Wednesday Feb 12, 1925

[deemery]

Bonsoir.  We're expecting several cubic kilometres of snow over the next 24 hours, here.  Where's my damned flamethrower?

In yesterday's mail came yet another HO building kit, namely Wild West Scale Model Builders' Pitkin House, along with a set each of their old wooden chairs and railroad station benches.  I ordered it because it looks like an old saltbox house, and has the short eaves typical of my ancestors' thriftiness.  My first exposure to a modern laser-cut wooden kit, and I'm technically impressed.  My plans for the house are to model it as a chi-chi French restaurant in a small town in Québec's Mauricie region, which is where I'm from, and where I spend my summer weekends and vacations.  There are quite a few nice old small-town wooden piles in that area that have been re-purposed as dining and drinking establishments, not to mention what looks like an old CN-pattern section house right by the tracks that I know's been a permanent family dwelling since I was a kid.

I plan to paint the thing crimson, with white trim, and make signage for "La Maison Rouge - Cuisine Provençale."  Diorama ideas:  By the tracks.  Parking lot that holds maybe six vehicles, a tiny deck for summer al fresco dining that I'll need to imagineer and scratchbuild.  Some added ventilation and fume-evacuation details for the tiny kitchen in the back will be de rigueur. Verisimilitude.

Now I really need to hie myself to a local hobby shop and buy fresh glue, brushes, and assorted craft paints. Because I've now got a gluing jig, 90° clamps, angle plates, and whatnot to actually start building models again.

Be careful with "crimson".  Best to lighten a crimson paint with 10% white.  (That's something I learned from Dave Frary.)  Primary colors "straight out of the bottle/tube" are often too bright and end up looking toy-like.  I did the old Silver Plume Store with 'red paint' and was unsatisfied with how it ended up. 

add:  For a test, paint some scrap wood strips white and the larger pieces 'lightened red'.  You want to see the combination of a large space of red against the white trim.  

dave

[Mr. Critter]

Note made.  There's plenty of laser-cut surrounds in this kit to experiment with.  Merci!