WM Western Lines Engineering Report

[DKS]

I can make any of his photos available to interested parties. Contact me offline: david@davidksmith.com

[Zox]

I can make any of his photos available to interested parties. Contact me offline: david@davidksmith.com

Thanks, David--I appreciate the offer. I think I've found what I need for now, though:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/avatar1/269826556/sizes/o/in/faves-mormon_railfan/

[Zox]

Well, my first experiment with the doors looks like five miles of bad road, but I'm actually encouraged:



This is made of 4 layers of 0.005" styrene, from front to back:

• the door frame and astragal (divider between the doors)
• the face of the door and the bars across the window
• the panel, with narrow cutouts to indicate the individual boards (this layer was glued in backwards--I need to "key" these the same way I did the cardstock to avoid this problem)
• a backing layer to seal over the cuts in the panel

I'm not certain why the spaces between the bars on the right-hand door didn't cut through, but I suspect a piece of chad got between the cutterhead and the styrene.

(Those spaces, and the ones between the boards in the panel, are very narrow--as small as 0.007", or 1.2 scale inches, in the case of the panel boards.)

I think I know how to avoid most of the issues, but I suspect I'll have a relatively high failure rate on these no matter what. I fear I may be pushing the limits of what can be done with the Silhouette for small-parts fabrication.

[wm3798]

That looks really good, but it may make more sense to leave the bars off of the model doors, and I can whip up some art to have them lasered onto the clear acetate.  It's more important to look like they're there rather than to actually be there.

These will not be facing the aisle in the normal layout setting, but I'm planning a portable diorama for photography and display purposes.  (The WMRHS convention usually provides a model contest venue...) so the back side will still be an important viewing angle.

Push come to shove, I have enough Gloor Craft warehouse doors.  they're the correct width, and will work with the arched transom windows you made previously.

[Dave Schneider]

Here are a couple of parts of the Silhouette thread with some other ideas for making very fine window muntins for those who are interested.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23354.45
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23354.135

This is a good looking station and its nice to see it coming together.

Best wishes, Dave

[wm3798]

Got the rest of the windows I needed for the basement... once the door issue gets resolved we'll be back on that.

For now, let's take a quick glance backward.  Last May, this  is what I dug out of the storage mausoleum:


I had gotten the exterior wall and cornices cut back in 2003, maybe 2004, then into the Cryothermal Container where it was held in suspended animation until a cure could be found for the "window situation"...

Two weeks ago, Lord Zox sent me the package of Miracle Window Cure I'd been waiting for, and we moved the project along to here:


Having the windows in hand, I was finally able to build the interior floors I needed to pull the walls back into some semblance  of order.  The last two weeks have been spent constructing the rudimentary interior needed to give those big windows something to reveal.  I used a couple of those vertical blind slats I've got, which were just the right color, and completely opaque!



You can't have interiors without lights, so I broke out the LEDs and worked them in all over the building.



This weekend, I finished wiring in the lights for the basement and the exterior, added the platform on the track side of the building, and built up the main roof.



I went back and trimmed out the roof edge to clean up the appearance, then reinstalled the front two chimneys, and worked on fabricating a dormer that I will use as a master to cast 10 more just like it...



I've got some .100 rod that I'll be using to make the 7 columns I'll need for the platform canopy, then I can begin the fun of detailing the area around the station.  I'm really enjoying seeing this come together...

Lee

[GaryHinshaw]

Fittingly, this is quickly becoming the signature structure on your pike.

[davefoxx]

Fittingly, this is quickly becoming the signature structure on your pike.

Nah, The Hard Hat is fittingly the signature structure on Lee's layout.   

[wm3798]

It's remarkable how big the damn thing is... Yay N scale!!

Thanks for the kind remarks.
Lee

[sizemore]

It looks so gooooooood. Can't wait to see some layover freights with some F's and chopnose parked out front, in a night scene no less!

Lee, have you thought about another article chronicling Cumberland through the years?

Tim

[wm3798]

No way... I'd have to build the whole damn platform!  I like the "austere" look of 1970...

[wm3798]

So tonight, I decided it was time to grow a pair and do some of my own work.  I finished building the template for the dormers, and worked it up in such a way that will be easy to cast in resin.  I need ten of them, and after the time it took to build one, scratching them all out got... well, scratched out.

Here's what I started with, again, from the original attempt back in 19diggity doo.


This thing has been a real globe trotter, being shipped first to Chris to see if he could come up with a design to etch it, then to DKS to see if he had any other ideas, then back to me so it could lay fallow in the the parts box for ten forevers.  The little dutz at the peak of the dormer had gone missing somewhere in its travels, so I had to fabricate a new one.

After that, I needed to make it more 3-D, picking up the side walls and roof panels.  Since I now have a roof to match it too, that turned out to be pretty easy.



After taking this picture, I trimmed out some Holgate and Reynolds brick scraps to apply to the sides of the dormer to represent the slate shingles that reside there on the prototype.

Excited by how neatly the dormer worked with the roof, I set about to build a form in which to create the mold.  I bought an Alumilite kit years ago, and I was anxious to try it out.  Again, I used the handy dandy vertical blind slat to build the little box.



All I had to do now was mix up the silicone mould material, and do the pour....


It turns out that the shelf life of the kit is something less than 7 years.  I also checked the resin, and while it's got some liquid in there, there's a fairly gooey looking blob in the bottle:


Sort of reminds me of Damon Wayans' "Baff room"  in the vagrant skit from In Living Color...

Anyway, not being well versed in the topic, I'm wondering if it's worth keeping.  Both bottles of the hardeners seem to be okay, but the silicon and resin appear to be past their prime.

Never one to be discouraged, I set this aside, and turned my attention back to the highway bridge.  I received my latest package from China containing some 6v grain of wheat street lights...  Isn't ADD grand?

Lee

[wm3798]

Received a copy of some photos of the grand old station circa 1989, along with some vintage and more recent images.  (Thank you Jack Brown and DKS) I quickly see there is more work to do!  The good news is that the canopy over the platform will be much easier to construct than anticipated.

In other news, I made some more forward progress on the highway bridge.  As always, there's a little more to do, but I'll have some progress photos up in the morning.

Lee

[wm3798]

Here's a look back a the US 48 highway bridge through Cumberland...

We started with this rough sketch:


Then got a little fancy...


Added some of this and some of that...


Slapped around a little paint...


Beefed up the super structure...


And most recently, installed some lighting and signs...




I'm currently working with the boys in the lab coats at NZT products to develop animated and functional hidden headlight doors for the red LTD there...

Also dressed up the east abutment back in the corner...


Still a few details to attend to, plus the finish scenery underneath it.  I might add an LED or two under the deck to wash the landscape below with light.  Once all that's figured out, I can do the finished installation.  I built a groovy hinge into the bridge so I can lift up the section over the main line for maintenance purposes...

Lee

[wcfn100]

How common is asphalt on a bridge?

Jason