Western Heritage Division, NMRA Inc.

Ledman's Lumber

Ledman’s Lumber is based on Model Power’s Valley Lumber Mill (Catalog No 407). My construction method for this building varied from that used in the other wooden building: because of this building’s nature (painted with open access bays for drying wood) I decided to assemble the individual panels and then paint before final assembly.

The back wall, gable ends, and interior panels for the lowest level were constructed from 6"x6" and 1"x8":

Before assembly, each was painted Floquil’s dark green. I used Elmer's white glue for assembly so as to not cause damage to the paint.

The flooring for the upper level is 2"x12" glued directly onto the lower level dividers and painted dark green where it is be outside the upper front wall. The upper floor wall is 1"x8" (for the wall) and 2"x6" (for doors) attached to a 6"x6" frame and painted dark green. Since the doors on the original model had hinges and handle details impressed from the mold, I modeled hinges and handles using 1mm x 2mm and 1mm x 2.5mm pieces of copper embossing:

The next part of assembly was to add the upper tower. Rather than build this as sections and insert into the mill, I decided to build it board by board inside the structure and then paint. The gaps were purposely left to provide drying air flow.

Since the roof has a small overhang, the gable tops were built separately and then glued on to the top of the upper story. The original model had a large horizontal boiler for steam power. Instead, I decided to go with a smaller vertical boiler (catalog # 1191 from Frenchman River Model Works - see the HO detail parts page) and move it from the back to the side of the mill. This way, the finished mill would fit better into the footprint available for it on my layout. CA is used to glue the piping to the side wall. The boiler and piping are painted with weathered black and the shed roof over it built from metal roofing (because of cinders). The shed roof is supported by a trio of supports built from 3"x3" lumber

Ladders provide access to the front gantry. For these I used pre-assembled ladders (available from here – catalog #8492) cut to size and painted to match the rest of the mill.

To support the roofing, I glued 3"x6" top beams between the gables and the upper story and the gables on the top and the main roofing consists of slate paper shingles glued onto the support structures. The cyclone blower was built up out of ABS and brass wire to get the right size and shape. After assembly, it is also painted weathered black and the piping is glued to the upper and lower roofs.

The crane structure consists of a piece of copper foil cut to the proper size to act as a track and attached to the front of the upper story with CA. The gear is a small pulley from Alexander Scale Models (catalog #425) and a chain from A-line (catalog #29219) is used to run to the hook (available from American Model Builders (catalog #402) - These components are all painted weathered black.

The finishing touch is to add the cut lumber piles. For these, I cut fresh scale lumber and used 2"x4" as spacers (which would aid drying).

The finished result is shown here in its temporary siding space during layout construction.

Miscellaneous Details

This article serves as a “catch all” for interesting details like block and tackle, pulleys, etc.

Pulleys – First Generation

Several of my structures have used pulleys for constructing block and tackles or lifting spouts, etc. My preference for the basic structure is the large pulleys (HO scale) from Alexander Scale Models (Item number 424). You can use a pin vise to *carefully* drill an axle hole through the center of the pulley and then use small wire (I like breadboard jumper wire with the insulation removed) to form the axle and holding structure of the pulley.

If you are going to use solder to attach things (like chains) to the wire axle, do that *before* attaching the pulley. These white metal pulleys are essentially constructed out of solder - at least they act like solder does (that's sad experience talking).

Pulleys – Second Generation

The one shortcoming of the above pullet design is that there isn’t enough of a guide to keep the chains on the pulley. So, I went back to the drawing board and realized that a much better pulley results from using a small bit of brass wire for the pulley axle and bending an appropriately shaped piece of copper sheeting to form the pulley guide.

In addition, these chains can be cut and used in brake linkages on the underside of cars.

 Coal Buckets

The lifting buckets show above is from Durango Press (Item number is DP-76, and Durango Press has been bought out by JL Innovative). To attach the handle, use a pin vise to drill two small holes so that the bucket could tip. Fortunately, the handles for these buckets included a loop so that I could attach the lower pulley directly to them.

Mining Equipment

For both the freight and passenger stations, I felt that some packages, barrels, and other items would add some nice color. For the basics, I started with the [18" gauge mining equipment] from Durango Press. The pick axe, wood axe, sledgehammer, coal shovels and spade, I used Tarnished Black for the heads/blades and Mud for the unfinished wooden handles. The final touch up of edges was done with Rust for general weathering.

Rather than paint the crate, I used it as a pattern for building my own from scratch. In this way, I could get the weathered look that I wanted and I could build as many as I liked. Crates were built up from weathered 2"x6" and 2"x2" wood surrounding a 10"x12" core. The cores were assembled first:

weathered 2"x6" planking were then laid over the cores,

and 2"x2" boards were used as banding (note, the numbers in the scale are millimeters)

Barrels

After some searching, I've came across Campbell Scale Models, that sell turned wood barrels in HO scale. These are available from the Walther's catalog as item 200-249, and come in a package of 12:

For the passenger and freight stations, I used two weathered barrels at each.

Wheelbarrows

For the freight stations, I felt that a wheelbarrow would be appropriate detail. [Selley Finishing Touches] sells a package of two white metal wheelbarrows, which are available from Walther's as item 675-1391.

I painted the wheelbarrows with Tarnished Black, Mud and Dark Green. The idea being that the metal/iron parts would be tarnished black, the less used wooden parts would be painted and the wooden pieces that needed to be replaced (due to handling or contact with the ground) would be unfinished wood. Paint was applied with brushes and carefully touched up.

Valley Creek Passenger Depot

Introduction

I first put this structure together, I hadn’t settled on the railroad name or location precisely. So, it currently is named “Valley Creek”. Someday, I’ll have to reprint the station sign so it reads one of the stations on the line. In the meantime I’ll use it at Blackhawk until I build a more prototypical replica of the Blackhawk station

This station starts from Model Power's ["Silverado Station"] (manufacturer's stock #605). I choose this model because I wanted to work on a few new items:

Building Brick Walls

Since I'm building a mining road, one of my buildings is a gold smelting operation. Since this building is pretty much all brick, I wanted to "get my feet wet" in building a brick foundation to see if that method would work for a full building or if I wanted to use commercially available brick face sheets over a wood frame.

I decided to start with doll house size clay bricks from Houseworks Ltd. [Item No. 8204] and cut them down by hand.

After experimenting with various methods, I decided that the best way was just to use a pair of diagonal cutters and cut the bricks down by hand (see picture above). The resulting bricks are too big for a scale brick wall (nominally 6"x6"x12") but would work for a foundation. For mortar, I decided to try mixing white Elmer’s glue with light grey sand from Activa Products [Item No. 4488] - their name for the color is "Moonshadow". The resulting suspension of sand in the glue has to be re-mixed periodically to ensure that the sand gets transferred to the mortar. Using this suspension results in reasonably good results for a clay tablet or field stone foundation, but I don't think it will work for a finished brick wall. Oh well, there is always brickface.

Painting

As far as painting are concerned, previous structures that I've built used weathered wood, because they were structures that did not "require" painting. However, buildings like this were ones that were painted and so this building presents the first opportunity to develop some painting techniques. Since I’m still working on airbrushing and because of the size of the items being painted in this structure, I pretty much used a 3/0 brush throughout and the same enamel paints that would be used for a larger woodworking construction.

Doors

This station had two types of doors: wide sliding doors and smaller "raised panel" doors. For the sliding doors, I built the base of the door using 3"x12" with 2"x2" for the edging. Each was painted separately and white glue was used for the assembly. The picture shows a sample door before and after assembly.

For the raised doors, I again used 3"x12" for the substrate of the door and the rails and stiles were done with 2"x4" material. Again, each was painted separately before final assembly.

Walls

For the mining and freight buildings, the wall assembly could be done fairly flexibly as a "rustic" look was acceptable. For this station, a more finished look was desired and so the wall assembly was done slightly differently. While the wall is still built around the painted windows, the window is not glued in after the studs of the wall are completed. Rather, the siding is glued on first

and the window is glued in as the last step to ensure that the outer sill of the window extends to the edge of the siding.

Note: if necessary, you can paint additional 2x or 1x material to apply over the window edges to achieve the desired effect. Once the walls were finished, the building begins to take some shape.

Platform

The platform for the original station was (in my humble opinion) too small. Therefore, I decided to extend the platform the entire length of the station. This is why the foundation pictured above looks different from the original model. For the platform, I adapted the deck construction method I used for the freight stations and built the deck out of 8"x8" (for the under support), 2"x6" for the cross beams and drainage, and 2"x12" for the top layer. It is attached to the foundation using simple Elmer's glue.

In addition, I wanted to add a smaller platform to the back of the building (because it fits better in the yard layout), so I added that and also add two gable awnings to the front and back of the structure and since this is a passenger station, I added a few signs.

As you can see, the platforms on both sides act provide me with a "two track station".

Finishing up

The last step was to add some packages, barrels and tools for "color". See Details for information on how these were built.

Doors and Hinges

This article covers my experiences with different types of doors and trying to come up with a workable hinge arrangement.

Doors

While modeling structures and cars, I’ve built four different types of doors, with varying success.

Hollow and Solid Core Doors

My first attempt at a hinged door was via a "classic" hollow core design. This didn't quite work as there was not sufficient solid surface to support attaching the hinges and opening and closing the door. My second attempt was to build a solid core door, starting with 1/64” aircraft plywood from Midwest for the two facing sides:

 The solid core of the door is made up of appropriately sized strips of wood glued together along their narrow faces:

Front	Back

After finishing the door, we can paint/stain the wood and then carefully glue into the wall opening. Note that this example is not an operative door.

For the last step, outside door molding is glued around the door opening (I like to use 1"x6" or 1”x3” for this). You can either paint the molding before or after.

Z-Frame Doors

For larger gable doors, I prefer z-frame doors (think of wooden gates that you've seen). This are built by edge gluing 3"x12" scale lumber for the door and then building the z-frame support with additional 3"x12" lumber. The placement of the cross members (the top and bottom of the z) is determined by where the hinges will be attached.

Sliding Doors

Northeastern Scale Lumber used to make a 1/8" slot door track, but this item has been discontinued. I was able to get a length at Walthers but I don't know how much they have left in stock. The nice thing about this door track was that you could cut two equal lengths and mount one to the wall and the other to the top of what was to be a sliding door. I usually add 1" scale lumber to help frame in the sliding pieces so that the door doesn't fall out. I used a different approach to support sliding doors for House Car doors (see below)

Railroad Doors

The House Car (or boxcar) doors I built were designed to be operational (that is, they will open and close). These doors were made up of scrap scribed sheathing cut to the appropriate size and banded with 1”x6” lumber.

The sliding track at the top and bottom is a 2”x6” piece of lumber laid over a 4”x4” base, providing a 2” lip that holds the door in place top and bottom.

Hinges

I’ve done two different types of hinges at this point: detail and operational.

For Detail

For detail hinges (that aren't designed to be working), copper foil for embossing works very nicely and can be cut in very small sizes (I've done pieces as small as 1mm x 2mm).

Working Hinges

Since I did all modifications will be done with a cut-off wheel attached to a rotary tool, some discussion of safety is in order. A lot of this work is very fine detail and involves cutting metal, so eye protection is a very good idea. One can use an optivision magnifier, but I use a hobby vise with a magnifying glass attachment and safety goggles.

Process

The following picture shows the steps used to create two working hinges (Refer to the steps with numbered photos).

I start with a 1" scale doll house H hinge (I really like the ones from Houseworks Ltd. [Item No. 1131] because a single package has 4 hinges which will end up being 8 scale hinges when I'm done.

1. First, the four flanges of the H hinge are removed (see photo #2)
2. The hinge is now cut in half and the pin removed. Since the ends of the hinge are closed over to hold the pin in place, these two ends will become the bottom of the resulting hinge. (photo #3 shows half of the original hinge)
3. For each hinge, I snip the end off of a standard 1/2" track nail to act as the hinge pin. The top half the hinge (both ends open is inserted on the pin and the bottom half of the hinge is attached by a drop of CA (Adhesives) to bond the end of the track nail to the covered over hinge pin opening. Once the glue has set, you have a working hinge.
4. Each hinge is about 1’ wide in HO scale, so any 12” scale lumber can be used for the hinge support.