam®
. This is not the common foam-
board with paper on both sides. I find that totally unsuitable for permanent modeling projects. For one thing,
it
warps badly even when wood braces are used. The corners are difficult to finish, as well. The foam I use is ex- truded urethane. It needs no support except at corners and panel joints. I use the heavier 10-lb. density foam. It is stronger, cuts and carves very easily, and holds the detail. However,
it is
dusty when carved or sanded, and care must be taken to avoid breathing the dust, as with any rigid plastic foam–or
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even fine sawdust. Just clean it up as necessary. The lighter weight foam, while cheaper, will not hold details well. It is too crumbly. I will explain the use and working characteristics of this material as I progress. The photos show both depots during construction. While the text describes the Santa Barbara depot, both are very similar and what applies to one generally ap- plies to the other. When I started, the first order of business was to make the patterns for the doors and windows. These, I cast in resin as I really didn’t want to hand- make the same window again and again. When this was accomplished, I used the window castings as patterns for the window openings in the walls to insure a perfect fit. There was to be no interior in this model, so the window “holes” did not need to be completely through the foam. I should state here that both depots were of the Mission Style and were thus thick in wall sec- tion and also had textured stucco ap- plied. The walls on the Santa Barbara station were much less rough than Glendale. The finish on the models was done with stippled gesso to give it a slightly rough surface.
The Santa Barbara depot To start, I built a box that represent- ed the two-story part of the Santa Bar- bara structure. The windows and door recesses were made while the pieces were flat on the workbench. When all
APRIL 2014
of the recesses were finished and trued-up, the four walls were glued to- gether using white glue. Corner braces of wood were added.
The foam panels come in 6″×9″
units. This, of course, was far too small for the O scale models, so they needed to be joined. I used a ¹/₁₆″×¹/₂″ strips of basswood as a spline at every joint. I had to be careful where I put these splices, not wanting one in an unfortu- nate spot like through a window. I ran the foam edges through my table saw,
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