# The Engine Shed.



## SirSimon007 (Nov 26, 2014)

I have made various types of buildings for my garden railway. I would make a wooden frame structure and the add a coating of Stucco liquid cement to ensure the building would stand up to the outside elements. One 
tried concrete miniature blocks, but I could not find the right material to get the detail I needed being the brickwork. It was until I came across an article where the author published a YouTube video which showed how to make miniature walls for ‘O’ gauge railway out of foam. Researching I came across a product called Foamular (fig 1).I purchased a 24 x 24 x 1 Inch board which cost me approx. $5.00 and then it started.








Using a very sharp modeling knife I proceeded to cut out the shapes I need from the foam.
I then took a small wire brush, actually it is a sued shoe cleaner I found in the shoe cleaning box (don’t tell the wife!) and then brushed over the styrene to get a rough texture look which you get with bricks.








I took my soldering iron and a small piece of strip wood and made straight lines in the styrene the width of the wood, horizontally first. Next I would then mark each line vertically with a gap between each line as you can see the brickwork is starting to form.








Next I coat the bricks with a grey colour, this represents the mortar between the 
brickwork.









When the pain has dried, I then gave a coat of ‘brick red’ paint, but here I used a sponge brush and lightly pained over the bricks, because of the groves the soldering iron made, the sponge brush does then not paint inside the groves and you can then see the mortar between the bricks .









Completed wall ready for assembly.










I produced three other walls the same way. The good thing with working with the styrene is that if you want to have window frames, doors or anything attached to the brickwork like outside lights, they simply can be inserted in to the styrene with a touch of glue to give extra support.










For the roof, I manage to use these small wooden chips found from my local hobby store and glues them on to the wooden strip one by one. 









The Engine shed is now complete.










Not bad for my first attempt.


----------



## ewarhol (Mar 3, 2014)

And now your engine has a nice cozy home


----------



## denray (Jan 5, 2008)

looking Good


----------



## MikeMcL (Apr 25, 2013)

Nice job. I posted a similar how to video for tunnel portals.


----------



## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Simon, Nice job on the engine house! Mike, Thanks for the tutorial.


----------



## camper415 (Jan 18, 2013)

what type of paint do you use and what glue ?That looks really good.


----------



## cape cod Todd (Jan 3, 2008)

That is one nice looking sturdy looking engine house SirSimon.
Insulating foam is a neat product for modelling. last year I was faced with making an arched bridge for 2 tracks to pass over and thought about doing it in concrete onsite then after a bit of research I decided to use foam. I used a technique similar to the video Mike posted and I am very pleased with the results. I bought a 4x8 panel and cut several pieces out so I could laminate them together to create the thickness I needed. 
I painted it with many coats. The one problem with foam is ants like to get into it. 
Happy RRing


----------

