Walls The finished wall, made of randomly carved
⅛-inch sticks of bass- wood ready for those stone arch castings.
Arches The arch of stones that are above each window were made from a hand carved master of .040” styrene. A small mold was made, and the resultant castings were applied to the main wall master.
Cracks The concrete patchwork was made from Hydrocal to cover some very pro- totypical, but maddening cracks.
places. I easily fixed the breaks with ACC and some stout bracing across the break. In hindsight, it may have been smarter to follow prototype practice more closely and installed a few brass rods to function as rebar. I now had the building cast in one piece. I penciled in the mortar lines and used a scriber to carve in the stones. I used a square to en- sure all the stones were the same thickness. The scribing process, which I had envisioned as long and tedious, was anything but. I did the whole building one Satur- day morning before lunch. After carving the basic stone
structure, I roughed up the stones with a razor saw. The wood up- per-end walls, roof, doors, win- dows, and final painting took the rest of the weekend. The whole project took about four days, and I now had a unique foreground model.
Those five-minute snippets
before sleep and the daily round- trip to work have been produc- tive. Inspiration comes at us from all directions if we let it, and vari- ous meets, conventions, and sun- dry get-togethers are some of the best sources of inspiration out there. I use a high-end DSLR for my White River work, and it is a brick! When I go to model conven- tions and meets, my “idea” cam- era is a $60 Kodak that is smaller than a pack of cigarettes. I have taken thousands of happy-snaps over the years, and more than a
few have resulted in the projects you see chronicled here. I don’t even remember where I was, but this fellow had built a three-story building with stone ends, board and batten sides, and a tin roof. It was, to say the least, begging to have a sibling on my railroad. Out came that cheap Kodak.
I drew the end wall on a piece of graph paper full size, which took 99 percent of the sheet. Stone is laid up in rows, right? Why not do the same with a model? Most of the time, I am way too lazy to go at this stone by stone (forget
Molds The RTV mold, with the initial plaster cast- ing. The plaster is mixed to a thick gravy- like consistency. Vibrate the mold by light tapping to release any bubbles that form.
86 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
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