Over the years, I've accumulated a number of signal/switch tower projects to build or restore. A couple weeks ago I pulled up with Covid, and faced with 10-14 days of isolation/recovery, I figured it would be a good time to take a crack at a few of these.
First up was Howard Lamey's Tribute to Tinplate signal tower, a model he penned based on the prewar Hornby tower (seen below, courtesy of Howard's Tribute to Tinplate site). Here you can see that Hornby's prewar version was basically a rectangle with a peaked roof and a two-dimensional representation of the staircase on one end:
Hornby reintroduced it after the war with a few improvements in the design, one being stamped windows, along with an actual tin staircase attached on the one end. With Howard's permission, I used MS Paint to make a few changes to his design, primarily his graphics, but I also altered the end somewhat to accommodate a similar three-dimensional staircase. With a bit of cut-and-paste, I used
Howard's graphics to fashion the bits for the stairs. Anyway, here's the completed model I came up with:
I think it turned out pretty well. I want to give it an overspray of clear matte or satin lacquer, then I'll probably cover the masonite base with some dark gray ballast held in place with white glue. My thanks to Howard for putting this project out there for folks to build. Here's a link to the Tribute to Tinplate site:
https://bigindoortrains.com/primer/buildings/lackie/switch_tower/switch_tower.htm