Hey guys! Last week my brother and I met to finish some of our latest projects. On the one hand, I was working on the triplet Mustang project and on the other hand my brother was working on the TEXACO gas station diorama. We also took some time to build a “one day rat rod” with a special scratch built tractor grille and also a little more time for a photo shooting.
This gas station is our first prototype. We are looking into different possibilities here: either we find a way to produce this as a kit, or the publish a building instruction. We cannot tell you more than that now, as we have to find a potential producer plus check out the costs. But a book with blue prints is always possible!
The Gas Station that my brother Seb has built features working lights, as you can see above. Plus many other features such as working doors and different rooms: shop room, back office, toilet and garage. It also has two tokheim 39 gas pumps! You can take out the back wall or the roof to see inside too! Oh, yes, that mean ride you see there is the rat rod I mentioned a few lines above. My brother built that in one day, we have it all on tape – just need to put the material together.
The grille is scratch built. My brother took a tractor grille as a model. This rat rod was built from my parts box. I have huge box full of bodies, wheels, engines and more! The idea was to build a rat rod the way it is meant to be: just put a mean ride together with the things you find on your nearest “junkyard” 
We had a great time during this last week! Building scale models, just like in the old days! We hope you can finish all what we plan for this fall, in which case, you will fill you with material for the entire winter!
When will the Barn project be ready for sale??
Hey Richard,
we are working on all projects side by side and hope to finish them all until this fall. The barn will be published as a book and ebook with easy to follow assembly steps and blueprints. As for the gas station, we may sell it as a book or as a kit – depending on wether we find a viable way to produce the kit or not.
Thanks for the comment! Let us know if you have more questions / wishes.
Iggy
Hi Richard, we are working on it, we want to finish it as soon as possible too. Stay tuned.
Hey guys, I’ve been folowing your blog ever since I purchased your gas pump eBook. I am working on an outdoor scale ORV park in 1:10 & really appreciated the fact that you had drawings in that scale. I’m wanting to build a garage so if you do an eBook, you have at least one sale. 1:10 may require a little different technique on buildings… reading the G-gauge RR forums, they use Sintra 1/4″ PVC foam board & styrene trim. But a book on your texaco station would be a great reference & if you had trim & door, & interior blueprints in 1:10… well it would help me a lot.
Keep up the good work.
Hey Doug,
we are currently finishing the barn… and the gas station is coming up next. I’m happy to hear that you could use our Gas Pump ebook! We will take the idea of offering the buildings in different scales into consideration! Thanks for your suggestion!
Iggy
Hi Doug, thanks for your great feedback. I’m glad that our ebook could help you out with your diorama. Thank you also for posting our link on your site! I also checked your site, your project is really cool! Yes, we are working on more tutorials (Gas Station, Barn & more) and we’ll be including plans in all most common model car scales, such as 1:5, 1:6, 1:8, 1:10, 1:12, 1:16, 1:18, 1:24 (or 1:25 – can go also as G-scale), 1:32, 1:43, 1:64 and 1:87
About your material question. As you’re working on exterior models I think PVC foam could be a good option. About Styrene, I use it for most of my models, it’s very resistant but I don’t know how it will behave if you put it outside for a longer period of time. I think water is not a problem, but direct sun light is for sure not a good thing.
You could also try different kinds of hard wood, as used for outdoor furniture or plywood as used for concrete formwork. The last one is almost indestructible. If you build a gas station model out of that kind of plywood you can paint the model with a strong paint suitable for exteriors and I’m sure the model will look great. For a barn I would use hard wood and just leave it untreated. After a while it will get a very realistic patina.
We are right now working on the ebook for the Old Barn. In case you haven’t seen it yet, you can check it out here: http://blog.modeljunkyard.com/2011/05/22/124-barn-instructions-progress/
Feel free to keep us posted on your work. Cool project! Congrats!
Cheers!
Seb
i love it the gas pumps are good love it