Making a Woodyard Shed from a Wood Yard Shed

To round out the pulpwood yard, ya gotta have an office.  The Clever Brothers wooden yard shed (Railroad Yard Shed P/N S42) looked like it would fit the bill.  A new twist for me was included in this cardstock model:  a printed interior (mostly just studs and tarpaper) that encourages see-through windows.  So, I gave a shot at it.  With help and suggestions from the Clever Bros discussion page, I decided to use the "window" from a paper CD envelope that my wife suggested.  It wasn't totally clear, but it was close enough while providing a dirty window look!

The structure in HO is just about 1 1/4" square plus a toolbox and fuel drum.  A little forethought was needed with the interior.  Some trimming of the interior "walls" allowed the exterior to fold around without warping.  Gluing the exterior walls glue tab meant you needed to leave at least part of the interior wall unglued to slip the tab into (between the exterior and interior walls so it doesn't show) -- I forgot that at first, but remembered just before the glue took hold.  One of the reason I lean toward white (Elmer's) glue is that it is somewhat forgiving, thank goodness.

I wanted see-through windows but also wanted to leave the door and a couple of windows open.  For the windows, I glued the CD film between two cut-outs of the window frame.  I tore one or two stiles, or rails, or mullions, or whatever you call them, but I used part of these frames later, anyway.  So, I needed twice as many frames as usual, for the closed windows.  For the open windows, I needed even another one or two frames.  I cut the rails for the top pane (to make a square) from one drawing and the rails for the bottom pane from another drawing.  Again, I glued the CD film between two cutouts.  For one "open" window, I glued a "U" from one of the torn frames on the front of the bottom pane so the U only went about halfway up.  I glued the closed windows and the top panes to the interior walls.  I then glued the U-equipped bottom pane onto the top pane so it was halfway up; the U gave some support against the interior wall.  The second open window is essentially fully open, and the bottom pane is glued just to the top pane.  All this cutting and gluing allowed me to make sure plenty of spider webs and lots of dust had accumulated on the windows.  I figure you'd be hard-pressed to find any Windex in a woodyard! -- so the smudged windows are prototypical.

Another trick was getting the cone (for the top of the smokestack) into a cone shape.  With HO scale, the cone was so small that cardstock would just NOT get into the right shape.  I tried printing the cone onto copy paper and gluing it.  That didn't work too well, either; the paper was too flimsy to take the shape.  So, I printed another copy of the cone piece on copy paper but cut out about a 3" circle around the piece.  I sliced from the middle of the cone straight out the edge of the cone piece to the perimeter of the circle.  With that, I could get the 3" circle into a cone, glue it, then cut out the small cone for the top of the smokestack.  In this case, white glue didn't work because it made the paper too flimsy even for the 3" circle/cone; so I used super glue.  I won't brag about the cone, but with a few more tries, I could probably get a really good looking product.  I think I'll settle for what I have. . . .

Here's a representation of the pulpwood yard:

The woodyard office is toward the rear.  Sorry about the newspaper, it's covering the work on the "Wooded Slope" and will be returned to cover the tracks as we complete that scene.  Of note, the closest pulpwood rack is from about 1956 when I first showed interest in model trains.  It seems to have the right patina!

Here are closer views of office, front and rear:

This yard is going to be crowded, but with a small layout, you just have to go with the flow.

I intend to put a Vector Cut desk and chair in the office, so the floor has not been glued in, yet, nor has the door been glued on.  I guess there needs to be a pot-bellied stove or something to utilize the smokestack, huh?

A Wooded Slope

We needed a source of wood for our pulpwood trucks, and a "scene" of some sort to fill one more corner of the layout, so how 'bout a wooded slope?  The lay of the land is not mountainous, but a little hill here and there will keep it from being totally "table-top"!  This is not intended to be a "how-to" post, but just steps taken to provide another perspective for some common scenicky processes.

Early on, two pieces of 1/4" birch plywood were cut in a rough, "hilly" form for the far right corner.  In fact, they can be seen in an earlier post with the pulpwood truck.  Following that, ~1" wide strips of cardboard were cut and woven into a hillside.  Hot glue was the primary adhesive, but staples were used in a couple of places, especially when a strip needed to be cut in the middle to adjust its length:

Then dryer sheets ("exhausted"?!) were dipped in Hydrocal and draped over the woven hillside.  The sheets were "laid up" first to see how they would fit -- AND the rails were coverd with masking tape and newspaper for protection.  Although several methods with Hydrocal recommended using gloves to keep from drying out your hands, that didn't seem to be a problem. . . .

A darker "dirt" paint was used to cover the Hydrocal and would be used to mix for "ground" later.

Lou Sassi's "ground goop" recipe (see, for example, Kalmbach's "Basic Scenery for Model Railroaders") was followed to cover the hillside and give a bit of texture to the slope.  This is roughly the recipe used:  one cup each of vermiculite, Celluclay, and paint; and one-half cup of white glue.  If you decide to use the Lysol, you pour in one cap full.  I forgot the Lysol although I had it ready to go.  This seemed to be a combination of playing with mud and frosting a cake!  The texture was not real strong, maybe too much frosting and not enough mud. . . .

Next was an application of varied fine ground foam; at least a couple of different "shades".  Since this is a hillside with trees (at some point), having a bit of the ground showing through seemed to be appropriate.  The ground foam was adhered with extra hold hair spray applied after the foam.



We're looking forward to some undergrowth, the Southern Yellow Pines, and maybe a little Kudzu growing up the bank!