This past week I returned to some old-fashioned model building projects. My task was to reconfigure the cement plant building from my old Philden layout so that it could be easily transplanted onto my Philden Beach HO scale shelf layout. As the model had been in storage for the past 5 years, the first point of call was to identify which sections of the structure I needed to remove so that it could fit within the confines of the former bus depot which has occupied both Philden Beach and its predecessor layout Philden Street Yard. The next step was to hide up any marks where I had modified the structure and re-glue all of the tiny detail parts that had come loose whilst in storage.
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| The staircase was the only section that needed to be removed. |
As I had covered in my previous post Resurrecting the Cement Plant, the loading platform staircase needed to be removed for the structure to fit within the fence line of the now vacant block in the ‘Beach Yard’. The top handrails near the door were one of the many parts where the original glue had cracked and come away from the structure anyway, so all I had to do was slice the bottom loading platform supports away from the stone wall.
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| With the staircase removed, the upper door was then boarded-up with a sheet of corrugated iron. |
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| The plastic glue mess at the bottom corner of the building was then disguised by these 3D printed liquid carrying pallet bins. |
When it came to disguising the areas on the structure that had been cut-off, I wanted the structure to take on a haphazard appearance of sloppy maintenance meets everyday wear and tear from the plant being in constant use. So, I rummaged through my model box of leftover pieces from previous kits and started detailing the structure in a way that made the finished structure tell a story.
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| This is just a piece of old household flyscreen. I cut it to resemble a sheet of concrete slab REO mesh. |
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| Which I then glued beneath the silo overhang along with some empty pallets as though the workers had nowhere to store them out of the way. |
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| My wife had a broken gold necklace that I thought might come in handy for a future modelling project. |
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| I also used some leftover strips of track wire to glue onto the ends of the silos to resemble modern piping that had been used to upgrade the original plant. |
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| The broken necklace was then super glued to a snapped lamp brace to resemble a disused old chain. |
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| And the gold chain cut to ground length. |
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| The wires were then trimmed to resemble pipes that lead into the lower room of the structure. |
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| The shortened and re-detailed cement plant prior to being weathered. |
With the cement plant test-fit to ensure it looked at home inside the fence line of the now vacant bus depot, I could then get to work scratch building the unloading pipes that will be located a short distance away between the goods shed track and the diesel refueling tracks. To the viewer, the mind will fill-in the gap by imagining that the orange piping runs underground from the cement plant’s lower room and beneath the tracks to the unloading pipes a short distance away. It is just a bit of visual trickery to avoid parking a string of cement hoppers alongside the plant which would effectively block the throat to the yard tracks.
But as usual, I’ll save that story for another day.
