Roundhouse roof raised

Back when planning this model, I thought I might make the roof out of something serious. Serious like steel. I reasoned the weight would keep the model from ever warping or trying to ride up. Over time, in my mind, I’ve retracted to something serious like styrene; it has no weight, but at least it […]

Roundhouse rafters run ragged

Who was that drunkard who put in those first rafters? I confess there are not many right angles in the roundhouse roof plan, but surely I would have at least attempted to square the first rafters to at least one of the purlins. With any luck, the lack of rectitude will be invisible from normal viewing […]

Smoke jacks

Ordinarily I don’t like to build with pre-cut parts. I find it much easier to glue parts together and trim off excess. However, in the case of the smoke jacks, there are some funky angles around the base, which made it more convenient to draw the parts and cut them on the Cricut. I started with […]

Roundhouse rafters started

This roundhouse is a little unusual in that the rafters run lengthwise rather than across the stalls. Your guess is as good as mine as to why. In the first sitting, I only installed enough rafters to get parallel to the stalls’ axes. I wanted to tie the posts to the walls a little better so […]

Magnetic mishap

“I’ll just glue the front wall onto the roundhouse, and leave it to set overnight; then I’ll go to bed,” I thought. It was an awkward thing to clamp, and there was a gap near the bottom of the wall. I couldn’t stay there holding it all night, and so, I cast about for something […]

Roundhouse door details

I think detailing is the thing most of us like best in model building. For some, that means adding people, vehicles and junque to a scene. To me, it means adding the minor details that bring a model into the foreground – the staples that hold the drop rods onto the front of the doors […]

Roundhouse doors at least as good as the pantry

By the time I had finished the third pair of doors, it was getting routine. Drill three holes, chamfer the end of the wire, bend and cut three little L-shaped pegs, insert the pegs into the hinges, and then into the holes. I could have kept going, but I’m sure glad there were only three […]

Hanging the first roundhouse door

I’ve finally managed to clear a path to the modelling desk, and so, we can expect three things: some progress on the roundhouse, and a dramatic downturn in productivity on the cabinets, followed soon thereafter by remarks about endless renovation projects. Speaking of renovations, I was reminded that roundhouses actually have French doors, and that my only […]

Cabinets about to get filled in

I kind of think I jumped the gun in getting the cabinets all assembled before filling in around them. Oh well, I’m sure it’s nothing a plastic sheet and some masking tape can’t solve. Truth be told, I was pretty excited to see them go together, but not as excited as I’m sure I will […]

Who put all that stuff in the TRAIN room?

On Wednesday, I took a reprieve from working in the evening (which is how I’ve spent most of January) to take in a work session chez my friend Scott Calvert. He indicated I should bring my soldering iron. When I went to retrieve it, I found an impassible pile of detritus in front of my desk. The […]