Builders in Scale Weiry & Sons Drilling

[SteveCuster]

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I've done a build thread so I decided to do one for the next kit.

Next in line for the layout is Weiry and Sons Drilling from Builders in Scale. This kit came out in 1983 and I believe is the first limited run kit made by BIS. I'm a big fan of BIS kits and I have built a few so far.



First step of course was laying out all the parts and familiarizing myself with the instructions.


All the individual sub assemblies are bagged separately. This kit looks like it's basically a stand alone main structure with the building from Getz Gas and the trailer from Flybynite construction. I've already built Getz Gas so I'll need to make sure I show a different angle than the one already on the layout.


The castings included in the kit are excellent. They are much nicer than most of the castings offered in some of the newer kits and on-par with FSM quality. Clean, crisp with very little flash, I cleaned and prepped all the the castings in less than 5 minutes. All of these are what I would consider "foreground" quality castings.


One of my favorite parts of BIS kits is the blueprints. They are super detailed and if you have a little experience with craftsman kits you can pretty much build the whole kit from the drawings alone.

That's all I have for photos now, I've already primed the "wood" castings and blackened the ones that represent metal last night. I need to spend some time thinking about the color scheme I want but I hope to dig into the wood parts later today. The hardest part of picking a color scheme is making sure I haven't used the same colors too close to the placement of this kit on the layout.

[Jerry]

Steve I'll be following along for sure!!


Jerry

[Opa George]

Lots of fun. We have a couple of BiS kits in progress on the forum now.  I love it.
--Opa George

[ReadingBob]

This looks like an interesting kit Steve.  Count me in as a follower as well.   

[S&S RR]

Steve


Very interesting kit, I will be following along.

[PRR Modeler]

I'll be following.

[sdrees]

I picked this kit up a couple of years ago from a freind who was selling some of his inventory.  So I will be following your progress.

[Mark Dalrymple]

I've never seen a build thread on this kit.  I'm looking forward to it, Steve.

Cheers, Mark.

[GPdemayo]

Great looking kit Steve.....looking forward to seeing what you do with this one. 

[postalkarl]

Hey Steve:

I'll be following along.

Karl

[Oldguy]

Ooh, will be watching this one closely.  I have been thinking of changing mine over to a garage/gas station with living quarters up and store down. 

[SteveCuster]

Glad to have everyone following along.

Today I got some of the bracing done and started to try to get an idea of how the building goes together.


The kit was supposed to include 2 of the walls on the right but it only had one. I couldn't find any clapboard sections that matched the spacing of the one included in the kit but I decided to use one that doesn't exactly match. I'll plan on covering it up with the door as I put everything together.


The front wall is to be assembled over the template. I made a copy of that section of the template and secured the pieces with double sided tape. You can seen where the left clapboard is a little different from the right.


Lots of little clapboard pieces butt-glued together. I'm concerned with warpage but I'll address that when it comes up. Seems like this is the only way to manufacture a wall like this in 1983 pre-laser.


The rest of the structure is board and batten.  None of the windows are fully cut out only scored.


I added my usual mess of bracing to all the side and back walls. The front wall needs a different approach due to the false front.


This is the back-side of the front wall. The side pieces are pre-cut and will be the core of the pillars. The horizontal pieces will support the board on board vertical pieces that go across the top.


This wall is directly above the roof and will need some battens trimmed plus they have you glue some roof supports to the wall. This piece will provide an overlay to score the areas that need trimming.


Here it is laid over the wall. I will be scoring across all the roof lines and removing battens below the score lines.


You can see the score marks where I cut through the template.


The battens are removed and I marked where the roof card will sit. I'll be gluing some supports along the bottom of the lines but leaving the space for the roof card.


The final main building wall assembly is the clerestory. This wall will sit above the roof between the front wall and the back section. It gets built over this template using some rectangle pieces and 1/16 wood.


I made 2 of these using the same method as the front wall (copies of the template with double sided tape). I don't see any way that this piece will not fall apart as soon as some coloring is applied to it. Windows go into both openings so as long as the castings aren't deeper than the walls I'll just run some bracing all the way across the back and make sure you can't see it through the windows. Once these assemblies dry I'll start working it out.


Before I was done for the night I gave all the wood and wood colored parts a wash of A&I.


Thanks for following along. I need to figure out a color scheme and then I'll start putting some color to the walls and windows.

[PRR Modeler]

Making a lot of great progress.

[SteveCuster]

Thanks Curt!

A bit more progress was made to the walls yesterday..


The rear of the front wall got covered in vertical boards. Surprisingly it didn't warp too bad.


After the glue dried I used thin chisel blade to cut away to boards matching the profile of the arch.


Here they are all trimmed away.


I decided to go with a light gray color for the walls. I washed the walls in mineral spirits before I covered them in paint then when the paint started to dry I used a wire brush to rough up and take off some of the paint. Once it completely dries I'll give it a wash of A&I.


Same color for the other walls...same technique also.

I painted the doors and windows a green color also but I didn't take a photo.

Thanks for following along, more to come..

[Jerry]

Steve it is really braced well!  I like the coloring and the method you used to put it on.


Your usual fine work shows up again in this model.


Jerry