Knocked out about half the castings over the weekend.  Definitely use nicer acrylic paint for those since the cheap hobby paints don't seem to want to stick to the finer metal detail even when cleaned and primed.

Is there a real advantage over burnishing the metal vs priming? 

Congrats on breaking ground on the build

I'm going to have to give that marker technique a shot.  It turned out very nice.

I'm new to the kit building world myself, and I can certainly say that you're doing a great job so far.

Thanks for the replies.  No updates since right after I got back into the kit, I ended up with a new job 1000 miles away.  I'm getting settled in and should be back to building soon.  I also noticed I used the wrong elmer's wood glue, so I'll have to spot check it with the water proof variety when I get a chance.

Steve, thanks for that idea.  I'm going to try it out for the remainder of the build.

Thanks for the props

Lets see how your sawmill turned out, Lynnb.  I've got the old time saw mill and barnstead lumber in the pile as well.  and a mountain of sierra west kits.  Speaking of, it's time to start doing the window casting for the walls so I ordered the materials for that based off Brett's instructions.  Should be here in a few weeks.

Thanks.  I was really happy with the way they turned out.  I filled a mug with about half water then added about 5 drops of black acrylic paint and painted both sides.  I repeated the process with tan but only applied to one side for a lighter interior appearance.  Took about a day to dry for each application.

Slappin' the walls together

Better late than never:



Got bogged down looking for a new job so this got put on the back burner.

Thanks for swinging on by NEMMRRC

Thanks for all the advice and ideas so far. 

I took some time to read over the instructions last night, and the assembly looks pretty straight forward.  Since the kit seems a little short, I ordered some extra lumber to lengthen the front of the shop about a half length.  Hopefully I'll have it all in this weekend so I can begin treating the wood along with the glass sheet so I can start on the first template after the frame lumber painting is done.

That middle one looks good for an exterior.  Looks like a sun bleached version of the left most paint job.

They're called mechanics blocks, and I got these ones off amazon.  A pair will run you about $20 plus shipping since they've got some heft to them.  They do come covered in oil to prevent rusting.  Not the best for modeling, so you may want to wash them before adding them to your workbench.

I wanted to step my game up a bit with a larger kit so I'm breaking out this ebay find.  The Fine Scale Miniatures Logging Repair shed.  This will be my 4th kit, but first diorama. 

I want to accomplish a few things with this build:
1.  Build and decorate a diorama base
2.  Add interior and exterior lighting
3.  Hand lay track
4.  Learn how to paint and weather metal castings

Pretty ambitious but I'm looking forward to it.  I'll be using updated tricks outlined in some of my sierra west kits by Brett Gallant in regards to weathering the strip wood, and dealing with the castings. 

Here we go

I think the color looks great so far. 

You'll have plenty of opportunity to experiment since this kit has like 2 lbs of strip wood lol.