Ohio Valley - somewhere between Weirton and Wheeling


Walt
JeffH said:
Thanks! I planned it for a good 5 months before starting. I agree about the asphalt. I just used 2" gaffers tape. It was supposed to be a test. I may replace some before painting it a more weathered look. I also need to figure out concrete sidewalks.
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Walthers makes some nice styrene sidewalks in both HO and N scale. Or you can buy cheap sheet styrene from Amazon and cut it yourself. Its not really very difficult.
 
One of the last areas on my layout that I haven't really started on much is the river. I didn't want to pour the river until I was certain what I wanted to do with the riverbanks.

A person on another forum suggested I lay a concrete-pad type loading dock where the rails are embedded in the concrete, much like you sometimes see a railroad in the middle of a street.

I thought that would be a fun project, and I had a lot of scrap pieces of styrene. So here it is! I still have a lot of finishing touches, but so far, I like it!
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Not a whole lot of progress. I'm hoping my kids get me a "dockside" structure to build for Fathers' day before I proceed too much further on teh riverbank areas.

In the meantime, I have begun the arduous process of ballasting. I am intrigued by the N scale ballast applicators, but I'm also not one to enjoy forking out cash when I may not need to, so I started talking to my wife about it. She suggested I try to use the small plastic bottles that come in Ritt Tie-Dye kits... She never throws anything away, and wouldn't you know it... they work great!!!! All I had to do was open up the nozzle a little bit. Turns out that 1/10" opening is just about perfect for Woodland Sccenics "Fine" ballast size.
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Your wife is pretty clever. I use a similar small bottle to apply HO scale ballast.

I fill the bottle about 2/3 full and tilt it sideways and tap on it to get a few or several specs of ballast to fall between the ties in a well directed manner. It goes surprisingly quickly and there is no waste. The area is wetted down first with watery elmers and I eye dropper additional glue as needed between ties.

With no experience in N scale, I was a little surprised to see a similar technique here! Nice work!

Dave LASM
 
Near zero progress over the past couple months as warmer weather brings higher priority chores.

I am hopeful that my family gets me something for the riverbank scenes for Father's Day this weekend. Maybe that will provide me with some motivation to get into the basement and enjoy the cool air down there.

I subtly suggested they could get me a waterfront kit from Model Tech Studios like one of these:
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I finally got my father's day gift. They got me this N scale waterfront kit from Model Tech Studios.

It wasn't inexpensive, but do far, I'm impressed with the kit. Laser cut wood, which feels stout when opening everything up and laying out the various parts.

So far, I'm impressed!
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I have started to build the Model Tech Studios kit. Overall, I'm happy with it so far. The laser cuts are precise, and the wood is sturdy. The directions look good, but leave a little to be desired in clarity... not image clarity, what they mean clarity. You kind of have to make some assumptions on what they mean. So far, I think I'm doing it correctly.

My only real gripe is that the windows and doors, especially the trim pieces, would have been much nicer if they were cut out of peel-off self-stick material, like so many other manufacturers use. It's not really that big of an issue, just takes longer to glue the trim where it belongs.

The structure itself is complex, so assembly is time consuming, especially with so many doors and windows to be trimmed out.

I also spent a lot of time preparing to build, reading the instructions fully before even starting. I've made the decision to assemble before painting, partially because I'm not 100% certain where all the pieces go, LOL. I will likely mimic the photo on the packaging as far as colors and weathering.

I'll post more updates as I find time to work on the model.
 
I have been taking my time with this kit. It has a lot of detail pieces for a large model. Some of the strips of wood I got were 1/8" and are likely for the HO scale kit. I would have rather had more 1/16" pieces which at scale are 10"x10" timbers.

The printed roof material is a nice addition to the kit.

This kit is sturdy. I'm happy with it so far!

It comes with its own pier, but I think I'm going to build a bigger municipal pier with this model as one of the key structures. I may buy another of their kits to complete the scene.

Stay tuned!
 
Ok, here are some pictures. The structure is built, and mostly painted. I still have all the window and door trim along with awnings that are still in their forms. I gave them a coat of the trim color, and will let that dry really well before separating the pieces to glue them in place.

It's barn red with a light blue slate gray color for trim. I painted the window frames on the back side to see how the colors go together.
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This is the front side. I still have a lot of detailing to do
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Well, it has been a while since I've posted an update of my build. When the weather gets warm, I don't make much progress in the basement unless we have bad weather. And it rained all last weekend, so I made some progress on the wharf. I decided to scratch build a large pier that will hold 2 buildings. It will have a wooden deck, but will have a girder support structure below, and into the river.

The committee in my head was debating for a long time about if I should just use a large piece of pre-scribed wood for the pier, or if I should try to lay down decking piece by piece. Doing the latter would be time consuming, as the pier will be 4" wide by 21" long. I decided to try laying the deck by hand, timber by timber.

So, I set out to fabricate a few hundred N-Scale sized 4x4 timbers to use for the decking. I went to Hobby Lobby, and picked up a sheet of 1/32" basswood that is 3" wide and 24" long for $1.99 (really inexpensive source for hobby wood). I cut the sheet into six 4-inch-long pieces, then made a jig to slice off 1/32" strips that are 4" long. I didn't count, but I believe I made a upward of 400 individual timbers.

Then, I stained the timbers in several batches, starting with yellowish brown, to represent freshly treated wood. I then would add darker dye for each subsequent batch until I ended up with the final batch being a heavy creosote color. This gives a nice variation of colors for the decking.

Yesterday evening (Monday), when I got home from the office, I went down to see how the timbers look now that they had dried overnight. They looked good enough that I decided to try my hand at laying the decking onto the styrene. It took me a while to come up with a system, but all in all, the process was quicker than I was thinking it would take. I laid down a couple inches of decking in about 10 minutes' time.

Here are some pics. The pilings for the pier came with the waterfront kit I mentioned above. The gray girder structure was scrap pieces I had left over from a couple Faller Bridge Kits. The bridge kits could be made single track or double track, so there were a lot of excess parts left over. I think They give the pier a very sturdy appearance.

I need to paint the pilings, and once I get the decking completed, I will weather the wood. In the first pic, you can see the plastic yogurt tub that is holding all the 4x4 timbers for the decking. And you can see the first couple of inches where I have glued down the decking. I have a long way to go, lol. I put the hopper car there for perspective on size.

I also have a couple pics of the wharf in place.

I still need to do the river, but I want to set the wharf in place before I paint the riverbed and pour the medium for the water.


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JeffH said:
Well, it has been a while since I've posted an update of my build. When the weather gets warm, I don't make much progress in the basement unless we have bad weather. And it rained all last weekend, so I made some progress on the wharf. I decided to scratch build a large pier that will hold 2 buildings. It will have a wooden deck, but will have a girder support structure below, and into the river.

The committee in my head was debating for a long time about if I should just use a large piece of pre-scribed wood for the pier, or if I should try to lay down decking piece by piece. Doing the latter would be time consuming, as the pier will be 4" wide by 21" long. I decided to try laying the deck by hand, timber by timber.

So, I set out to fabricate a few hundred N-Scale sized 4x4 timbers to use for the decking. I went to Hobby Lobby, and picked up a sheet of 1/32" basswood that is 3" wide and 24" long for $1.99 (really inexpensive source for hobby wood). I cut the sheet into six 4-inch-long pieces, then made a jig to slice off 1/32" strips that are 4" long. I didn't count, but I believe I made a upward of 400 individual timbers.

Then, I stained the timbers in several batches, starting with yellowish brown, to represent freshly treated wood. I then would add darker dye for each subsequent batch until I ended up with the final batch being a heavy creosote color. This gives a nice variation of colors for the decking.

Yesterday evening (Monday), when I got home from the office, I went down to see how the timbers look now that they had dried overnight. They looked good enough that I decided to try my hand at laying the decking onto the styrene. It took me a while to come up with a system, but all in all, the process was quicker than I was thinking it would take. I laid down a couple inches of decking in about 10 minutes' time.

Here are some pics. The pilings for the pier came with the waterfront kit I mentioned above. The gray girder structure was scrap pieces I had left over from a couple Faller Bridge Kits. The bridge kits could be made single track or double track, so there were a lot of excess parts left over. I think They give the pier a very sturdy appearance.

I need to paint the pilings, and once I get the decking completed, I will weather the wood. In the first pic, you can see the plastic yogurt tub that is holding all the 4x4 timbers for the decking. And you can see the first couple of inches where I have glued down the decking. I have a long way to go, lol. I put the hopper car there for perspective on size.

I also have a couple pics of the wharf in place.

I still need to do the river, but I want to set the wharf in place before I paint the riverbed and pour the medium for the water.


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Pier and decking looking great! Smart system for making the individual planks
 
More progress on the decking. I can lay down about 2 inches of decking before I have to pause to clean the CA glue off my fingertips, LOL. I have found Acetone to work pretty well for getting CA glue residue off my fingers.

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I think this is going to look great once I weather the decking.


I also have been tinkering around with fabricating a couple cranes from pieces and parts I have left over.

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The price was right, lol. We'll see what they look like with some paint.
 
Finished up laying the deck, and asked my wife if she had any old makeup powders I could use to weather the boards. She gave me a 4-color freebie from Clinique from probably 15 years ago or more. It has dark brown and copper that I used to add grimey areas. Then I set it all with a few coats of Dead-Flat clear coat spray paint.

I like the results!
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