Jabulani Station - Part 8

The supports for the canopy are made from styrene.  This is the only styrene I have used so far in the construction of the building.  The uprights are 2.5mm "H" beam, tied into a horizontal strip of 2mm by 2.5mm styrene strip.  I cut the uprights to height and glued the assemblies together using a scale printout as a template.

I sprayed the support assemblies with grey automotive primer, and then gave them a coat of chocolate brown acrylic. 

The three support assemblies were then glued in place with Scotch brand Quick-Dry adhesive.  The uprights are slightly askew, but hopefully I will be able to square them up once the footings are in place and the whole is attached to a base.

I haven't quite decided on the method of making the footings for the uprights.  Initially I was going to cut individual footings from styrene and add them during assembly of the canopy supports, but I am now toying with the idea of casting the footings from resin.

Jabulani Station - Part 7

With the station building canopy in place, the next step is the roof itself.  This is again made with a sub-roof of 1/8" foam core board.  I didn't worry much about gaps, as that would be covered by the corrugated metal sheathing.

The edges of the roof were built up using 1mm cardstock to get the correct roof width and to handle the variations in slope at the corners of the canopy.  Strips of pastel paper were cut to a scale 8 inches in width and applied to the roof edges, and the whole was covered over with simulated corrugated iron.

The roof was then weathered using a wash of lamp black oil paint to bring out the detail of the corrugations.  The wash also stained and hid the white edges of the paper "corrugated iron".   Select "panels" and streaks were brushed in with rust-colored washes, and the whole was dry-brushed with a lighter tint of oxide red (sort of an oxide "pink").

Now on to the canopy supports, which will be one of the few parts of the model made using styrene.  I used to work exclusively with styrene, but I've found paper construction to be much more versitile and forgiving of error.

Jabulani Station - Part 6

Because of all the angles involved, the roof has turned out to be a little trickier than expected.  To ensure that I had adequate support during construction, I made a sort of jig to hold the entire building securely, with false walls to provide support for the canopy, and spacers with the correct roof slope. 

I very carefully and mathenatically worked out the lines and angles of the canopy sections, cut them to size and did a trial fit.  Of course, as you can see, I was way off in opposite corners.  That's what I get for not paying careful attention to squareness when first gluing up the walls.

So I eyeballed the fit as best I could and glued the canopy pieces together at the corners.  I then gave the whole canopy a shot of flat black spray paint above and cream below.  The whole was then glued to the walls.

Strips of pastel paper a scale eight inches wide were glued to the roof edges to represent the fascia boards. 

The canopy is covered with the same ribbed paper as the walls, but this time painted with spray can red automotive primer.  For the ridge caps I used a sheet of pastel paper, cut to a scale eighteen inches wide, and formed a slight ridge down the center by running a ballpoint pen along the back, using a sheet of styrene corrugated sheet as a guide. 

With the "corrugated metal" sheeting and the ridge caps in place, the slight variations at the corners where the walls weren't square is hardly noticeable. 

There is a bit of curvature in the front canopy, due to slight warping of the foam core board where the glue was applied.  Hopefully that will be taken care of when the supporting columns are glued in place. 

Next step is to attach the roof of the building itself. 

Jabulani Station - Part 5

Doors are built up from 2mm cardstock and pastel paper, painted with different shades of chocolate brown.  Strips of pastel paper are cut in various widths from a scale 2 inches to 9 inches.

The strips are applied to the 2mm cardstock to form the door jams and the rails and stiles of the doors. 

The two front station doors are paneled, while the rear parcel room doors are plain flat doors.  When complete, the doors are inserted in the opening from behind and glued in place.

The next step is to fit the roof, which will be somewhat tricky, and I haven't quite figured out what the plan is. 

Jabulani Station - Part 4

For windows, I print a template to scale and tape a sheet of clear plastic over the template.  The window is then framed in using various sizes of drafting tape for the muntins.  The narrowest tape I've been able to find is 1/64 inch, which scales out to a little less than 1 inch in 7mm scale.

 

 

The tape comes in black, white, blue, red, green and yellow, but not brown.  So to finish off the framing I painted a strip of masking tape chocolate brown and cut strips a scale two inches wide.

 





 

Once the tape is laid down, I paint the whole thing with clear acrylic (Pledge "Future" floor polish) to ensure the tape is securely bonded to the clear plastic.  Unfortunately, in a house with five cats, I always end up with a stray hair bonded to a window pane here and there, but I still find this step necessary for the overall durability of the window.

 

Once the clear acrylic has dried overnight, the window glazing is cut to the size of the window openings, and they are inserted into the openings from behind. 

 

I did have a bit of trouble with the ticket windows.  The strips of tape were so thin that the brown paint kept separating from the masking tape.  But with a little extra patience they finally came together.

Next step will be the doors for the building.

 



Jabulani Station - Part 3

The next step in building the Jabulani station building is framing in the window and door openings.  For this I use Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper, which has one rough side and one relatively smooth side, and comes in a variety of colors.  I used "Felt Gray".  Using pastel paper for wood siding and planking is a tehnique stolen from Troels Kirk, who uses this method on his Coast Line Railroad. 

The rough side of the paper is painted rather messily with two different shades of chocolate brown, allowing some of the texture and gray color of the paper to show through.  The gray parts left exposed appear as areas of peeled paint when strips (planks) are cut.

The strips are cut a scale four inches wide.  They are then cut to length to form the framing and casings for the windows and doors, and are glued in place using PVA glue.  The window sills are cut a scale six inches wide from strips of 1mm thick cardstock. 

For me, this is the most tedious part of construction, and it is a relief when all the openings are completed. 

The pastel paper technique is used best when creating a wood-sided structure.  I use three different colors of grey paper painted generally the same color with a dab of grey or brown paint here and there.  Again, here is a picture of a wood-sided building I completed a couple of weeks ago.

The next step in the process is to get the windows glazed.

Jabulani Station - Part 2

As I mentioned previously, I have used different kinds of corrugated iron products made specifically for model railways.  All have been good for specific applications, but for the station building at Jabulani, I want something more seemless -- and cheap. 

I settled on a sheet of ribbed scrapbooking paper that comes in one foot square sheets for 99 cents, at the local Michaels craft store.  Although the ribs are spaced slightly smaller than would be accurate for O scale, it was "close enough", and cheap enough, for my purposes.  Since it was a bright metallic aquamarine color, a shot of grey primer toned it down to reality. 

The sheet was cut into strips the height of the station building walls, in this case a scale 10' 9", and applied using Elmer's (PVA) glue. 

I let the glue set up overnight, and then cut the window and door openings.

South African Railways steam era station buildings were generally painted in a combination of cream walls and chocolate brown trim and doors, with white window mullions.  Roofs were painted with red oxide. 

To paint the walls, I used Floquil Poly Scale "TH & B Cream", very liberally lightened about half-and-half with Poly Scale "Reefer White".  When dry I coated this with a thin wash of lamp black oil paint, and then dry-brushed with white.

 

The next step will be to add the window and door frames and casings, which will be cut from watercolor paper.

Jabulani Station

The station buildings at Jabulani will be based on those at Hilton, to the northwest of Pietermaritzburg, in Natal, South Africa.  Although Hilton is on a 3'6" "standard" or "Cape" gauge line, the design is typical of buildings used for 2' narrow gauge lines as well. 

The fictional Jabulani station is set farther north, in the area near Melmoth and Babanango, Zululand, where no rail line was built, but this fiction allows me a little more creative leeway, and allow me to excuse any "mistakes".

Hilton's buildings are wood framed and covered completely in corrugated iron.  In addition to the station building itself, there are a ladies' waiting room, toilets, lamp hut, and goods shed.

The materials for the station build are foam core board, watercolor paper, various widths of card stock, clear plastic sheet, drafting tape, and some styrene strips for the roof supports.  The biggest challenges will be mixing paint in the right proportions to get the proper shades of colors faded in the South African sun, and deciding on the type of material to simulate the corrugated iron sheeting. 

There are many materials on the market specifically made to simulate corrugated iron.  Campbell Scale Models (and other companies) produce scale corrugated aluminum sheets.  Several other sources, such as Brunel Models, make scale tools to produce your own corrugated sheets from aluminum foil.  I have used both products to good effect for metal roofs that need to show the effects of age on individual sheets of corrugated iron. 

However, for Jabulani station, I wanted the effect to be of a station building in relatively good repair, with minimal seems showing between the sheets of corrugated iron.  Since the entire building was to be covered, I also wanted a material that was inexpensive and could take a bit more handling than thin aluminum.  I finally settled on a sheet of ribbed scrapbooking paper from the local craft store, which appears to be closer to S scale, but comes in one-foot square sheets for about one dollar each.  The only drawback is that it seems to only be available in a metallic aquamarine color, but a shot of grey primer took care of that.

 The plan for the wall panels was laid out on 3/16 inch foam core board... 

 

...and first the window and door openings were cut, and then the wall sections themselves.

 

 

I don't give much careful attention to getting walls square.  I mainly just line them up with the grid on the cutting mat, and if they are a millimeter off, it all comes out well-enough at the end.  My glue of choice for foam core board is Scotch brand Quick-Dry adhesive.  It dries clear and forms a strong bond between different types of materials.

 

 

Once all the walls are together, I leave the thing alone to allow the glue to firm up overnight.

 

 

Next, the corrugated sheeting and paint......



Experimentation

My scratchbuilding material of choice was always styrene, but since moving to O scale I have been experimenting with other materials, partly to keep costs down, but mainly just for the challenge of creating something from nothing. 

I've completed a couple of buildings using foam core board, paper and drafting tape.  After seeing the fantastic results achieved by Mr. Troels Kirk, the Danish artist from Sweden, I've been experimenting with his method of cutting strips of wood planking from sheets of pastel paper splotched with acrylic paint.  If you are not familiar with his work, his website is an eye-opener:  http://coastline.no13.se/#home. 

My first effort with these methods was the lighthouse at Miskowagosh Point on the Fox Creek Railway side of my layout.  It is based on the Sturgeon Point lighthouse on Lake Huron near Harrisburg, Michigan.

The lighthouse is foam core board, covered in brick paper from Micro-Mark (http://www.micromark.com).  The tower was made by forming two layers of heavy watercolor paper around a plastic lighthouse-shaped bird feeder.  Doors are built up from strips of pastel paper painted with acrylics, and windows are drafting tape on clear plastic.  The only styrene is in the lens frame and deck at the top of the tower.  The lens itself is a fresnel lens cast in clear resin, with lighting from Bakatronics (http://www.bakatronics.com). 

 

 

The next building, which was completed board-by-board using Troels Kirk's pastel paper method, was the general store/harbormaster's office at the port of St. Cleve, Michigan.  This is again using foam core board, with styrene windows, doors, and details from Grandt Line (http://grandtline.com/). 

 

 

The design for this building comes from the series of building plans of the 1960s and 1970s by the late E. L. Moore.  This was his "funeral parlor" published in an edition of Model Railway Craftsman.  Many of Moore's plans have been turned into HO scale styrene kits, and I intend to make good use of his plans in other buildings on the Fox Creek Railway.

Collecting it all in one place.

For a few years, I have been posting photos and progress reports on various model railway forums, but thought it was about time to collect it all in one place.

In 2010, my wife and I bought a new house with a nice dry room in the basement big enough for a layout small enough that I might actually be able to finish it.  After negotiating over space with my wife ("just give me one room, and you can have the rest of the house"), I went to work tiling the floor and installing a support frame around the wall for the layout benchwork.

I have begun and never finished four layouts in the past, three in HO and one in N scale, based variously in South Africa, England, and the United States.  However, along the way I discovered On30, and the experimentation that On30 modellers love to get into. 

So the new layout, in the new layout room, would be On30.  But where should the setting be?  I enjoyed the research and scratchbuilding involved in modelling South Africa, but it's difficult and often tedious from thousands of miles away.  Modelling my own state of Michigan would be much easier.  I just have to look out the window to know what the landscape is like.  It seemed a good compromise to model both Michigan and South Africa.  I could still enjoy the research, but would be able to take a break now and then to freelance a layout in my home state. 

The layout room is roughly fifteen feet by ten feet.  On one side are the northern forests around the Lake Huron port of St. Cleve, Michigan, and on the other is Jabulani, a small rural station in the hills of Zululand north of the Buffalo River.  There are no such places as St. Cleve or Jabulani, but I hope to capture the flavor of both Michigan and Zululand.