Hello fellow z-scalers! I am new to this scale and envisioning the build of Canyon Diablo in Z. Yes, this will be a multi year project (and investment) but is intended to relive my own memories with my dad in Marklin HO and more importantly an experience I can build with my two sons. We decided on our first locomotive (my ABSOLUTE favor): the ATSF F7 ABA Yellow War Bonnet and its running on its typical oval with some electric turnouts… Bottomline, we are at the very beginning of our journey and me (and the boys) are excited! To make this our own we decided to leave the track design and build up for our imagination and start thinking about the surrounding: red deserts, canyons and limited vegetation. As a ultra runner (I did the R2R2R) the most beautiful place in the US. Ok, ok, so lets get to it… Lets build the Badger Section House #1. Painting and preparation (Part 1) Given its small size I followed Mike Basher’s guidance and paint and weather the model while in its sheets. My son was adamant, the build should be in the yellow/green colors as in the pictures as it would fit our desert landscape. First we did, was to apply Tamiya’s Fine Surface Primer, personally I like it a lot but again, apply it lightly to not cover up the fine lines of the Basher Kit. Ok, so after priming, LT and I could not agree upon the color of the house. We went from yellow to mustard and from orange to pale yellow… So after a week we (finally) agreed upon the colors and the air brush came out pretty good. Here are the results. Next we will do the weathering, stay tuned!
The pics that made it look good so far The paint looks great. The number one question though - is your son enjoying the process???
Ok, an update from the Section House #1 build progress. I failed to mention in my initial posting the paint I ended up using transparent Createx Airbrush Colors slightly thinned. With the individual part sheets air painted, the first round of dry-brush weathering was applied. I prefer Doc O’Brien’s weathering powders and opted to apply ‘Muddy Red’ on the bottom sides of the walls, to mimic dried on red desert sand. For highlights I used ‘Desert Sand’ and ‘Gritty Yellow’ across the walls and around the windows and doors. Overall my son was very excited to see the results. Next up, we (mostly me as my kiddo could not bring the patience) commenced on putting together the windows - glass, sash and trim. The individual parts came greatly apart from their respective sheets and came together well. Once dried these assemblies fitted well in the respective openings of the walls. After the windows, the doors required assembly and included in the two wall sections. We opted to keep both doors in closed position and finish the door inserts in ‘plywood’ brown. Similarly, the pieces came together well - kudo’s to Mike Basher’s laser cut product quality. As a newbie I was impressed how well the often very tiny parts came together. I have included several pictures of the progress and plan to put the structure itself together over the weekend.
After a weekend filled with early Christmas buzz - kiddos really wanted to setup the Christmas tree and start the annual lego Christmas village builds. This took time away to work on the Section House #2 build but still managed to make some progress. Lets get on with it… I received the Faller Expert Laser glue and dang, what a difference that made compared to the all-purpose white glue! Absolute must have from my perspective. First item on the list was to glue together the finished wall sections to realize the building’s outer structure. The little indentations in the various wall components definitely helped to properly align the sections. Here I did ran into a little ‘perfectionist’ snafu. Upon close inspection I notice a gap between the green wall trims at the corners, see the pictures I added . I am not sure if I incorrectly applied these trims to the walls... Anyone any thoughts/suggestions how to make this ‘gap’ disappear? Second item on the weekend to-do was to assemble the porch floor and the stairs. Now these was a nice challenge and after several attempts yielded a pretty cool result. Hardest part was for me to understand where the actual stepping board was to be fixed in order for the steps to be realistic. Next up will be to fix both the front and back porch/deck to the structure or prioritize the main roof panels with shingles. Anyone any recommendation on optimal order? Thanks for following me on my z-build journey, -Tiest
Looking good, Tiest. I have built several of Mike's kits and they do go together easily. It looks like the front trim piece was put on incorrectly. It should rest on the edge of the side trim. This will cover the gap. The two trim pieces should create an ell. I like the colors you have chosen. Jim
Spot on Jim; carefully removed, re-painted and re-applied. Looks much better now. Thank you much! Tiest Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Busy work week behind me but still found time to make progress on my little yellow section house which my kiddo’s have now recoined ‘Papa’s House’. Love it! First thing I wanted to address was the gap between the corner trims. As @bostonjim rightfully pointed out, the front trim was put on incorrectly and needed to move ‘over’ the side trim to form an el. This was a bit tedious to remove, repaint and re-apply but I am happy with the outcome. Good lesson here, better to construct the walls before applying the trims. With the walls and trims forming its final structure, I moved on to the roof. First cutting of the shingles in the right size, this was again tedious but probably because I was to perfectionistic - every strip 39mm wide and 8 mm tall. Few, a pair of magnifying glasses - which I do not normally wear - came in handy. Next I glued 5 strips on the large roof panel and 2 shingle strips over the shorter panel; ensuring a 1 mm overlay between the shingles. Once done I decided to apply weathering powders since that seemed easier to do while laying flat. I think the result came out nice but any suggestions to improve are always welcome. I still have not figured out when to apply dry-brushing techniques… Suggestions anyone?? Next up, I fitted the roof panels on the wall construction which went together rather well. I ended up putting the roof panels upside down, apply the glue and fitted the wall construction. That went rather smoothly - kudos to @mike’s attention to detail! Last was the shingle that needed to cover the roof top. This one I made 39mm long and 7 mm wide to create a slightly wider overlay with the top shingles - like on my house. I used my tweezers to mark the fold line and subsequently folded the shingle. Once done, applied it to the top side of the roof and roof was done. Biggest item I came across was the fact that the top shingle was not weathered and therefore look out of place. This is a reason for me to not apply any weathering until after complete roof construction. I ended up doing a bit more weather as I liked but think it ended up ok. The suggestion I read elsewhere @pavel’s dioramas came in handy. ;-) Additionally I constructed the front porch roofing panel - including the weathered shingled - with the side paneling. Here, I am noticing a difference between @Mike’s pictures and the assembly parts: the top and side beams of the porch construct are missing. Either way, no problem - the Thanksgiving week is ahead so lets figure this out. Thanks again for following my journey and hope it will help other newbies, -Tiest Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Looks good for your first attempt at a Z-scale building. Knowing this is a "Father-Son" project, and knowing how difficult anything Z-scale is, I will assume "dad" did alot of work on this one. LOL Hopefully though, whatever portion he completed, he's having fun.
You got that right - turning into a dad most activity. Either way, he liked adding the weathering on the roof tiles. Also like the little ‘worn out’ wood look on the patio floor. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It takes time. He'll be a master modeler in no time. We need more youth involved in the hobby in order to keep it alive for future generations. Less cell phone and video games and more model railroading and model building in general is my motto.
Sorry guys for having been mia passed couple of weeks. Holiday season is all about kiddos and less time for myself and my z railroad aspirations. I did make a final decision on the location, theme and era for my rail road model. I have opted for the Southern Transcon, the Seligman Subdivision from Winslow Yard to Flagstaff which crosses the Diablo Canyon . Era wise, looking at ATSF in the 1970-80s. With this said, I took the family on a winter outing for few days and came across the ATSF caboose attached below - right onto my rail road empire alley! Everyone have a great Christmas and fantastic 2022!!! -Tiest Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ok. Quick update; we live in Lafayette, Colorado very close to where the Marshall Fire burned but were VERY lucky. No damage to our property but many, many people have been much less fortunate around us. Strange part (and reason for this post), the newbie house I am building with my son got completely destroyed overnight by our cats(!) Talk about coincidences… Anyway, I explained to my kiddos this was a blessing and we will start over from scratch. Happy new year all!! -Tiest
As the holidays have come and go :-( I am getting more time to dedicate to my z-scale newbie build. My oldest and I decided on another of Mike Basher’s laser cut model: the Old Southern Farmhouse. Given our experience building the Section House, from the get go we wanted to do a better job on adding realism. We selected the color white for the house and wanted to visualize peeled of paint from the outdoor walls. I achieved this using the following method: Diluted rubbing alcohol with small quantity of Indian ink - 100-150ml to 1 teaspoon of Ink. Painted the outer walls, window frames/stills and door with the mixture, let dry. Covered the darkened outer walls and other items with turpenoid. While wet, I brushed a good amount of white, acrylic paint over the walls and window parts. Note, for the door frame I used a green color to make it stand out. Let the paint sit for about 10-15 minutes; don’t want it to be too wet nor too dry. With acrylic colored paint on, I took a razor blade that I pulled over the painted section(s) to create an initial peeling effect. Finally I added scotch tape over the painted parts; peeling of the tape removes additional paint and improving the peeling effect. With the walls and window assemblies put together I focused on the foundation structure. For this, I used polystyrene sheet material. I wanted to re-create the texture of concrete which I accomplished using the following steps: Added CA glue to portions of polystyrene sheet visible once model is put together. While CA glue is still wet, I added grout powder to resemble concrete texture. After letting it dry for a couple of minutes, I brushed off the excess of powder and airbrushed the piece with Vallejo concrete paint (71.131). Once dried, I added some highlights using weathering powders. Once complete, I wanted add another piece of polystyrene sheet on top of the concrete slab. This piece is intended to fit inside the building walls to keep building correctly positioned on its foundation. Instead of painting it a single color as it’s not very visible one roof is on, I wanted to re-create a hardwood floor. I achieved this look by making lengthwise cuts in the polystyrene. Once completed I airbrushed with Vallejo Wood paint (71.077) and dry-brushed the ‘planks’ with black acrylic paint. Lastly I added a small porch light at the front door. I used a Pico LED 0402 warm white light purchased from Iron Penguin Electronics. I routed the small wires through the outside wall and polystyrene foundation. Wires were soldered on a small soldering board with a XYZ resistor. Next up we will be installing the front porch and the roof. Looking forward to completing this build and continue to document my experience for other newbies to utilize. Last, question for the more seasoned modelers here. The roof of this building will be covered with black paper to resemble shingles. Any suggestions/recommendation how to weather, age these paper shingles?? Thanks! -Tiest Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Nice work the base and distressed paint look great. To make a roof look distressed is often difficult because often shingles are printed on the sheet so removal of a few is difficult. Now steel roofs lend themselves to rust chalks dent damage and such so I’m curious as well as to what folks do with paper.
Nice work thus far Tiest & son! Indeed the peeling paint look is really nice and does add an interesting degree of realism to the building. The porch light is an excellent touch. One general comment though, and it always becomes evident in high-quality pictures like you provided, but that is the window trim. Because Basher’s trim is so well done and precise, I avoid painting it as much as I can in order to preserve that detail that it has. I think if one were to airbrush it, your mixture would need to be extremely fine and I would almost recommend using an oil-based enamel instead of acrylics. I am of the opinion acrylics or just to globby. Just my personal input. Now in regards to shingles, I think one needs to look at the era in which you’re planning to represent. It might take a little bit of research to determine if shingle roofs were common in the Southwest during that time frame, or were they simply using large sheets of tarpaper overlapped. Which could simply be represented by black construction paper cut in strips, and laid in a long-wise overlapping manner. Once dry, a few dustings with weathering powders in either a tan or white would give the tarpaper a weathered appearance. Might even be worth peeling an edge or portion of that tarpaper to make it look as though it has peeled away and the underlying wood is exposed. Below are pictures, not my work, but that of a fellow club member here in South Dakota. I just joined the club and missed her name, but I believe she’s about 70 years old and did the following buildings — and YES, Z-scale. I’ll get her name at the next club event and certainly give credit where credit is due, but her work is very nice. Note the weathering and underlayment appearance on the warehouse building, and then the overlapping tarpaper on the general store. Simply sending these over as a reference points.
