FIRST ATTEMPTS

As I am relatively new to all this I know it will be a rapid learning curve and no doubt I will make many mistakes along the way so please bear with me.

Many years ago, when I was a young boy, like many I had a small train set and layout in my bedroom at home.  It was about 4'-6" square and mounted on top of the box in the 'box room'  It consisted of a single oval with a tunnel with a branch which split into two and went to a terminus station. The hills were paper mache  and the trees were painted sponge stuck onto wooden trunks.  It was a Trix twin (3 rail) with one 4-6-0 Fowler loco with a goods train and a set of three carriages.  All of the buildings on the layout were Airfix plastic kits and so I have no experience of scratch building. 

Knowing it is going to be at least 12 months before I break into the loft never mind building the baseboards, I decided to have a go at making some of the buildings and accessories.  I started by scouring the internet and you tube looking at lots of varying techniques, and made the decision that I did not like card building as they appeared flat with little detail, so I decided where I could I would have a go at scratch building. I chose to start with a very simple building group at Palethorpes pis storage facility (which just happened to be at the end of my road and a place us kids played.

There was going to be two pig sheds with wagon unloading and a small workers shed affixed to the side of one of them along with Palethorpes own goods station and siding.

As a tester, I decided on starting with the small workers shed. I purchased the required materials which consisted of Wills brick sheets, Wills wood planking (for the pig sheds) and some Bulk Scene corrugated metal panels for the roof.

I marked out and cut the four walls then smoothed the edges with fine wet & dry.  Next I cut the door appature in one end and a small window in the front wall, again smoothing the edges with wet & dry. Following this I glued the four walls together using Wurth super glue. finally I glued the corrugated roof on.  I cut an oversize door out of the wood planking and glued it on the back of the opening then painted it with 'Palethorpes colour.(Crimson Lake)  

The window bars were made from 1mm strips of cut card glued on the inside of the frame.  Finally guttering was fitted made from half a cocktail stick and some copper wire. 

The building was now ready for painting and weathering so I used a weak wash of thinners and black around the bottoms of the walls and under the window and roof eaves and painted the roof sheets with a thin coat of black paint. To make the brickwork more realistic, I rubbed white tile grout all over the brickwork the immediately gently removed the excess off the brick faces with a damp cloth.

So that's it, my first attempt.  I am quite pleased with the end result and will now go on to try the pig sheds so until then
Don't bang 'em about
Blossom