Caledonia Hotel - 1/87 scale drawings

I need a large hotel/boarding house for Scots' Landing. The design began as a drawing of the "Woodruff Iron Works and Machine Shop" from the March 1983 Model Railroader magazine.

     I scanned it into Photoshop®, recolored and applied clapboard siding from Clever Models, and then added windows and doors from my "digital parts box." Inspiration came from Vilius Bilelsis's build of Micro-Scale Models' McGee Hotel. I am in awe of Vilius's scale modeling, and I've used his photos more than once as the basis for my scratch-built cardmodels.

     Only three sides of the building will be visible on the layout. A hotel includes a lot of windows. Each one requires three parts: frame and two sashes. That can get tedious but I can sit in front of the boob tube and do them in a bunch. The name of the hotel and the tavern ("The Wee Dram") on the first floor are nods to my Scottish ancestors.

Weathered Barn Wood texture sheet 

I photographed a barn near my home and created this texture sheet for making card models. You are welcome to download it.

Another Small Factory Buiilding

Designed from a photo of a Petit Properties kit, using my own brick texture, this little workshop will fill a hole in the middle distance at Scots' Landing on my Ceresco & Wolf River HO short line. The scale of the building is 1/87. (I see the chimney is leaning a bit -- I'll have to fix that.)

The shingles and chimney are from Clever Models. The brick texture sheet is my own creation; feel free to download it.

The Old Brick texture sheet is my own creation. You are welcome to download it.

Toothpick Factory -- HO Scale Paper Model

I don't remember where the inspiration came from but this is a scratch built copy of someone's craftsman kit. The walls, floors, platforms, and roofs are texture sheets from Clever Models. The stairway and the platform supports are basswood. The windows come from Paper Creek's Randsburg Barber Shop paper kit.

 

Tom's Small Engine Repair -- HO Scale

This is my first FOS kit (a "Kit of the Month"), my first laser-cut kit, and my first attempt at sponge painting. I can see lots of things that could have been done better, but it's all about practice, and I am happy with the results. I am also really impressed with the quality of the kit.

Most of the buildings on my HO scale layout are paper models with opaque windows, so I gave this kit a similar treatment using a tarpaper texture from the Texture Library (texture.com) instead of the clear plastic that came with the kit. I think I'll redo the front windows with clear plastic backed by the texture sheet, to give them some shine.

I used the same Texture Library sheet for the office roof and Clever Models' tarpaper strips for the garage roof. I made the signs in Photoshop. I will add details like oil barrels and a junk pile when the building is placed on the layout.

F-15C Cockpit Tour

This is an excellent video tour of the F-15C cockpit. Also, it gives a new meaning to the term "hotshot pilot."

Two more structures for Scots' Landing

Two more large structures for Scots' Landing on  my HO scale RR. Both are scratchbuilt paper models using texture sheets mainly from Clever Models. Cape & Armstrong Co. is adapted from photos of a kit from Sea Port Model Works. Neill & Sons was built from plans available from Builders In Scale. Both have lots of details yet to be added.