Harpers Ferry Update

Last time we visited Harpers Ferry I'd built the railroad trestle (but not yet laid the track), made a start on building the engine house (aka John Brown's Fort), and glued down the perimeter walls.

The tracks are now in place. Not the most exciting picture but here you go.

The engine house has been a significant undertaking. I knew that I wanted to build it out of foamcore and card but integrating a 3D printed cupola I found on Thingiverse and the windows I designed myself. The plan was to clad the whole building in printed brick paper.

Unfortunately when I came to assemble the building I found that I'd cocked up the process of scaling the model from the available plans. The windows in the end walls were far too high compared to those in the front and rear walls.

The windows should be at the same height all round

I glued the walls together and then sat back for a week or so, trying to decide if I could live with the error. In the end I decided I couldn't so I took the model apart and rebuilt the end walls.

This is what I ended up with after building the roof and applying laser-cut slates from Charlie Foxtrot Models.

I want to make the interior of all the buildings (except the water tower) playable so I've made the roof removable and added a floor from brick paper over cornflake-box thin card.

The shelf unit on the rear wall is simply supports from a 3D print job!

Since taking the pictures I've rebased the fire engines using the same brick paper.

Finally, I had second thoughts on the main gate to the armoury compound. The 3D printed main gates would be far to delicate to transport glue in place on the main board. I decided to construct a gateway module that could be transported in its own box and slotted into place for play.

The gates are now glued in place to a piece of artist's mounting board. This slots into a space defined by glued-down spacers from the same material. I'm hopeful that when I come to texture the board, I can make the join almost invisible. A little scattering of sand will probably help.

I've added Italeri plastic bollards beside the gates and spent about three hours cutting and laying cardboard paving slabs to create the footpath past the engine house and the paymaster's office.

So after all that, the current state of play is like this.

Next steps are the base the warehouse, add thin card "frames" for the buildings to sit within and then to start texturing the baseboard.