Modeling Monday - More on the Dividend House

After having some fun setting up an ops session and actually doing some solo operating, it was time to get back to the Dividend house.

Once the sides of the modified porch support were dry, I added a couple of scrap pieces of square styrene to provide additional gluing surface (having first cut down the ledger board to fit width-wise).

I used a square to hold things square while the glue dried.

Next, I added the legs to the porch and the porch roof - again, using my 1-2-3 blocks to keep things square (I'm really liking these - thanks again for the tip Craig!)

During another "spare" 15 minutes on a different evening, I removed paint from gluing surfaces - using a sanding block for the edges of the walls and a blade to scrape away from the bracing.

The one step in structure assembly that I think is both the easiest (in concept) and the hardest (in execution) is actually gluing the walls together and keeping them square while doing it (and keeping the parts nice and tight to each other all the while).

I've tried magnetic gluing jigs, squares, and just holding them with my bare hands in a way that "looks right" while the glue cured. This time, I opted for a square.

While that was drying, I cut down the porch roof.

I'd marked the width based on an even overhang around the porch roof support. Before actually gluing the roof, I'll paint and weather the roof support as well as the porch itself.

Heh - in addition to all the other methods I mentioned above, and in lieu of just using my hands (which would have grown tired) I decided to use this handy clamp to keep the lower corners snug on these walls. The other corners were nice and tight, but these needed some extra persuasion, and time.

As harrowing as gluing the walls together can be sometimes, it's also the one step in the process where you really get the joy of seeing how it's all going to look. Allofasudden, you go from essentially 2-dimensional pieces to an actual 3-d structure. And I think this one is going to work out nicely.

So that's all the modeling progress to report for this past week. In addition, I decided to set-aside my steam decoder conversion project (for reasons I may get into later), got a cool new book on the New Haven's famed Maybrook Line, and even got to go on a little day trip (first one of 2020!) where I happened across an ex-NH unit in operation!

But all that will have to wait until next time - and until then, I hope you're able to get to some modeling too!