Sunday, June 29, 2014

Middletown Tower - Q&D

Operating sessions are good for so many reasons - one of the most cited of which is the motivation you get to make progress on your layout in time for the session.  But that's not the only time ops sessions can give you motivation.  Sure, they can give you BO - and that motivates you to get to the workbench, but that's only getting your layout to staus quo ante.  It's not progress.  Other times - I would argue many other times - an ops session motivates you to make a change, either to trackwork, paperwork, etc.

This time - my session this past Friday - I got inspired to tackle a structure project.  Here's one of the scenes I saw during that session:

Middletown Yard, looking northwest. Valley local in foreground; tail of Airline local in background.
Specifically this:

A random tower building of unknown origins, I'm embarrassed to admit.
Picking it up, it reminded me very much of this:

Tower SS F-279 at Middletown diamond. Eastbound Airline local approaching, Valley line in foreground.
And so last night, after I finished taking care of my BO, I ended up with this:


This'll be Middletown Tower - Quick & Dirty.  Re-kit the building, cut it down to prototype size, add a new styrene front wall, rebuild.  The first step is done.  Next is to find some clapboard siding. . .

It'll be interesting how close I can come to finally finishing a signature structure on my layout - and how quickly.

2 comments:

  1. Since this is a signature structure, why not a more accurate quick scratch build.

    Prototype looks like about 16' tall. Lower half could be made with Evergreen .040" thick X .050" spaced clapboard siding with .060" X .060" corner posts and horizontal strip under windows. Upper half sidings appears to be shake singles with a slightly taller reveal, could use .060" clapboard siding with some vertical lines scribed to represent the individual shakes.

    Would need some close to 8' tall windows for the upper half like Tichy #8057 for the front facing windows and #8096 for the 3 side windows.

    Kit roof may work out as is, or could scratch one using the kit roof as a guide.

    Haksaw

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  2. Hey Haksaw! Thanks much for the BOM - and your eye is dead on. I just got some Evergreen clapboard for the wall I need to build and was torn between .050 & .060 spacing, even having the original wall with me to compare(!) As luck would have it, the kit's spacing is closer to .055, so I went with the .060 since it was easier to see %^) and it's a close enough match. Why not just scratcbuild? Well, I can get to a 90% model with what I have and since so much of the work is done already (i.e. windows & trim), it'll be much faster this way. No - other than the clapboard spacing being ever-so-slightly off - I'm not going to tell you what the 10% difference(s) is(are) :^) That said, I *do* plan eventually to make a 100% version, but this will be an excellent stand-in for the time being. And when I *do* get around to scratching it, this BOM & build descriptions will be an excellent way to get started - thanks! And thanks for stopping by!

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