I pondered the shed design, deciding to do that in 6x6 timbers (most of the DP kit is in 12x12 timbers, but that makes sense for the coal hoist.

Using my sketch, I cut a bunch of little tiny sticks to size. The structural pieces I stained with HunterLine Driftwood, and the siding with HunterLine Barn Red.



Then I spread these on paper towels to dry.



The DP kit includes paper templates for the iron reinforcing angles, marking the location for small NBWs.



I lightly punched those with a needle.



Then I flipped the page over and applied Dark Grey Pan Pastels.



Then I flipped the page back over and cut out the pieces with a sharp scalpel blade. Finally, I went over the white edges with a neutral grey artist marker.



Once the wood was dry, I started assembly. First is the frame.



The paper "irons" actually do add some significant strength to the butt joint of the wood. Then I started on the jib crane. I'm assembling over top of the reduced drawing, covered with wax paper, and held with pins onto a piece of balsa. Building stuff over the plans is the best way to get things properly aligned.



That's where I stopped tonight. The plan for tomorrow is to finish the jib crane, drill and add the NBW castings, and then start on the walls. After a lot of pondering, I decided to build each wall separately, and then assemble the walls and the frame at the end. The back will be easy, but the sides will have a diagonal cut along the siding for the shed roof. I haven't quite figured out rafters yet, I'll wait until the walls and frame are together first.

dave

Looks really good so far Dave.

Nice work, Dave. I like the look of your 'metal' reinforcing plates. :up:

Interesting way to adapt a standard gauge coaling facility to narrow gauge.

George

One more significant design decision: I think I need to build this on a thin base, so I can scenic it (adding coal inside, etc) and then install it intact onto the layout. And the spot I have for this has the back of the shed to the viewer, so all that detail work will be hidden (but I'll know it's there.) I might add some openings in the walls so you can look into the structure.

I should have mentioned, I printed the 'iron plates' onto 80lb cardstock. That's really useful stuff to have for your printer, but you have to make sure your printer can handle it. I need to do it from the manual feed tray, that paper is too heavy to get 'sucked up' from the usual paper tray. If I rounded off the needle, I could probably get the look of 'rivets' or small nailheads, rather than marking where I'll need to drill for the NBW castings.

add Here's a mock-up of "windows" along the back wall.



I think this works just fine.

dave

I like your approach here. Might be a bit harder but you're going to get a unique and I'm sure quality structure.

Bob

The shed walls are done (and leaning together). The "window" openings look OK. I also finished assembling the jib crane wood pieces and started drilling for the NBW castings.



dave

Very appropriate for a backwoods look, Dave.

Mike

It looks good, Dave. I like the paper angle plates. They came out well the way you finished them.

Yes, it's looking good.

Bob

Today's work was mostly losing NBW castings into the Great Beyond, but I did eventually get the big NBWs into position. And I abandoned trying to do the little ones, instead I just putzed with the iron brackets to see if I could get the bumps I added earlier to pop out. Some of them did, and overall it looks OK.



The other thing I worked on was coloring the inside of the coal shed. I think too many models I've seen of coaling facilities look entirely too clean, most times I've seen coal storage it's been full of nasty black dust, even if (like friends' houses in Pittsburgh growing up) they hadn't used coal for 30 years. I'll show some photos of that tomorrow.

dave

That's looking really nice, Dave. The walls and the job crane look great. Good idea to add the ability to see into the model.

Chuck

Walls are glued together.



You can see how dirty I made the lower parts of the walls. I did that with pigments mobilized in alcohol.

And there's the facility on location.



dave

Dave, I used real coal dust to weather the inside of a coaling station I built. You need to crush up some coal to detail the inside and the dust can be spread like chalk dust with a brush.

George