Office Shelf Layout Update

Over Memorial day weekend I was finally able to get some more work done on this project. It's become several different mini-projects right now and I've just been bouncing back and forth between them without really focusing on one specific task. That's not the best way to get things done, but it works for me.

One of the mini-projects lately was building one of my switch stand kits. That part was pretty easy, it was fixing up the track that took the most time. Below is a look at the ties I cut from some old scrap track. The longer ones just have the tie plates and spikes sanded off. To get the wood grain look back I just ran the back of my xacto blade along the top.

Modifications to the turnout.

Once the ties were glued back in place, it was time to add the switch stand and brass rod to connect it to the rails. While I probably could've gotten a thinner piece of brass to look more prototypical, I just used what I had leftover from my road sign project a while back. It might look a little big, but that's fine with me and it is definitely an improvement over the way it looked before. I might be going overboard with some of these small details, but I like it.

A look at the modified turnout and nearly completed switch stand kit.

A look at the complete switch stand kit.

I love how this thing turned out, but now that I think about it, I wish I had not glued it to the ties before painting everything. Now it is stuck on the layout and I was worried about knocking into it, so I decided something needed to be done to protect it. That's why I glued a Dixie cup upside down over it.

Protection for the complete switch stand kit in the form of a Dixie cup.

Another small project was putting together and painting the Pikestuff loading dock kit. The kit went together pretty easily and should work just fine on the layout. This was another mockup I did in the past with cardboard and as the next picture shows, it is just about the exact same as what I already had made up.

Side by side of my mockup and the built up Pikestuff kit.

The tricky part about this was getting the end of the ramp section to meet up with the concrete pad I had leading into the ramp over the track. I ended up using my xacto knife to score the top side enough to where I could snap the end off, just like cutting any other piece of styrene. A little bit of sanding and it butted up nicely to the concrete pad.

A look at the chopped off end of the loading dock ramp.

Since the ramp was only three pieces (there was a back piece that I didn't use), I decided it would be a good idea to cut and glue in some styrene cross members to help keep the piece stable for cutting and sanding. They are never going to be seen and it was done with scrap styrene so it worked out nicely.

Styrene supports added to the underside of the ramp.

Test fitting the loading dock kit on the layout.

After getting the loading dock aligned with the cement pad leading up to it, I decided to paint the bottom edge the same color as the cement. I thought this would help make it look like the dock was built on top of existing cement. At least this way the color transition between the two looks a bit better.

Using Frog Tape to paint the bottom edge of the loading dock and ramp.

I did this with some Frog Tape and the results were pretty good. Here is how the side of the dock looks now. I really like how the loading docks match and are just different enough from the concrete areas to stand out. It would look strange if they were all the exact same color.

A look at the loading dock and ramp after being painted.

While progress has been pretty slow, I really like how this thing is coming along. My next project will probably be getting the DPM walls put together so I can paint them to match the commissary building. I've got a week of vacation starting Monday, so hopefully I can get some good modeling time in over the break and make some progress on this project.

More Accessories for the Office Shelf Layout

There are plenty of accessories that I plan on using for this layout, but I only wanted to start with a few for now so I don't get overwhelmed. In addition to the switch stand kit and the Ford Maverick, I picked up some shelving for the interior of the commissary building and some track bumpers for the far end of the layout.

The track bumpers I got are the Hayes style and come from Peco. Click here to see more about them. The kit came with pieces for two bumpers, so that worked perfectly for the two tracks I have. This was a great little kit, the pieces went together very easily, I didn't even glue them. All I have to do now is decide how to paint and weather them. Even though they are listed as code 83, they actually don't look too bad with my code 100 track.

My new Hayes bumpers fully assembled and ready for paint.

Another item I bought was a set of pre-finished shelves from Model Tech Studios. Click here for more about them. These I plan on putting somewhere inside the commissary building. They look great and were reasonably priced.

Pre-finished shelving from Model Tech Studios.

My plan is to fully model the interior as realistically as I can given the lack of depth. I'm hoping to get some more things like this and then add some lighting so everything inside can easily be seen.

1:87 Ford Maverick for the Office Shelf Layout

Another part of my ModelTrainStuff.com purchase was a 1:87 red Ford Maverick from Motor Max. I bought this so I would have at least one vehicle to place around the layout for judging scale. It's kind of hard to plan things out for cars and trucks when you don't have any to mock things up with.

This one is supposed to be from 1970 as evident by the year on the front license plate. I had never heard of this car before seeing it on the ModelTrainStuff website, so that tells you how not old I am. It is still a nice looking car though and it a pretty good representation of the real thing. It is way better than any of the cheap plastic 1:87 vehicles I had for my layout as a kid. Kind of makes me want to order a few more now.

A side view of my new Ford Maverick from Motor Max.

A look at the front end.

A look at the other side.

This this was well worth the $3.50 that is cost me. The level of detail is just right for this layout. The only thing I may want to do is hit it with some weathering so it doesn't look brand new. To look realistic, this car will have to show 15-20 years of wear and tear to fit in with my late 80's to early 90's theme.

Switch Stand Kit for the Office Shelf Layout

Part of my recent order from ModelTrainStuff was a switch stand kit from Central Valley Model Works. I thought this would be a nice touch and add some more realism to the layout. I've never worked with a small kit like this before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. One thing I will say is these things are tiny and not the easiest to work with. I guess that's to be expected though when you're trying to realistically model something in 1:87 scale.

The kit came with parts to make six total switch stands. I only really need one for this layout, so I figured worst case is I have five chances to screw up the assembly process. Luckily, I've had pretty good success putting the first one together. All I need to do now with it is paint the target red and glue it onto the piece of wire that holds it up. 

A look at my almost completed switch stand kit, shown next to my new Ford Maverick for scale

So far I really like how this kit is coming together. While it is just a static piece for display, I think it will look great on the layout. The only problem I have now is figuring out how to work it into the track I already have glued down. I used an old Atlas turnout so it has the larger piece of plastic between ties that moves the track. For me, I don't care as much about the functionality as I do the appearance, so I'm going to tweak this a bit. 

The old Atlas turnout that will need to be modified.

What I want to do is take out the plastic moving piece and replace it with some brass rod that looks a bit more realistic. I also want to rip out the two large blocks of plastic against the rails and replace them with two ties that look just like all the others. These two will then be extended out toward the camera and that is where I will place the switch stand. 

The extended ties that need to be placed under the track for the new switch stand.

As much as I was hoping to avoid this, I ended up having to remove the entire turnout from the layout for now. Luckily I was able to easily pry it up and slide it out of the connections with the remaining track. Now all I have to do is make the modifications to it and then put everything back together.

Is it just me, or is something missing from this picture?

Once those steps are completed, I will probably have to touch up the paint a bit then I can call it good. I'll make sure to post some more pictures at that point.

New Stuff for the Office Shelf Layout

I've been working on the office shelf layout for quite a while now and one thing I had not done until this past week was order something online for it. I've gotten a few things from eBay for my Detroit & Mackinac collection, but nothing specifically from one of the many online retailers. I had some Christmas money left over in my PayPal account so I decided to start shopping online for some things that would fit nicely with this project.

After plenty of searching and comparing I decided to buy from ModelTrainStuff.com, which turned out to be a great decision. I'll explain that later on. I ended up buying ten things altogether and spent just under $60 including shipping. While it isn't really all that much, here is a look at everything I got.

My first purchase from ModelTrainStuff.com

A few of these are essential to the plan for the layout (DPM walls, Pikestuff loading dock) and some are just for fun like the 1970 Ford Maverick. The reason for that was I needed at least one vehicle to place on the layout to get a proper sense of scale for the parking areas. I'm still on the lookout for some box trucks for the loading dock area.

As far as the overall experience with ModelTrainStuff, I would give it a 10 out of 10. The prices were reasonable, the checkout process was nice and easy, and they went above and beyond packing these parts for me. They all came in a single sealed bag inside of a medium sized box filled with packing peanuts. Even with the cheapest shipping option, I still received it all on Wednesday after placing the order around 2 AM on Saturday. I will definitely be ordering from them again whenever I can't get something from a show or the hobby shop.

Now, off to start playing with these new toys...

Office Shelf Layout Update

With the weather getting nicer around here finally, other than the few 30 degree nights lately (gotta love Michigan weather), I have less and less free time for my two hobbies, but I still try to at least make some time for them when I can at night on the weekends. I usually end up working on this and other modeling projects between 11:00 pm and 2:00 am on Friday and Saturday nights. Keeping to that schedule has worked pretty well lately. Sure I could use this time to sleep, but I'd rather get some time in on the layout, even if it is just a few hours once or twice a week.

Anyway, tonight I took all the weights off the layout and found that the glue worked pretty well for holding down the track and paved area. There are a few high spots in the paved area, but nothing that isn't manageable, so I'm happy with it. With this done it feels like I've finally made some real progress.

A look at the layout with the track and paved area glued in place.

Another thing I've been working on is what to do with all the dead space to the right of the commissary building. A few weeks ago I bought some DPM modular building pieces to try and mock something up that would sit flat against the back wall. I don't want to take up too much of the depth since I wanted to have a parking area and a few vehicles. 

The plan for now is to get enough pieces to make a two-story wall that runs from the edge of the commissary building all the way to the other end of the layout. I haven't worked with any DPM parts or kits in the past, so this will be a learning experience, but I'm looking forward to it.

A look at the beginning of my DPM modular mockup.

These things are actually pretty neat and I'm really hoping they will work out as planned. There is definitely some cleaning up and fine-tuning to do once you cut all the pieces from the sprue, but that's not so bad given the amount of freedom you have designing with them. 

A closeup look at some of the DPM panels in place on the layout.

So far I like the look of the panels I'm working with. They seem like they will blend in nicely with the commissary building. The only issue I see right now is that the DPM sections have brick all the way to the ground, while the commissary has a concrete base. Not a huge deal, just something I noticed. Another thing I need to figure out is how these new pieces will interface with the commissary. I'm thiking about just butting it right up to the existing wall and have it set just enough off the back wall to meet the narrow column of bricks on the commissary.

Office Shelf Layout Update

Lately I just haven't had as much time as I would've like to work on this project. I've been busy repainting the kitchen in our house, which turned into a bigger project than I had planned on. That's taken up the last two weekends and the weekend before that I was out of town so I just haven't had any decent stretch of free time for modeling until this past Saturday night. After putting some finishing touches on a few areas in the kitchen, I decided to put in some work on the layout. In my last post I left off with the main paved section cut and glued together. 

Since then I've made a few changes. I ended up cutting a new top layer to include a lead up to the track for the loading dock section to go between the two tracks. Doing this ensure there would be no visible seams in the paved area. By that I mean seams between pieces of poster board that I wouldn't be able to blend together very easily. I know because I tried with some spackle and it just didn't work at all. After cutting the new top I glued it to the other layers and painted it. This is how it looked before I glued it down to the layout.

A look at the larger paved area for the layout

Its hard to tell in this picture, but the whole piece became very warped as the acrylic paint dried. The ends were noticeably lifted up, which had me tempted to scrap the entire thing and start over with styrene. Instead of starting over, I decided to put some heavy weight (approx 50 lbs) and let it sit for a couple of days. That seemed to help a lot so I decided to keep things the way they were.

The next step was to secure the paved area and the track to the base cork layer. To do this I just used Elmer's glue and left the 50 lbs of weight resting on top of everything.

Found a good use for my 1000's of hockey cards to help glue the track and paved area

I'm going to let this sit probably until Friday night when I can get back to modelling. Until then, I need to get online and order a few more detail accessories  for the project. Things like chain link fence, the loading dock, and a switch stand. Progress is definitely slow, but its nice to always have something to work on when I am bored with my other hobbies.

Office Shelf Layout Update

Progress has been relatively slow on this project, but with the way my schedule is right now I can only work on it late at night on the weekends, so I get maybe 4-6 hours a weekend to work on modeling projects. I'm not as far as I would like to be, but that's ok as long as I'm always moving at least a little bit forward.

Since my last update, I've gone ahead and glued the cork layer to the baseboard, finished painting the rear track, and almost completed the layout of the paved areas. What I've been doing for this is cutting layers of cardboard, from old cereal boxes, and stacking them up to be level with the top of the rails. There are six layers of cardboard and one layer of poster board, which is red because I happened to have that laying around in the basement. All it needs is a couple of coats of acrylic paint then it will look just like concrete.  

Layout of cardboard and poster board for the paved areas of the layout.

This layering technique for doing paved areas is not the most efficient, but it works for me and that's all that matters. To keep the layers together, I am just using an Elmer's glue stick. I haven't decided how to glue them to the cork just yet, maybe white glue will work. That won't happen for a while though so I can make sure I have the layout of the paved areas just right. I still need to add a location between the tracks on the left side for a loading dock and then another section crossing the tracks for forklift access to the dock.

A closeup look at the layered cardboard method I'm using for my paved areas.

I'm at the point now where I need to order a few things so I can keep going. I need the loading dock for between the tracks at a minimum and I'd like to get some other detail parts to combine shipping and have a few more options to play with for this layout. Below is a picture showing a couple of cars parked on the two tracks in front of the commissary building. The hammer is in there to help keep the corner of the cork down while the glue dried.

A quick mockup of two cars parked on the two tracks.

I'm hoping to get some more time in on the layout this weekend and maybe get the rest of the cardboard cut and glued together for the paved areas under the loading dock. Other than that I really need to think about gluing the track down so things don't move on me. The contour cut of the cardboard follows the track so I don't want that getting messed up.

Scratch Building Some Road Signs

Lately I've been thinking of ways I could scratch build some simple items for my office shelf layout and one of the easier things I came up with was to make some road signs. I will need at least two cross buck signs and maybe some other warning signs for the layout, so rather than pay to get a large pack of pre-made ones, I decided to try it for myself.

Some examples of the signs I wanted to try to make.

The first step was doing some research on how big these signs are in real life. After a bit of searching around, I found some good resources and decided to go with 36" diameter for the round yellow sign, 36" x 36" for the stop sign and approximately 50" x 50" for the cross buck. 

Once the sizes were determined, I found some good drawings of each sign online and copied them into my vector graphics program, Inkscape, and resized them to scale. Then it was as simple as creating a few copies of each then printing them on my home printer. I tried printing them on regular copy paper as well as some thicker fancy paper. The latter ended up being the better choice just for the rigidity of the end result. The copy paper just seemed to be too flimsy. Here is a look at one of the printouts.

A look at the printout with some signs already cut out.

One they were printed I just needed to cut out the shapes. The first one I tried was one of the round yellow signs with an xacto knife. That didn't work so well on the round shape so I did the other two with scissors and that seemed to work better. The stop signs were pretty easy, although I kind of messed up the first one and did not include the white trim. The cross buck proved to be difficult just because of the interior corners, but came out looking ok.

Once the sings were cut, I needed something to stick them to. For this I chose to use some 0.010" square brass rod from Hobby Lobby. The only thing I did was cut it to size and paint it silver using a metallic silver paint marker. I then glued the signs to the posts using an Elmer's glue stick. This seemed to work pretty well.

Then to address the issue of the backs being white from the paper, I first tried coloring them in with a silver colored pencil. This worked ok, but was not perfect. I then tired the same idea with the metallic paint marked and that came out much better. In the bottom picture the first two on the left are just the white paper, the two in the center are the colored pencil, and the two on the right are the metallic paint marker.

A look at the front of the first batch of signs.

A look at the back of the first batch of signs.

These turned out much better than I thought they would. There are some things I would like to improve for future attempts, but nothing too major. I think the best thing would be to find a way to cut the circle shapes in one cut with some kind of punch. That would get rid of the rough look to the overall shape.

Office Shelf Layout Update

Its been a while since my last update on this project as I haven't had much modeling time the last few weeks. I did manage to make some good progress in the last two weekends though. I now have the track almost completely painted and I've started building the foundation for the paved ares of the layout. Here is a look at the progress.

A look at the start of my paved areas on the layout.

A closeup look at my freshly painted track.

The front track is completely painted and now I just need to finish the rear track. It may be a lot of extra work, but I really like the look of the separately painted tie plates and rails. I used Rust-Oleum camouflage spray paint for the ties then went over the rails, spike heads and tie plates with Americana acrylic burnt umber. It may not be perfect, but it looks good enough for me. I've still got a lot to do, but things are slowly coming together now.

Office Shelf Layout Update

Along with all the work I've been doing on the Walthers Commissary building, I've been making some progress on other parts of the office shelf layout project. Now that I have a better idea of the final size of the Commissary building, I've been able to finalize the track plan and pavement layout, at least for now. This plan seems to be ever changing, so something may be different than this by the time I'm done.

I'm still working with the same track plan I posted back in August, but with a small modification. Rather than having a mainline running across the front, I've decided to make both track dead end sidings that would serve only this particular industry. This means I'll be able to have a car parked on both tracks at the same time and be able to put a loading dock between the two to get to the front most track.

A look at my latest mockup of the office shelf layout.

A better look at the loading dock mockup I built from old cereal boxes.

The plan for the loading dock is to create it from the modular kit from Pikestuff shown below. It comes with four main pieces and two ramps, so the plan would be to only use one of each piece. I mocked up a version with two main sections and one ramp, but it just took up too much space. This just means the front track will be reserved for just 50' boxcars, anything longer like the bulkhead flat cars would have to use the rear track.

Pikestuff modular loading dock kit.

Another slight adjustment to the overall plan is the road running along the very front edge of the layout. My plan for this is to make it half of a road. It will still give me the look I'm going for and save some space. I plan on making it more of an industrial driveway or short access road, so it should be pretty easy to model.

At this point I am happy with the progress I've made and I continue to really enjoy this project. Its a lot of fun to come up with all these ideas and build the mockups to try things out. The next steps are going to be getting the loading dock kit and deciding on some more of the smaller detail parts for the layout.

Structure Build: Walthers Commissary Building Part 9

It took a little longer than I wanted, but now I have all of the major pieces glued together for the Commissary building kit. It was actually pretty easy to get everything assembled. The only problem I ran into was some of the glue running into places that I didn't want it. I'm using Testors liquid cement and it dries clear on top of the paint job, so it doesn't look all that great in a few small places. The good thing is they are in areas that will be difficult to see when this thing is done.

A look at the front of the assembled structure.

I have to say this thing looks much better than I expected it to. Not bad for my first kit build. There really isn't anything I would change about it. I like how the black stands out against the red brick color and the concrete accents help complete the look. With just a little more weathering, it will be perfect.

A look at the back of the assembled structure.

The next step is figuring out what I want to do with the roof and then the interior. I want to go with either a gravel or tar paper roof, so I've got some things to look into before I can work on that. For the inside, I've started mocking up some floors and walls using craft wood and cut up cereal boxes. I'd like to have it all made out of styrene in the end, but its looking like the cardboard might do the trick.

Structure Build: Walthers Commissary Building Part 8

Progress has been relatively slow overall on this kit, but its been a fun project so far and I'm very happy with how its going so far. Since my last post I've gotten the two loading dock door sections modified to my liking and repainted. I actually went ahead and removed all three individual door sections from both pieces, which leaves a good sized section open to see through into the interior of the building. This means I have to at least do something with a floor on the inside now, otherwise the front of this thing would look pretty strange.

A look at the front of the kit temporarily assembled to show the cut out doors.

Once that was done I repainted the two doors with spray paint. After that there was only one thing left to do before I could start assembly: another idea from Southern8099 which is painting the insides of the walls black to prevent light from shining out. I do plan to light this structure with LED's so I defintely needs to do this step. 

I happened to have some black acrylic paint sitting around so I decided to do this the hard way and paint it with a small brush. I had to paint the back of the three walls as well as the four loading dock doors. It was a pretty quick job and it works great. I took my mini LED work light and tried to shine it through from the back, but the acrylic paint stops the light altogether. I just hope all this extra paint doesn't interfere with the gluing process.

A look at the backs of the main components painted black.

The only thing I messed up was not painting the back of the window frames before gluing down the glass pieces. Now they are going to be permanently green, but that may not be a big deal because they are not exactly easy to see from the outside. The next step if assembling these main pieces. I'm hoping to get that done in the next week or so.

Structure Build: Walthers Commissary Building Part 7

Finally, Thanksgiving is here and I have two extra days off work. That means I have two extra nights of modeling time this weekend, so I'm trying to get as much out of it as I can. Most of these next few nights will probably be spent working on this kit so I can get it done and move onto finishing up the track work on the shelf layout.

So far I have all of the pieces painted and have begun the assembly process. Last night I glued all of the windows in place on the three walls and began prepping the doors for assembly. While progress has been much slower than I would have liked, I'm comfortable with where I'm at so far and its been a good learning experience. 

A look at all of the main pieces with the window frames and glass installed.

Getting the windows installed was pretty simple. All it took was a couple of drops of Testors plastic cement and a good eye to keep the pieces aligned properly. The black frames went in just fine and then the glass just mounted flush to the back of the frames. It came out looking pretty nice. I really like the look of the black.

A closer look at one of the ends with the window frame and glass installed.

The next thing I need to do is install the roll up loading dock doors. These come out of the box completely shut so there is no visibility into the structure without some modification. After seeing Southern8099's video of this kit on YouTube, I am using his method of cutting away some of the doors so you can see into the building. I'd like to build a floor to go on the inside then model the interior with as much detail as I can. 

Starting to work on cutting away some of the loading dock doors.

In the video his method was to just cut them out with an Xacto knife. That seemed simple enough so that's what I started doing. It takes a few passes with the blade to get through the thickness, but its not all that difficult. After rough cutting it with the knife, my plan is to sand it flat and repaint. I wish I would've thought to do this before painting them.

New Rolling Stock: Atlas TTX Bulkhead Flat Car

I made a trip to one of my two local hobby shops again earlier today just taking a look around for ideas for my office shelf layout. I didn't go in with anything particular in mind, but was happy to come away with a new flat car that I plan to use as part of the scene in front of the commissary building I'm working on.

I've been thinking about making the commissary into a facility for a furniture maker, so there would be a need for inbound freight like wood and paper products. The paper can be brought in with boxcars and the wood with bulkhead flat cars. I chose the TTX road name because it is one that can be seen all over, so it would not look out of place at a fictional facility somewhere in Michigan, which is what I'm going for with this layout.

Atlas Trainman TTX bulkhead flat car #804069

A look at the car fresh out of the box.

A look at the details on the ends of the car.

A look at some of the decals on the sides.

A look at the end and top deck of the flat car.

It is a great looking car and I think it will work perfectly for the office shelf layout. Now I just need to figure out what I am going to do for the wood load. I've seen some pre-made ones online, but they are pricey so I may try to go ahead and make my own. Not sure how to do that just yet, so we'll see what happens.

Structure Build: Walthers Commissary Building Part 6

I was lucky enough to find some extra time this weekend to get some work in on this project. I am not at the point where I have all of the major components painted and ready for assembly. The concrete colored paint I bought has been excellent so far and definitely gives the whole structure a more realistic look On a side note, I've decided that any weathering I try will be done once the structure is fully assembled. This will allow me to get started on the assembly as soon as I have some spare time for it, which is hopefully sooner than later.

Here is a look at all of the major pieces with the concrete color added. The accents on the brick walls look great and I'm really glad I decided to paint the foundation conrete as well. It just gives the whole thing that little extra bit of realism. 

Finished paint work on the major components.

One thing I did learn from this so far is to be careful how much paint you put on for the mortar lines in the brick. I found that if you let it get into the inside of the window frames it looks pretty bad when everything is dry. I ended up having to go back in an touch up a lot of the openings to retain the red brick color rather than the cloudy looking white.

My next step will be gluing in the windows then the clear glass pieces. After that it will be time to put the three walls together then assemble them with the base.