Sunday, January 17, 2021

Hartford Rayon Foundation

Continuing work at Hartford Rayon in the Dividend section of Rocky Hill . . .

Follow along with the captions . . .

The foundation & docks for the warehouse, as well as the truck loading area/turnaround, being pretty much all set, I started fiddling more with the foundation under the factory/office building.

As you can see from the two pics above, I'd initially thought to have it continue right to the edge of the layout.

The height on the trackside of the building was spot on with a boxcar floor. . .


. . . and I even went so far as to trim the foam to fit.

But it still didn't look right, so I decided to trim the non-trackside back to the edge of the building.


Unfortunately, trimming it resulting in some rough spots which would definitely show up when I color the foam to make it look like concrete.

Fortunately though, a sanding block made quick work of that  . . .

. . . and the result was darn near perfect.

With the foundation done, it was time to step back and assess the progress of the scene.

I'm especially happy with how the foundation/loading dock combo is working out under the warehouse.

But the foundation under the office/factory building is a bit more problematic. It occurred to me later that I should have planned ahead for some truck loading docks at the back (aisle) side of the building. Thankfully though, after soliciting some feedback, Ken Rutherford weighed in with some great suggestions for how to treat this side. . . I'm still mulling them, but stay tuned!

Having hot-glued in the building foundations (though the truck turnaround is still loose), I started to mockup some backdrop photos . . . I sure hope the backdrop here goes quicker than Wethersfield has . . . Heh - wouldn't take much!

I hope you enjoyed this (very) quick overview of how I went about raising some structures so that the loading dock doors would line up with the height of the freight car floors. I'll be especially interested to see whether I can paint this foam to look enough like concrete to be convincing. As always, thoughts and feedback are welcome!

Progress in Dividend is going along pretty steadily, though I'm only able to get to it on Sunday afternoons. Thankfully, I haven't allowed myself to get too bogged down with Analysis Paralysis and - imagine! - I'm actually having fun! It's cool to see this scene developing . . . sure, it may not be perfectly prototypical, but it's pretty darn close. And it's a heckuva lot better than leaving it unfinished and all to the imagination. 

Here's hoping you'll enjoy continuing to follow along as I get to the landforms, a rock cut, and other fun stuff!


3 comments:

  1. Chris what is the foam base, thickness and purchase price/ place? Thanks, Barry

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  2. Chris please forgive me for not reading a previous post where you described using 3/16"thickx20"x30"foam board at Hobby Lobby for $2.99 a sheet.

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  3. No worries Barry! Always glad to help! Yes, you got the correct info for the thin, white foam board that I like to use for concrete roads/lots/etc. If you're wondering about the yellow foam board I'm using for the foundations though, that's a bit more complicated since I got it as scrap from my friend James Mayo. All I know is that it's DOW Super TUFF-R insulation board, 1/2" thick, with blue plastic on one side and silver foil on the other side. I peel both off to reveal just foam (beware: peeling it off can be a bit of a pain). Hope this helps!

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