In-ko-pah RR: Dos Manos depot

[Sami]

Very good job !

[finescalerr]

I'm glad you finally can get back to work on the depot. It's quite satisfactory at this point. -- Russ

[Bill Gill]

Wonderful, Ray. Glad you are back on this project. I like it all, the tiles, the tar & gravel roof, the weathered window, the photos...

[Barney]

Lovely stuff I agree with all - when I get fed up with stuff I start to scale hop !
Barney

[5thwheel]

How goes the rail road Ray?

[Ray Dunakin]

Well, after taking several months to recover from the deaths in the family, and then taking my annual camping trip in Nevada, I'm finally starting to get into the mood to do some more work on the depot. However, at the moment I'm still working on getting the pics from my trip organized and posted onto my website. So once that's done I hope to get back to the depot.

[Ray Dunakin]

Well, after a lengthy hiatus I'm finally getting back to work on this project. I've started painting the large stone blocks around the base of the structure. I'm trying to replicate the look of banded sandstone. Here's how it looks so far:

[Bill Gill]

Ray, That's great! Someday you'll have to start a reference posting on how to model specific kinds of rock

[finescalerr]

I've seen worse .... -- Russ

[lab-dad]

WOW!
Looks great!
I think with some powder/dust/rain on the whole building to unify it it will be hard to tell it is a model.

Mj

[TRAINS1941]

Ray that sure is nice looking.  A little weathering and it will looking more like the real one instead of a model.  Well done.

Jerry

[Hydrostat]

Ray, you nailed it. As the others said some dust to tone down the brightness/orange a bit will make it indiscernible from real stone.

Volker

[Ray Dunakin]

I finished painting the stones, but still have to add the weathering, so no new pics of that yet. In the meantime I did some work on some detail stuff.

A few years ago fellow modeler Bob Santos gave me a few of his beautiful, custom made, cast resin detail parts. I've been saving them for the right spot, and this depot is the perfect place for a couple of them. One is a pay phone. I was going to just hang it on the wall in the covered waiting area of the depot, but then decided an old-fashioned, wooden phone booth would be pretty neat.

I built up the walls from various sizes of styrene strips. The panels are scribed siding:






A 3mm warm-white LED was perfect for the small, domed light inside the booth. The top of the booth is held in place with tiny stainless steel screws, #0 x 3/16":






Here's how it looks so far. I still have to put glass in the windows and add some signs:






I had a lot of interruptions while I was painting the phone, and kind of messed it up, but it'll do:




Now there are a couple decisions I have to make. First, should I put doors on it, and if so, should they be open or closed? Open would show the interior better, but closed be easier and would also solve my second problem, namely, how to attach it to the floor? I could just glue it but I try to avoid that, in case it ever needs maintenance or repair. I'd prefer to run a screw up through the floor, but to do that I'd have to glue a block into the interior of the booth for the screw to go into. That would only work if the door is closed so you couldn't see it.

What are your thoughts?

[Hydrostat]

Ray,

what about some Neodym magnets to fix the booth to the floor? At 'quiet earth' I used very small ones (2 x 1 mm round) to fix the desk and a floor lamp to the floor and they keep the items quite tight in place - no need to remove them for transport purposes. Using two magnets instead of a magnet and an iron plate is even stronger. The back of the building had to be closed with a scratchproof plexiglas screen. I wanted to have that removable for visitors which liked to take pictures of the interior (the screen tends to mirror). Four 10 x 5 mm round magnets glued to the screen keep it in place (there are some large screws inserted into the building's walls as counterparts). It's nearly impossible to remove it without pushing it a bit sidewards away from the screws. I think this should work as an outdoor fixture, too.

I'd prefer the door to be open. I love those graffities and the shoe dirt stains at the walls above the floor. Is the phone's cable lead wire?

Cheers,
Volker

[Bill Gill]

Ah, Volker beat me to suggesting magnets! Could you add a "baseboard" around the interior of the booth and drill up into it from the bottom side of the floor to install the magnets? The magnets sound small enough to do that. If they are a little too long to fit flush in the floor, it might be even better as they could act also as alignment pins as well as sticking to the magnets pushed up into the baseboard holes. Those magnets are strong! might try starting with only two corners with magnets! Nice looking booth!