Structure Build: The Panhandle Cafe

Howdy folks! Dave here at Thunder Mesa Studio with another structure build for the little mining town of Thunder Mesa. There are only about three structures left to finish for Thunder Mesa Town and this week I think I'm gonna go ahead and tackle this one... the Panhandle Hotel. Now, like many of these structures in Thunder Mesa Town, the Panhandle is inspired by a building that you can see in the queue at Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland in Anaheim. It actually dates back to the original Nature's Wonderland railroad that was there. In my opinion it's a little small for a hotel so I'm going to change it from the Panhandle Hotel to the Panhandle Cafe which works better for the space that it's in on my layout and then this little bump out section on the side can become the kitchen. Well, I did a whole new set of drawings and cut some parts out on the laser and once again I've decided to go with an MDF core structure. This is some 1 16th of an inch thick MDF and I really like to build wooden structures this way. It makes for a very solid, sturdy, and square structure. In fact, we use the same technique in several of the kits we do from Crescent Creek Models. If you have one of the Walt's Barn kits you'll notice that it goes together in very much the same way. So, next thing I'm going to do is start putting on the clapboard siding. The prototype has clapboard siding on three sides. The three sides that are visible to guests. We don't know what it looks like in the back here. This side is not visible to guests so I don't know if it's clapboard or not. What I've decided to do on the back, just to be a little different and fun, is use board and batten for the back wall because, you much cheaper as a construction material than than a clapboard. Now you might notice that I did not cut all of the walls on the laser. Just mostly just the ones with door and window openings. It really wasn't necessary to cut them all in laser. It's just clapboard so it's going to be pretty easy to cut with a hobby knife. And so these side walls I'll just do by hand and that way I can also make sure that all the claps line up properly and everything looks nice and clean. But to begin gluing pieces on I think I'm going to start with this back wall with board and batten. Now I can cut a piece of this clapboard siding for this wall right here. This wall is mostly blank because it butts directly up against another building so there's no doors or windows or anything on this side. Also with clapboard siding you really got to pay attention to which way the claps go. It's angled downwards. I'm going to put it on there, glue it on upside down and then, you know, have to take it off and do it again. Get a little help from some clothespins. Things are a little trickier over on this side where the bump out is because I'm going to have to mate up three pieces of clapboard. One for the top and then two strips down each side like that. And the trick here, of course, is to cut the piece right at the base of this bit of clapboard so the next one will look like it's a continuation. Last two pieces. Well after I went home for the day yesterday I realized that I had forgotten a rather important detail and something that has to be done before I put paint on this and that is I need to carve away very carefully the slanted part of the milled clapboard so that when I put the one by six trim on there it'll fit down in there flush like that you see. So I've already started to do that on this side. It's a kind of a slow and careful process. You start by scribing a line here and then go through and I'm using a little chisel blade in my X-Acto knife to remove the claps very carefully. Otherwise it'll look it would look odd with the trim sitting up on top of the clapboard. You could probably get away with that look in smaller scales. HO you could get away with it but an O scale that's one of those things that's going to show. Alright well now I can get some color on here and I think I'm going to start out with a kind of silvery gray stain. This is my good old India ink and 70% rubbing alcohol mixture and I'll build up the next layer of color on top of this. I wanted to start by giving the wood a little bit of age and character. I don't want to put it on too heavy because I don't want it to warp and I don't want it to darken the wood too much. For the main color on my structure I'm going to use a product that I don't use very often and it's one of these a smoke and mirror solutions from Wild West scale models. I have a few bottles of this stuff and let me use the light beige it's a it's a thin acrylic wash basically is what this stuff is. If you put it on unsupported wood it will very often warp it in my experience but since I have this stuff built up so nicely I don't think I'll have a problem with warping. At least I hope not. Start over here on this wall you can see how thin that goes on. I'm just using a soft I think this is a number eight brush here. Well after three coats I like the way that looks. It's starting to come together that's close to the color I was going for. So the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna dry brush a lighter shade on and that will really make this pop and bring out the details of that clapboard siding. Okay I've got everything I need here to do some dry brushing. I'm gonna use a color I love to use called unbleached titanium. It's a nice light neutral beige any any good acrylic in the same range would work. I like it because it's nice and thick so it's excellent for dry brushing and I've got a couple of mongoose synthetic mongoose bristle brushes which are you don't have to go out and buy these specific brushes if you want to try this stuff but I like these these are actually old oil painting brushes and they're not as stiff as hogs hair and but they are stiffer than say sable so it's kind of a in-between kind of a medium and with dry brushing I've got a piece of corrugated cardboard here I want to get all 99.9% of the paint off and I don't know that I mentioned this but when you're staining you always you always want to go with the grain right when you're dry brushing you tend to go against the grain they go the opposite way like this and what I'm going for here I'm just hitting the bottom edge of these claps come around go the other way now down here at the base something I like to do is put it on a little bit heavier it looks like it's been faded out kind of desaturated from rain and water splashing up on the side of the building you can see how it just highlights the bottom of that clapboard it really makes it pop there you can see difference between the dry brush to the non dry brush you can really see how that brings out the detail there we go I think that will work well I did a little experiment with some some one by six for the corner trim just trying to figure out the color I want to make it and this building the prototype is very beigey and brown you know so we're kind of sticking with that whole palette there and I just used some good old red oxide primer right out of the spray can on that and I like the way it looks so I'm gonna go ahead and do the rest of the trim and paint up all the doors and windows also get those ready to install now you can see how carving away that clapboard really helps with the fit and finish and then just makes a notch for this to slide right down into the front facing piece goes on just the same way that little notch overlaps the side piece on the corner nice finished look before I get too much further on the trim talk a little bit about how the of the doors and windows go together these are laser cut from some 25 thou laser board which is this very thin sort of plastic impregnated MDF just a very handy stuff for this kind of application and they're built up in layers to get that 3d look see and I'll turn it over so you can see there's the interior window pane and that's the part that fits back into the the opening in the structure and then the casements and everything are built up piece by piece from from from parts that have been laser cut and I want to get them all assembled and painted before I put the glazing in and then the glazing is in then I can actually install them in the structure I also want to finish up the the back of this false front here so I'm going to build it up board by board and I've got some Oh scale 1 by 8 and I've already stained and I'm just going to cut them to length as I go here these are going to be a diagonal boards obviously follow the pitch of the roof right up which is pretty common practice I decided to go ahead and work on the cornice a little bit so I built it up with a piece of scrap from my scrap box and 132nd of an inch thick basswood now I'm doing the same color treatment on it that I did on the rest of the structure the the cornice on the structure is really very plain compared to a lot of Victorian buildings it's very just kind of blocky and gothic looking decorative strip here I've got this top piece which is made of some 332nd of an inch thick basswood center this on here touch up and everything will be dandy well I was able to finish up the cornice with some scale 1 by 2 trim down here in the bottom and some very very tiny crown molding up here from my scrap box just at the base of the top I also got the trim installed on the bump out section this is 1 by 6 once again but it's painted a bone white and I used one of my favorites Montana colors bone white for that and also for the windows and we'll just drop right in there like so all right got all the windows glazed but on these windows on the these little windows on the bump out here I actually don't want people to be able to see through those I want fog the glass so I'm going to use one of the oldest tricks in the book some scotch magic tape which as you can see is a kind of a fogged matte finish that over the glazing so the other one here too I'm at it yeah get down in there bubbles out now just trim around the edges here you watched my video on glue you know I don't like to use tape for a lot of things but this is actually a good use it works good for this now those windows be semi opaque maybe like they're dirty from being on the kitchen now I can start gluing the doors and windows into place window frame as a guide position this fancy gothic upstairs window next both the front and rear doors need doorknobs again I'm going to use a good old reliable Atlas track nail through the hole some CA on the back here now this structure is going to have a removable roof so I can access the the interior of it but I'm not going to build a full-on rafter trusses because it's just really not needed instead you know I want to have the look of rafters so I've created these strips here with the rafter tails poking out so when the roof is installed on there you'll get the look of rafters at the edge of the roof without having to build the actual roof trusses and to do that I just created a couple of laser-cut pieces this is the the brace on the top that holds the rafters and then I've got some just a little rafter tails cut out of some 132nd of an inch thick stock so I need to put I've already done the two on this side so I just need to flip it around and do the one over here I've stained it and colored it to match the rest of the structure so it's ready to go just need to glue it on glue down in that slot rafter tails just right in well let me show you what I've been up to for the last couple hours or so I've gone ahead and installed a three millimeter yellow LED in the kitchen bump-out section I've shingled the roof for that section using some peel and stick Oh scale cedar shingles that have been lightly stained I want to kind of a new looking roof the roof itself the roof panel is just some 32 thou chip board and I braced it with some 1 8 by 1 8 basswood stock here so that will fit right down inside here and kind of lock into place just like that and so those those braces I'll block it into the interior building of the building and also prevent light leaks from happening up around the edges of the roof well I think it's safe to say that we are in the homestretch with this build just finished building the removable roof the main section just show you how that goes together it's just some laser-cut chipboard and I did some illustration board ends here to match the the peak of the roof and then just brace it all with some some six by six and that just pops right in and off of there but now what I want to do is go in and finish any interior details now the upstairs window on the prototype has lace curtains in the window so once again I'm using some white crepe paper to simulate that one thing about cutting crepe paper is your knife has to be really super sharp a new blade is preferable or it will just tear cut this in half to one inch wide pieces fold these over all the man to make our curtains those together I'm gonna trim off that rough edge there hold this one over now I'm gonna make a curtain rod to fit inside of this window casing I'm just gonna cut it right out of this round toothpick put these two together so that the folded edge matches up on the inside some glue on this toothpick let that dry I can trim these flush with the edge of that rod inside that window casing glue on this side a couple of dabs at the corners here go front and the back and the back door I've just used a piece of manila file folded paper for a blind and then on this big front window on the prototype the top half of the window has a as a blind like that and the bottom half has another lace curtain so I'm gonna make the curtain for that and also one for the front door now for the little half curtain goes in the big window did it exactly the same way except added a little piece of ruffle on the top there also made from good old crepe paper that that's the curtain for the front door I'm an hourglass shape retrospect hindsight being 2020 probably would have been a lot easier at least with the door one to do that one before the door was installed yeah well now I want to create like a little interior set that will go down in here and be visible behind the front door and window rather than a full interior and I'm calling it a set because that's exactly what it is it's just gonna be a little thing like this wooden floor wall with a doorway another wall behind it a couple things on the wall there just to look like there's something inside the building and I'm once again I'm doing it out of some some Crescent illustration board this is some hot press illustration board it's about oh about a sixteenth of an inch thick and the first thing I want to do is make this floor look like a wood floor so I'm going to draw some make some hash marks and then scribe some boards into it we'll just make them a foot apart now take a minwax early American I think and just stain the boards like that that gives us our floor for our interior set the walls I'm just gonna leave them natural natural kind of off-white color that kind of bone white that the illustration board comes in now on a frame in this interior doorway some just some 1x4 pre-stained with the same early American and one thing I knew I had to include in my version of the panhandle was a portrait of the man himself Barnabas T. Bullion aka Imagineer Tony Baxter this Easter egg is also in the panhandle at Disneyland I just had to include it there visible in the window when your train goes by so have a look next time you're on the ride and on the opposite wall here is an old dinner menu from the Red Wagon Inn which is now known as the Plaza Inn at the hub the end of Main Street this is from the very earliest days of the park Red Wagon Inn has a back wall here so just something visible through the doorway should fit right here you look through the window look who you see now to light the structure I'm using three three millimeter LEDs two in the main part of the structure and one as you saw I already installed in the in the bump out section the one in there is a warm not a warm white a yellow flickering and the two in the main section are two that I've bunched together one is a three millimeter yellow flickering and one is a warm white I like the combination of those two together gives just the right glow for a for an oil lamp or kerosene lantern so now all I have to do is solder all of these connections together all of the negative connections which are black wire and all the positive connections which will be red wire before I put the roof on I just wanted to show that how I mounted the lights in there that's just a blob of hot glue that's all that's holding that in there and that's just enough be easy to change if I need to I'm about halfway through shingling the main roof in fact exactly halfway through but before I continue I wanted to show you a couple of important things one thing a lot of people skip and when they're doing a roof or don't know about is a little strip down here at the bottom you can cut this off of the shingle material you're using or you can use a piece of strip wood a thin piece of strip wood you know one by or something and what this does is it lifts that bottom layer of shingles up in a much more prototypical fashion than if you were just to glue it to the roof it also gives something behind those shingles something to see behind the the breaks in the in the strip shingles like this so just a little tip you're not doing that in the shingle roofs it really improves the look I'm gonna go ahead and start the first course on here sometimes with these peel and stick it's a lot easier to stick a knife in there and backing off like that I always put a little glue at the end of each course too so sometimes the adhesive on these will dry out and it'll peel up at the ends and I don't like seeing that so put a little glue down there to prevent that happening now I've added very little color to these shingles I airbrush them with a light wash of the same alcohol and India ink stain that I use on the wood and just to just to age them and gray them down just a little bit I'm kind of going for the look of a newer shingles on a building that was recently constructed so don't want them to look too old and worn out at least not yet I'll probably add a little more weathering to them with chalks before I call the model finished but for now I kind of like the way it looks cut this one in half another thing and make sure they overlap properly sometimes you have to trim off the end of a shingle to get them to properly overlap I also want to make some provisions for a smoke jack I've got a little plastic smoke jack here from model tech studios that I painted flat black and I want to add some flashing here I've created a little square Bristol board you could use styrene also or anything that's thin easy to cut and drill this right under the roof you want it to go over one row of shingles here and then the other shingles will cover cover the edges in the top of it don't want to glue that in yet I want to wait till after the roof is all shingled overlap top just the top of the flashing like that now when I get up to the crest of the roof here I like to finish it off with a row of cap shingles and this is a good use for all those little pieces that were just being cut off the ends take them and I take two pairs of shingles like this and kind of taper them at one end just a little bit I'm gonna start at the the gable end here not the end at the bus the false front if there was no false front on this building you would start at each side and work your way towards the middle with the cap shingles that would be a prototypical way to do it and I just one down on there like that overlaps just a little bit and then fold it over and pinch it up it over pinch it up then you just continue all the way till you get to the glue that smoke jack in use some thick CA put a lot of it on I'm gonna gusset this a little bit I'm gonna use baking soda yep it's a really strong joint it's like there's snow on the roof doesn't it when that dries I'll just stain it with all right got the roof on there and now I can start thinking about the porch I built a porch awning already this is out of some 132nd of an inch scribed birch plywood I did some framing on there with some scale 2x4s already shingled it it's pretty much ready to install but I'm gonna try something a little tricky for this model the board sidewalk is already in place and on the prototype it has a couple of what are probably six by six posts going down to the board sidewalk and then there's a railing in front which I'm gonna do I've cut some some laser-cut pieces for that but in order to get the height and everything right I'm gonna go back I'm gonna have to attach this porch awning first and have it just kind of hang in there and then I can take it over the layout and get an exact measurement for the height of those posts and that then all that this is gonna be like a unit that just sits on top of the the board sidewalk I've done something similar before so I think it'll work the first thing is to glue this onto the structure that I'm going to use some Eileen's I want something thick to fill gaps and also set quickly straight align it up visually with the clapboard not bad two and a quarter inches now I can put this main support together square for a little extra strength I'm gonna add something that type doesn't have and that's some 45 degree angle braces a little bit stronger so it gives it a nice Wild West kind of look these sections of porch rail or balustrade or actually this is just a laser-cut piece of some 25 thou laser board and then I glue on some strip wood on each side these are 1 by 2s and then on top you get to 1 by 4 for the top rail like that it's a nice dimensional strong bit of architecture all right a little glue dry on that and then I can paint it a complementary color for for the building on the prototype it's kind of a weathered gray almost like raw wood I'm gonna do something different I think I'm gonna paint it that kind of bone white color that to match the trim on the bump out kitchen and that'll really make it pop otherwise if I painted it that oxide red might be a little too dark yeah that actually worked pretty good now I can go ahead and finish the sign for the sign I've created something in Photoshop based on the sign at the park and printed it out on some good paper and laminated it to some bristle board to make it a little bit thicker I'm gonna cut this out I've got a laser cut signboard and I painted these with some Montana colors color is this Montana colors Verde well that's green green I can take some fine sandpaper and just carefully go around around that make sure it matches the edges of this laser cut piece now I've got this border bring it all together glue on the back of that this just drops then on the outer edge I've got a strip of bristle board that I painted the same shade of green about the scale six inches wide piece on the bottom cut and trim it on both sides already did the arc over the top the the prototype sign has some cool turned spindles along the top there's seven of them in fact and I'm gonna represent those with some straight pins kind of the big round ball on the end before I glued this on I measured hole of where the holes would go for seven of these and I've gone ahead and painted them up so I just need to cut each one to length drill a little hole and put them in occasionally if you use a rattle can paints like I sometimes do you're gonna need to touch up some colors and which brings up the question how do you match that rattle can color well you don't short answer I just spray some into a cup like this and use a small brush dip it in there and go around and do my touch-up and then you know this dries out and I throw the whole thing away but thing is you want to do it in the well-ventilated area you don't want to breathe in those fumes because you're spraying a whole bunch of it in the cup to get just to get some liquid a liquid version of the paint then you just use a regular lacquer thinner paint thinner to clean up your brush when you're done now to mount the sign up on the roof I've added a strip of two by four which has been stained I want it to sit upright like this and the roof pitches out so kind of glue it on the edge over here on the bump out section just carving away a small square of the clapboard because I want to add a smoke jack here coming out from the kitchen because presumably the stove would be right here that would be the logical place for it so carving out a little place for the flashing around the smoke jack to sit recessed back into the clapboard and here is the smoke jack this is a Tichy Trains casting I've got a couple of pieces of music wire I'm going to use as to make guy lines for the smoke jack and do a little light weathering first I want to get some rust smoke jack using some orange and burnt sienna chalk get some soot on here do some black chalk all around this flashing should be pretty dirty and city get a coat of clear fix on there and then I think it's ready to put on the layout just working it into the scene here with some weeds and flowers and grass and stuff like that still quite a bit of work to do especially around back in this alley between the undertaker shop and the cafe it just calls out to for some old junk some crates and barrels and maybe old kitchen equipment and things like that clogging up that alley back there it's a good place for accumulating clutter right now I think I really want to see what the whole thing looks like in night mode and that my friends is the story of the pan handle cafe thank you so much for watching that entire build video I hope you got some good out of it if you like this kind of content don't forget to subscribe down below or you can go over to follow Thunder Mesa on Instagram at Thunder dot Mesa or see all the builds and projects at Thunder Mesa Studios website that's Thunder Mesa dot studio until next time keep moving forward everybody and adios for now