Coldwater Seafood Co. Open for business

The roof is another piece of sheet plastic w/
painters tape.  I really like the crinkle texture
of the tape, especially after it's dry brushed w/
some white paint.  it really pops.

Here was the start of the addition.  The wood siding is a
plastic product and the door and eyebrow window is from
my scrap box.  I like to paint the parts, pre-construction
if I can.  It makes for cleaner lines in N-scale.

                      

I added some thin strips of plastic for the seams
of the ribbed metal roofing and it was all painted
silver aluminum.  It'll be followed with some orange,
burnt umber, and white for aging and rust.  

   

Walla!  A new deck with some crate's on it and a dumpster below
I also added some signs, although I'm not crazy about the big
one out front.  The smaller one on the wall blends in pretty nice.
If you zoom in on the photo you can see some pigeons sitting
on the roof and rails of the deck.  Their from American Archetype

This is a view from the east side of the building
where there's a loading dock and you can see the
awning out front.  I think the sign looks to new and clean.

Here's a better view of the west side and dock receiving area.
I added some post and beam construction to this area as well
as a timber hoist that I've been waiting to use.  It's from
Model Tech Studios I have quite a few of their detail parts.
They're easy to finish and add a lot to the scene.  You can see
some of the dry brushed aging and rust spots on the metal roof.

  

Here's another shot of the back / dock side of the building.
I think this is all done.  (At least for now)

Coldwater Seafood Company

Okay, I needed a bit of a break from the ore business and as I was looking at the surrounding neighborhood I saw an urban renewal project.  We all have those structures that we built a long time ago and as with any good wine our skills get better with time.  So, the Coldwater Seafood Company called out to me as a quick refresher project.  It's a plastic kit / kitbash that I must have done probably 10 years ago.  It was initially built into a hillside but now it's open in the back so that was closed up in another rehab probably 5 years ago when the layout went from a built in place one to a sectional, movable layout.
It needed a front entrance so I had a spare left from another DPM kit that I knibbled an opening for.  After some paint and some aging and a concrete lintel above it, walla, welcome fresh seafood customers.

New front door added and the old deck removed.

The original front.

The structure also used to have a railed in deck on the side with a bunch of metal drums on it.  I didn't want to scare off the customers with the mystery drums so that side will receive a new deck and some more appropriate looking crates placed upon it.  That should be a little more attractive to seafood customers.

Original side view. The 2 story brick house across the street
from the Coldwater building looked so nice in comparison to
it, even without the yard being done that it helped me to decide
that I needed to do a renovation on it.

The back of the building wasn't anything special
but it will have a wooden structure add-on to both
the dock-side on the back as well as to the side
that faces the elevated ore track.

Ore Dock (Home Stretch)

The wooden decking is down on the top of the dock.
I think I'll put some down the center of the dump track
with gaps for the chutes where I have already cut out
the ties.  I also added a spotlight at the south end of the dock.

Very little time to work in the last month or so.  I had a chance to sit down yesterday and knocked out a bit on the ore dock.  Almost done baby, almost done!  In the last post I mentioned the need for a tug boat as well, so I purchased one from Model Tech Studios.  It was easy to build and looks great in the scene.  I still need to attach some line between it and the Ana G., that it's assisting into the harbor and up to the ore dock.  Here are a few new pictures.

The aqua colored painted steel super structure of the dock has
a ore dust patina on it.  Each ore chute has an individual motor
and cable attached to the trough.  You can also see a side shot
of the spotlight at the end of the dock.

I'm thinking about adding some overhead
wiring above the ore cars and maybe some
sort of maintenance workers shed in the middle
isle between the 2 dump tracks.

A close up of the un-named tug.  I'm open to suggestions
for a name.  The kit has a lot of detail parts to it and is very easy
to build.  I love the small ropes and tires hanging off the side.

Ore Dock Development stage 4 (almost done!)

Ok, I'm not a track laying genius.  I couldn't figure out how to move the ore cars around on the elevated section and around the dock.  I someday want to have operating sessions and seeing as ore will be a actively worked industry I need to move the cars around to simulate unloading them at the dock. (Moving full cars in and empties out)  Thanks to some guidance from the folks at Engine House Services I figured out how to do it with a minimal number of switches.  I will need to add another 2 sections of Imagine That's elevated track sections (that'll make 13 total kits used in this project!) so it looks consistent all the way across the elevated line and not a mish-mash.

The elevated line for the Ore Dock looking south down Market St.

The elevated line as it runs above Market St looking north.

The Short Line ore hauler, Ana G. has a new lower section.

 I also added a lower hull area to the "Ana G.".  She's the short line ore hauling vessel that'll be pulling into the dock for loading.  I think I need to make a tug boat to go into the scene as well.
The chute doors, motor housings, ladders and guards are all in place on the dock.  Next step is to add the chutes, their control cables, and track.

The chute doors are in place on the Ore dock and waiting on the paint to dry
on the chutes so then they can be attached.

Ore Dock Development stage 3

Hola!  We're well into 2012 and I've had a few seconds to get back to my hobby.  I'm so very tempted to start up in different areas of the layout, but I disciplined myself and am going to finish the ore dock 1st.  The dock itself is a single sided dock because they could get a large ship into the east side of the dock.  There are several other ore docks to the west of this one to make up for this problem (in reality there is only the one on my layout!)  This dock is unique in that both tracks of ore cars are unloaded into the west side of the dock so a ship can technically be loaded twice as fast.

While looking a bit like an aircraft carrier
this is the west side of the ore dock
without any of the unloading chutes on it.

I put on some stairs, so workers don't have to walk all the way down the tracks to the actual dock and I've also applied a railing around the entire dock deck.  That was pretty tedious because I didn't have enough of any one type of plastic railing to put on. So I created the railing all out of short cuts of wire, in different diameters.  I drilled holes to mount them all and used tacky glue to hold them in the holes and CA to attach the wire handrail.  I gave it all a shot of what I refer to as steel blue (sort of a bluish / green paint) to the entire structure other than the deck, which is black.  Next a misting of a brick / ore red color for depth and then onto the creating all the ore chutes themselves, along with the associated cable's and winches that raise and lower them.  Oh, and the track too!

This is the stairway pre-paint.

Close up shot of the stairway leading
up to the unloading deck.

East side with freshly primed Steel
Structure & new hand rail along the
top unloading deck.