# Walthers Stockyard



## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

Having finished the Walthers Champion Packing plant ( http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?39895-Walthers-Champion-Packing-Plant ) I decided to go ahead and build the stockyard. I am using the Walthers Stock Yards kit, but due to space limitations I will only be using one module from it. The box art shows both modules constructed, but I only have room for one.


I decided to chronicle it here in order to share it with my friends (both of them) on this forum. I hope to spread the love, man!
I assembled the base first. The base is in 3 parts: the main section and two end strips. The ends of the base have 1/2 of a square hole formed in them. The two end strips have the other half of the hole. If both modules are being built, both bases will be glued side by side and the strips on the ends, giving the needed holes. Since I am building only one module, the end strips are glued to the ends to complete the holes.
The shed is an optional piece. If the builder chooses not to use it the kit supplies fence sections to replace the shed walls. Since the spot where this will be placed will have the opening of the shed facing the viewer, I will be including it. If circumstances dictated that the shed have its back to the viewer, I would not include it as that would block the view into the stock yard.
While the base was drying, I gave the fence sections a coat of Rustoleum gray primer. This will give the boards a gray color, and I will weather them after the yard is complete.


After they had dried for 24 hours, I noticed a bit of orange peel on a few pieces. At first I was a bit upset, but then I thought "Hey! Free weathering!"


I found a picture online of someone elses build of this kit. He modified the base on the right hand side, and only used 3/4 of the shed material. The kit supplies enough parts to have a shed across the back of each module.


On to the build! I noticed a couple of things I would like to pass on to you.
The front roof support beam for the shed is to have the bracing on the outside of the shed. Study the previous picture and you'll see that the right hand corner of the shed roof has the bracing on the outside of the shed wall. The piece is cast with a small bit of plastic to act as a guide when gluing this in place.
It's kind of hard to see on this pic, but there's a stop on the main beam and one directly below it on the diagonal. The wall side has a notch for the end of the beam.


The rear wall has a stop cast into the upper edge that fits into a notch in the rear of the wall. In the upper left corner of the side wall (the diagonal piece) you can see the notch that the roof beam end will be glued into.


Since I have to start somewhere, the first piece glued to the base is the left side wall. My bottle of thinner and a small bottle of Testors paint are holding it in place while it dries. And yes, I use the despised and much maligned Testors tube cement. Deal with it. I find I get much stronger joints with it than with the bottle cement. I've tried both Testors and Plastruct bottle cement, but the tube gives me the best results.


Of course, as with any model, the paint must be scraped away from any joint that will be glued. I find an Exacto knife works quite well for this.
I'll glue the other side wall into place, and do the back wall tomorrow.
Thanks for watching!


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

There was just a bit of a bow in the back end of the base. This should fix that! :laugh:
The bottom edge of the rear wall got a line of glue all the way across, and 4 mini bar clamps to hold it in place. This should correct any bow in the base. I'll let this dry a while and then do the front roof support.


The sides of the back wall also got glued to the side walls.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Seems to me you could do with a couple of right angle clamps and / or a set of angle plates. They work a lot better than paint / adhesive bottles.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

Hi, CTV!
That's probably true, and I have some gadgets and doo-dads, but when I do a write I like to use minimal equipment because some people may not have such tools. I'm a minimalist. (I hope I don't get arrested for that.)


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

My biggest complaint about this kit so far is the lack of detail in the instructions. They are basically 4 pictures, a couple of paragraphs regarding stockyard operations, and a couple of paragraphs regarding the use or non use of the sheds and additional modules. Nothing about glue this piece to that piece, and then place them here. The modeler is supposed to figure that out just by looking at the pictures, which are sometimes rather confusing. But I'll get through this.




Before the front roof beam can be glued in place, the assembly of parts 8 and 9 must be built. Part 8 is the piece on the left with the uprights, part 9 is on the right. Stockyards generally had boards on any wall the stock might come in contact with. This was to prevent injury to the animal that might occur through contact with exposed beams. Parts 8 and 9 must be glued together to create a partition which has boards on both sides.


These two parts have pins and holes for alignment. I am only using these for alignment, there will not be glue applied to the pins and holes.


Scrape the paint off of the surfaces which will be glued together. Get the paint off the tabs on the bottom of the parts which will go into the holes in the base.


The assembly glued and clamped.


Do not scrape the paint off the bottom of the boards, because unlike the shed walls this assembly will not sit flush with the base.


This next part gave me fits! This is where the vague instructions can really cause someone a lot of grief.
Remember, this is only going to be one module. For two modules, some parts must be substituted that are not used when building only one module. The instructions tell which parts to substitute.
These will be 3 of the side walls of the stockyard. Looking at the base as it's oriented in this picture, they will be the lower left ant the upper and lower right side walls.


The walls are constructed out of two pieces each. Piece 3 (of which there are 3) is the spindly legged looking part. One of these is used in each wall. Piece 2 is a board wall with an upright. There are two of these used, one each in the lower left and upper right walls. Piece 4 (of which there are two) is similar to piece 2 except it is a mirror image. One of these is used in the lower right wall, and one will be used in the future in the upper left but we'll deal with that when we get there.Piece 3 must be glued to each of the boarded wall pieces. This will be the outside of the wall on these three corners. 
In this pic, piece 2 on the left has piece 3 in place on top of it, while piece 4 on the right has piece 3 offset so you can get an idea of how it has to be put on top of piece 4.


Looking at the above pic, the left wall will be positioned in the lower left corner of the base, starting with the left-most hole. The round hole is where a gate will go. The right side wall will be positioned starting in the hole that the upright is pointing to. Piece 3 will have to be cut to end at the shed wall, while piece 4 will continue to the rear shed wall to give a smooth interior surface on the side wall.
Remember, these walls are used with or without the shed. If you are not building the shed, then do not cut piece 3.
This will become more clear as we go along.
I hope this is helping someone.
Time for supper now. More to come later!


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

flyboy2610 said:


> Hi, CTV!
> That's probably true, and I have some gadgets and doo-dads, but when I do a write I like to use minimal equipment because some people may not have such tools. I'm a minimalist. (I hope I don't get arrested for that.)


I don't think you'll get arrested for it. The "tool police" are as fictional as the "layout police".

I will say, though, that I don't include tools in any "minimalist" concept. I'm sure you've heard "The right tool for the job", and I've just had too many instances where getting the right tool causes me to say, "Wow, that's so much easier and faster" that I don't even hesitate. Nor to spend the money for a good one (another lesson learned from experience).

I understand minimalist, but I also like to economize my time and effort, and specialized tools can really help me do that. You do what's right for you.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

I hear what you're saying about the instructions in some Cornerstone kits. Sometimes it seems like they think they've made the kit too easy to assemble, so they just give you some really crummy directions to compensate.

Water Street Freight House is a great example. My son built this, and did a surprisingly good job, considering. But his finished product is full of gaps and poorly aligned parts. I'm actually working on an article on easy ways to disguise some of the worst problems.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

"Hi, my name's John."
Everybody: "Hi, John!"
"Uh... yeah. Hi. Um... I have kind of an addiction."
Everybody: "We're here to help, John!"
"Uh... yeah. Thanks. The problem I have is... I'm hopelessly addicted to modifying kits! I just can't help it! I see something that I don't think is quite right, and I just have to change it. And that's just how I am, and I don't care!" :laugh:

And on this kit: 1:1 scale stockyards had horizontal boards in areas where the animals would be kept to prevent injury from contact with exposed beams. Makes sense to me.
So why is the rear wall of the shed nothing but exposed vertical beams? 


The kit comes with a piece that replaces the rear shed wall if the shed is not used. If that piece is used, there are horizontal boards across the rear wall of the pen. So what I am going to do is install that piece in front of the rear shed wall. This will provide horizontal boards across the rear wall of the shed. 


The little nubby things in the center of the rear wall will go in the middle of the center partition. 
The boards are not equally spaced. They are closer together at the bottom and farther apart at the top. In order to keep the boards aligned from one piece to the other, the bottom board of each piece must be the same distance from the base. Using the center partition and some feeler gauges, I determined that the bottom board must be .035" from the base.


On the two side walls, only the first two nubs will go into a hole on the base, when the shed is built. If the shed is not built, all the nubs will go into a hole. Therefore the rear 3 nubs have to be filed down to .035" high to sit on the base when the side piece is installed. Here, the 3 nubs on the left have been filed down while the right two are the height as they come in the kit.


Here the side piece has been temporarily clamped in place. Notice that the two right hand nubs are in the holes of the base while the 3 left hand nubs are sitting on top of the base. Notice the even spacing of the bottom board. When I actually glue the pieces into place, shimming or filing will be done as needed to get the boards to match up. The protrusions on the left side of the boards will be filed off. This also shows the that when the side wall is in place the is no gap between it and the rear wall.


Regarding those side pieces, I mentioned in a previous post that piece 3 must be trimmed on the two side walls if the shed is used. The place to cut them is immediately before the third leg when counting from the left. The holes on the base are not big enough to accommodate both the #3 legs and the sidewall legs.
It was here that I done a boo-boo. 
I trimmed the legs of a #3 piece .045" from the bottom to make it sit flush on the base. DO NOT TRIM THE LEGS OF THE #3 PIECES! The legs of the sidewall pieces should be shortened to .035" to make THEM sit flush with the base, The legs of the #3 pieces need to be glued into the holes. If the sidewall legs are left original height and glued into the holes, this will introduce a curve in the sidewall.
Positioned so the legs of the #3 piece are lined up with the hole. Note that the wall is straight compared to the edge of the base.


Positioned so that the legs of the sidewall piece are in the holes. Note that the wall is curved compared to the side of the base. This will cause the perpendicular wall that must join with the front of this wall not to meet up with it.


At first I was really bummed out by this. I do have some pieces for the other module I could use, but I would like to save all those parts in case I decide to build the other module someday. I could have glued some sort pieces of .060 x .060" square rod (the size of these holes in the base) to the bottom of the #3 piece, but that would be awfully fiddly. I decided I would glue the rod into the holes in the base, then when it comes time to glue the front of the sidewall into place, I would just glue it to the rods already glued and trimmed flush in the base. The effect would be the same as if I had glued them to the #3 piece, but much less fiddly.
Here the rods are glued into the base. I will trim them flush when they have dried.


It has been said that the difference between an amateur and a professional is that the professional knows how to hide his mistakes.
I must be turning into a professional.
Before the front of the sidewall can be glued into position, I will need to install that other wall I mentioned to ensure that the two intersect like they should.
Patrick McManus was a humor columnist for several outdoor magazines: Outdoor Life, Field $ Stream, etc. He wrote a story called sequences about how one thing must be done before another thing can be done, and how this tends to snowball to the point where you never accomplish the original goal. Id like to share it with you:


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

CTValleyRR said:


> I hear what you're saying about the instructions in some Cornerstone kits. Sometimes it seems like they think they've made the kit too easy to assemble, so they just give you some really crummy directions to compensate.
> 
> Water Street Freight House is a great example. My son built this, and did a surprisingly good job, considering. But his finished product is full of gaps and poorly aligned parts. I'm actually working on an article on easy ways to disguise some of the worst problems.


I understand your sons frustrations!


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Perhaps you should start a support group: Kitbashers Anonymous. 

I should probably join too. I can't resist tinkering a bit as I build....


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

CTValleyRR said:


> Perhaps you should start a support group: Kitbashers Anonymous.


I like that! :smilie_daumenpos:


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

I glued the side walls into place, then when they were dry I glued the back wall in. I trimmed both sides of the back wall to fit snugly against the boards of the side wall, keeping the center of the back wall aligned with the center of the rear shed wall. Doing it this way left no gaps in the rear corners. The back wall could have gone in first, then the side walls after they were trimmed to fit against the back wall. Doing it that way would leave a gap in both corners, because the back wall is not wide enough to reach both side wall of the shed. 
Some trimming of the back wall legs was needed to align the boards. I think it came out pretty good.


After the back wall had dried, I installed the center partition. I had to trim the rear of the partition because of the back wall. The back wall has some nubs on the boards, which I assume are meant to represent brackets for the boards. The rear of the partition needs to go on each side of those nubs. I found it easier to use a Popsicle stick to spread the boards apart. Once in place, the stick was removed. Some shimming was needed to raise the partition to match up with the boards on the back wall. 




Once the partition was dry, I installed the two front short walls. There will be a moveable gate on the left side of each of these walls. 


Sometime during this process the center post on the center partition broke. A piece of .060" square styrene fixed that. This post will have the front roof beam glued to it. It's nice and sturdy now.


You may recall that the top front of each side wall of the shed has a notch for that beam to sit in.


After all the glue joints had dried, I gave it a touch up coat of gray primer.
The pens in this stockyard are not equal. The rear is divided into two pens, while the entire front half is only one pen.
I think I'll glue the roof beam in place next, then install the roof, after I paint the roof. Then the two front side wall, followed by the cross-pieces on top of the posts.
I hope this is helping someone!


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## Bob88 (Jan 3, 2017)

it's coming out real nice, but way too much work. I don't like Walthers kits because the directions leave a lot to be desired and
the kits never seem to go together without a lot of trimming and tinkering. Also, they are not cheap. Needless to say I don't 
buy their models anymore. Good luck with the rest of that build.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

Thanks, Bob! Yeah, the directions do leave a lot to be desired. The directions for the packing plant I referenced in my opening post were pretty good, though. For the cost of this kit, I do wish the directions were better. Adding the back wall to the pens was my own idea.


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

You're doing a fine job, looking good.
I did that kit a couple of years ago and agree about the instructions.
It was one of the first big kits I built and yours is looking much better than mine did.

Magic


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Bob88 said:


> it's coming out real nice, but way too much work. I don't like Walthers kits because the directions leave a lot to be desired and
> the kits never seem to go together without a lot of trimming and tinkering. Also, they are not cheap. Needless to say I don't
> buy their models anymore. Good luck with the rest of that build.


Obviously, to each his own.

Personally, I have never, ever assembled a kit from any manufacturer without filing and trimming to ensure a good fit. And I personally don't find them that expensive considering the level of detail you get, especially when compared to some laser cut wood kits that cost in the hundreds of dollars. While the directions can be annoying, I have never not been able to figure one out.

But especially keep in mind that he's not building a "stock" stockyard, he's modifying it as he goes, so a lot of that work is self-inflicted. But if you ask me, that's part of the fun.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

The ordeal continues.
I decided to glue all the wall section in before hanging the gates and upper cross pieces in.
I glued the front wall into place. 


Next I assembled and glued the right front side wall and the front wall of the alleyway. I use 3 90 degree welders clamps to hold wall sections in alignment as I glue them. The magnetic attraction of the clamps does a real nice job holding everything square and secure as the glue dries.


After these had been drying for about an hour, I checked on them. It was then that I realized I had done a boo-boo! 
The brackets on the right side wall should be *between* the inner and outer boards of the front alley wall. Oops!
I'll just have Angus McBeefsteak stand in that corner to hide it! :laugh:


I also installed the crossbeam for the front of the shed roof. Here's a pic so you can see how it fits into the notches in the upper sidewall, and how angle brace goes in front of the upright.


I assembled and glued the two sides of the stock car loading ramp. These will go on the left front section of the base, high side nearest the front. 


This kit really hasn't been that bad, once I got the directions figured out. There are a couple of parts for the loading chute sidewalls that are mislabeled on the instruction sheet, and the #13 piece has a 12 cast into the plastic sprue above it. This is not a beginners kit, but by paying close attention to the instruction sheet it hasn't been too bad.
I definitely do recommend painting the parts before assembling. True, you will have to scrape or sand the paint off of the areas you will apply glue to, but you'd have a real tough time getting the areas between the boards painted after assembly.
I'm thinking of using dyed sawdust for covering the floor inside the pens. I have plenty of sawdust inside the bottom of my table-saw. 

Here's a bull story for you:


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

I've been chipping away at this thing, trying to get it done and off the workbench.
I glued the sides for the rail car chute, and glued on the inner side. In the process I broke the upright for the outer side, so had to repair that. Those uprights are pretty fragile, it doesn't take much to damage them.


On the right you can see the supports for the stock car platform. I glued those in place, then painted them flat steel with Testors enamel. I also painted the underside of the platform with it, and painted the top of the platform and the walkway with red oxide primer to give a painted board look.
I glued the platform in place, but had to trim down the areas where the supports were. Otherwise the platform was too high, and the walkway would not contact the platform and the lower stop. I'll have to see how this affect the height relative to the stock car door and go from there. I removed the paint from both ends of the walkway.


I glued the walkway in place. The upper end rests on the edge of the platform, and the lower end contacts the stop. With the platform at the original height, the lower end did not contact the stop, leaving a gap.


To the left of the stop, you can see a hole in the base and a bracket above it. There will be a small gate there. The bracket is more of a 'C' than an 'O', so the upper pin on the gate just flops out. The gate will not open and close. I will glue it in the closed position. Once the walkway was dry, I glued the outer side of the rail car chute into place.

This next part gave me a lot of trouble. There are two of these assemblies. These are the gates on the stock car platform that are positioned on either side of the car door to create a funnel for the cattle, so they can't walk off the side of the platform. There are three pieces: the outer gate piece, the inner gate piece, and the support piece. The inner piece is supposed to be sandwiched between the other two. The outer and support pieces have locating holes and pins. These match up fine, when the inner piece is not used. When the inner piece is used, the thickness of the assembly is too great for the pins to go into the holes. I thought maybe the inner piece is supposed to slide between the other two. Nope, can't do that either. The holes are where the top and bottom boards are. Of course, the instructions were of absolutely no help. Finally, I just trimmed down the sides of the inner piece, glued it between the other two and said good enough! I must have worked on this for at least an hour trying to figure out how to get that to go together.


Next I assembled the truck unloading chute. I painted the ramp the same as the walkway and platform, flat steel under neath, red oxide primer on top of the ramp. This went together without a hitch.




Now we get to start installing the crossbeams and gates. On the base, where the loading ramp for the packing plant will be positioned, the upper cross beam is shaped like an 'L', but with both sides equal length. There is also a gate on each leg, and each gate has an upper and lower pin. The upper pin fits into a hole in the crossbeam, while the lower pin fits into a hole in the base. I found it helpful to use a very small drill bit and open up the holes just ever so slightly. Now, you get to try to insert the 3 uprights into the 3 square holes in the crossbeam while trying to install the 2 upper pins and 2 lower pins, _all at the same time!_ I didn't even try! Instead what I did what to cut a very narrow strip of green low tack painters tape, install the upper pins into their holes, and use the strip of tape to hold them into their holes. This gave me one less thing to worry about, and basically made the crossbeam assembly one piece instead of 3. 


Installing this was still rather fiddly, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been! Once everything was in place, I cut across the top of the tape strip and peeled it off. Success!

Next I installed the crossbeam and gates on the stock car platform. It was a bit fiddly, but not too bad.
The steps on the right side of the platform do not show up on the instructions, such as they are! I figured out where they go by studying the box art.


I installed the walkway gate in the closed position. I don't intend to have cattle on the platform or in the walkway, so I saw no reason to have the gate open. The gate would be closed during movement of cattle from the pens to the packing plant, to prevent cattle from bolting up the walkway, so I glued it shut. I also installed a piece of .060" square styrene to act as a stop for the packing plant gate.


The gates do actually function.
Closed:


Open:


On the truck dock side of the yard, I had to use another piece of .060" square styrene to reinforce another wobbly upright.


This is about where the ramp will go. You can see the hole for the gate on the left side of the ramp.



A view of the front of the ramp.


I will need to cut part of the base away to allow the ramp to get up to the fence and still maintain the vertical alignment of the boards. When the ramp is placed on the base, the alignment is thrown way off.


Now it's just a matter of gluing in the crossbeams and installing the gates. The shed roof still needs to be installed as well. The .060" square styrene needs painted also. There's really not much left to do with this. I should get it all done this week.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

I finished hanging the gates and crossbeams. The roof is glued on and the truck side of the base has been trimmed to allow the loading ramp to cuddle up to the wall quite nicely. I won't glue that into place until the floor covering and cattle have been added. Other than that, this is ready to go on the layout, just to get it off the workbench.







There are a few things I'm not completely thrilled with, but overall I think it came out OK. The base does have a bit of a twist to it, so it will be glued down with some latex caulk when it's time to permanently install it.
Now I need to set up the band saw and do some work on the wing joiners for my Great Planes PT60 RC plane. I've neglected that for too long now.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

I think it looks fine. Nice work.


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

CTValleyRR said:


> I think it looks fine. Nice work.


Thank you! I appreciate that.


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