106 The Navajo Mining Railway - Depot Roof Assembly

Tonight we'll put the roof on the depot.  I'm running a little bit behind tonight, and am traveling this week, so it will be a chore to get it done by next week.  I'm also in need of some scenery materials, which will delay progress.  But let's press on!

Hey!  Look what showed up!  My new sander.  I bought it on Ebay.  This is one of the ones that Harbor Freight used to sell.  It was $25.  Just needs a rheostat to control the speed.

Chicago tools are sometime good.  This has a solid sewing machine motor on it, so it should be fine.

I set up the angle and make sure everything runs ok.  Looks good.

One problem is the support plate.  It looks like it has been beaten up a little bit and isn't smooth.  I'll have to sand it smooth and polish it.

I needed to smooth out the bottom of the structure, but the sander is just too fast.  I'll have to get it to slow down.

I test fit the roof.  Knowing that the corner posts were not trimmed, I expected to have to do some fitting.  A quick hit with a razor blade and sanding block fixed it.

Using large rubber bands, I put the roof on the structure and braced it with 1-2-3 blocks.  Then I applied a heavy amount of Elmer's Glue to the areas in the roof line.

The fit isn't perfect, but we'll add fascia boards here so the gap will be covered up.

I put a block along the roofline and glued it in place for roof strength.  We'll let this dry for several days.

105 The Navajo Mining Railway - Depot Walls Go Together

It's Saturday night and I'm trying to finish the depot this weekend.  Let's complete the main body assembly.

The two partial assemblies are thoroughly dry from this morning gluing.  I check them for 90 degree alignment, and we're good.

I put the 1-2-3 blocks aside.  The are very heavy and if they are knocked over, could damage the fragile model.

I glue the assembly together after carefully pre-fitting it to make sure it goes together.  Once glued, I move the 1-2-3 blocks back on to the workspace to hold the walls in place.  We leave these to dry for several hours while I go to my daughter's basketball game (she shot a two pointer, drew some fouls and general was awesome at defense.)

At this point you'll see me test fitting and test fitting.  I drop a roof section on and see that some sanding will need to be done.

The assembly is dry, so let's test fit it on the foundation and see what it will look like.  First, I need to add the corner boards.

Its been about four hours, but I'm still very careful with the depot.  I check the fit of each corner board, then carefully glue them into place.

Once they are glued in place, I check the fit of the model on a flat surface to see how level it is.  The model seems to be fairly level.

I take the model to the foundation.

CRAP CRAP CRAP!  The depot is larger than the foundation!  How the heck did that happen!  Some how I managed to incorrectly measure both the length and the width of the foundation.  The roof sections fit, so the depot is the correct size.  I just incorrectly measured.  The fact is I do this fairly frequently, and is a common mistake for me.  Mostly this is because I tend to work in 15 minute intervals and then am interrupted by something at home.  This breaks my train of concentration and causes me to make errors.  Well, that and I'm relatively stupid.

The mark of a good model railroader is not his ability to build, but his ability to correct mistakes.  The foundation is too small, so if you are going to make a mistake, too small is the best way to screw up.

Using the model, I draw the proper outline of the foundation.  We'll rebuild it.  Make it stronger, better, faster.

Getting out Dr. Ben's Baby Rebuilding Blocks, I start making a new outer foundation.  One brick at a time, I glue them together with Elmer's Glue.

I'm having to work with thinner and smaller bricks now due to the smaller work space.  I use these pinch pliers to cut the bricks quickly and cleanly.

Ok, we've rebuilt the foundation to meet the proper spec.  It is level and looks good.  Only a 15 minute error correction, so not bad.

The test fit looks good.  There are a few tiny areas of gap around the base, but we'll fix that with the floor we'll add later.

From the front, we look good as well.

You can see some of the slight gaps.  Some sanding of the base, and a tweak here and there will fix it.

I test fit the roof again, and see how the depot looks.  I like it.  We make mistakes.  Just happens.  The trick is not to get hung up about it.  Fix it if you can, start over if you have to, but do it quick and move on.

Have a good evening.  Tomorrow, we'll get a roof and floor.  Then we'll have to go to the hobby shop for scenery materials on Monday.

104 The Navajo Mining Railway - Depot Walls Go Together

Here on Saturday morning it is quiet, as the wife is asleep and the kids are watching cartoons.  I'm sneaking down to the basement!

I grabbed some basswood squares.  Need to figure out what to use for the corner boards.  Technically I should have cut these and painted them with the windows, but now that would be thinking ahead.

I cut four posts to a rough length with a hobby knife.

Using a sanding block, I sanded them to proper length.

One coat acrylic brown paint (like I used on the windows) was applied and allowed to dry.

A second coat was applied and also allowed to dry.

I cleaned off workbench #2 so that I had plenty of clean space to work on.  Putting the walls together is a critical step, and having room to work is a good thing.  My collection of 1-2-3 blocks are going to be used to hold the structure (and right angles) together.

Using a liberal coating of Elmer's glue, I put the side wall and front wall together, being sure that everything is square, and holding it in place with the heavy steel blocks.

The other walls were put together in the same fashion.

We'll leave these two assemblies to dry until later tonight, and then I'll put them all together.  We'll do the roof tomorrow, most likely.  I'll also glue the corner posts on.  We should be done this weekend!

103 The Navajo Mining Railway - Depot Shakes Part 5 - The Finale

I have to finish this tonight.  Its about 9:00 pm.  We are going to get this done so I can build the depot this weekend.

We get out the coffee stirrer sticks and start distressing them with the saw blade.  Sorry about the backdrop, as I'm still trying to flatten the FSM kit instructions.

Distressed on both sides and ready to be chopped.

I'll not bore you with the details.  I set up the Caliber Cutter and chopped up the sticks I distressed.  Now, thankfully, I still have the same bottle of dye I used before, so we hope the shakes will come out looking the same.  Dye! Dye! Dye!

The wet mess of dye and wood is stirred and dried.

We want to finish tonight, so to speed up drying I sorted out the shakes on a plate and put the light down close to dry them out.  DO NOT LEAVE THE AREA when doing this as the lamp gets hot and the wood is coated with alcohol.

They are almost dry now, in about 10 minutes, so let's add the old ones to the new ones.  Wow!  They match perfectly!  So lucky today.

Shaking the roof, one at a time with Elmer's glue.  Crocodiles 1, People 0 at the half.  Not good to wade in to measure a 13 foot croc.

At the home stretch, its Shakey in the lead followed closely by Shake-N-Bake.  I did get the last row a bit off, but so are the prototype roof lines.

In record time, and with having to make more shakes, I'm done.  This roof panel took about two hours tonight to do.

I'll need the rest of the shakes for the roof peak, so we'll mark the plastic bag and put these away for safe keeping for Saturday or Sunday.

Laying the two panels down, they look pretty good.  The color difference you see is because of the photo and light, and they really look identical.

Here I pitched up the roof and I'm very happy with the results.  I'll give it an ink wash later to blend it all together a bit more.

Thanks for working on the roof with me!   The crocodile never did eat a person...but came close.  He turned out to be 16 feet long and 4 feet wide.

Have fun!

102 The Navajo Mining Railway - Depot Shakes Part 4

It's Friday night.  I've got a hot cup of tea, and Discovery Channel's "Monsters" playing on the computer.  Let's work on the depot roof.  I want to assemble the depot this weekend, so we have to make some progress today!

We finished one roof section yesterday...so let's finish the other section tonight.

Shake, shake, shake...meanwhile two guys on tv are hunting big crocodiles using cameras and sticks.  I'm safe in the basement.  Shake, shake, shake...

Um, I'm running really low on shakes!

The guy in the boat is about to be crocodile food...I love the internet!  Shake...shake...shake...

Oh no...now I'm REALLY short of shakes.  Shoot.

I'm not going to make it.  Drat!  I need to make more shakes.  Ok, we can do this and STILL finish tonight!

This is all that is left.  I need about five times this amount.  Better get out the dye!