World War II Project - Return to the Railroad Station - Finished and some thoughts

I stole some more time and pushed forward to finish the railroad station. I had previously painted the station platform and interior flooring with a "concrete" color. I followed this up with a dark wash, wiping it off the top surface leaving it, mostly, in the decorative etching on the platform. I then went back in with the Pan Pastels to add a bit of grime around the base of the walls and some neutral gray to pop the platform a bit. Then a little chromate green went into the deeper edges between the platform and the walls to give a bit of a moss feel to it.

I added a burnt umber wash to all the shutters and doors to try and make things pop a little bit and then with more Pan Pastel to fade the blues a bit. Then I glued everything into place. Leaving some shutters open and others closed. Freight doors were left open just a bit and the doors were just glued into place.

An initial closeup of the exterior steps with the paper wood combined with the bumpy brick.

Rail side. I have some of Sarissa's tracks and a carriage that I intend to use along this side.

Note the partially open baggage/freight doors

The road side. I opted for open shutters on this side. The baggage doors are also slightly open.

Overall I think Sarissa kits are pretty darn good. To make them better takes a little work, which is true of just about any laser cut kit out there. I intend to do groundwork along the edges and I'm to decide if this should be mounted to another larger base, which really goes back to how I want to approach the whole village build. Here are some of my thoughts and things I would do and how to make sure my next build goes smoother.

1) I have issues with MDF and its quality. Sarissa is not the only company effected by this lack of quality control. These are laser cut kits which translates to really accurate cuts. Unfortunately MDF itself is not made as precisely as the kits. I have found MDF pieces just a bit thicker or a bit thinner than they should be. The latter not much of an issue the first causes problems. Always, always dry fit the pieces before you try to glue things together. Forcing a tab that is to wide for the slot into place can easily result in a broken piece, typically the tab itself gives way and at worst the part it self snaps in half from the pressure being applied or the piece with slot snaps in half. A file or sandpaper will correct the issue really quick. Just be aware that if a piece is to thick that it can force the rest of the building out of alignment.

2) Specific to this kit, the station platform is a big piece and when you combine this with a big foundation piece and a lot of cross pieces you have to pay attention. Make sure that all the tabs come up through the platform deck correctly or you will have gaps in the foundation. I made this mistake (because I didn't dry fit first) when one of the cross pieces was to thick and I didn't notice the bulge created by this when I clamped everything down and the tabs didn't come through the slots correctly.

3) I love the look that the bumpy brick paper that I used gives the building, but working on the window arches was tedious beyond belief (hence the 2-3 years it took me to finish this thing). I would do it again, what I would not do is use the self adhesive version of this paper. The company makes both self adhesive paper and non-adhesive paper. At the time I thought the non-adhesive paper would be great. However it is thicker and the self adhesive backing can, and will, separate from the paper on a regular basis. Spreading glue is messy but a better choice in the end.

4) Keep anything you do on the inside as simple as possible. I have one kit by Charlie Foxtrot Models that I went whole hog on the inside. It wasn't worth the effort. Its a gaming piece not a display piece. I printed a floorboard pattern and applied it as one piece to the appropriate sections as opposed to individual boards. Painted the walls an off white color, with the airbrush, and left it at that. The last thing I did was apply the brick paper to the chimney and that took a lot of modification to the floor pieces for the second floor and two roof sections that the chimney came up through. So think things all the way through before you start to build to anticipate all the things that you will have to change and plan for it.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - Railroad Station - Arches

I sat down and did one, yes one, window arch. It takes longer than I would like it to but not as long as I had feared, maybe 15 minutes all told and it will likely go faster now that I'm not experimenting. This is one of those spots where the laser cutting really helps out. I just need to cut some of the brick to the proper length, cut it to the proper taper using the cut as a guide and I'm good to go. 

Starting off. I actually worked three bricks at once. One on the left, one on the center and one on the right. The key is to make sure the glue is good and dry before you try and cut the taper in the brick otherwise its going to slide on you and make a mess. Lesson learned (maybe).

And the finished arch, looks pretty good and all the marks will get cover with the "plaster". One arch down, nine to go. Oh and two of this decorative circular windows, that should be a load of fun.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - Railroad Station - Misc

While I continue to avoid finishing the brick work I haven't completely stopped work on the Station. I decided that cut out shingles rather than paper would just look better in the long run. For Calamity I tended to buy the shingles, but there is a lot of roof work on this much larger buildings so I started saving cardboard to cut shingles from.

Along with that I figured it was about time I finished the chimney and get it into place.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - Railroad Station - Brick con't

In between painting sessions I have been working on the Railroad Station. I needed to work through some of the problems and potential solutions before I posted anything about it. Progress has definitely been slow. I did decide that the brick around the openings would be applied flat to the walls. I'm counting on the thickness of the paper to make it pop out after I have "plastered" the outside walls and it saves a lot of stripwood which seems, like other things lately, to be in short supply.

Other than that I have popped the brick out from the corners with stripwood and applied the brick paper. As I have mentioned before, trying to do more than a single corner with this stuff is really tough, removing the adhesive backing would solve that issue but it would add a lot of time. For the next brick project I have acquired another batch of bumpy paper without the contact backing.

Finished all the brick corners for the ground floor, that seemed to take forever. Here I have cut out and glued on the stripwood for the upper floor.

Applying the brick edge. I actually did both sides so there won't be any folding necessary on the facing piece, but it does have to be wide enough to cover two edges now.

Can I trace things accurately enough to make a template? I just needed to trace the outline of the laser cut brick. Not as easy as it would appear but certainly doable.

The test template. It became a test because it basically disintegrated when I applied the glue.

Thick paper to start with and paper cut to the full size of the wall to help maintain proper registration.

I mounted everything to cardboard first this time and then cut out the templates after the glue had dried. I actually don't need the small circular window, those will have to be done one brick at a time.

 I used the template to create the four windows of that size that are required.

And here is everything cut out. Do you see the problem? I need to make the arched portion with bricks going vertically not horizontally. I will have to cut out the offending section and then lay the brick strips in one by one. Fortunately I will be able to use the lasercuts on the building to guide me through this, I'm sure it will be tedious to do.

This is the street side. The framing around the freight doors was easy enough. A regular horizontal pattern on the edges and a soldier row across the top.

And from the platform side.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - Railroad Station - More Brick

I stole some time and managed to get started on the brick trim for the railroad station. A little strip wood to make the edges pop out and follow that with the brick paper. Like I have in the past I wanted to score the paper and fold it around the corners and avoid having any seams. The contact paper backing made it really hard to do that, while I could get away with it on a single edge, like the foundation, trying to wrap it three or four times in a small area proved quite difficult. First I tried pealing off the backing which worked but was time consuming and not as successful as I had hoped it would be. I finally opted to cut small strips for the really small edges and then fold the larger piece around a single corner to cover the front seam. I'll have to go back over the other edge with a marker to hide the edge of the paper on the side.

The hobby shop is only 4 blocks away but I'm have to cut my own stripwood right now, blah. I need a new tool if I'm going to keep doing this.

Gluing the stripwood into place on the platform side. On the center portion of the building I'll do this all the way up to the top.

One corner done. Looking at this pic I realized that I need to go up higher on the one edge as well and I have that funky corner to deal with.

The narrow interior of the brick column. That was a just a pain to do using a single piece of the brick paper.

This will work better. The narrow edges applied as its own strip and then fold the paper around the larger corner of the two larger edges.

I'm also re-considering the doors and windows. My original thought was to pop them out as well, which actually doesn't make much sense from an design perspective. I think I'll cut the brick paper to overlay directly on the surface instead of bumping them out. The paper is thick enough to stand out from the wall a bit even after I "plaster" the exterior walls. Still mulling that thought over.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - Railroad Station Platform

Grabbing a few small increments of time to do a little work on the railroad station. All I really did at this point was add the brick paper to the base of the platform and then glue the building and the platform together. Its going to make painting the floor inside the center portion of the building a bit difficult but I just feel the need to move forward on it at this point. As a bonus I think I have figured out how to go about adding the "depth" I want for the brick on the outside of the building. I'll have to save that for the next installment though.

A couple of corner clamps to keep things in place while the glue sets.

And 4 pounds of weights to make sure that the top of the platform is firmly attached to the foundation.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - Railroad Station Chimney

While I mull over how to do the rest of the brick I figured I could at least work on the fireplace/chimney. For the first floor this will be "plastered" so the brickwork itself only needs to extend as deep as the floor in the attic. Much like the main floor there are some very long slots so you can slide the chimney in from the top of the building to the first floor. An added complication is that it goes farther down in the center of the building than it does on the office side. In other words pay attention to what you are doing and don't try to force the chimney all the way down if you managed to reverse it. This one took a fair amount of filing to get it to slide nicely, again the fit is tight, really tight, and you need to widen those slots a bit before you try and jam it into place.

The chimney is going to have a seam and I decided I wanted it in the center of one side rather than at a corner. Since it goes up through one of the tall walls and out through the highest roof I figured I could but the seam in the center of the side that would be mostly hidden when the roof is in place. I also figured that if I did a decent job of wrapping the paper around you won't see the seam at first glance anyway.

The chimney with a line drawn for where I want the bottom edge of the brick to come down. Anything below that line will be "plastered". You can see one of the two slots on this side, there are matching slots in the wall and that will run up into the brick paper. Like the Sally 4th kits, you will need to remove the paper from the area where the chimney slides into position.

Here is the brick I'll be using. Its a little thicker than the stonework sheet I used in the Sally 4th buildings because its printed on a contact type paper. And the contact glue is not strong enough for our purposes so you have to apply glue anyway.

I opted for the seam to be on the long edge of the chimney. I was also able to use the brick pattern, etched by the laser, to keep things nice and straight. Here I'm only gluing down one side, then I'll wrap the whole thing around the chimney and then match back up along this line.

Always best to either clamp or apply weight while the glue sets.

Turning the first corner and gluing the next side.

Wrapped up in brick. I can see the seam but I know what to look for, still it stands out more than I hoped it would.

Chimney in place. Note that I cut the channel on the side a little to high. Although its harder to see than I expected. I might go back and fill this in with some scrap brick paper.

The "channel" seems a bit more pronounced on this side. But the roof is going to cover almost all of it. Still thinking about filling it in.

The inside with the seam. Really seams to stand in this photo.

With the attic floor in place. At least I got that measurement right.

And a peak through the windows. Plain or plastered downstairs and brick through the upper window. The view through the upper window can only be seen when the roof is not in place, otherwise the roof support blocks  this view.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - Railroad Station

Long time readers may have vague recollections of the Sarissa Precision Railroad Station that I started work on. After I built the Mid-Terrace House from Sally 4th as far as I could (ran out of roofing materials) I decided to pull this building out and see what I could do with it.

While I do like Sarissa kits, in general, I still have a few issues with them. In some cases the laser cut are just to precise and tabs and slots need to be filed a bit in order to get a good fit without breaking anything. This is definitely the case with this kit. I have broken off several key components while trying to get things to fit together. Remember, MDF is fragile and to much pressure is more than likely to break something than to actually get it to fit together.

I added wood floor paper to the main floor, removed the old brickwork on the platform and basically fixed things up so I could move on to the next phase. The same phase that stopped me before, brickwork. I want the brick to stand out more from the building, otherwise the plastered surface and the brick are on the same level which is not what I want for this particular building. I need to cut some pieces to be able to wrap the brick sheet around and give it a little bit more depth. The only "bumpy" brick I have is on contact paper which makes it a little thicker and the contact paper is really not sticky enough for this type of work. After doing two terrace buildings with "bumpy" paper I want to keep that theme going I think it really improves the look. I'm actually considering redoing the outside of the Charlie Foxtrot dormer house with it I like it so much.

This is the state of the building when I finally managed to dig everything out.

I managed to get the floor piece in place. This is a large piece consisting of the platform, the floors and long cuts to slide it the building. Argh, thought I was going to break the darn thing and I did break one of the edge pieces off. Here you can see that I managed to get the wood floor paper in place. A real chore, but if I had glued down first then tried to slide it into place I would have torn it, the fit is that tight. Remember to keep your files and sandpaper handy to smooth down trouble spots!

Attic floors in place and papered up. They are removable (thank goodness). I added some extra ledges for them to rest on. There is some exterior trim with long tabs that should serve that purpose but I'm not using them in a couple places and in others I just didn't just the length of the tab sticking through the wall to be strong enough to support miniatures in the attics. If this was a rural American RR Station the spaces upstairs would be the living quarters for the station agent and his family. The only access should be through the small room on the right and there shouldn't be an attic floor at all in the baggage room on the left. The attics are really small too and because of the roof design the windows on either end are actually block off from seeing inside.

Got the fireplace/chimney assembly into place. That one was a very tight fit trying to slide it down the wall. Again keep the files handy. For the time being it is not glued into place (and probably doesn't need to be). This will be my first brick wrapping project for the station.

And a look from track side. A lot of work still to go on this one.

World War II Project - Buildings - Railway Station - Part IV

With the Horsa on the bench for painting I have come back to the Sarissa Railway station. As I expected I had to go back a few steps. The contact paper had not adhered very well to the MDF so I pulled out the clamps and the clue and dealt with that.

Then I took a close look at the different areas of the station that would require some additional work to make the brick look right. I started by filling in the odd gap between the main building and the wings. I went ahead an glued the roofs together as well so that I could make sure that everything would fit before I glued in these fillers.

I also discovered that there is an order to how the decorative trim needs to go on. Of course I managed to get it on in the wrong order creating additional work for myself. They had to be trimmed anyway because I had glued in the filler pieces for the brickwork. Not much to look at, there is nothing quite like waiting for glue to dry.

Really you can't have to many clamps!

Perhaps you were thinking I didn't have enough clamps to do the whole thing at once?

Well the width is right, now I just need to check the roof clearance.

This should be close enough to give the paper something to grip on. Using clamps in this spot is going to be tough.