Model Railroad Blog

For my first foreground structure, I wanted something that was representative of Vernon, CA but not over the top architecturally.  This building at 4780 Corona Avenue fits the bill.  I like the distinctive curved corners.  I’m not sure what style of architecture this falls under?  Art Deco?  If there are any architects out there I’d be interested in knowing.

After hand laying about three-quarters of the LAJ track, I have to say I don’t really see a noticeable improvement over well colored Micro Engineering flex.  Comparing the time and effort versus visual payoff, the Micro Engineering wins hands down.  While laying the last section of track I  stumbled on a technique that creates the nice effect of rust texture and rust stains on the ballast directly below and adjacent to the rail.  After painting the rail, I took an old, small, stiff brush and ground brown powdered chalk into the rail web and allowed the extra chalk powder to drop downwards on to the ballast.  When finished I sealed it with Krylon acrylic flat.

Shown above is the finished structure. I’ve found that the appearance of photo wallpaper models is improved if I inset the roll up doors so that was done by cutting holes in the .060″ laminate before mounting it to the pvc core.  The challenge of this model was the photos.  I had no choice but to take them shooting into the sun on a bright clear day.  A lot of photo editing was required to improve the subsequent dullness of the images.  In the past, I would have spent a lot of time editing out the foliage at the bottom.  I this case I decided to leave most of it and will just place scenery in front of it to cover it up.

Over the last few years, I’ve become more and more aware of the need for a very solid core to prevent structure warping.  For styrene based projects I’m particularly fond of PVC “lumber” easily found at big box lumber stores.  It’s light, cheap, easy to cut, and works with plastic solvents.   For the current project, I picked up a PVC 1×2 and laminated .060″ styrene sheet to it with MEK. Using .060″ styrene alone was just causing too many stability problems.  Before laminating the photo wallpaper in place, I’ll add the eaves trim and paint and weather the roof.  Doing so before adding the photo wallpaper prevents it from overspray or other damage.  For the eaves (aka roof caps) I used .188″ by .020″ thick Evergreen strip.  The back of the eaves are flush with the back of the wall.  You want enough width on the eaves to allow for the thickness of the photo paper plus a little overhang.

Shown above is an underside view.   For added insurance, I ran one-inch finishing nails into the connections.  If you do so, make sure you countersink or tap the nails in hard enough the head doesn’t protrude up above the surface. Roofs, in particular, are prone to sagging and warping over time.  For this project, I used scraps of leftover over sign material (Komacel) a quarter inch thick to get a more stable roof base.  Komacel is a little pricey so you might want to find something else but whatever you use, make sure it is thick and rigid.