I didn't take nearly as many pictures of this project as I thought I had, so the pictures don't start until well into the project. Essentially, I just took the front and back of a Walthers RJ Frost kit and made them into one extended front. The back won't be visible, so I can just use foamcore as the back panel. I spray painted the whole thing a concrete color, then painted the whole structure with black tempera paint. When dry, I wipe the paint off with a damp paper towel. It leave a black smear effect all over and darkens all the crevices. Personally, I think it looks pretty good.
Because this is part of my larger King Richard Brewery complex, I wanted to simulate large painted beer signs in all the little squares above the freight doors. Using my computer, I designed a bunch of Arthurian-themed beers, each with it's own slogan, and printed them out. To make them look weathered, I took steel wool and went over them until them looked faded and had some wear spots on them. This works pretty well overall, you just have to be careful not to tear the paper. When done, I used elmer's glue smeared on the back of them to glue them in place. With that done, I glued on the two end walls, which were built pretty much as specified by the instructions. I did change to a shorter stair (taken from a Walthers Modular kit) and substituted the ladder for the last section of fire escape instead of the stairs. What's odd is the ladder comes with the kit, and I assume that's what it's for, but the instructions don't mention it. All the fire escapes I ever saw always had a ladder for the last piece (so it could be raised up to keep kids and thieves from using it when the building wasn't on fire) instead of stairs, so that's what I went with. I glued the docks to the front of the building and using a Micron pen, drew in cracks on both the docks and the building walls. I wanted this sucker to look old.
I left one freight door open on the end, so I was going to need some beer kegs. I found an image on the Internet and copied and cropped it until I was satisfied with the look. I cut a piece of styrene to glue it to, and also used a Preiser beer keg glued to a Walthers Modular dock section to create a little depth.
The result is pretty good, even with the flash.
Here's more of what you actually see...
The yellow and black tape is from a Con-Cor kit. It's just glossy paper that I glued on with Elmer's.
Here are some other views. Note I covered the top window with a vent -- it was going to mess up my roof placement having the window frame and glass on the inside, so I just covered it up.
The back before I put in more supports and cut a piece of -- honestly I don't know what it's called. It's like foamcore, but it's plastic. It's mainly used for tradeshow signs. It's what the building is actually resting on in the picture.
With the roof details. I tried putting some teased-out cotton in the cooling tower for a steam effect, but it either looked like cotton or like the thing was on fire, so I took it out.
Here's the building in place on the layout. Obviously you wouldn't unload hoppers via freight docks, but it's what was there. What's going to happen is the track with the MoW equipment on it will become the hopper track and feature a grain unloading station and a small grain bin for storage. The inside track will be for box cars and reefers. And who knows where I'll move the MoW equipment to. Maybe Cleveland yard.
A shot without the hoppers in the way. I really liked the way it came out. Once I detail out the DPM building that makes up the other half of the brewery complex, the area will look pretty complete. With all the major buildings in the area done, I can now figure out where the roads are going and do the final scenicking.
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