Durango & Silverton RR Shots |About Me
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| Construction shots: | Benchwork | Scenery | Finished Scenes |
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| Misc: | The Road to MMR
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links | Durango & Silverton RR Shots |About Me |
I probably like scratchbuilding structures the best of anything in this hobby, so I really wanted the ones I built for this Certificate to be good.
Of the six "hands-on" certificates I earned (the seventh being "Association Volunteer), this certificate took me the longest-- about a year and a half of nearly continuous work. Ten of my 12 structures were scratchbuilt; the other two were kitbashes. Of those 10, six were built for this certificate and four were built 20 years ago for my old layout. Both of the kitbashes were built for this certificate.
One of the structures I built for this Certificate (Westcott Depot) won a "Second Place Online Structures" award at the National Convention contest in Seattle in 2004.
I earned this certificate on July 31, 2004.
The rules for this certificate state (as usual, edited for this website; visit www.nmra.org for the complete wording):
Construct twelve structures. At least six different types must be represented in the total. One of the six types must be a bridge or trestle. At least six of the models must be scratchbuilt. The remaining six, if not scratchbuilt, must be super-detailed. You must earn a score of at least 87-1/2 points on six of the twelve models in either an NMRA sponsored contest or in AP Merit Award judging.
It would be crazy to include the complete contest documentation and photos for each of the 6 judged models here on this web page, so I'm including my judged score and a few of the highlights of each structure. In three cases, the structures appeared as full construction articles in Railroad Model Craftsman, so if you're interested in seeing more photos or learning techniques, I refer you to those.
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Structure #1: Elsbernd Antiques
Judged at Twin Cities Division NMRA judging, April, 2003 Scores: Elsbernd Antiques was the very first model of any kind that I entered into a judging. The building started out as "McSoreley's Ale House" by J.L. Innovative Design -- except that I built a mirror image, which meant that I had to fabricate several of the walls myself from Northeastern siding. |
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This building is loaded with details, over
30 of which are commercial castings; however some were
scratchbuilt. Each of the upstairs windows has a shade with a
shade pull (made from a diesel lift ring), and one window even features
a scratchbuilt flowerpot.
This building is in the town of Glen Oaks on my layout.
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Beneath the former loading dock of the building, a young boy tries to coax his dog to come exploring, and a cat hesitates while coming out the door. |
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Up on the roof two women talk while
hanging up their laundry.
Incidentally, the quilt in the woman's hands -- and the one on the line -- are both photo reductions of real quilts made by my wife Renay. |
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Structure #2: Farmers Gilt Edge
Creamery
Judged at Twin Cities Division NMRA judging, April, 2003 Scores: The Farmers Gilt Edge Creamery is based on a prototype creamery still standing in Owatonna, MN. The prototype was measured, and selectively compressed to create this model. The full construction of this model was detailed in an article I wrote for Railroad Model Craftsman magazine and appeared in its May 2003 issue.
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To create the four walls, I created a
master (shaped like the top-left piece in this shot) from Walthers
plastic brick sheeting and cast it four times, sawing off the
"wings" to create the end walls. Each of the window
openings was then removed with an x-acto knife.
The four columns on the end walls were also cast in molds from a master. |
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Each of the windows in this structure was scratchbuilt from dimensional styrene strips. The most frustrating part of this process was the fact that only the two windows shown here are identical; all the others in the building (prototype included) are different sizes. |
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To create the unique cupolas, I cast a
plastic cap from an ointment tube, then added brass tubing and a styrene
structure below. Visible on the peak are diesel lift rings.
The letters on the weather vanes were hand-cut from .005 styrene.
This model is outside the town of Froton on my current layout. |
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Structure #3: Diljak/A-1 Container Co.
Judged at the Thousand Lakes Regional Convention, 2004 Scores: The Diljak/A-1 Container Corporation is a building of my own design, which was completely scratchbuilt. An article I wrote detailing the entire construction of this building appeared in the March 2004 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The loading dock is filled with dozens of scratchbuilt and commercial crate castings, plus barrels and pallets.
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The back side of the structure features an open-air loading dock, built board-by-board. The water tank was built board-by-board around an aerosol can top; the blue adhesive tank (shown in the shot above) was made from a 35mm film canister, with the curved top made from part of a ping-pong ball. |
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All of the windows in this building were cast from molds made from scratchbuilt masters. Shown here are two of those masters ready to have the mold compound poured in. |
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This "in process" construction
shot shows several hair clips holding the structure together in a
Micro-Mark jig as it dries. All walls were cut from Northeastern
clapboard siding, then stained with an alcohol & India ink mixture
to create a gray look. I then used a pair of sharp dividers to
make nail holes at 24" intervals on all of the walls. The
walls were then drybrushed with CP Gray paint.
This model is in the town of Glen Oaks on my current layout. |