Build a HO scale power plant to hide a concrete pillar

[TLOC]

Most of you know I try to stay organized in my builds and weathering. I don’t paint by number but I do put stuff down in the order I want to work. It’s not 100% but it’s my way of hopefully not missing something. I finished last night at the bench after spending way too much time there yesterday. But hey, it’s cold outside with high winds chills in the minus teen numbers. Today is worst as it’s -23f wind chill right now at 7:20am. So I wrote my list of things to do, JUST for this west wall. Here it is

Things to do:

1. Cut through the siding and fit the vents
2. Cut through the Sintra where the new window
placement goes
3. Cut through the siding and fit the windows
4. Add a angle flashing to the top of the wall between
pilasters
5. Fit and the notch the foundation coping around the
pilasters
6. Remove fitted windows and vents
7. Prime the wall for color
8. Let the primer dry at least 90 minutes
9. Spray the wall color, cover everything
10. Double check the paint coverage
11. Set wall aside for 36 hours
12. Mask the wall to spray concrete foundation colors
13. Double check concrete foundation paint coverage
14. Set wall aside for 36 hours
15. Remove the mask
16. Add the painted bottom coping
17. Add the top of wall coping between the pilasters
18. Glue windows and vent into the openings
19. Spray a matte clear finish on the entire wall
20. Set aside the wall for 24-36 hours
21. Glue glazing to the windows
22. Create a weathering plan

Why am I showing this? Well there have been a few material supply issues with both the South Wall

and the West River wall. Both of these walls have been Ai generated

On a normal build I put all materials including paints and adhesives in a bin and work from that. Decently well organized and when I need brick sheet #xyz it’s there. The adhesives are there. Not this build. I’m the only responsible party building this. The owner I’m building it for told me just build it the way you think

Much different than the oversight I had when I built the swing and girder bridges.

The south wall was short of structural styrene and a few I had turned out to be poor choices. So I switched walls. Not enough materials to build as 1st imagined. Part of the issue is, there is no time frame. This is a no charge build for a friend and because it’s no charge I’m building it when I find time. Not my usual organized self. Heck, even the story board I live by is pretty empty. So I noted what I need to do next…

The times shown with paint drying will either be time to work on commissioned jobs or the South wall.

Fyi

This is still the West wall of the power plant. There was an awful amount of blank space above the mocked up window. So I added a sign to see if that helped. If there is a name for the power plant I don’t know it. But I think putting a sign on the wall is ok!

 

[Gary B]

Tom,
I should be half as organized as you are. Another nice build you've got going there. Too cold to be working on anything in my basement workshop today. Zero degrees currently here in Chicago. Stay warm.

 

[TLOC]

Tom,
I should be half as organized as you are. Another nice build you've got going there. Too cold to be working on anything in my basement workshop today. Zero degrees currently here in Chicago. Stay warm.

Thank you Gary. I try to stay organized but don’t always succeed.

Never got above -5 wind chill today and we keep the house at 72 in the Winter. So we are comfortable.

What part of Chicago? I grew up at 67th and Hamlin till we moved to Southwest suburb Oak Forest

 

[traiNscale]

good morning tom
now iam up2date to your build. and as Gary is saying, i would also love to be just half of your organizing talent to have
i hope to get my bridge fitting done this week. but we will see.
i still have to work -.-

looking forward to your next updates and pictures

cheers
Marco

 

[TLOC]

good morning tom
now iam up2date to your build. and as Gary is saying, i would also love to be just half of your organizing talent to have
i hope to get my bridge fitting done this week. but we will see.
i still have to work -.-

looking forward to your next updates and pictures

cheers
Marco

Thanks Marco. As you can see by the task sheet things will be slowing down. No 6 or 8 hour long days at the bench. I really ticked Terry off Saturday pulling that. But it was so cold Saturday and I was banned from the kitchen as she was baking. With the holidays around the corner I also have 2 local layout work sessions today and Wednesday. Friday’s work session (1 hour drive) probably will be cancelled as if Terry decides we will attend the NCAA Volleyball final 4 the session owner and his wife will join us. Saturday is an OPS session so the schedule is full.

 

[Gary B]

Thank you Gary. I try to stay organized but don’t always succeed.

Never got above -5 wind chill today and we keep the house at 72 in the Winter. So we are comfortable.

What part of Chicago? I grew up at 67th and Hamlin till we moved to Southwest suburb Oak Forest

I'm a mile west of Midway airport, Garfield Ridge neighborhood. Family has been here my entire life. Our youngest son recently became a supervisor for the refueling team at Midway.

 

[traiNscale]

@TLOC if you post some pictures from the operations layouts iam okay with that
And you have to send over some cookies. then iam totally okay with the waiting

enjoy your time!

Cheers
Marco

PS: whats the name of the volleyball team again?

 

[TLOC]

@TLOC if you post some pictures from the operations layouts iam okay with that
And you have to send over some cookies. then iam totally okay with the waiting

enjoy your time!

Cheers
Marco

PS: whats the name of the volleyball team again?

University of Wisconsin women’s Volleyball. They are nicknamed the Badgers.

Pictures of OPS sessions I almost always post on my Facebook page. This Saturday it’s a great layout to operate and even though it’s 20+ years old with over 100 OPS sessions there is not much scenery. But I will post later Saturday night or on Sunday morning.

 

[TLOC]

Came home with an extra piece for the power plant. I was asked to try to incorporate it…

I’ll figure something out. But measuring it I find it doesn’t fit a coal hopper at 3.75” square. Then then find the height is not enough either. I believe after digging around the Walthers website it’s not for coal but aggregate as a truck and trailer barely it. Told John the owner in a text and he asked to do what I can

Track center to center should be. 2.25, it’s under 2” at 1 and 13/16”

1. Take the legs off
2. It cannot accept 2 usable RR tracks so make it a single track dump
3. Raise the height to let a Sw1000 switch fit under
4. Figure framing for the new

Asked Ai to help and this might work

John would like the dump pit done ASAP as he’ll need to cut into the base of the scene for the pit before he lays trucjpksks. But I really don’t have a clue how to incorporate it into the west wall scene of the power plant

Other than this I’ve done no modeling today

 

[TLOC]

I did get a couple hours at the bench today

This is the way I left the bench on Sunday. Measuring out the vents and drawing the level line. The yellow masking was applied to give me an unpainted gluing surface. The pilasters will get another .060 layer of plain but painted stryene. Peeling that off will give me the clean surface

I then held the wall up to the light and traced the outline of the vent. The holes cut in the Sintra PVC board I use for skeleton framing matched fairly close. I cut the sheet metal styrene from the back side. The vents in this picture are loose and after I took the picture added the framing around the vents.

Pulled out some of the Vallejo Air after discovering my Tamiya Arcylics light grey base color for concrete was too low to use. I could have mixed Tamiya colors to match but I have plenty of Vallejo.

It’s not often I spray Vallejo Air but I did this afternoon. Had to mix 71.050 with 71.274 and add some retarder and thinner. Of course the air brush experienced tip dry even shooting at 12psi. Rarely do I experience tip dry (dirty minds, be nice) with Tamiya. I kept a IPA soaked paper towel at the booth to clean the tip

Took a picture of the concrete color on the pilasters and lower foundation. This was after 3 sprays and at most 10 minutes dry time between sprays. Spraying the pilasters now will give me a dark shadow under the next layer I laminate. But I will now hit the wall with a base color of an oxide mix. But I can’t spray until this layer dries and I mask off the foundation. Hopefully 24 hours from now. This wall at 16” high and 19” long does not fit in the dehydrator

 

[traiNscale]

hey tom

thank you for the step by step picture process, i like stuff like this. just also to learn and see how other modelers approaching a project
and yes i love reading books. i think i have to start again reading books, and dont just listen to podcasts..

oh and my the way, i "hate" you for always using some AI pictures from time to time. you almost got me with the last one haha.

cheers
Marco

 

[TLOC]

hey tom

thank you for the step by step picture process, i like stuff like this. just also to learn and see how other modelers approaching a project
and yes i love reading books. i think i have to start again reading books, and dont just listen to podcasts..

oh and my the way, i "hate" you for always using some AI pictures from time to time. you almost got me with the last one haha.

cheers
Marco

Any time I will use Ai I will acknowledge it.

I’m basically using it now to render an image I can work from or to have it locate an image online for inspiration. I am pretty good at online researching but I’d still have to wade through the found info to really get What I wanted. I type in a search parameter in Ai and it’s unbelievably quick. The issue is Ai cannot tell from fact or fiction. It’s the old thing about computers, junk in junk out. Ai is another tool to try. The person using it has to determine if if good for them or not.



I used to read books weekly, at least one. Terry reads 2 or 3 per week but she rarely sleeps so reads at night. I find myself though retirement doing more modeling work than picking up a book. I can’t handle listening to podcasts and working at the bench. There have been exceptions but basically at the bench my IPod is playing, my work is in front of me and the IPadPro is open to some picture for inspiration.

This is the Ai colorized wall. Used for reference. I took a picture of the wall and asked Ai to weather it appropriately to 1965. It has all the other references so my power plant build questions to it have the back story. It then broke the colors down and formula mix.

It misses things as the vents are supposed to be black but it gives me an idea what the wall can look like.

As a let’s see what happens I took a picture of my Arcylics from Vallejo and Tamiya with the numbers and color name showing. Put up a picture of a building/wall to weather and it suggested the colors and formulas to use. It’s what I did in a previous post here with the concrete colors. I mix most of my colors by feel and rarely spray a color straight with no mix of another color. I still have my notebook of colors that I have used for certain projects but for commission work for structures I’ve always included the colors, product # and mixes I used on the project.

I have a paint/weathering ongoing Ai chat that I just keep adding onto. It has pictures of all my paints, clears, thinners and helps me instead of a color wheel to pop out formulas. I still mix by feel and look but it’s been a fun tool for structure builds the last 2 months now. It’s beats my storyboard, graph paper and poster board mockups.

My weathering gig for diesels and rail cars is still all me, no Ai there.

 

[wright]

The piece with ductwork looks like part of the scrubber/emissions equipment. Maybe it collets flyash and could be trucked to the landfill or cement plant.

 

[Colorado Midland Modeler]

That makes me feel good. Thanks for saying that. My main concern is that it’s appropriate for 1965 and mostly accurate. It’s not a prototype but it needs to says “power plant”.

From what I've seen so far of your AI concept art and your actual progress, I'd say you're quite accurate. If it helps in any way, this is one that's about five or so miles from where I lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was built in 1953 and was designed to run on coal, natural gas, or diesel if need be. It even says "Municipal Power Plant" on the front of the building.

 

[TLOC]

From what I've seen so far of your AI concept art and your actual progress, I'd say you're quite accurate. If it helps in any way, this is one that's about five or so miles from where I lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was built in 1953 and was designed to run on coal, natural gas, or diesel if need be. It even says "Municipal Power Plant" on the front of the building.View attachment 251749View attachment 251750View attachment 251751

I like that! Thanks for sharing.

At the work session today one of the guys asked if I had time for another power plant! I may in March! I can build your picture as he wanted a brick building. Off to Google Earth and then a text to him

 

[TLOC]

Sprayed the west harborside wall for the power plant and also the vents.

Everything should be dry when I get home this morning and there are just a couple Friday chores to do. So I should have time at the bench.
The vents though have a mould spot on just about every 4th vent slat. I will probably putty the vents over and paint again!

Depending on how the wall dried after I left it overnight, it looks like a couple more sprays to even out the color

I did pull the masking off the concrete foundation and I’m not thrilled by the coloring and even weathering the foundation won’t bring the coloring I think I want. Those are the brick wing walls for the glass front of the building. I’m going to clean off the mortar lines today to see what color the plastic modular walls really are. I want the wing walls to be similar in tone but they don’t have to match 100%

That white surface was masked off to give me a clean gluing surface. Concrete colored pilasters will be laminated on there to thicken the pilasters. Hopefully that will tie the coloring together

Later

 

[K&Srwyco]

Nice work and great pictures. Thanks

 

[TLOC]

Nice work and great pictures. Thanks

Thank you for stopping by. The compliment is much appreciated

 

[TLOC]

If you are getting a sense of frustration, you are because I am.

Concrete, how frickin hard is it to color concrete? Not hard, usually. It’s gray with a sense (almost wrote “scent” see the diner discussion today) with a bit of tan/sand coloring. I have been all over the color map as this foundation is driving me bonkers! I even went to one of Boomer Dioramas YouTube videos on concrete. As most of you know I think Boomer is one of the best and his techniques are simple, easily repeatable but not for a foundation that is 3.75” x 19” twice and 1 foundation 3.75” x 10”. Using Vallejo Air in Boomers wet on wet method is very expensive but totally outstanding. Not happening here. Don’t bother asking Ai (Gemini) either to help. She references Boomer!

Here’s the base that actually is way off but hey a base is a base, you know a starting point

Consider it primer. It’s gone downhill from there and now I have concrete color marks on the big wall!

Here are a bunch more pictures as the colors progressed, didn’t always change but I kept moving on…

The latest coloring (no pict) is drying and will get a spray of matte clear to lock it in. I can weather it to the color I’d like to get to

So, next up is the grandson’s hockey game in 54 minutes. It’s a mile away, it’s the 1st of 5 games this weekend! When I get home I’ll take the wall to the spray booth and clear coat it. Sunday I’ll do what I’m good at, weathering to get looking close to the above inspirational image by Ai!

Be well

 

[TLOC]

The wall had been sprayed a matte clear finish after the hockey game Friday by 10.30pm. It is tacky yet to the touch which frankly seems strange as usually after 8 hours it’s workable again. Anything I planned this morning will now happen tomorrow. I realized that might happen anyway as I noted yesterday. I was hoping but no cigar this morning.

Enjoy the day