The other members of our model railroad club, the Echo Valley Railroad Guild, sometimes rib me over how quickly I sometimes get things done. This time I have to admit that I outdid myself. Today is Sunday at noon. I just came from my model railroad room after putting in place a new scratchbuilt building that I started on Friday afternoon at about 2 PM
On Friday I set about designing a skinny building that is needed in a narrow place against the backdrop of my layout. Put another way, it is like a deeper than usual building flat in that it will have an interior and be lit with LED lighting. The building is made from scribed 1/16 inch basswood and depicts the home of a ficticious building in Salmon Arm, British Columbia on my HO model railroad. The business is named Henry James Ltd. - Manufacturer of Fine Furniture. My late brother's name was Henry James. He died in 2018 after a short but painful struggle with cancer.
I started with a pencil sketch drawn out in 1:1 dimensions on 11" x 17" graph paper:
The building is two-storey with a slab front and a railway platform for receiving raw material and shipping product.
My wife and I recently purchased a Cricut Maker cutting machine. I would say that I am 20% up the learning curve on how to use the Cricut. This the first project for which I have used the machine to precisely cut out major components.
Using the above drawing I created a digital drawing in Cricut to the precise dimensions. Since I am using Tichy HO Scale windows and doors for this project I measured these items very precisely so the openings cut by the Cricut would be as precise as possible. I did a small amount of filing of the openings in a couple of places to ensure a good fit.
Here is a picture of my computer screen before doing the cutting with the Cricut:
The horizontal pieces toward the bottom of the image are 1/16" slots into which the platform will be inserted and glued in place.
Because the Cricut was to cut through 1/16" basswood it needed the knife cutting blade inserted:
The basswood sheet is placed on a Cricut Strong Grip cutting mat. A few passes were made with a brayer tool to ensure that the adhesion was good:
Before starting the print I also used masking tape around the wood, as recommended by Cricut to ensure that the wood cannot shift out of place (a "belts and suspenders" caution):
The print file was then sent by Bluetooth to the Cricut and it cut out all of the openings in the basswood. The job took about 20 minutes because the knife made 14 passes to gently cut through the wood.
I next stained the wood with my homemade concoction of wood stain made from leather dye in 70% Isopropyl Alcohol and fastened the doors and windows in place (after having painted them with an airbrush using Vallejo acrylic paint).
Next, I added glass microscope slides covers
behind the windows, gluing these in place with canopy glue. I also added some strip wood braces to ensure that the basswood won't warp over time:
behind the windows, gluing these in place with canopy glue. I also added some strip wood braces to ensure that the basswood won't warp over time:
I added 4 warm white LED's to the back of the front wall, facing the back wall which will have a photograph image attached to show the semblance of an interior:
I then used the Cricut to cut out the platform, with corresponding slots (actually you can see in the above photograph that the platform has already been installed as the slots show the wood tabs glued in place) as well as braces to under the platform. I used the Cricut to cut the braces out of 0.020 inch styrene sheet. This is what the braces looked like before being removed from the cutting mat and being painted black.
I made a back wall out of 1/16" chipboard, which is like a dense cardboard. To that I glued photographs of commercial shelving units I obtained online and edited to size using Microsoft Word. I printed the images onto ordinarily printer paper. Because the viewer is looking through windows that are about 30 inches away the image of the shelving units gives a good suggestion that there is a complete interior.
In the picture below the back wall has been attached. The wiring for the interior lighting can be seen coming out of the bottom of the building. I did not bother with a floor as the building sits directly on the layout surface.
I made the sidewall of the building angle slightly inwards towards the centre of the building (around 15 degrees). This is to avoid the somewhat disconcerting effect of seeing a building wall abutting the scenery which, in my opinion, looks goofy. If your eyes don't see where the building meets the backdrop your brain tends to see the building as being much deeper than the 1-inch depth that it is.
Finally, a few shots of the completed building. I created the sign using Microsoft Word. In memory of my dear late brother Henry, I added another sign which depicts the business's slogan. This shows that my brother and I shared a somewhat irreverent sense of humour. The borders of both signs were cut from 0.020" styrene using the Cricut.
From beginning to end this project took about 14 hours to design, create the pieces, paint, stain, assemble and add lighting. The use of the Cricut didn't save any time because the time I saved on having to cut out the openings was taken creating the digital file using the Cricut software, preparing the material for printing and then doing the printing. However, the Cricut really shines by ensuring that the doors and windows are precisely placed and cut. I am quite pleased with how this project turned out. Next up is to add some ballast to the tracks as well as some ground cover, trees and shrubs.