It’s time to continue the Pennylvania Railroad Hunt Tower built from part 1, and start building some windows and assembling walls. 

Hunt Tower Windows

Overview

The tower includes windows that are each painted two colors — PRR Standard Dark Building Paint for the surrounding frame and PRR Tuscan for the window and mullions. 

On the blueprint scans, once sized down, the lines are a little difficult for me to tell the exact size of these elements. In some places, it looks to be a .020″ frame and .010″ windows and in others, both look to be about .010-.015″. The prototype photos seem to show that the frame and windows are about the same width and look very narrow. 

So, this is one of those times that I’ve used creative license. I’ve made both my frames and windows .020″ thick all the way around. That’s probably too large — 3.2″ in 1:1 scale for each when the prototype looks very narrow. But, I thought it was important to be able to cleanly paint the two-tone color scheme, so I went with the larger size. Still not unreasonable for a window… and remember, it’s not really Hunt Tower. 

Building the Dark Frames

To create this, I built another .020″ thick styrene layer, exactly as I did the main walls which gets layered behind them. The only difference is that the openings in the “window layer” are .020″ smaller on all sides. By doing this, the window frames are recessed .020″ (the thickness of the main walls) and appear to be .020″ all the way around. The recessed depth will actually be reduced later. 

Because the majority of the window layer is hidden, the only styrene strips that are critical are the vertical pieces between windows. These are .100″ (.040″ larger than the .060″ used on the main walls). All of the outer sizes can be whatever you have on hand. To keep things simple, I used .100″ for everything on the window layer, but then found that I had to cut down some of the outer pieces to get them to align properly inside of the structure. 

To keep the window opening even, I used a .176″ spacer (.156″ strip glued to a .020″ strip), which is exactly .040″ smaller than the spacer used on the main walls. For height, I didn’t have a digital caliper at the time, so I used one of the pieces I cut for the main wall verticals and removing .040″ with my Northwest Shortline Chopper II and then used that for height. To remove .040″, I placed a .040″ strip styrene between the blade and a stopper for distance and then cut the wall piece to length. 

I created eight window layers in total — rear, left and right walls and 3 forward-facing walls (like I did in part one).  The bay window walls would be done the same way — however, as I write this, I have yet to tackle them because I still need to determine the correct sizes.

I glued the finished window layers in place behind the main walls and centered them so that .020″ was exposed on all sides of the wall openings. 

Building the Tuscan Windows

I didn’t actually build the windows inside of the window openings until after the walls were assembled. However, this turned out to be a big mistake because it make the process much more difficult. Therefore, I would move this step to this point in the build, where it makes more sense. It’s much easier to do this on a flat surface than to work in a confined, free-standing space. I was just anxious to get the walls together, so I rushed ahead. 

What I’m really building here are the outer edges of the actual window — not the window mullions. Those will come later in the build. For these edges, I’ve used .010″ x .020″ styrene — .010″ deep and .020″ wide. 

These are first cut to match the height of the window openings I assembled above and then glued into the left and right sides of the opening so that the strips are flush with the back of the window layer. The height should be consistent for all windows, include the bay. 

For the horizontal pieces  (top and bottom of each window opening), I cut the .010″ x .020″ strip fit the remaining space in the openings. 

Adding the .010″ x .020″ strip create a .010″ step all the way around the inside of the window openings, reducing the apparant depth of the PRR Dark frames to .010″. This creates the overall illusion of a window sitting in the frame. We’ll add a horizontal frame piece for the double-hung appearance when the mullions are added. 

I repeated the window process all the wal around. Remember that I am writing this in a different order than I build this, so the photos may include later steps.

Assembling the Walls

With the main walls built and the window detail completed, wall assembly is quite easy. I simply butted the wall pieces together, ensuring that all of the angles were square. The one thing to keep in mind is that the front and real walls should be INSIDE of the side walls. The reduced .080″ edges of the front and real walls are designed to be assembled in this way. This will create .100″ edge wall sections on all sides. 

First, I attached the two side walls to the rear wall. Once that was square and the glue dry, I installed the two outer front wall pieces. While that was drying, I created a sub-assembly for the bay window. I glued the front wall of the bay in front of the bay side walls. With everything dry and solid, I centered the bay sub-assembly on the front wall and glued it in place. 

To keep everything from shifting and to make sure it remains square, I cut a “floor” piece from .020″ to match the size of the overall structure and glued it the bottom. I glued this to the BOTTOM of the structure, raising it’s overall height by .020″, not INSIDE of the structure. This will come into play later in the build for adding trim — you just want to make sure your “floor” piece is even with the outer walls, but below them. I sanded everything once the floor was in place to make sure it was all square and even. 

I also added simple sheets of styrene to the back wall that will later be covered by siding, or what I was calling louvers. This helps add structural strength for handling.

To Be Continued…

Stay tuned. In the next update, I’ll add the small detail trim that the Pennsylvania Railroad used to decorate the edges of the structure. These detail pieces looked intimidating, but they were extremely easy and add a lot of character. I’ll also try to fit in some other minor things before moving onto the first floor.