Gus, Galen, Miles, Josh, Joesho, thank you for your very kind words
.
OK, Miles, here we go:
The list of materials is rather short. I used various sheets of styrene : .013, .020, .040 and .080". I don’t buy any strips of styrene, I cut them from the sheets. BTW, it’s necessary to have a very sharp knife. I use a knife with snap-off blades and even a scalpel for tiny parts and thin strips (I think, I spend nearly as much on blades as I do on styrene
).
The styrene brick sheets are from the small german manufacturer Auhagen. They are available in the US:
Euro Train Hobby - HO - AUHAGEN - PARTS - HO . Look for item # 52412 or # 52413. Don’t look too closely at the pics on this site, they are misleading. The bricks on these sheets are slightly irregular and uneven, which gives them a very realistic look. The only problem with these sheets: the material is very hard and therefore cutting is not easy. Especially cutting openings for windows is a real pain
.
The windows and doors in the side walls are what I had at hand. They are from Walthers modulars. But the prototype picture does not show what the doors look like or if there are any windows at all. So you can use, whatever you think is appropriate.
I notched the top of the facade, after I glued the two parts together that make the front wall (see second pic of post # 14 of this thread). The cutting template should still be attached. I laid the wall on the table, placed the knife along one of the lines, with the tip in the corner where the lines meet. Then I just pressed the knife down. After cutting out all the notches (and some sanding), I cut a .160 strip of .013 styrene. I glued small pieces to one side of the notches. After the glue had dried, I cut the protruding strips to size and next glued stips to the other side. After cutting the strips and some sanding, it was done.
As you can see in the third pic of post # 14, the trim on the columns is just thin strips of styrene. For the small capitels on top of the columns, I cut a .060 x .040 strip and sanded the corners on one side to make it half rounded. Next I glued small pieces of this strip to the facade and carefully chipped off a small piece of styrene (using the scalpel) in the middle of the capitels. Then I sanded them until they had the right shape.
The lettering is only a simple print out of my inkjet. I just tried to hide the edges of the paper. For the lettering that sits in those frames on the facade, I cut the paper to fit exactly inside the frames. To hide the edges of the strip for the lettering above the front door, I cut the paper to match the height of the rim. I cut this strip along the # 7 at the front and the # 1 at the the end of the lettering. Now the edges are almost invisible.
The lettering MACHINERY is from the original photo. I browsed through hundreds of fonts to find a font to replace the lettering, but I couldn’d find any that even comes close. So I decided to use the original lettering to keep an authentic look, even though the quality is not very good. For the rest of the lettering, I used the font "Kabel bold". I will send you a PDF with the lettering together with the drawing of the front wall.
To paint the building, I used artist acrylic paints. The recipe for the color: 1 part black, 3 parts white and 6 parts burnt sienna. I diluted the paint with water. Before you start to paint the building, you should give it a wash with thin paint to make the bricks stand out. Wipe off the paint from the surface of the bricks immediately, so that some paint only remains in the lines.
To paint the walls, I used a piece of cloth (from an old cotton T-shirt) . I soaked it with paint and then wiped and tapped with the cloth to apply the paint. Make sure to apply only thin layers of paint, because the color will be much darker when the paint is dry. It is easier to apply another layer if the color is too light than to remove paint if the color is too dark. To highlight some bricks, rub off some paint when it starts to dry. This method is all trial and error, you have to get a feeling for it.
I hope, I answered all your questions now
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