Your temporary buildings..

...look better than a lot of permanent ones!

Thanks Jeff

Actually the core does actually become the building in the end...I use the cardboard to work out the shape and then laminate the finish material to it.

More progress

Roofs are still just sitting in place, in fact the flat area needs to be re cut due to the added thickness of the siding but I got it in place and I'm pleased with how things are going so far...

Looking good! Building on

Looking good! Building on site is always the better approach, creates those odd shapes that are so much fun!

@Michael re: Brilliant Wall

Hi Michael,

Other than your odd choice of building naming (big grin ) that lower stone wall is a brilliant idea that I have not seen before in a model building. It brings back many memories of seeing such buildings in the Northeast and the Southeast from my travels past. I have been trying to remember all the building variants that I have seen using such rough stone walls... and bridges. I really like the look! 

I was thinking about how I would build and use such walls myself. It looks to me like the stones are a bit pronounced and might need some fill/mortar/grout etc.

If I can get some slack time, I may try building such a wall with talus stone equivalents, by laying the stone down on wax paper or PTFE film (Teflon) in a layer and gluing the wall from the exposed top to try and get as flat an outer dimension as possible (which I would hope would be against the paper/film. When dry, it could be removed and glued to plastic or card for strength, exposing the side originally against the paper/film. I think the outward appearance will be a bit different, and flatter, but I don't know if it will be better!

Great modeling as always sir! Have fun! 
Best regards,
Geoff

@Geoff

Somewhere buried on this PC I have a scan of the original article where John Allen detailed the construction of his famous two stall engine house. He mostly used illustration board to build it and he hand scribed the lines in the "siding" but I noticed that on the lower portion of the building plans he had noted that the foundation was small gravel that he set in white glue. I've used the idea before to make small low foundations but this is the first time I've ever tried it in a larger area. I'm quite pleased with how it looks, I very much wanted the rough texture in this application but if I were going to build a flat wall on my bench, I might experiment with several methods, like maybe coming back over the rock with a sprinkling of fine ballast of powdered tile grout. I also might think about hitting it with one of those flexible foam sanding blocks to knock down high spots. It's definitely an idea I'm going to try to apply again and I look forward to seeing whatever experiments you might try. I will likely still hit this wall with some india ink wash or even some dullcote to get rid of the sheen of the dried white glue in some places. That might also "visually flatten" it some.

Building with stone

When I was wargaming, I made stone fences with a bead of silicon caulk that I placed gravel into. I think the same thing would work for foundations, using a gray(ish) mortar-like caulk and putting the stones into it,. I'd sift with hardware cloth first, probably 1/4 in to get relatively uniform sizes, then go back and fill in with finer stuff if needed.

The caulk is stiff enough to hold rocks in position, even on edge, which PVA won't do on it's own, and it dries slowly enough to be workable over reasonably sized sections.

Roof textures

I added the roof textures. I notice the plastic I used for glazing the windows is catching some odd reflections in this shot but the basic structure is now done. Next up is detailing the flat roof area and building some type of elevated skid apparatus around the top level door as it just opens into mid air at this point. I have to say I'm pretty pleased with it right now though. I had a good day of modeling today... 

Looks good, Michael

I don't know how long it actually took you, but it looks like you did it in a day.  Pretty nice result.

Stone wall/foundation

I like how the building looks like it was built on site and into the scenery not on top of the scenery.

I like those ideas for stone foundation we can learn a lot from the old masters like John Allen, just have the find the articles books he did and read them.

I saw a friend make a stone wall using a plaster like material that he rolled into balls and then squashed flat against a cardboard wall, looked really good, but time consuming.

Time

It's hard to say how much time it takes me when I do a project like this. With my creative process, I may let a project go a couple of days just sitting and then inspiration hits and forty five minutes later a bunch of stuff is done. Then it may sit for another couple of days again before anything else is done. I would say that I maybe have eight hours in this so far, spread over a couple of weeks time and it's not done yet.

My next area of interest has to be the flat roof. I'm thinking some type of worker accessible area there, with wood railings on the edges and some type of "crane" built from timber.

Anyway, that last picture bugs me with all the weird reflections so I thought I'd try to compose a little better one this morning. Lo and behold, "Harry the Horse" decided to make an appearance...

Flat roof details

As I mentioned in my last post, I never know when inspiration hits or how much I'll get done when it does. The structure sat a couple of days but this morning I got a little spurt of inspiration and started refining the flat roof area a bit more. The landing for the rooftop door is just little scrap of siding that looked to be about the right size. I also added some trim to hide the roof edge and started installing post for railings...

Railings

Finished up on the railings. Might still need to add some intermediate post on the longer spans but I plan to model some type of hoist frame above the loading doors on the end so I'll probably tie that to the railing there. Still to come is some type of runner or skid framework to get boats down to the ground and water level... 

Latest work

I've been busy with other things and in a bit of a lull with the railroad but I have slowly added some landings to the structure and added doors on the left end of the structure but you can't see them in this pic. I still want to put some type of roof top hoist or crane on the flat area of the roof and center it over that end landing and door. I haven't decided if it will be constructed of timber, metal or a combination of both. As always, I'm open for ideas. I've been looking at some old time rooftop hoist pics on the net but haven't decided quite how I want to do it. Other than that, I've started to blend the structure into it's surroundings some. It may not be apparent but the structure is actually removable. It has to be so the raised mountain area can be removed to gain access to the two remote turnouts behind it if necessary. The flat car bridge is removable as well for that same reason.

Awesome scene, Michael

That looks really good.  I'm hoping to start a somewhat similar scene (small carfloat) sometime in the next few months if things go according to plan.

Crane/Hoist

Thanks Dave, I appreciate it.

I'm having a hard time finding an older example of what I have in mind for my rooftop crane/hoist. I can find lots of hoist frames mounted on side walls of buildings but any roof top stuff is very large and out of scale for a structure this size. The picture below, while obviously way to modern looking, comes closest to what I have envisioned in my head. Anybody seen any older versions of something like this?

The moment on those bolts would be hefty

In this case it's bolted through concrete, but attached to a wood floor (your roof), I’d be inclined to fab it up out of structural shapes and put a much larger, square base under it, with large bolts aligned with joists underneath (indicative of through joist mounting versus lagging).

I found this potentially useful image on an ad on Amazon.  This would normally be mounted on a truck, steel to steel.

Physics

I have no idea how a crane like that works, I just posted it as an example of the general idea of what I had imagined might be used. What I'm used to seeing in old photos is the traditional triangular shaped hoist frame mounted on the side of a building so my initial thought was to use that same type of design yet move it to the roof and put it on a swivel mount. I'm thinking it would be constructed out of timber or metal or a combination of both.

We are talking circa early 1940's as a time period here and since the line is imagined to be on a fairly remote island "make do" engineering would be entirely appropriate but what I can "imagineer" and what is plausible from a physics standpoint may be two completely different things.  As usual with me, I don't care about having an exact prototype but I want what I create to be believable looking.

What I have in my head

Here is a very crude MS Paint drawing of what I have in my head. It would swivel at it's base and would be constructed of wood that would probably scale out to be about 6X6 timbers and be reinforced with metal plates at all the joints. Somewhere in my life I have seen such a thing, maybe in a logging railroad pic, I know I didn't concoct it out of thin air.

Here are some drawings that might help

These jib cranes are common on docks, mezzanines, old trucks, etc. so those might be a good source of old photos.

 
And yes it could be made of timbers.  In fact a large timber (12 x 12 for example, or the bottom of an old ship mast) going down through the floor where it is presumably set into the ground/concrete would be more believable.  You just want to make it obvious, if solely roof mounted, that it is only used for light loads.  Note the size of the base in the drawings above if mounted to wood.  Per the gussets on the base of these drawings, adding some short 45 degree braces at the base would make it look stronger  

Your sketch is fine if the extending arm is shortened a bit. The further it sticks out, the less you can lift safely.  Small crates under it will help with credibility.  Beer or oak casks pethaps!  

Found this useful thread on this forum …

https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/21887

Another option might be to attach it to the end wall but still allow the main vertical piece to extend upwards well above the roof and rotate 360 degrees.

Jib Crane

Check out Jack Burgess's Yosemite RR. I seem to remember seeing a photo of an old one that was used at one of the sidings on the way up to El Portel. The image I have in my head is a spot where the cargo had to be lifted to or from a location higher then the track. I don't remember if it was wood beams or welded steel, but it was the same basic design.

Jack

Crane Variants

Hi Michael,

My post in the link Mike Hughes provided above should get you in the right direction. You are describing a jib or pillar crane depending on the picture you posted. Both are available from multiple commercial sources. Both can be scratch-built. Both can be backdated to wood beams, no gears/motors and pulleys. Both prototypes were mounted on wooden decks.

For another variant (and further backdated) you could also consider a beam pivot crane or an A-frame crane (or a combination of both):

Wood construction, man-handled. Single beam with bottom all direction pivot, supported by vertical beam or A-frame, moved by pulley and ropes-- various sizes.

'Hope this helps. Have fun! 
Best regards,
Geoff

Jib crane?

For something older, I would think a jib crane would be appropriate. 

Sort of like this exceptionally crude drawing I made a couple of minutes ago: