Modern Engine House (60-001)

Modern Engine House.  My first project.  Below are some of the pictures I took while putting the building together.  Follow along as I have (almost) completed this project:

 

I thought this would be a good first project for me to help develop my skills.  It is modern and fairly simple, making it a good target for customization.  Opening the box to make sure all the parts were present, as there are only a few small parts, was easy.  All the small parts are in a small plastic bag to prevent them getting lost.

Following the instructions, I took out one of the building ends.  Seeing as I do not have a layout to put the building on when complete, I'm pretty free to customize it as I see fit.  Here is a picture before I took the hobby knife out.   Take note of the guide lines.

As the box picture suggests, I used the guide lines and a steel straight edge, to cut two openings into the building end, allowing two engines access into the building. 

I then added the roll-up door trim and roll-up door housings.  Gluing the trim is not easy.  This was the most difficult part of putting the building together.  The directions say, "there are two steps in the trim with one having a slightly longer leg."  It took me awhile to figure out what that meant, but basically once figured out gluing and holding it in place while the glue dried was tricky.  Putting to much pressure on the trim causes it to move out of place.  I ended up using a small piece of cardboard bent to the correct width.

Here is a diagram of the trim.  When it says "slight" it is very slight.  This is not to scale, but about 10000x bigger than real life.  It's very "slight" but important you install the longer leg in the correct position.

Also, I did not paint building walls before installing the trim and roll-up door housings.  I should have.  Trying to paint around them after being installed was more difficult than it should have been.

Wanting to make the building a little bit different than normal, I only cut out one of the rear roll-up doors out from the plastic.  I imagine the one side of the building being closed and used as repair area/paint section, while the other allows for maintenance on engines as they pass through.

The next task was to install the man doors into the building.  This is made easy as two ribs in the wall, once cut out, are the same width as the man door.  Some minor sanding allows for the door to go right in.

Here is the final location of the man doors on my engine house.

Looking to modify the modern engine house to make it my own, I used some scrap styrene to create a few slight features to the building.  The upper wall section below, I mounted a square styrene piece cut to fit and a round flat plastic piece, making a large housing for a vent.

In the lower wall section, I cut a piece of styrene spur free and it had a rounded end, so I mounted it flush to the "ground" and square to the wall.  I image this being a storage tank or other misc building item.

Below are pictures of walls and trim painted.  I wanted to give the building some age and wear, so I brush painted on a base coat of tan, after having washed and let dry the parts.  Once the base coat was dry I applied a coat of Imperial light blue paint over all but the trim, door housing and man doors.  I cleaned up the over paint with a wet paper towel.

I next finished painting the trim and glued the structure together, making sure all the corners were square.  Having the corners not square once glued, would have made installing the roof near impossible.

Here is a picture of one of the pieces before trimming the flash and sanding the joint.  The flash here was surprising think, but this could be on purpose, because the sanding of the joint can take some work to get correct.  Better to have too much material then not enough.

 Here is a picture with the roof fit into place.

Here is the other side of the building.  I have also installed the metal roof vents.

Prior to installing the roof vents, I brush painted the roof reefer white.  The styrene was already a off-white color, so I did not put on a base coat.  I dry brushed on the reefer white, making sure to cover the entire surface, but not worrying about any thin or excess paint.  I imagine the roof does not receive much attention from building maintenance, so thin spots would be likely.

Weathering is to come next.

Finally, being my first N Scale Project, I thought it would be a good idea to complete the entire project before posting anything.  Now that I'm all but done, I think I was wrong.  Next time I'll post as I go along.  Weathering the building is up next.