I have been working on Placerville since 2018 and posted a few updates on groups.io. Steve Depolo’s work in Placerville has been inspirational, and motivated me to share my build of Placerville.
This is my first major post and project in the last few years. I got to know Mike McCarville over the last few years and have been collaborating with him on a few chimneys. Mike did the Placerville post office which was a fun project to build, but it needed the chimney. But unlike a typical brick chimney, this was made out of river stones. We collaborated and I figured out how to make a resin printable version. All down hill from there. LOL
Mike made a kit of one of the warehouses, and I “scratch” built the other one based on Mike Blazek’s plans and photos.
Now that I had the Depot and warehouses done, its was time to move to the other side of the street. I build up to of Mike’s Resident kits, and the post office, but the big thing missing was the General Store.
Design and print of the General store
I really wanted to have the general store, but carving stone is not my thing. The kit that’s available was not working for me. My “other” hobby is 3d printing, so I took this as a challenge of trying to figure out how to create a model to print.
Full disclosure, it took about 12 months (or longer) to figure it out. But I finally cracked the code using several software tools.
Basic design is I did a 1:1 scale drawing based on Mike Blazek plans and photos. Once I had a CAD drawing, I was able to add the stone texture in another software package. From that, I added the window sills and door/window headers.
I compressed the building a bit with its depth which made it fit on my resin printer. Once I had the prints, I drew up the windows and doors and cut them on a home made laser cutter. I really want to get a real laser cutter, but can’t justify one to the CFO.
Painting
Painting was the next challenge. Luckily I took some photos when I was in Placerville on the way home from the 2023 NG Convention in Denver. Mike McCarville also shared some great photos.
I’m a fan of acrylic paints and Vallejo and AK are my 2 goto paints. The ruins and rubble paint kit has a nice selection of colors that I used. The base color is Vallejo Camouflage Brown 71.117
I’m reasonably happy with my color selection. In my “world”, it’s sometime during WWII and RGS still has lots of traffic. The photo below out of the RGS Story is what I really wanted to capture, I believe it’s a 1950’s photo, but close enough.
But I’m happy with the overall look.
Build photos
And finally…
End result
What’s next?
I’m starting to build my layout so more of my focus will be on Dallas Divide, but I’m already starting some work on the Garage stone building in Placerville. :) Stay tuned.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, I would love to hear from you!