Sunday 29 January 2017

Building a shed for the meat siding

I've previously outlined the cardboard-and-paper method I used to construct the overbridge, so I thought I should close out the last of the 'how-to's for Rozelle Street with a little detail on how I constructed the delivery shed on the meat siding.

A few years ago the Australian Railway History had a feature article on the station and yard at St Leonards in Sydney. Included in the article was a single black and white photo of two TRCs waiting in the meat siding at a simple, skillion-roofed building. The inspiration bug bit instantly upon seeing it and Rozelle Street presented the opportunity to create a similar scene. Aside from the ARH article I didn't have any other reference photos of the building and was having trouble locating information about it on the web. That was until one of my many procrastinations on YouTube found this video (from 16'21") which yielded some footage of the building before it's demise. I don't know who posted the video, but I acknowledge their ownership of the content. 


(Image Credit to YouTube user tressteleg1)
 

(Image Credit to YouTube user tressteleg1)

The original building is a lot longer than what I had room for, but by using selective compression I could capture the main features; the doors, the painted corrugated iron, the chocolate-brown doors, and the brick stilts.

With the hard bit done, I raided the kitchen cupboard for cardboard and made an approximation of the sizes based on the wagons I had at hand and the trucks in the second shot above.



Once I was satisfied that this would fit on a cardboard floor and with enough room for a rail-side loading platform, and allow the tallest wagons likely to use that siding to fit under it, I fit the floor and tested it again. 


I then started to add the corrugated iron patterns downloaded from Scalescenes. As with the bridge, the larger parts were glued on with a UHU gluestick, with PVA applied and spread thin over the job with a toothpick for the finer details. The trees didn't make the final cut for scenery. 


The doors were cut from a specific "doors and windows" printout by Scalescenes. They appeared close enough to me to resemble what was on the building to capture the look, and make it appear believable, if not prototypical. I also added a barge board around the top to both hide my rushed workmanship and because it's subtle detail in the original building.


To finish the model and protect it from any future additions/amendments to the scenery, I gave the whole thing a spray with matte clear (available at Bunnings) from a rattle can.

All up the building took around one-and-a-half nights to build, with a lot of the speed attributed to the materials and the quick drying time of the glues compared to structures I've built from styrene and resin materials.

I highly recommend this method as a quick, easy and pretty forgiving way to start scratch-building if you don't want to outlay a huge cost in tools and equipment just yet. If you want any additional info, feel free to leave any questions in the comments below.

Cheers,
Ben






5 comments:

  1. Wow. Cardboard? Who'd have thought? I couldn't tell by looking at the finished pictures, and if you hadn't have shared the construction tips with us, I'd still be none the wiser. Very impressive, and a nicely presented model too!

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  2. G'day Ben. I was lucky enough to see your layout at the last Hobson Bay exhibition. Even though you have selectively compressed some elements of Roxelle st, it is not obvious. To me the mark of a good layout is that it looks realistic. You have achieved that.
    Cheers Doug

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  3. I remember this building as Lachlan Valley Meats in the late 1970s if I remember correctly. I may have a B&W print photo somewhere if I can ever find it! I think I took the photo about the same time I took a couple of photos of the former Tubemaker's siding at St Leonards as well.

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