Showcase Miniatures Val-U Fuels

Started by SteveCuster, January 17, 2022, 08:44:20 AM

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SteveCuster

Hello everyone,

Next in line to be built is a kit by Showcase Miniatures called Val-U Fuels. This is the first kit I've built from this manufacturer but so far the quality looks excellent. It's very similar to a Bar Mills or Fos kit they only difference I've seen so far is this kit uses all laser cut windows and doors instead of a mix of laser and plastic castings. The kit also included about a dozen decent quality white metal castings. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the castings before I mixed them in and primed them with about 200 other castings I plan on painting at the same time.

The kit was $89.95 w/ free shipping from https://www.showcaseminiatures.net/


The photo of the kit on the box was built by Jason Jensen and he did an excellent job as usual. The kit includes coloring and weathering instructions from Jason as well. I plan on coloring and weathering the kit my own style but if you wanted to follow Jason's example it's very well done.


Everything laid out and ready to get started.


First step is adding these brown backers to support the windows so they don't fall into the structure.


They are peel and stick and get stuck on the inside of all the walls.


The building has a laser cut core made from what I think is called fiber board. I've seen this material used in other kits. It has a little texture to it so it will represent the stucco bottom but the siding gets glued to it for the top half.


All the walls are glued together. So far everything fits together perfectly.




The corners had a really obvious finger joint so I filled it with some plaster. I sprayed the walls with Khaki on the areas that represent stucco and started coloring in the brick.



Thanks for following along.
Steve Custer

PRR Modeler

Looks great Steve. I'll be following along.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

Janbouli

What a start , the kit looks great , following for sure.
I love photo's, don't we all.

Mark Dalrymple

Looking good, Steve.

It looks like a pretty cool kit.  Seemed to fit together nicely.  I do wonder about the logic of having the corners in stucco - it strikes me that that is exactly where it would get the most knocks and fall off first.  Difficult problem to solve though.  I guess you could carve a few courses with a sharp blade - just a patch to break things up.

Cheers, Mark.

GPdemayo


That's a structure with a bunch of character Steve.....I'll be looking in. :)
Gregory P. DeMayo
General Construction Superintendent Emeritus
St. Louis & Denver Railroad
Longwood, FL

Jerry

Nice start Steve.  I'll be following along.


Question is there a need for bracing on the inside??


Jerry
"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." A. Lincoln

SteveCuster

Thanks everyone!

Mark, I agree with you about the stucco on the corners being the first to drop off but I'll end up covering most of it with details or vines etc so you won't really see it. It's a lot harder to hide those finger joints in my opinion.

Jerry, so far it appears that it really doesn't need any. Seems like the cross supports that make up the floors keep everything true.


The siding is done with these self adhesive sheets. I gave them a wash with A&I and I left them on the sheet for weathering.


I coated the siding in Mineral Spirits before applying a coat of green paint.


I used tape to pull the paint off the siding. The Mineral Spirits keeps it from adhering well.


The windows and doors are all laser cut. I washed over them with a mix of chalk and water to give them a dirty base. I primed them with Earth first.


In order to achieve a peeled paint on the windows and doors I painted them with a torn off piece of makeup sponge.


The windows and doors are colored.


The walls were washed with A&I to dirty them up a bit.


Acetate glass was first sprayed with dullcoat then dirtied with dry chalk.


The windows are built in layers, this is the first part and they need to be added before the siding.


The top portion of the windows are movable and they don't get any glue.


This top frame piece holds the top window in place.


I went around and installed all the windows.


The siding was installed. It's peel and stick so it was super easy.


All the siding is in place. I still need to add the corner trim to fully pull the siding together.




I'm really impressed with the precision of the laser cut parts in this kit. Everything fits together perfectly and the engineering of all the parts are very well thought out and easy to work with.




Steve Custer

Oldguy

Doubly impressed with the laser cut precision.  And the terrific build.
Bob Dye
Livin large on a pond

PRR Modeler

Excellent modeling. The colors and structure look great.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

postalkarl

Hey Steve:

All I can say is Wow!!!! Very well done. Love the green.

Karl

Mark Dalrymple

Looking good Steve.

I like the green, too.  Cool opening window design.

Cheers, Mark.

craftsmankits

Looking forward to how this kit comes out.  I started this kit, but its been a shelf orphan for over a year.  The only fault I would find with the kit, are the interlocking corners where the brick is involved.  It's quite a challenge to make it look correct.  The kit is a good value.  Well designed.  I like your solution for the corners, and the color choice.  Keep up the excellent work.

Mark

SteveCuster

Thanks everyone!

I've been working on the kit a little bit here and there the last couple days. I did run into a little bit of an issue - after the peel and stick walls were stuck on for a day or 2 they started to pull off in a few areas. I did do a few different solvent washes on the walls before I installed them so that may have weakened the self-adhesive. I ended up just peeling the siding back and adding some wood glue to the troubled areas then holding them with clothespins overnight. So far, no more issues. I'm not a huge fan of self-adhesive parts for this reason, especially larger ones like these.


I put together the loading dock, added the roof cards and the door and window exterior trim. The loading dock needs a little more adhesive in a few spots and the decking needs more weathering.


I started to put together the staircase assembly. It's all peel and stick pieces sandwiched together. It was a little challenging getting everything lined up without accidentally sticking the fragile pieces together.

More to come...



Steve Custer

postalkarl

hey Steve:

:Looks like it came out very well. Keep up the good work.

Karl

SteveCuster

Thanks Karl!

I mostly finished the kit up last night. A few small things to do before I put it on the layout then I'll do a full detail of the docks and the area around it.






Looks like I still need to weather the steps and bit more. The bricked in doorway was done because that area will sit directly next to a hill so the provided door and steps down won't work on my  layout.





Over the weekend I painted up a few hundred castings for the area around this building and the service station I'm working on in my layout thread. As soon as the plaster road is done I'll drop this in place on the layout and tie it in.

Thanks for following along and all the positive feedback along the way!


Steve Custer

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