Fruit and Produce Company -- Part 2

Main building started

Back in December I introduced the idea of the Nooksack Valley Fruit and Produce Co. as a fruit packing complex to be located in the town of Nooksack. Having drafted a revision (or actually a new version) of one of my clinics for an upcoming Susquehanna Division meeting a few days ago, I have returned to working on the packing house complex. 

For this low relief building kitbashed from parts from the Walthers Grocery Distributor kit, I first returned to the photocopies of the wall sections to determine where I would need to make cuts to fashion the brick walls. I gathered the molded plastic pieces and tools that I would need before marking and cutting the brick wall sections to match my paper mockup. I scored the cuts in the wall with a hobby knife and then used a fine-bladed Zona saw to finish the cuts. I also sanded the edges and any sprue tabs. I trimmed the door and window castings off their sprues and sanded any little tabs left before collecting them all in a plastic bowl, so they won't get lost on my workbench. 

Yesterday I assembled the wall sections. As seen in the photo, I used some Evergreen styrene strip that I have on hand as foundation and bracing. Years ago, when I was still in Seattle, I was able to pick up a large bundle of various styrene strips for pennies as a hobby shop went out of business. I used .125 x .125 to extend the foundation and corner bracing. I also used .060 x .060 and .030 x .100 to fit around the molded-in ridges to even the corners and supports. Having learned one lesson on the kitbashed structure I built for the Ingleton plank, I paid close attention to making sure the corners were square and plumb. The Plastruct solvent worked fine, but using the brush-in-the-bottle made for extremely sloppy glue joints. Here on the interior, they will not be visible. As I plan to scratchbuild another low relief building for this complex, I will need to come up with another technique if I build it from styrene. In the current (March 2025) NMRA Magazine, Jack Hamilton MMR discusses glue/solvent application tools. Perhaps it is time for me to invest in a "Touch-N-Flow" device. At the very least, I should use a much smaller natural bristle brush for trim joints that will be visible. 

Staying focused on this building, the next step is painting. A few months ago, while shopping in Stroudsburg, PA, I took this quick snapshot of the back of some older industrial buildings. It has some nice prototype weathering of bricks and adjoining wooden siding to use. However, I am still thinking that the brick building in my packing house complex should be painted white. I spent some time yesterday looking online for packing house images and many of them are white. I just haven't found an image to use as a model for a paint scheme that I am happy with yet. I once saw a video with Gerry Leone using hairspray to create worn/chipped white paint effects on bricks, but that might be too dilapidated of a look. This is not an abandoned packing house, just a hard working one.  I think I will do a little more online "research" and see what rattle can primer colors I have in stock. Maybe a red primer with a white wash/dry brush over it? I just don't want to inflict analysis paralysis on myself!