This is my NP 3rd Class Single Level Combination Depot, lettered for Harrison MT. The original was built in the 1880's and stood till 1964 when it was sold off to Virginia City Montana as a tourist depot, where it stands today. The structure on the left is an NP Standard Western Union Telegraph Office, and on the right is my Lester WA Depot. This time I kicked up the details a tiny bit. I put a warm white 0402 LED in a bamboo toothpick to make the old wooden style train order semaphore post. Those 0402 LED's are tiny, and the wires could thread through the eye of a needle. I'm going to get more of those babies! I used a sewing needle to apply Tamiya Clear Red, Yellow and Green paint in the spectical holes and when the paint dried it in effect left colored lenses. Here is a green clear aspect showing. I also made telegrgaph poles while I was messing with the bamboo toothpicks.
Cool depot there, these are just awesome!! The Mrs. and I went thru there 2 years ago on our way to Yellowstone, cool little town and that depot is in great shape! Well done, Sir! Does that semaphore work? Looks like the light is on!!
They look great. What is the trick to getting the shingles to look that good? I can't seem to get them right. I have been using Evan's pico LED's and they are tiny. I have recently built a couple of Behnke nickel etched cranes and have been able to add LED's to 2 of them. The magnet wire is as thin as thread. The details you have added to the trim is outstanding. Jim
The shingles were made by cutting brown paper bag material in strips and layering them on. Each row is hand laid to the roof, which has transfer adhesive on it so the shingles stick. When you overlap the second layer, it causes the shingles at the end of the strip to pop up a bit and give a realistic 3D effect.
That semaphore is absolutely fantastic! Is that paint difficult to get right? The effect is just awesome!
Painting everything was easy. I used an airbrush and Tru-Color solvent based paint on the depot, and masked the bottom trim with Tamiya masking tape (it's the best masking tape for tiny models to get a straight line without bleed). I used Tamiya paints for all the details brushed on with a 5/0 detailer paintbrush, and I used Apple Barrel white and black tole paint from Walmart for the semaphore pole, and brown for telegraph pole, since those are made from bamboo toothpicks and I wanted a rougher texture that the thick tole paints give. There is a steady hand brush painting technique I use for painting tiny details. You hold the part being painted in one hand and the paintbrush in the other hand, then rest both hands on the table, and touching each other. It prevents your paintbrush hand from flinching at the expense of limited mobility, so takes a bit longer to paint. The other tip is to always dab your freshly dipped paintbrush on a clean paper towel to remove excess paint before you paint a detail. It's better to have to make 4-5 attempts of painting a detail with too little paint on your brush than to try and clean up one glop of too much paint on your brush thet ruined a whole detail. Again, these geek skills take practice and paitence, and always use super bright lights and good magnification when working on Z models.
I am thoroughly impressed! I am new to z-scale. I have scratch-built several buildings for n-scale, but those were just coarse constructions from balsa wood. Moved from the house big enough for n-scale and downsized to Z. I have 3d-printed the parts for a station, which I am slowly painting and assembling now. The photo below shows the foundation, walls and lightly primed windows/doors. I don't have a sprayer, so I'm hand-painting everything. The description of how you paint and make fine pieces will be an excellent guide for me. Did you scratch-build everything?
Everything except the people. Your model looks just like a commercial kit, great work! If you spend about $70 for an Aztek 370 airbrush kit, and get some Tamiya masking tape, it will totally transform your model. Thin the paint to as thick as water, set the paint flow to minimum such that it is almodt dry when it makes contact with the model, and your model will transform like magic! Airbrushing gives a super thin, yet super opaque coat of paint that cannot be reproduced by brush.
