I Owe You An Apology

There is no question about it. Once I get involved in a scratch building project, I lose track of everything including my deadline for Scale Modeling Tips & Tools Monthly.

I’ve been able to fool myself into thinking I’m great at multitasking, but the reality is I tend to set everything else aside and work on the thing that peaks my interest the most.

For most of my life I have had a fascination with both railroads and covered bridges and the new N-scale layout I am working on gives me a chance to mix both interests.

It is on a now all but defunct St. J. and L.C. I grew up with in and around St. Johnsbury, Vermont. I now get to re-create a section on a hollow core door here in my office.

The bridge itself has opened the door to learning what it must have been like to build these fabled structures. I have also learned a lot about what has kept them standing for over a 100 years.

You can catch up with my progress and details of this covered bridge build by tapping the bridge link. You will also find here new scratch building tips born out of necessity.

If you’d like a copy of the plan I am working from email me at reg at scale-modelers-handbook dot com

Glass, steel and double-sided tape.

That keeps them square, creates the diamond crossings similar to the Town Lattice Truss of the Fisher Covered Bridge and with each crossing glued, the model bridge has surprising strength.

The glass also provides a perfectly flat surface to work on and spilled glue is easily scrapped off the work surface.

With a sheet of thin steel beneath the glass magnets will hold assemblies in place until they dry.

But I was really stumped when I tried to glue the planking to the two bridge end arches.

As the individual planks were glued to the sheet of thin basswood, it started to warp because of the moisture in the glue.

The magnets would hold it flat, but wouldn’t allow me to glue the planks in place.

I looked at my roll of removable double-sided “Scotch” tape and said “Why not?”

I attached a bridge-height length of tape to the back side of the arch legs and placed it tape face down onto the glass pressing it until it held.

I was able to finish “planking” the entire end portal and hold it in place with the magnets until the glue dried keeping it flat.

Being removable, the tape easily peeled off the glass and I pulled it away from the basswood without a problem.

Just A Little Change

Not so, I have been conjuring on the Carolina Central with the idea of adapting it to a New England environment and in particular Northern Vermont where I grew up.

The St. J. and L.C. was born in the years following the Civil War when Vermonters made moves to update the transportation systems. This effort involved building a new rail line from St. Johnsbury where I grew up and Lake Champlain and then up into Canada.

The railroad opened in 1877 and was already experiencing tinges of reorganizations and bankruptcies that never seemed to end. Traffic in the early 1900s either from online shippers or bridge traffic from the Maine Central was never enough to generate a profit.

By the time the Second World War was on the front pages, the handwriting was on the wall. It was about this time I was growing up in St. J. and every once in a while when exploring Emerson Falls alongside US Route 2, we’d hear the steam engines pulling the hill.

Growing up, I had no real attraction to the railroad industry but the memories stayed with me. I remember things like the old quarries we used to climb, covered bridges and dirt roads.

These were the things I wanted to model, not some non-descript (at least to me) factories and other freight producers.

The Carolina Central would become my own St. J. & L.C.

Now I had a project I could sink my teeth into. Researching a railroad I remember, scratch building a railroad covered bridge (one of two left in Vermont) and digging my own Hardwick, VT granite quarry and building a granite cutting and polishing plant

Cheap, Easy & Quick

I used Charisma with the waitress and she brought me 10 more. I cut one into four pieces and glued them to a sheet of cardstock

Here's the result:

The full length stirrers scale to about 65 feet in N Scale and 12-18 inches in diameter, not much different than a load for an 85’ flat car.

They also will look good surrounding a pipe factory on an N-scale layout.

And, if you get stuck for a paint stirrer...

Tin palette Justifies Candy Purchase

Instead of just throwing away empty food containers, look at them for another purpose..

For instance I made a couple reusable paint and glue palettes from Life Saver tins.

They are ideal for use in N-Scale painting and gluing. I place a blob of glue or paint on the tin and use a toothpick as my “brush” to pick up a speck of the material and place it exactly where it is needed.

Being three inches in diameter and less than a half-inch in height, they make a very stable liquid container.

As an added bonus the old tins make great holders for the leftover bits and pieces of wood and styrene along with extra detail parts. Put a label around the circumference and you can store them on end in old drawer silverware holders.

I have used the same pair for almost a year and haven’t spilled a drop.

Clothespin Clamps Grip In Tight Spots

You can use three of them in an inch, they hold glued truss joints with just the right pressure and without glue, they will hold the frame together while you true it to square.

I also use them for holding a length of strip wood while I paint or stain it keeping my fingers clear of the paint or stain.

You can buy a bag of 50 to 100 of these little springy gems for the price of a single mini-clamp making them one of the cheapest tools on my bench.

Until Next Month...

Make It Your Best Effort!