Under the heading of “WHAT DID I DO DURING MY COVID-19 ISOLATION PERIOD”, prodded by my Master Model Railroader friends Rod Vance and Bob Minnis, I attempted to finish completing the requirements for the Master Model Railroader Achievement Program certificate for Master Builder - Structures.

In order to qualify for the Master Model Railroader Achievement Program Certificate for Master Builder-Structures, a modeler must build at least 12 structures. At least six different types of structures must be represented in the total. One must be a bridge, and at least 6 must be scratch built. The remaining six, if not scratch built, must be super detailed with scratch built or commercial parts. Six of the structures must be “judged” .You must earn a score of at least 87.5 points on six of the twelve models in either an NMRA sponsored contest or in AP Merit Award evaluations. Note that only six of the twelve must earn 87.5 points. The others don't even have to be evaluated! They do all have to be described on the Statement of Qualification (SOQ). The SOQ sounds like it could be comfplicated, but it is actually just a description of your models. The whole thing sounds very intimidating, but after being in the hobby for most of my life, it turned out that most of the work had already been done. I thought the most tedious work would be documenting things with photos and narratives, but that took only a few nights.

I had built dozens of structures for my layout over the years, but only about 10 were scratch built. Many of my structures are kits that were animated with operating features like coal or gravel loading, operating water tanks, etc., but most were pretty small. In the winter before the pandemic struck, I screwed up my courage and invited a group of NMRA evaluators over to perform merit award evaluations on my structures. Three judges used a matrix of criteria to score the structures, and come up with a single score for each structure. Four of my scratch built structures scored enough to qualify for the scratch built requirement and 6 of the super detailed kits qualified for the remaining structure requirements. I needed to build 2 more larger scratch built structures to complete the requirements.

This seemed to be a deal breaker. The idea of building two more structures large enough to garner the required points seemed daunting.

Two things changed my thinking:

1. From the NMRA Website : “Something that you should remember if the idea of 'scratch building' intimidates you: There is very little difference between scratch building and building most craftsman kits. The big difference is that in a kit, the manufacturer has assembled the materials that you will need for you. Only the construction needs to be done from scratch. If you take someone else's plans and instructions (even those from a kit) and go to the hobby shop and buy the materials yourself and assemble them, that qualifies as scratch building.”

2. Virus Lock down and shelter at home recommendations.

Well, if I had to curtail most all of my social activities, I might as well make my home isolation productive and get to work on those structures! I searched the internet for craftsman style kits with enough size and detail to qualify. I purchased two Fine Scale Miniatures kits that I could use on my layout: “The Depot” and “The Old Freight House.”

THE OLD FREIGHT HOUSE:

This kit cost me $90.00. (When first produced it went for about $15.00 ! ) I reasoned that if I could duplicate the kit by purchasing a few more sticks and boards, I would be getting 2 kits for a little more than the price of one!

I opened the box, spread out all the parts on a large table and proceeded to duplicate the kit parts from scratch. This took about a week. The kit is basically a box of sticks, some pre cut walls, some wires and about 200 metal detail parts. Duplicating the wood pieces was easy, and I already had most of the scale “lumber” and sheet stock I needed in my stock anyway. The kit walls were pre cut sheeting, which I used as templates to make my own walls with a slightly different clapboard pattern of sheet stock that I already had on hand. Many of the metal detail parts were easy to duplicate in wood, such as the shed supports, freight house doors, ladders, pallets, roof walks, steps and crates. Some were more involved such as the chimneys and hand trucks. I turned my own oil drums and water barrels using an electric drill, but that’s a subject for another article. I made my own feed and flour sacks from heat shrink wrap, and ropes from heavy thread. I chose to use the kit supplied windows, front door casting, brooms, spittoon, jacks, small oil cans, scale and freight crane detail castings.

This kit allows for roof removal and interior detailing, so I used most of the kit-supplied furniture for the inside. The interior is decorated with period art work, calendars, newspapers, etc, found on the internet and printed off my home printer.

Once I had built all the scratch parts, I stained or painted all the wood pieces and started construction. The platform for the freight house is made up of individual stick wood, stained and detailed with simulated nails using a ponce wheel ( Rivet tool). The platform alone, without any walls, took about a week to construct. (Keep in mind, even though I am retired, I only work about 2-3 hours a day on a single project, I still have other duties at home!) The rest of the construction went along quickly and I found the construction very enjoyable. I added some exterior lighting with Circuitron bulbs and shades, running the wires down the corners of the interior walls. Total construction time was about 1 month.

The Depot was a bigger kit, but it is not designed to have a removable roof, so interior detailing was not done. Once again, I spread out all the kit parts on a large table and proceeded to duplicate or assemble all the wood and wire kit parts from scratch. In the center photo, the original kit parts are on the left and my copies are on the right. This took less than a day. This kit cost $110 (originally sold for about $20 !. ) Purchasing siding I did not already have cost another $20, so I have material for 2 kits for about $65 each.

To get extra points, I decided to scratch build the 8 doors, 26 windows, 24 eave supports, the crates, hand trucks, barrels, chimneys, fruit stand and oil drums from wood also. This took almost a week. Each window contains 12 sticks of lumber. I made the canopy supports from wood sticks, turned the barrels and oil drums from dowels, and soldered brass tubing together to make the sign posts. Scratch building the fruit and vegetables themselves will be the subject of a future article.

The platform for the Depot as supplied in the kit is made up of 4 separate pieces of plywood with slight lips on the front edges to allow clearance for track ties. The top surfaces of the random width scribed sheeting therefore overhangs the bottom surfaces to butt directly with the rails. This was easy to replicate by laminating 1/16” plywood to 1/16” random width sheet wood from Northeastern Scale Lumber. This was the only “lumber” I didn’t already have on hand, so that was my only additional lumber cost for this model. The platform sections were mounted on a 5” X 15” piece of 1/8 “ plywood for ease of handling during evaluation.

Once I had built all the wall sections, platform parts and detail parts, I stained or painted all the wood pieces and started construction. Once the main walls were up, I printed station interior photos and placed them inside on the longitudinal center line of the Depot. I then created a false first floor ceiling and added 4 small Led lights to illuminate the first floor. The rest of the construction was performed according to the kit instructions and was, again, a very enjoyable experience.

Since there were no conventions or NMRA events going on at the time of this project (because of the Covid-19 Pandemic) where I could get these structures evaluated, our local NMRA coordinators graciously offered to come to my home to do these last 2 evaluations. Wearing masks and socially distancing from each other in my garage, they evaluated the Old Freight House and The Depot and I am pleased to report each structure scored enough points to finish off my qualifications for the A P Certificate. I am very grateful for the support, encouragement and guidance of Rod Vance, Mike Montgomery and Bill Wurtzel on this project!

It should be noted that smaller structures can satisfy the A P Certificate requirements if they have enough detail and character. The first structure that garnered enough points on my layout was the 100% scratch built Perkin’s Produce model I built in 1975 from Model Railroader plans. This building is only about 4 inches square, but features individual clapboard siding cut from strips of paper, windows fashioned from cardboard strips and individual roof shingles cut with pinking shears. I think it also helps that the building is built into the hillside with a carved stone (balsa) foundation.

In closing, I have a few tips for scratch building construction in wood that I have picked up over the years: apologies to those more experienced who already know these!

1. Use Aliphatic Resin wood glue whenever possible. It sets up fast enough to speed construction, but slow enough to adjust things after initial contact. It’s got a pretty good grip in about a minute, and you only need a tiny amount on the parts. I also heard it takes a stain. CYA glue is good, but hard to remove if it oozes out of a joint and DOES not take stain at all.

2. Use an inverted shot glass as a glue pot. Drop your glue in the reservoir and use toothpicks or tiny olive skewers to apply glue to your surfaces. Never try to apply glues directly from the tube or bottle. It almost always winds up being too much glue.

3. Read the directions through once before starting any construction. Sometimes understanding something that will be done later helps explain how to do the things that are done earlier.

4. Try to identify all parts before hand. This helps avoid prematurely gluing together parts that are needed later in the plans.

5. Paint or stain both sides of flat wall surfaces before assembly. Sometimes these surfaces will warp out of shape if only one side is painted or stained.

6. Keep a supply of band aids close by. Those Exacto knife blades are wicked sharp!

I hope you enjoyed this article and are encouraged, as I was, to Pursue the NMRA Achievement Program.