Project Segway - Buildings for the Central T-Layout

Post have been sporadic recently, as January was a hard month. My wife's best friend saw her sister pass away due to pancreatic cancer. Then a student I taught died of colon cancer. And on Friday night a friend of ours died after being a car accident. It has been a traumatic few weeks that leaves you thinking about how little time we have in this life and how quickly it may end.

In addition, with the Central Model Train show coming up on Friday, I've been hoping to get some progress made on the Central T-gauge Layout. This will be its third year in the show, and I only seem to make progress as the deadline approaches. And so it is true this year. This has also been particularly difficult for me, as it was shortly after this show last year that I was diagnosed with my heart issues and so every project I seem to start reminds me of those days last spring.

One major project has been painting the buildings. They had all received a grey primer coat two years ago, but I really wanted to get them painted and installed on the layout. I started by using a tacky glue to attach each building to a nail or pin to give me a handle to use while painting the building.

Tacky glue on a nail head.

This worked okay - but some of the buildings are quite small, and the tacky glue stuck very well. Even too well.

Building on its post.

It takes a village!

Once attached, I painted the buildings their desired wall color. I selected these colors based on some photos I had of different English villages. Then, I masked the walls with blue painters tape and painted the roofs.

Masked buildings receiving a roof color.

The results are pretty good. There are a few points where I had some bleed through, but I think I can touch those up by hand. I did all the painting with spray paint, but I really could use an airbrush for these projects.

Some sample buildings.

I still plan to add some paint to the windows, doors and other details when I do the touch ups. But the difference is dramatic. However, I have learned a bit about these 3D printed buildings. They are 1 piece buildings, and masking such tiny buildings is challenging. I think I would design them differently. But they were not my designs, although I may make some buildings of my own for the next T-gauge project. I will make those with painting and decoration in mind.

Cameron Turner