(This is a series of photos of the progress of this dio build over the past couple of months, condensed into this thread.)
Here's the start of another building for my 1/32 scale Thomasville dio. It's intended as a hardware/lumber store and may be extended later to include a sawmill at the rear. The other buildings for the town have been built to fit the existing street base... but this one will be a "stand alone" structure as a display by itself... or can be connected to the end of the Thomasville street. The base area is about 12" x 13".
Generally the era being portrayed is the turn of the century, around 1900 to 1910. I'm basing it on a picture I found on the web. It's not a quick simple build so I expect to take some time with it.
Here's the start... basic walls are Elmer's 3/16" foamcore board. I've cut 1/4" strips of 1/32" Birch plywood which are spaced 3/16" apart to give a 1/16" overlap to the siding. Birch ply has killed six of my blades so for the remaing walls I'm resorting to 1/32" balsa (I can't find any 1/32" basswood at my local stores!). The plastic windows are from Grandt Line 1/48 scale model railway suppliers. The doors will be built from styrene and/or basswood. The sidewalk is 1/16" basswood scribed to resemble individual boards. There will be a sidewalk canopy 4 courses below the second floor window. 
Added the side walls and the floors and started to build the exterior stairs to the second floor. Now I see the grain on the balsa siding, I wish i'd used it instead of the birch ply on the front wall! Oh well! 
(I found a tip that might help others using Foamcore board. When I glued the siding to the foamcore board, it warped badly after it dried. By brushing water over the inside face of the wall and letting it dry out, the wall returned to it's original shape. When I glued the walls together at the corners, I wetted the inside faces again and they are now completly straight. The camera angle makes it look like there's a "bow" in the front wall, but there isn't.)
I got the sidewalk and work area in place then tried a "staining" experiment on the work area..... a very watery acrylic black wash brushed liberally over the basswood.... WRONG!
I should have known it would warp! Even though I had reinforced it underneath with basswood framing, it twisted up like a pretzel. I managed to get it straightend back out by applying another wash, both on top and underneath, and placing some large cans filled with gravel on it while it dried. It's now straight but has lifted at the outer edge so I'll just do some graded landscaping to hide that! We live and learn......! 
I took the plunge and mixed up a watery acrylic gray/brown/black stain, then applied it in varying consistencies on each of the individual siding and trim boards. I experimented by using a hair dryer set at the lowest temperature to speed up the drying as each board was stained..... and nothing warped!
I then applied a similar watery black acrylic wash to the sidewalk using the same technique and everything stayed straight and level. After the black on the sidewalk was completely dry, I sanded it with a coarse grain sand paper in the direction of the grain until it became lighter and more of a gray, bleached color. I still have to apply more weathering and staining to the boarded work area.
The rickety stairs are also finished apart from final staining,
I found a 12" x 13" x 5/8" thick door from an old abandoned entertainment center and that has become my base. After locating the building on it, I've started to apply spackle to the areas that will be the road and the raised side yard. After a couple more coats and some sanding it should be ready for some landscaping materials. 
I've added a fence, the road surface. the grass parking area beside the work area....... and started on the porch. The interior of the window frames (jamb extensions) have also been installed... but you can't see them! I'm hoping to get some details of a typical 1900's hardware store interior for some interior detailing. 
Now I can get an idea of how the hardware store will fit into the street scene..... at either end. 
A little more....... 
Even though they will never be seen once the roof is on...... I couldn't resist adding the ridge beam and rafters!!! 
Now that the weather is warming up, I'm going to put this aside for a while and get back to some of my unfinished car models... and some new ones!
I'll get back to the dios in the late fall, when the weather turns cold and I can't spray paint outside anymore. But I'm sure I'll find some time to add a little more during the spring and summer!
Tony
Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/1012999.aspx
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