Lumberyard scene (sales office)

Every lumberyard needs an office for the employees to rest, count money, process invoices, etc. So, my layout needed one too.

The office included in the kit looked more like a shop from a wild west town because of the false front. I suspect Walthers (and then Atlas) decided not to create the patterns and molds for a new building and instead repurposed some old tooling they had on hand. I couldn't live with it as is.

I first toyed with modifying a Lionel kit (#6-12273), another product from the 1970s MPC era that is still available today. I would ditch the platform and mount the structure on the ground, and perhaps cut back the front porch overhang. Easy enough. I even found an assembled kit for $10 at a train show but it was glued together and that would have made my project difficult. Unassembled kits are now selling online for about $40 delivered... way too much for what it is. 

Since the Atlas office just snaps together for easily assembly/disassembly I put it together just to see how bad it was. I looked at it from all angles and thought about cutting down the sides so that they were flat (the same height from front to back). But first I had remove the top of the front wall, because if that didn't fix it for me there was no point going forward. 

To match the horizontal trim along the top I added a strip of styrene. In less than two minutes, I liked it better and decided to press on. All four walls were then permanently assembled. The two large picture windows in the front aren't really something you would find in a lumberyard office, but I will live with them. 

If I wanted to install an interior I would need to add a floor. Interestingly, Atlas includes a base with a socket for a lightbulb which they provided. But that light would reveal an empty interior! So, I glued the four walls to the base and then cut away the middle portion where the light bulb socket was.

Next, I added 1/4" square styrene all around the bottoms of the walls. This reinforced the joints and raised the floor level which is important because the entry doors are several scale feet above the ground. Then I temporarily snapped on the roof and used a pencil to draw a line underneath on the insides of all four walls. That way, when I built new interior walls I wouldn't make them so tall as to interfere with the roof's fit.

The subfloor is a piece of 0.060" thick styrene that I roughly sized to drop it. Its corners were notched to get around those interlocking lugs. It isn't a perfect fit but it doesn't have to be. I will install four interior walls and then cut the final visible floor to drop between them.

The next step is unusual but one that is tough to address later on. Due to the nature of the kit, I wasn't sure exactly how tight the wall corner joints would be. If I was going to take the time to light it up, I didn't want the light to leak out of the joints. So I masked the upper portions of the walls that would be visible once the building was completed (entirely unnecessary, by the way) and then used black paint to coat the entire inside of the structure. Since I was going to later repaint the outside I wasn't concerned about any overspray.

I thought a better exterior paint scheme would go a long way towards making the office look good. I didn't want to use the same Rustoleum "Strawflower" yellow that was on the two other buildings. I also didn't want white, as I knew some of my other industries would be white. So what did that leave me? Maybe brown?

I painted the exterior walls a reddish-brown, but I didn't like that, so I repainted it more of a beige color (Rustoleum satin "Nutmeg", which I used on the larger storage bin's shelving units. The windows and doors were painted Rustoleum "Strawflower" yellow to match the other two buildings, giving them a unified look.

For the finished floor I was going to paint the styrene to look like linoleum but by chance I had a piece of scribed wood with 6" scale width boards which was the exact size I needed! And for a lumberyard, it was more appropriate anyway.

I used a knife and scribed end board joints along the way, mostly following a pattern. Then, everything was stained with my brown/black ink and alcohol wash. This caused the wood to warp a bit.

Before I glued the floor down I cut some new interior walls from 0.040" styrene. I had to angle the tops to match the roof profile, and cut out notches for any interference areas. I didn't bother with a front wall because it can't be seen while looking through the front windows. 

Then, I used lots of superglue gel and weights to attach the wood floor. Hopefully it will stay flat forever.

The new inner back wall was a bit more tricky as I had to install it around the window castings. Before I glued it in place, I painted around the windows because my any gaps would show brown instead of white.

Then the new wall was installed.

I used styrene strips to build up new "frames" around the windows and the door to hide the gaps. I think they look better now.

There are lots of great O scale 3D printed interior details, such as this complete office detail set, but I enjoy making stuff myself. I started with some bookshelves and a large filing cabinet (for company records) built from bits of styrene. I was cognizant of the fact that this will be viewed from several feet away and didn't go overboard.

Once painted and then loaded up with various bits and pieces of styrene, they looked pretty good.

My layout is set in Autumn so I thought a nice festive welcome mat would be a nice touch. Some black construction paper, a little craft paint, and several toothpicks and I had one. Unfortunately, from normal viewing angles it is impossible to see. Oh well.

Though much of my detailing won't be seen, I do it because I enjoy it. It is one of the reasons I switched from HO scale to O scale. But my work isn't being done to win awards. (PS: if you want to see some of my scratchbuilt models that did win NMRA Merit awards, look here).

The lumberyard is being named for my friend and O scale coconspirator, Peter Hansen. In real life, if he owned a business he would definitely have a train in his office. I spent an hour or so looking online at doll house trains, and even T-gauge 1:450 scale trains, before settling on a toy I got in a gift shop years ago. I filed down some details I didn't like, gave it a new paint scheme, and mounted it on top of the large filing cabinet.

I then realized that the office had no bathroom or utility room, which wouldn't do. So I took some styrene and formed an L-shaped wall that effectively turned one of the back corners into a "whatever you think is missing, it's in that room" area. The large white tabs on the bottom are to give more surface area to secure the walls to the floor.

Wires for the interior lighting were then run up into the utility room, thus justifying its existence.

After pondering how I was going to install the interior lights, I added a false roof which is secured on the sides by strips of styrene glued to the walls. Two holes were drilled in it, and then a pair of SMD 12-volt LEDs were taped down with loops in the wires for strain relief. 

For some more interior details, the desk was scratch built though the chair is a 3D resin casting from Pacific Northwest Miniatures that I found on Ebay. I hate bad looking figures and think they are worse than no figures at all, Woodland Scenics makes nicely painted ones. The sitting figure is part of set #A2759, though his feet had to be trimmed because the chair was too short. The standing guy in the front is from set #2741. I also found images of clocks and calendars online and scaled them to size, printed them out, and glued them to the walls. 

Most of the window glazing is the overly-thick clear acrylic provided in the kit, secured with tacky glue. However, for the rear side door I substituted thin microscope slide cover glass because it is possible to look through the front windows and see how thick the glazing was on the door. 

For the roof, I ditched the brick chimney which I felt was inappropriate for this building. I painted the underside white to match the interior wall color. Then, I applied strips of blue painter's tape to the upper surface look like tar paper. 

It was sprayed black and then weathered with various drybrushed acrylic paints. A small exhaust pipe was installed it over the utility room area. The roof slants away from the aisle and I am not sure if it will be visible, but I wanted it to look good anyway. 

I weathered the outside of the building with an oil paint wash of mostly dark brown and black. It wasn't heavy but it did settle into the various nooks and crannies. This building is well maintained as a matter of pride so I didn't go crazy. 

The sign on the front of the building was a decal custom made for me by Bill at Precision Design Company, who has helped me in the past with other projects. I didn't want the lettering to look "too new", or "too old", so we settled on a font and style that would probably be appropriate from the 1960s to the 1980s. I applied it to a piece of styrene that I painted brown and then attached to the front. 

Unfortunately, there is a slight wavy line in the bottom that I was caused during the application process and I couldn't get it out, and when I tried a second decal it was worse. The lines are just too thin and long and I am not a great decal person. It is very pronounced in the close-up shot but from two feet away you don't even notice it. 

With that, this structure was complete. I still have one more thing to build and then the lumberyard scene can start to come together.

Lumberyard scene (large storage building)

The main focal point of the lumberyard scene was going to be the Atlas lumberyard kit. 

I had built their HO kit years ago which came with a small shack for an office, but the O scale kit came with an Office that seemed more appropriate for the wild west than a small New England town. 

The main building came molded in yellow and beige which were close to my selected colors, so it wasn't necessary to prime it. I cut the sides off their sprues and glued them together. Interestingly, the kit was designed to be left unglued to allow for disassembly and reboxing in the future. I don't know if that is common in O scale. The molded square friction "nubs" that allow it to be assembled/disassembled are a bit large and obnoxious but I hoped they wouldn't be distracting once finished. Maybe they will look like electrical boxes.

I glued the walls to the base and sprayed several light coats of Rustoleum "Strawflower" yellow. 

The base was then painted a dark gray color to represent concrete, and I did that by hand to avoid masking. I also went around the lower outside edges of the wall to pick out that color. I really wanted to use light gray but my bottle of paint had dried out. Oh well.

The interior framing for the shelves comes molded in beige but I lightly misted the pieces with a different shade of beige (Rustoleum satin "Nutmeg"). Perfect coverage wasn't necessary as much will be hidden in shadows, and what does show through will look like weathering. But it did hide the plastic sheen. 

You then take the elevated platform and snap it into position by interlocking it with more of those nubs on three sides, and then the two vertical rows of framing posts are supposed to drop over the platform. Easier said then done. Everything fit into place, but I couldn't force the framing posts down hard enough to sit into the holes molded in the base. 

After trying every possible solution, I decided to whittle down the bottom ends of the posts so that they would slip into the holes easier. That worked! It turns out that the holes are square and the posts are slightly rectangular and the two wouldn't mesh. Possible interference from painting them didn't help. 

Some superglue gel along the sides, and some more where everything overlapped and touched together, kept them secure. Inexpensive plastic clamps, and modified clothespins, held it all in place until the glue dried. Then, I went around and from the back added MEK to further reinforce the joints.

The wooden deck on the front of the platform looked pretty lame. So, I used some Northeastern Scale Lumber HO scale 3" x 10" boards (#HOSCAL31011) that I had in my stash which fortuitously I had already previously weathered with some of my ink and alcohol stains. They were cut into pieces that spanned five of the stringers and then attached. The front row of boards was left off until the railings were installed.

Speaking of those railings, they were supposed to represent wood but because they were molded square I didn't think they looked correct. Rather then replace them with stripwood which might get bumped or broken, I painted them gray to look like a welded metal railing.

I used dirt colored weathering powders on the inside and outside of the structure. It is a medium I am not all that familiar with but I wanted to replicate dirty wood and they seemed to work well. The framework was lightly weathered too. Then the exterior was sprayed with a flat sealer, but the inside was left alone as I doubt it will ever get handled.

For interior lights, I have standardized on 12-volt "warm white" surface mount (SMD) LEDs. They are tiny (10mm x 10mm), pre-wired, and cost less than a dollar each. Up until about 15 years ago most lights were yellowish in color, so these warm white ones replicate older light bulbs accurately. 

I glued four to the underside of the roof. To protect the thin wires and tiny solder joints I glued pieces of styrene into the gaps along the roof with thick superglue gel. Once cured, I attached two bus bars made from brass stock I had on hand to allow me to wire them all in parallel. To keep the brass attached I used some cut off styrene tubing glued to the plastic I had attached earlier. Overkill? Perhaps, but fixing a broken one later on because I broke it wasn't something I was looking forward to.

The bus bars were attached to a pair of blue and yellow wires which were bent and run to the corner, and then secured with more styrene shapes. A quick test with a power pack confirmed they all worked!

To hide the wires I attached a piece of 3/8" Plastruct ABS square tubing that I painted to match the interior walls. I first drilled a hole in the base so the wires could get out.

The LED lights were masked and then the inside surfaces of the roof pieces were sprayed gray, followed with an overspray of black. That hid the black and red wires somewhat. From normal viewing angles you cannot see them, which is good.

There is no point in modeling a lumberyard if you aren't going to fill it with lumber, and the plastic molded boards wouldn't do. Thankfully, I had a huge pile of stripwood from previous projects lying around. Stripwood was expensive and I didn't want to "waste" it, but when I picked this building I knew I was going to use a lot of it up. To save wood I made many of them hollow on the inside. Two side boards and lots of bits on the ends to make up a "box" shape.

You can see below the hollow portion on two of them. Several others are also hollow inside but have full bottoms for support. Anyway you look at it, it used a lot of wood. Thank goodness for my bandsaw to cut them all to size quickly.

It took my about 4 hours to build up all the loads for the building, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I really like sitting at my workbench slowly plodding through a project and it is the little details such as this which transform a basic plastic kit into something special.

Finally, the outside surfaces of the roof were also sprayed gray, and then weathered with rust colored powders. And then it was finished, at least for now.

There are lots of extra details to add but I will wait until it is installed before I worry about them. Not bad for a weekend's worth of work. 

Lumberyard scene (small shed)

One industry I wanted to model on my layout was a lumberyard. Wood products and building supplies were commonly sold in every small town. 

When I was younger I had built the ubiquitous Atlas HO scale lumberyard kit, and I knew that I wanted to use its big brother (Jack's Lumber Company, #6907) for this layout. With this decision made, I could use the foundation for the open lumber shed to help lay out where the track, access road, and other structures would go. It helped that the dimensions of the Atlas kit were available online so I made templates.

I didn't want my model to look exactly like everyone else's lumberyard. Then I remembered a Lionel lumber shed kit (#6-81629) I had picked up for $5 at a train show several years ago for just this purpose. It isn't very large and it might not be 1:48 scale, but a shed is a shed is a shed (am I right?). 

The kit screams cheap Lionel plastic, but it did provide a nice structure at a reasonable price. And for a child it would serve as a good introduction to plastic kits. With a new paint job and disposal of those horrible plastic wood piles, it might just turn a Charlie Brown tree into a nice one. I glued it up and attached it to the base for rigidity. Normally I don't like structure bases but here I was going to hide it with ground cover.

Once assembled, it was given a few light coats of Rustoleum satin "Strawflower" spray paint to hide that awful avacado green. All the buildings in the lumberyard will share this color to unify them together. 

The roof pieces which simulate corrugated sheet metal were painted gray, and then various rust colors were lightly dabbed on with a foam brush. The picture makes it look garish, but in real life it is much more subdued.

Next, the walls were weathered with powders to make them look dirty. I didn't go for the peeling paint look with this structure, but I did want it to look worn. Winters in the northeast can be brutal, but this wasn't supposed to look abandoned or neglected.

To detail this structure, I took a bunch of scrap stripwood and other assorted things and built up piles on thin plywood. This building presumably isn't used to the best wood so off-cuts and scraps were appropriate.

To light this diminutive building I went with a 12-volt "warm white" SMD LED. I superglued it to the underside of the roof and then ran the wires to one edge where they will drop down below. I used a piece of styrene tubing to make a conduit for the wires so that if I accidently tugged them they wouldn't rip off the LED.

After that, I drilled a hole in the base and attached a piece of brass tubing vertically along the inside of the wall to hide the wires. It isn't visible from normal viewing angles.

There are more details to add, but they will wait until the structure is installed on the layout.

Not bad for a $5 kit!