Aldershot Progress: Roofs, Rust, and Graffiti — Building N Scale Station Platforms

So, I've taken way too much time trying to decide what to do for roofing on the station. And if I want to copy the prototype, it has some sort of weird shiny like vinyl coating. Um, I don't like it. So, I originally thought about doing corrugated roofing along this front edge, but then I decided that that was probably going to be a little too crude. So, what I've decided is I'm going to put a light galvanized steel looking roof. um solid panels and I've managed to use my 3D printer to create um form of ribbing. So I built up the model using an assortment of laser cut strips and you can see those strips here as the base of the roof. So what I've done on this side is I've come back and I've clad over top of those wooden strips with some very thin sheet styrene. And on top of that I've added some ribbing that I 3D printed on my FDM printer. The styrene is very thin. It's 0.25 millimeters and it's easy to cut, but it's also easy to bend. As for the ribbing, this was a bit of an experiment. And what I did was I designed um almost a near flat series of ribs and roof cap that I 3D printed flat using a 2 mm nozzle on my FDM printer. I left a very thin strip between the left and right hand side so that I could take the flat print out and bend it to create um the roof ribbing that goes on top of the sheet styrene. The roof on the first platform is done. I just have to cap the elevator shaft. And I'm only realizing now that this would have been a lot better to have preainted and installed. Um, yeah. So, that's the center platform roofs figured out, and I'll finish them up. The next thing I need to do is I need to look at the roofs on the wing platforms. So, as it stands, these are unfinished. Um, I have to add strips of styrene to cover over all of the connection points between the uprightes and the roofing. And once that's installed, they will also get a coat of the gray primer. But I'm going to pause on doing that because I want to go back to the layout and start working on some elevations and some contouring. The area where these platforms will sit is a bit low and so I'm going to use some adhesive cork sheets to help bring it up a little higher than the rail heads. I also want to start contouring the surrounding area and so I'm going to need to make some adjustments to some of the foam and some of the plywood and round those things out in preparation for adding sculpt mold. This is my first time ever using sculpt mold and so I'm excited to see how it turns out. I need to bring those passenger platforms up a little bit higher. And my goal was to use some self-adhesive sheets of cork. And I had bought some 1mm cork and it's perfect. And so I was confident that I bought two more packages of 1 millm cork. And it turns out that I bought 2 mm cork, which will probably be fine. It'll be fine. Maybe just a little high. So, the cork worked out fine. Having the different thicknesses actually let me um make a few corrections. And now I've got perfectly level platform bases the entire length of the station. And the next step was going to be that I'm going to come in with some sculpt mold and smooth everything down to give it a uniform appearance. Um but then I got to thinking that I think I would really like to paint the track. The technique I've used for painting track in the past is pretty basic. Um, it's just rattle cans, just spray paint. And I go over the tracks first from an angle. In this case, with what is a flat leather brown. And then at the same time, I just come in over the top and give a light misting of this color here, which is considered mudslide. And as soon as these colors go down, I wipe the top of the rails with um a paper towel. And it cleans it up about 98%. I've decided I'm just going go with a simple tar paper roof on the wing sections of the platforms. I have laser cut some strips that are slightly inset from what is on the roof right now, which should create little gutters around. I'm going to glue these together, tar paper them, prime them, and put them on and see how they look. I think for tar paper, all I'm going to do is I'm going to apply strips of masking tape um to the laser cut wood and with a coat of paint. Hopefully that'll have the seams to make it look like rolled roofing. I'm going to start painting the two different roof types. The real station platforms have some ventilation systems and I also want to add some ventilation, but I need it to have a bit more character. And so I think I'm going to add blowers. I have this little example here from a WERs kit. This is a bit big. So, what I did was I redesigned it in 3D and I printed my own detail parts. I'm going to put them together, give them a paint job, and see how they look. Heat. Heat. So, roof is done. Ventilation is ready to put on. And I'm thinking before I weather the rest of the building, I want to try adding some graffiti on top of the windows. I have a pretty nice selection of Nscale Blair Line uh water slide graffiti decals and I'm going to see if I can make them fit. So, applying the decals on a fairly uneven surface like these windows with their deep mullions is challenging, but I was able to make it work. Um I put the decal down as you typically would. I soaked it with Microsol and that does make it quite elastic. And I found the best way to get it to seat into all the nooks and crannies was to actually use a bit of sponge and apply pressure over and over again. I'm going back in with some paint markers just to define the edges of the graffiti a little more strongly. Heat. Heat. down. Hey Hey, hey, hey.