Jukes Boat Livery

Once upon a time there was a model railroad forum - "The Whistle Post". One day a group of us me in the Chat Room where David Miecznikowski of Clever Models gave away Jukes Boat Livery to everyone there.

Clever Model kits are designed to assemble as self contained card stock structures. Me - I prefer to create a substructure from foam core and use the printed walls as overlays.

The original version was just the building. Later on, David added the boats. I think it was one of the customers/fans that created the boats .. could be wrong .. been a good while now since then.

Everything you see is paper/cardstock.

I had this space on my layout right at the elbow where the two arms of the "L Shape" layout met.

I remember feeling a bit sorry that I was going to destroy this little area as I thought it looked quite nice.

I know some people who will rip out a section of a layout to put in something new. Me .. I like working as if it were real .. modify the area like it would have been if real.

Since the area was uneven I thought that a concrete base would work. My "go to" for this sort of thing is to use Legos to create a 'quick and dirty' mold for the plaster.

I printed two sides of Jukes and then formed the Legos around the shape to create the mold. To make use of this you use tape to hold the Legos to a flat surface. Plaster is poured into the mold and you simply have to wait until it hardens.

My preferred method for cardstock models is to make a foam core support that the cardstock is glued to. Here I am using a black foam core ... the same thing as the more common white. Simple notch and tab construction assembled with white glue.

The 'concrete' base was formed by mixing some crumbles of Styrofoam into the plaster along with fine paver base granules. When the plaster was dry the Styrofoam etc. can be picked, brushed out .. MEK will help melt the stuff .. this leaves the pockmarked, rotten look.

I have to admit that cutting into Building Insulation Foam is a lot easier than doing the same with plaster.

The hardest part here is dropping imaginary lines down from the base to the ground.

The Swanson Tool Company 6-in Cross Check Level is perfect for leveling the base. I simply applied glue to the bottom of the base, slapped the level on top, made sure everything was level and let the glue set up.

I printed a copy of the walls and glued them to the foam core shell. Stripwood was then clued to the cardstock to create the trim.

Here the model is mostly finished ..

The roof is paper .. printed from the kit with streaks etc. via weathering powders

The clapboard was created by printing on to cardstock and cutting out strips two boards wide. I then overlap the strips by one board. This kicks the boards out in a prototypically correct fashion.

Window is from Tichy
Overhead beam is Evergreen I-Beam
Door and hangers are printed on cardstock from the kit

s of text.

I decided that I didn’t like the printed door. I could have layered it also but instead made a new one from stripwood. Hangers are styrene. I have also by this time added a pole for the end of the I-Beam to hang from and added a street light.

The scene HAS changed since .. around Jukes .. but that is worth another article.