Palmer Union Station

[dougnelson]

Wait, is that a dead season background I see? Be still my heart!

Not really Ed. The layout is set in May 1956, so trees have Spring foliage.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Is there any way I could persuade you to make an extra set of walls in N scale? This is VERY close to Framingham Station.

[motofavorite]

WOW! Thank you for sharing your technique. I find vector drawing really tedious and I prefer the natural feel of sketching with ink. It never occurred to me that I could scan in a sketch. Your work looks great and I hope you keep sharing your progress.

Progress preparing the files for printing. Drawings are prepared in Illustrator with separate layers for cut lines and etched images. The cut lines need to be vector lines and the etch lines, in this case, can be an image (jpeg). Stone pattern is hand drawn, over a print of the vector cut lines, and scanned for inclusion in the Illustrator file. The file is exported as a .SVG file for use in the laser cutter app.

[dougnelson]

Is there any way I could persuade you to make an extra set of walls in N scale? This is VERY close to Framingham Station.

Hi Daniel:
Let me see - maybe.  Its not my laser cutter.  It would be slice and dice for you, but there are very similar elements.  Is Framingham a Boston & Albany station?  HH Richardson did a series of stations for the B&A.

[dougnelson]

East wall is almost complete.  It just needs the window layer on the inside.

[garethashenden]

Sorry, I kept forgetting to go and take pictures. I just went. I walked down the B&A side, then took a few of the entrance, then walked down the CV side. I took 50 pictures in total, a couple are of the 0-6-0 and passenger car they have, one has a NECR GP38 idling in the yard, and my XJ-S may have snuck in too. I hope they're helpful. I did try a couple of angles and zoom levels at first, but all the pictures are in order. It is a slate roof. I stayed on the platforms as I didn't want to get hit by a train...

https://imgur.com/a/j2Jlhxr

A sample:

[Cajonpassfan]

Makings of a great build!
As a side note, amazing how the "little switcher" absolutely dwarfs the Jag
I have a whole new appreciation for 0-6-0's
Otto

[dougnelson]

I took 50 pictures in total, a couple are of the 0-6-0 and passenger car they have, one has a NECR GP38 idling in the yard, and my XJ-S may have snuck in too. I hope they're helpful.

Great!  Thank you very much.

[wazzou]

@dougnelson
I really admire what you’re doing here but looking at the prototype photos, it looks like all of the blocks are pretty much stacked uniformly squarely or rectangularly and not as much randomly.

[dougnelson]

Windows and doors. Windows are laser printed from .05” basswood plywood and layered on the inside of the walls. I was very impressed with the precision of the laser cutter to cut exactly as drawn. Doors are made from photographs (thanks Gareth!), squared up in Photoshop and scaled to my drawings in Illustrator, then printed on matte photo paper. Very happy with the results.

[dougnelson]

Walls are now complete and mocked up on a tracing of the track layout. Deciding on whether to use the photo of the stained glass window or create it with the laser cutter. Time to start on creating the complex roof. Lots of intersecting planes. No plan yet for how to represent the slate roofing shingles. Any ideas?

[peteski]

How about printing the stained glass window (you are talking about the green glass tiles?) on a transparency, using either a laser or ink jet printer. That would produce realistic looking translucent window of the appropriate color.

[dougnelson]

I’m going to try laser cutting the framework and then using colored acrylic medium for the windows.

[peteski]

I’m going to try laser cutting the framework and then using colored acrylic medium for the windows.

If those are glass blocks, the mortar between them is not very thick. Probably less than 1/2" (or 0.003" in N scale). Not sure if laser will do them justice. Sometimes it makes sense to use multiple scratchbuilding techniques to get maximum realism.

[dougnelson]

Peteski- I believe it is stained glass with metal framework.