Walthers Row House Kitbash, Build Challenge 2016

[cuse]

I just finished a wrestling match with that  Silflor Ivy  . It looks awesome, but I will definitely look for the opportunity to place it on a wall that's not yet vertical in the future. I used significant blobs of Aileen's Tacky glue, which seemed OK, but it definitely required a significant weight to hold it down while drying. My theory, for next time, is that weighting the heck out of it is ok since it looks to me like the detail is so delicate it wouldn't really look "flat". You could probably pick at it with tweezers too after drying.


The stuff looks great but application is trickier than I expected.


GREAT sign by the way!


John

[ReadingBob]

Hi Matt,

I'm just catching up on this one.  It looks great so far.  Love the sign and your technique for making the foundation.  Keep the pictures coming.  I can't wait to see how this turns out.   

[restocarp]

Thank you for following along John and Bob.

More progress has been made.

Now that I had a base, I needed to think about the additions in the rear that will make up for more of my "one kit into two" situation. I am using the original rear kit wall for two of the rowhouses and an offcut portion of one of the side walls for one other rear wall. In between I am constructing wood additions to hide  the gaps. This also allows me to use different windows, as I don't have enough for the additional walls. So I have built a one story shed addition to cover the lower portion of one bay, a two story addition to cover the entire rear of another bay and then a two story porch to cover the rear of the other two bays. The porch necessitates door access, so I have cut new door openings, buying myself two additional window castings to use elsewhere. I found myself without the transom door openings I wanted for these new doors, so I cut out regular door frames and left them attached to the sprues. These sprues will form the transoms and, buried behind the porch, it shouldn't be too obvious. 
Frames with sprues:

New door openings:

The clapboard additions were built with wooden clapboard material that I had on hand. So now the model has wood, plaster and plastic components. Following assembly, the siding was washed with india ink/alcohol and then "dry-sponged" with acrylic paint.
Close up of the two story addition:

Both additions:

With doors and windows and placed on their brick foundations:

The porch was constructed from a couple of pieces that I have had for a long time left over from a Tyco Railroad Hotel kit.
I added a new floor of v-grooved styrene, a styrene roof, rafter tails and a small railing to separate the two units. I also added a rail cap later to add dimension to the rail.
Assembled and primed:

Primed, washed, sponge painted and with the cap rail.

For the problematic front windows, I installed the smaller kit supplied units into my too-large openings and added new Formstone sills to fill the gaps.
Windows installed without sills:

And with the sills:

So the above picture shows the front facades. Front porches will now follow. I have also built up the road bed to have my sloped topography.
The one side wall still needs the two story bay window to hide the two window openings that will be buried so that I could steal their window castings. That will also cover the brick seam created from combining the two wall sections.

The other side wall as seen earlier, now with some mortar in the stone joints.

And the rear wall with its additions. The two story structure appears a little catawompas so I may try try to adjust that. I have to add piers the bottom of the porch and some stairway access to the rear doors. Oh, and maybe some roofs.


That's where it all sits for now.
More soon,
Matt

[ACL1504]

Matt,

Wow, very well done. The back porch and clapboard additions are wonderful.

Thanks for sharing.

Tom

[Janbouli]

Beautiful

[restocarp]

I'm still working. I hope to have a more comprehensive update soon. For now, here is a shot of one of the back yard fences:


Matt

[Mkrailway]

Matt, very worthy work!

[restocarp]

One more teaser pic. Hopefully I have time to give a full report later this week.


Matt

[restocarp]

OK.

So I did adjust the slightly out of plumb back wall and then did some landscaping. I covered the styrofoam lightly with spackle and then painted it with an ugly yellow/brown paint from the Home Depot return shelf. While the paint was wet I sprinkled on some tan/brown powdered grout. I then applied ground foam over top of that.


I built a board fence for one yard and added a porch and some backyard details.


I also added some landscaping along the sides of the building.

Moving around front. I added the streetcar track and "buried" it in cobblestone. I also built up the street and sidewalk. My height transition proved to be a bit complicated as I wanted to use the kit supplied steps to access the front porches. The original front porch steps and the rear steps were two different heights. I glued the two rear steps together with a scrap of styrene between to match the double wide front porch steps. I poured my first sidewalk layer and set the shorter step on top of that layer and set the taller step down inside of that layer. I then added another layer of sidewalk, burying the first steps of each and allowing for a non-code compliant, but OK looking transition from sloping sidewalk to steps.


Now I moved on to the front porches. I painted the scribed styrene ceiling with a light blue green color. It is a lot more subtle in the end, but you can take my word for it. The ceiling was glued to the building first and then the roofs were added. I followed that with columns built from bamboo skewers. The railings are from Tichy. MB Klein only had one set of turned baluster railing and one set of square baluster railings so I mixed it up. The Formstone renovation guy apparently was a carpenter as well. I added the sidewalk details a little soon, so the porches had to be built while reaching around the streetlamps and the figures. I am not sure I like the scale of the streetlamps. I have had them kicking around for a long time and used them, but i may replace them for a better looking product. The tree is still removable, so that hasn't been in the way.








So here is where the project sits now:
Front:

Side(still needs a bay window):

Back(perhaps more fences and one more porch/steps):

Other side:

And viewed from above(No roof!!):


Onward and upward!
Matt

[MAP]

Very nice work Matt!

[Zephyrus52246]

The structures and diorama are looking great.


Jeff

[jimmillho]

Great looking building, Matt

Jim

[restocarp]

Happy New Year, everyone. The craziness of the holiday season is behind us and I am now able to update this languishing thread. I have been working on the rowhouses during the past few weeks and I am nearing the finish line.

When last we visited the model, I was in need of a bay window to finish the one side of the structure. After mocking the bay up with cardboard, I began the construction with layers of styrene and wood strip.



The design is based on the Tichy windows that I had on hand and their height relationship to the windows in main structure. The stone base is fabricated from the same custom stone that the rest of the foundation is constructed from. After adding enough trim to create the typical Victorian look of these types of bays, I still required some kind of detail to add some pizazz. I tried a couple of ideas, until, during one of our pre-Christmas trips to pick up gift supplies at Jo-Ann Fabrics, I came across some beads that would fit the bill. I filed the backs of the beads to get them to sit back into the building a bit and glued them in place.



Now it just needs a roof. Which bring us to the next part of the project.
The most daunting task in front of me over the last month was the installation of the glazing. I hate installing glazing and it obviously can't go in to the building until all of the painting and weathering gets done, but it also has to go in before the roofs get installed. I should have done it when the walls were flat, but I didn't. So I had to wrestle that on (against the laws of gravity) and also install curtains and shades to block out my empty interiors.  I used a combination of materials for this including the printed window curtains, shades and blinds that came with the kit. I photocopied the original and got some extras for my additional windows. I also stained some paper with coffee to create shades.  The windows being glazed and blocked I could start to install the roofing.

I began with the small shed addition in the rear. I used printer paper to make a small strip of wood shingles. Once those were glued in the center of the roof, I used additional paper to replicate the newer tar paper roofing, tearing it to show the old shingles beneath.  I then used alcohol and india ink, black acrylic paint and Bragdon powders to color the paper. The stove pipe was made from a piece of sprue and a paper hole punch. This assembly was painted with a flat black primer and then colored with the Bragdon powders.


For the next roof, I wanted to use a different material. I had a piece of plastic corrugated roof material from some place, but I didn't like the largeness of it.

So I grabbed a piece of aluminum foil from the kitchen and set out to make my own sheets. I rubbed the foil over the plastic piece with my finger, transferring the pattern.

Then I cut the foil into 4' x 8' pieces. They were glued to the roof, painted gray and then colored with the Bragdon powders. A shot of Dullcoat should help keep it attached to the slick surface. The chimney came out of the scrapbox and black acrylic "roofing tar" completes the look.


The double-decker porch got a similar tar paper roof as the shed roof, fabricated and colored in the same way.



Meanwhile, I decided that the larger backyard area required additional detail, perhaps a tree. To create the detailed, stately tree I had in mind, I tried my hand at twisting one out of floral wire. I used 20 strands of wire, about 7" long. After the basic shape was achieved, I coated the whole tree in Ailene's Tacky Glue. I used about three coats of glue and then sprayed it with gray/black primer. A little bit of drybrushing with grays and browns gave me a descent colored trunk. For the foliage, I mixed polyfil pillow stuffing with india ink and alcohol. I held the polyfil in my gloved hands and dripped in the ink, slowly working it to a uniform color. This was attached to the wire trunk, and then various shades of ground foam were attached to the polyfil using hairspray.




Overall, I was pleased with how the tree turned out. I designed it to be large, and it is, but when I placed it in to the back yard, it covers up a fair amount of the building, so I am not sure that it is the solution that I was looking for.



More updates soon. We're in the homestretch!!
Matt

[Oldguy]

WOW!

[Zephyrus52246]

I'll second that WOW.


Jeff