Page 18 - September October 2017

Here is another building kit-bashed from Pikestuff parts, a low relief warehouse unit. In the lower photo note the cut lines for windows and doors on the reverse side. You do not need to use them – it’s your choice.
Walthers kits can be “bashed” too. I needed a passenger depot for Rosenberg. The prototype was a stucco walled mis- sion-style structure, rather like the Walthers kit but the ornate cornicing was different. It also had a covered porch on the east end and a short freight house on the west end, shorter than the kit.
There were some detailed differences in window layout too. Some I could address, such as the three-piece bay window, which I modified to be closer to Rosenberg with only two windows separated by a pillar. It would be complex to get all the stucco and cornice detail if I built from scratch. I therefore decided to kit-bash rather than scratch-build the model.
The windows on the end wall were covered by the depot name board as per the prototype. The freight house is a very cut down version but close in size to the prototype. It was just a case
of finding the right place on the side wall to make the cut. The windows are not in the right place but overall it looked the part. The porch was scratch-built using Wills Scenics concrete sheet cut to shape supported by varying sizes of Evergreen plastic section (their square section is brilliant across all sizes) and a spare part of the freight house roof. BLMA air conditioner units were added to two windows, along with Walthers wall lights just as on the original. The finished model was painted white overall per the prototype right before it was pulled down in the 1970s. The roof is a slate grey. The brick platform was painted brown and a yellow warning line applied. It is a “what if” – what if it was not torn down, how would it look in the 21st century?
It’s not precisely Rosenberg’s depot but it’s good enough for me
18 ROUNDHOUSE - October 2017
and captures the feel of the original quite well. It will be placed permanently on the layout when the ballast is laid up to the platform edge on both sides.
Getting kits to fit a space on your layout is another area where kit-bashing comes to the rescue. In this photo you can see the warehouse is at an angle to the baseboard edge. It is made from various sections of a Great West Models Inc kit (I bought it with a view to kit-bashing a variety of structures from it rather than the one in the kit itself).
The roof is plain 60 thou plasticard cut to shape and supported on formers cut from Evergreen 125 thou square section. The roof “furniture” is by Walthers.
Sometimes I do not rely on the doors provided by the manufac- turers but rather look for good photos of weathered and aged doors, whether a simple door or up and over roller doors. For me the website https://www.textures.com/ provides a simple solution. Just search and download then size appropriately in your favourite software. All the doors on the transload ware- house are photos of originals as are the rail-side doors on the warehouse above. Below: an example.
So kit-bashing is really quite simple. Like weathering an expensive loco, you just need to be brave enough to dive in and start modifying that kit to become a true kit-basher. And let’s not forget the fun you will have too.
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