Open Air Shed #1

I have tried a few times to make balsa wood designs of the open air sheds seen at the docks or at the yards at Tidmoth or Knapford. I wanted to share my latest model, the large 4-road shed seen in many episodes. So here are a couple of views of my model to share with you.

This shed is constructed using balsa wood. I usually build things from the ground up from beginning to finish, but in this case it was helpful to do a sketch of the tresses and supports to align them together snugly and with more precise cuts. I painted it using green mixed with brown and grey to give it its look as it was on the set.

As you can see of the finished product, I thought this shed would be great for interior shots of freight cars or engines inside, maybe when I find appropriate lamps I could also light the interior. Of course I needed to make sure that the tresses for the peaks were repeatedly made so each matched with accuracy. So I tried a new technique to create a strong shell:

• I cut a nice, flat, new sheet of wrap paper and taped it to my table top. 
• Then I glued each tress piece of balsa wood by piece using Elmer's white glue.
• Finally I taped each to the wax paper so the beams can sit still as the glue can work as it dried to bind the beams together.

Constructing the beams this way for the peaks allowed me to assemble the long crossbeams on the side, so I can glue the four peaks on the four sections. The picture above shows a smaller, older one I was reconstructing so you can get an idea how it looks. The grey is spray primer.

For the roof, I cut long sections of card-stock paper, varying the length of each, as the metal roofing, I layered different sections together. I find this to be a nice approach to make realistic metal roofs. Later after the glue dries, I can dry-brush a light grey color and rust color to weather it, maybe with some scraped pastel dust.

Here is how the completed shed looks with a fuel tanker and three Dapol gunpowder vans shunted inside. It can house a total of sixteen wagons, with four on each road.

This is the largest and strongest open air shed, and as there are many different possibilities of designing these sheds alongside buildings, or with mobile cranes inside, I hope to experiment how I make them using real photographs or books as a reference.