Armstrong Woolen Mill - design for an HO structure

I've been busy at my computer drawing up a design for what will probably be the largest industry on my HO model railroad. "Armstrong Woolen Mill" is adapted from photos of a diorama by Mark Dalrymple. His photos are on the Worldwide Modeling Web site. The site offers hundreds of examples of world-class model railroading -- lots of ideas and inspiration. With all the great models to look at, it might take you a while to get there.

Back to Armstrong Mill. I wanted a complex that would be perched on a steep wooded slope and  include several buildings of different sizes, shapes, and textures. I chose white clapboard, board & batten, and brick (all from Clever Models) because light colors make buildings look larger, and because white would have been a common color for 19th-century buildings. I varied the foundation materials slightly from one building to the next, to suggest a complex that grew over time, instead of being built all at once. Foundations and roofs also came from Clever Models. Materials for the tarpaper lean-to came from Paper Creek's Randsburg Barber Shop kit, available in the downloads section of Papermodelers.com.

Working one building at a time from Mr. Dalrymple's photographs, I first laid out windows and doors using Tichy Train Group items. When the proportions looked right, I drew the edges of the walls, roofs, and foundations. It's all based on precise  L.A.R. engineering ("Looks About Right"), and I made some changes from Dalrymple's design.

One of the big advantages of working with Photoshop is that I can take a single texture sheet and change its lightness/darkness, contrast, and color to match a prototype structure or just to create a unique texture sheet.

I drew each building separately in Photoshop Elements, and then combined them all into the elevation drawings you see below. Creating the elevations was tedious but worth the effort, as it revealed a few problems I needed to fix. There are only two elevations -- south and west -- because the mill will sit in a corner of the layout with only these two sides visible from the aisle. I try not to spend time building and detailing things viewers won't be able to see.

Armstrong is the name of a long-time friend, Amy Armstrong, who knits, weaves, and spins wool. As a Scottish name, Armstrong also fits with one of the minor themes of my layout, honoring my ancestry. One of the two terminals on the layout is Scots' Landing, and the largest shipper there is McIntyre Marine, named for my grandfather.

I will eventually build the mill as a diorama and then incorporate it into the layout. It may be some time before I get that far, and the Mill might go through some changes before then, but so far, I'm happy with  the design. It's big and imposing, it sort of flows down the hillside, and it looks as if it were built piece by piece over time.

My layout is set in September 1943. The war has created high demand for wool socks, sweaters, blankets, long-johns, coats, and caps, and business is humming along at the Armstrong Mill. Workers -- mostly women -- arrive by train from neaarby towns. (I'll have to add a passenger platform to the complex.) Bales of raw wool come in and finished products go out  in boxcars several times a week.

Leaning Shed — 1:87 Scale Paper Model

This is my design for a simple wooden shed that has seen better days. It is full-size for HO scale. On the layout, it will be propped up by some wooden beams. Feel free to copy it and share it.

The siding sheet is one I created from a photo of an old barn near my home, posted here for sharing. The doors, windows, and foundation are taken from Paper Creek's Randsburg Barber Shop kit.

Move Over, Sprue Cutters!

Sometimes, things just go my way. Or as my father might have said, "Sometimes Norwegian mule-headedness and a willingness to suspend disbelief can be mistaken for genius."

Earlier this spring at the annual contest of the Madison, WI chapter of the International Plastic Modelers' Society (IPMS) one of my paper models -- Uhu02's 1/32-scale Lunar Excursion Module -- won the "Best Real Space/Science Fiction" award, over several expertly done plastic models. A few weeks earlier, in a smaller contest at the EAA Museum's annual "Winter Flight Fest," the same paper model, in competition with some outstanding plastic models, won the award for "Most Complex." At both events, there were the usual "I can't believe that's paper" comments, and I may have lured a few sprue cutters over to "the Dark Side."

Sauerkraut Distillery - HO Scale, Scratch-Built Paper Model

Mrs. Schnebley's Sauerkraut Distillery is one of the customers of my HO scale Ceresco & Wolf River RR. The model is my scratch-built paper copy of a Bar Mills kit ("Sal Manila's Eggs"). I added the silos and the industrial chimney.

I used clapboard siding, corrugated roofing, and other texture sheets from Clever Models. The doors and windows came from online texture libraries, all laid out in Photoshop Elements®. The stone foundation is from the Randsburg Barbershop kit, a paper model by Paper Creek (no longer in business.) The sign comes from somewhere on the Internet. I will add a loading dock and steps when I decide where the building will be placed on my layout.

George Taylor's Randsburg Barber Shop kit is available as a free download in the Architectural section of the PaperModelers.com forum. It's a little gem with very nice textures. And if you're a paper modeler and you're not a member of PaperModelers.net, slap yourself, than go join.

Here is my kitbash of the barbershop into a small shed. Except for a few pieces of stripwood leaning against the wall, it is all paper.

McIntyre Marine - HO Scale Scratch-Built Paper Model

McIntyre Marine is the largest shipper in Scots' Landing on my Ceresco & Wolf River HO scale shortline. This the the building before I repainted the sign. I scratch built the model in paper, using photos of a FOS Scale Models kit, built by Vilius Bileisis. Vilius does amazing model work and his blog (http://viliussm.blogspot.com/) is well worth a look.

The stairs and railings on my model are made of scale lumber. Everything else is paper. The cutout in the roof fits around a wooden support beam in the basement of our 1865 house. (Someone suggested that I remove the beam. I dread to think . . .) I will add figures, freight dock details, and power lines when the model is installed on the layout. The building and its wharf will be among the first things visitors will see when they enter my "train cave."

Going Batty in the Train Room

Some years ago, my wife and I moved into a new house –actually an old house, built in 1865. I laid claim to half the basement and began construction of a model railroad.

First, I installed sheetrock to the ceiling and insulation to the walls in my layout area. The resulting ceiling was low, about six and a half feet, and made lower still in places by support beams and hot water pipes. I’m six feet tall, the ceiling was rather lower than that in spots, but this was the space I was given and I resolved to make the best of it. Generous amounts of foam rubber applied to pipes and beams helped to keep my skull intact.

Above the sheetrock, in a corner of the layout area lived a small family of little brown bats who were spending the winter in the rafters of the basement. With just a half-inch of plaster between them and me, we, by necessity, came to a gentleman’s agreement that prevailed most of the time:  I wouldn’t bother them and they wouldn’t bother me.

I say most of the time. They were a disreputable bunch. They would get rowdy now and then, and they could make a lot of noise, especially when they’d been drinking. If they put up too much a racket, I would bang on the ceiling and shout a few insults at them. Sometimes that would quiet them down. Just as often, they would reply by squeaking insults at me. And their insults could get awfully personal.

Occasionally, one of these miscreants would scramble over to the un-sheetrocked part of the basement and drop down for a few snap rolls and split-S’s around the basement, just to show off. I would acknowledge its aerobatic skill with some fairly colorful comments, while my two young daughters hid under the layout. Or maybe it was my comments that sent them into hiding. I’m not entirely sure.

If the little aerobat got too close, I’d threaten it with my tennis racket. If that didn’t work, I would retreat upstairs and watch “Making Tracks” reruns until the little villains sobered up (the bats, not my daughters).

At their worst, the bats would sit above the sheetrock over my head and tell dirty bat jokes, rolling around, scratching, giggling, and snorting, and using the most gawdawful grammar. It was disgusting.

Of course this is all pretty typical for bats. I never met one that could stay out of mischief or write a decent sentence. Well, maybe one. There was a long-eared bat I met once in Amarillo, Texas, but that’s another story.

When spring arrived, the bats moved out and I patched the crack in the foundation that was their front door. It’s a lot quieter in the train room now, except when I set my workbench on fire with my soldering gun, or when a locomotive derails onto the basement floor. At times like those, I’m kind of grateful to the little hairballs for all the colorful language they taught me.

Octagon Workshop - HO Scale Paper Model, Scratch Built

My latest paper model project is a stone octagon workshop in HO scale. It started with a scale drawing by Harold W. Russell, from the October 2017 issue of Model Railroader Magazine. The "Illinois Stone" texture sheet, shingle texture sheet, modified windows, and roof hatch are from Clever Models. Creating this model took a lot of work over the better part of a week, and it's far from perfect. The effort gave me a deeper appreciation for the work of people like Thom and Dave at Clever Models. Thank you, guys!