Like all Walthers Cornerstone kits, all pieces are precision molded with quality materials. Besides the 4 walls, roof, one-piece chimney, and base pieces, the kit includes an under-track hopper kit, roof support trusses, an internal firewall, roof vents, and the separate windows and doors. The separate windows and doors are my personal favorite, as they make painting much easier and convenient as there is much less masking required. Before I started painting and assembling, I carefully cut each piece off of its plastic carrier structure and trimmed/sanded off any spurs, and washed each piece in warm, soapy water.
I started by carefully assembling the 4 main walls, ensuring
the structure was kept level and the walls joined at a perfect 90 degrees. I then painted the main structure with brick
red Humbrol enamel, thinned 3:1 with thinner. I also used the same paint colour
on the chimney and firewall pieces. At the same time, I also sprayed the
windows and doors with Testors light aircraft gray. I didn’t remove the windows
at this point from their carrier, making them much easier to paint in one easy
step. Other small components, such as the roof vents and trusses, were painted
with metallic aluminum paint.
After the main structure dried for 24 hours, I masked the
entire building to prepare for painting the trim and foundation. I used the
same light aircraft grey colour that I used on the windows for the trim, which
took about 3 coats as I was brush-painting them. Once the trim had completely
dried, I made any necessary touchups with either the brick red or light
aircraft grey paint using a fine detailing brush. I then weathered the entire
building with powdered pastels and sealed it with 2 coats of Testors Dull-Coat.
I felt that the roof pieces lacked any detail, so I used
trip styrene to add a bit of this lacking detail. I first divided each roof
panel into 4 equal sections by gluing 1mm x 1.5mm strip styrene directly onto
the roof. I then glued a piece of the strip styrene along the total length of
the edge of one roof section. I made sure this piece overhung the roof panel
slightly, thus covering the gap between the 2 roof sections once they were
assembled on the structure. The entire roof was then spray painted flat black.
For the large double
door, side entry door, and overhead bay door, I used dark green enamel to add a
bit more interest to the colour scheme of the building. I masked off the door
frames and transoms so they would remain the light grey colour I had originally
coloured them. The last step was to weather the doors with dark powdered
pastels and seal with a final coat of dull-coat. The windows were also
weathered and sealed with the same method.
The clear styrene window glazing included with the kit is less
than satisfactory. The glazing is thick and oddly obscured, so I opt to use
clear styrene from Evergreen, which is thin and almost perfectly clear, looking
much more like real glass. After removing each window from its carrier, I
carefully glued it to a clean sheet of the clear Evergreen styrene. I glued
each window side by side to get as much use out of the styrene sheet as
possible, leaving only a large enough gap between each window to accommodate a
razor-blade. After the glue had dried, I carefully cut each window with a sharp
hobby blade, and trimmed off any overhanging styrene where needed. This process
went much quicker than anticipated, and before I knew it, I had a nice pile of
glazed windows ready for installation.
Before installing the windows, I first painted the interior
walls with dark grey enamel. I also scraped the paint off of the surfaces of
the windows and window openings where glue would be applied for a stronger
bond. I then applied a small bead of glue around each window, and mounted it to
the inside of each opening, pressing down for several seconds to ensure it was properly
seated. Once the windows were all installed, I added the 3 roof support trusses
and the firewall section.
Lighting was next. I didn’t use the styrene light diffuser
box I had used in previous models, mainly due to the fact that this building’s
interior is completely open and visible due to the large amount of windows. I
instead wired 2 automotive 12v bulbs between the roof support trusses, using
rigid steel wire to support each bulb. I originally wired the bulbs in series,
but they were too dim at 12 volts, so I adjusted the wiring to a parallel
circuit, allowing the bulbs to glow much brighter at the same voltage. The wire
leads run down the back wall and exit out of 2 small holes in the structure’s
foundation.
The interior was by far the most challenging task of the
whole project. I knew the staple piece of equipment for any press company is
the printing press itself, so I immediately went to work scratch building a
large press from scrap styrene. Once the press started to look somewhat
realistic, I sprayed it flat black, and detailed it with metallic aluminum
rollers and highlights. The final and most imperative detail was the print itself,
which I created in Photoshop and printed as a long strip on standard printer
paper. I then glued 2 printed strips directly to the press, weaving it in
between the rollers.
For the rest of the interior, well, it was pretty much just
random pieces, shapes, and parts thrown together in an attempt to make the
inside look like something industrial and factory-like. The large box-like
structure with the grate on top, sits behind the interior firewall and really
only serves to fill the large interior void. Its intended purpose is completely
up to the imagination! Just remember, the interior will be mostly out of view
from the outside but getting just a glimpse of any interior parts when looking
at the building makes it entirely more realistic and believable to the viewer.
Finishing the roof was next, which included installing the
painted roof vents, followed by weathering. My first attempt at weathering was
with my preferred method of powdered pastels. I spend about 45 minutes
carefully applying the light grey powder with a soft brush, but when I added
the dull-coat to seal it, the light coloured pastels almost completely dissolved,
leaving me with barely-noticeable weathering effects! I instead opted for
dry-brushing the roof with steel enamel paint. Once dry, I glued both roof sections to the
main structure.
This kit was undeniably a lot of fun to build.
It is currently the largest structure I have ever put together, and only took
me one and a half weeks to complete, working for a couple hours each evening. I
might still be able to fit one or two very small structures on my layout, but definitely
nothing as large as this one. I must say that the feeling is almost bittersweet
that this kit is finished. Guess I will just one day need a much larger layout.
very nice !
ReplyDeleteLooks great!
ReplyDelete