This is a mock-up of a front of a diorama I'm thinking of building. The windows are 1" scale and the room will be paneled like you see in colonial bedrooms. Looking out the window you'll see the effects of the great Nantucket fire of July 13th 1846. I'm going to build Main Street and India Streets in perspective showing the fire progressing up the street.

If you Google the Nantucket fire of 1846 you'll get a few hits but they all paraphrase an account given by an eye witness at a lecture in 1901. There are no pictures, it's too early in history and there's one newspaper etching which is not helpful.

There is a map, which is helpful. Ninety percent of downtown Nantucket was destroyed and 800 people were left homeless. Food and building materials were brought from the mainland when the folks there heard about the tragedy.

From the Mass. News Google search "a fire began at 11:00PM in a hat store on Nantucket's Main Street. In no time, it raced through town, consuming everything in its path. Barrels of whale oil were stored on the wharves; when the fire reached them, they burst into flames. The burning oil flowed into the water, creating what one man described as "a sea of fire." Seven hours later most of the town's commercial area lay in ashes. Some 250 buildings had been destroyed — almost all the markets and shops, seven factories that processed whale oil, a dozen warehouses, three of the town's four wharves, and many homes. The fire had lasting consequences: it contributed to the demise of Nantucket as the world capital of the whaling industry."

I'm going to try to build a model that will show-off the fire. Now I have to figure out how to make "cold" fire.

I was looking through photos this morning and this view of the dock at Wiscasset, Maine jumped out at me. The coastal lighter is the Horatio and if you look close you can see the deck is piled with lumber. The 2-ft. WW&F boxcars are in the background and are probably ready to unload more wood for the Horatio to take to Boston or NYC.

As I read the history of these coastal freighters it was clear that it was easy to get a crew for a lumber ship (in a storm you could ride the lashed together wood pile like a raft until rescued) but impossible to find anybody willing to crew on a ship carrying stone.

Those familiar with the Wiscasset, Maine area may remember the Hesper and the Luther Little, two coastal lighters that were left to rot on a mussel bed in the Sheepscot River. They were a photographer's delight for 50 years. They were finally removed, I think in the 1980's. They became a place where the local kids liked to party.

Tak-E-Glue

Here's the new scenery and wood glue from Scenic Express. It's from Europe and combines the best features of white glue and liquid latex.

It's made for most scenery applications and is water soluble. Hal Reynolds of Atlantic Scale Models has been experimenting with it.

He says you can dilute this with water and dip the Scenic Express SuperTrees in it. You need several dipping and drying cycles to make them flexible while keeping that fine branch structure. I need to buy some to try it out!

Building the Sea Port display

The display itself was built on a 6' long by 30" wide 1" by 3" pine frame. This was covered with a sheet of 1/2" Gator board. The Gator board is the water surface.

On top of this is a sheet of 1" blue foam which has been cut-out for the land and dock areas. The backdrop is a piece of Wacky Wood - a 3/8" Luon plywood that's made to be flexible and bend easily. I mounted it here using 24" radius corners. It's one foot high.

I added a length of Walther's code 83 track so a small GE 44-tonner could run back and forth. I used a DC circuit which required that the ends of the track be isolated with diodes. The engine runs into a dead end the current is reversed and the engine backs out and runs to the other end. It runs into a dead section and stops. When the current is reversed the whole process starts again. The train controller is a cheap Bachmann transformer that was sold with their Big Hauler G-gauge train sets.

I put a Walther's Lighthouse in the left corner to see how a lighthouse would look in this location. It will be replaced with the Point Sparrow light. An HO kit that was offered by Precision Laser Craft years ago.

Building the Sea Port display

This little guy started it all. An HO scale lobster boat. It's almost the same shape and size of the boat I owned and worked on for 41 years. The boat model is made by Sea Port Model Works.

I met the owner of Sea Port at a train show and after several discussions he asked me to build him a display that he could bring to shows to display his boat kits and built-up models.

I went home and thought about it for a while.

What will follow it is how it all came together.

Stay tuned.

Building the Sea Port Model Works diorama and display

It all started last year at a model RR show. I was showing Bruce Nickerson of Sea Port Model Works a little diorama I'd built. He asked how I made the water. I told him and explained that I had a DVD which showed all my water-building techniques. He needed to know because he was contemplating building several display bases for his ship models.

During our discussion we talked about building one large display to show-off his whole product line. This would be a waterfront display in HO scale and he asked me if I could build it for him. We settled on dimensions of 30" wide by 6' long and not over 1' high, a size that would fit in the back of a van or station wagon.

I went home pulled out all my waterfront pictures, studied them for a while, and created a ½" scale model of what I envisioned the display to look like.

The research part is important to me because it gets the juices flowing and gets me thinking about the "scenes" in the display. It also gives me a clue into the scope and number of structures that need to be built. I did end up using several modified kits but most of the building were scratch built using many uncommon materials. But I'm getting ahead of myself…

Going Whole Hog

I love cooking whole hogs. It started over 30 years ago when Bob Hayden decided to host a pig roast for Kalmbach Publishing (publisher of Model Railroader and Trains magazines and my Scenery book) employees.

He bought a 125 pound pig and asked me to cook it. We mounted it on a pole and rented an electric rotisserie. We put the set-up about 2 feet off the ground and built a charcoal fire on either side of the pig. I sat and watched the pig for 7 hours until it was done. I was also done, I'd been drinking beer while watching the pig cook.

We carved it, sauced it and served it with a keg of beer and a dozen pot-luck sides people brought to the party. It was a grand time. The only thing left in the morning was the skull, stripped of meat, staring at me from the kitchen sink.

I've cooked many pigs since then using all types of contraptions and pits dug in the ground. They all worked out great.

This year I decided to get serious and bought a La Caja China or Chinese Pig Box. This is a plywood box lined with aluminum and has an aluminum lid to hold the charcoal. The pig bakes in the box. It's almost foolproof.

You season the pig (injecting the rubbing,) put it in the box, put the lid on, cover the lid with charcoal and let it cook for 3 or so hours. At that time you remove the lid and turn the pig, replace the lid and let the skin crisp for another hour. Easy Peasy!

The results are a perfectly cooked pig, ready to pull, sauce and eat.