Buildings Under Construction

I have one wall on the car shed, and it is starting to look like a real model. This wall went on a lot easier than I expected. I still have to stain it, and add battens to the siding, but I’m starting to think that the end product might turn out OK, despite the steep learning curve that I’m going through. In case you are wondering, I’ve designed these buildings to use Tichy Trains’ #8024 6 over 6 double hung windows, which seem to be a pretty close match to what I see in the pictures of City Point.

I’m learning a lot building the City Point car repair shed. The most important thing is, without a jig, cutting beams to consistent length can be very difficult in a HO scale world. I ended up buying a Micro-Mark Chop-It in order to make cutting the beams for the City Point engine house, a much easier, more consistent effort. While not the most precise device in the world, I’ve been able to cut quite a few beams for the engine house in one sitting, as you can see on the right hand side of the picture.

I’ve also going to try a different order of construction for the engine house. Rather than use the big beams to connect each frame, I’m going to connect the frames with the smaller connecting pieces (known as blocking) that hold the windows in place. I will connect the big beams afterward. The problem with connecting the frames with the big beams first, is that the blocking needs to fit very precisely between frames, which is very hard to do in HO scale. I think it will be much easier to use the blocking to connect the frames, and then lay the big beams from frame to frame, which should require a somewhat less precise fit.