Building the grocery distribution warehouse

Having established the shape and size of this building in the previous post, I removed the spues that were holding the wall sections together temporarily and peeled off any remaining dried canopy glue.  Then I started to permanently glue together each of the walls by bonding the sections together using the connecting pieces that came with the kit and Plastruct Bondine solvent.  There are pins on the wall sections and holes on the connecting pieces that insure all the wall sections will be aligned in the same direction.

Starting with the two longest walls, I assembled the walls together using a square to insure 90 degree corners.

Because of the size of this building, I felt it necessary to use plenty of interior support.  Triangles were made from scraps of .040 styrene with a notch in the right angle corner.

These triangles were then added to the main corners on the inside of the ribs that run along the tops and bottoms of the wall sections.  Then .080 x .080 pieces were added as shown in this photo.

With all the walls except for the back wall glued together, I started to add some of the roof to strengthen the structure and keep things square.  The roof material that came with this kit would not have been enough for my kit-bashed building so instead I used 24 inch long .040 styrene sheet to make the roof.  The small section of roof over the part of the building where a refrigerator car can enter did not get glued so it could be lifted out for access.

The roof material from the kit was then used to make the rear wall that would not be seen.  I had considered just leaving the back side open but because of the size of this structure I felt it need the support of all the walls.

Then the last odd section of the roof at the rear of the building was added.  With that, the basic structure was completed and I could set it on the bench work and plan how the scene was going to lay out.  The structure still seemed a little too flimsy so in the next post, I show some additional steps I took to further strengthen it.