Have you ever had a modeling project that has languished on your workbench for some reason? You know the ones I'm talking about - projects that have stalled either from a lack of parts, a lack of skill, or just plain lack of motivation.
Well, I'm embarrassed to admit I had two such projects, especially considering how little it took to finish them up.
Literally all the house at Dividend needed was a chimney and a vent stack.
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| My excuse here is that these little 4-sided "chimney kits" are pretty finicky to assemble well. I did my best using a pair of 1-2-3 blocks to (try and) keep everything square. Then it was a (minor) pain to paint them and do the mortar lines. Any tips/suggestions you have on doing these little chimneys would be most appreciated. |
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| Then all I had to do was my little "vent stack" trick of cutting the point off a toothpick, "painting" it with a black sharpie, drilling a hole in the roof, and gluing it in. |
Like I said, this was an easy project to wrap up - just needed to take the time to do it. Since I'd weathered the walls before assembly, all I have left to do is weather the roofs, porch, and steps.
But that's all done down in the paint room - this project is now off my workbench . . .
Suffice it to say, the structure I'd been working on for that space went on the FAR back burner.
Not wanting to trash it though, I figured - being one of the few brick structures on the layout - I could use it somewhere in Middletown. But the only location that made any sense was practically a mirror image of the space it had been built for -
so I had to reverse it. Thankfully, since the structure wasn't finished, all I had to do was swap the end walls, end for end - and, also thankfully, I hadn't gotten around to cutting the roof to fit.
So that was the last big thing I had to do to get this project off my 'bench. . .
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| After marking the roof to follow the new "roofprint"/footprint, I scored and snapped the styrene. This technique usually works well - but apparently not on styrene that's this thick. . . |
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| I had better luck with the larger roof section, but it still didn't snap as cleanly as I would have liked. |
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| Both roof sections trimmed and ready for painting (I did a quick rattle-can spray of flat black along the white edges). |
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| Once the paint was dry, I just needed to butt-joint the roof pieces together. I added a splice to help reinforce the joint. |
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| To help the seam cure perfectly level/flat, and since the splice would have caused a "hump" if I just laid the roof on the bench (and since I couldn't lay the roof on the top side given the stacks), I used some additional strips of the same thickness as the splice to level everything up while the glue cured. |
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| Once the roof was done, I still had the roof details, loading docks, docks roofs, and steps to do. The little white pieces of styrene on the bottom of the docks raises them to accommodate for the thickness of the structure base. |
And here's the finished building. I used my now-favorite glue (Loctite Gel Control super glue) to add the rest of the details. It works well even if the gluing surfaces are painted (as was the case with the joint between the brick walls and dock roof supports), and it works fast so no clamping is needed - just hold in place for half-a-minute.
It's SO nice to have these projects off the list - literally and mentally. I've since discovered that the ideal location for the factory building is going to require some, um, excavation in Middletown. But that's ok. There's certainly no hurry. I still have Dividend to finish - and thankfully, getting the house off my bench means I'm one step closer to that goal as well.
Thanks for staying tuned and following along!
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