Joe's Barbershop from KC's Workshop

[Dave K.]

I'm working on the town of Centerville for Prairie Scale Model Railroad here in suburban Chicago. The town will basically be a main street business district with some truck-served industry as background. I've been working on background buildings and this is where things are.

[Dave K.]

Kenny of KC's Workshop is coming out with a line of simple structures that come sans instructions to keep prices down. The first in the series is Joe's Barbershop. I thought this would be perfect for the shopping strip in Centerville.

Here's the kit, and the structure as presented on KC's website.

[Dave K.]

I'll be building mine as "Lyle's Hobbies."  Lyle was my father-in-law who we lost to brain cancer at the too-young age of 53, my current age. He was an avid model railroader and for years an officer of the Rock River Valley Division of the NMRA. My big regret is that I came to the hobby after his passing. So a hobby shop named for him seems like an appropriate tribute.

[Dave K.]

And here's the "goodie bag". It's a simple structure so not coming with instructions should not be a big deal if you've got any prior experience. Having said that, I ran into one small "oops" I'll share later in the build. I will say now the "oops" was all on me, not a fault of the kit's design.

[Dave K.]

Baxter is my 10-month-old modeling superintendent. He knows when I sit down at the bench in the basement it's going to be a couple of hours, so he assumes his own postion and settles-in.

[Dave K.]

I've come out of the closet on previous build threads as a "nail hole guy", so first thing I do after using an emory board to make sure the wall edges are nice and square is measure and draw the lines for the nail holes. No, we aren't replaying the Great Nail Hole Debate, here.     I'm doing mine at two-foot intervals. Sometimes I'll do three feet. I've seen them done both ways.

[Dave K.]

I don't like pounce wheels. We've posted before about the Monster Nailer, no longer available. Here it is in action.

[Dave K.]

I've gotten a nasty case of carpal tunnel in my right pinkie during the last couple of builds, so you can see I've got it splayed-out straight while using the Nailer.

[Dave K.]

Now for the "Tools You Absolutely Do Not Need But Are Kinda Cool" discussion. One of the guys at the club works at an engineering firm and he picked this out of the trash and brought it to me. A power eraser. Makes quick work of getting rid of the pencil lines for the nailholes, although they ultimately wouldn't show after inkahol and paint, anyway.

[Dave K.]

Normally I would now lift a few clapboards and do some other distressing of the walls, but Lyle's building will be an unusually "clean" one for me. Even though I've yet to light a building the club talks about doing it at some point, so I've gotten into the habit of painting the interior walls black after bracing and leaving easy access in case we want to wire down the road.

Here's where you guys might be of help. It's much faster to spray paint the black but I find I get a little bleed-under onto the exterior of the walls, so I've been doing it with a brush. Too time-consuming for such an uninteresting task. any advice?

[Dave K.]

I've always used inkahol for the initial weathering wash, but thought I'd try Hunterline's stains for a change.

[Dave K.]

Colors chosen...Antique White and Wedgewood Green.

[Dave K.]

Good time to paint windows, doors, trim, and cornice pieces. Parts that get glass will get  A/I'ed and drybrushed for highlights before glazing.

[Dave K.]

Glazing windows is my least favorite part of a build. I hate it. I've tried Canopy Glue, Gallery Glass, acetate, etc. I get bubbles, scratches, fingerprints...you name it. In the past I've tried real glass using microscope slide covers, but they always splintered on me. For this build I got one of these diamond-tipped doo-hickies from MicroMark.

[Dave K.]

Hallelujah!  It works!     Now to get them installed without Gulliver's fingerprints all over 'em.