Bar Mills F&SM Tribute Kit Challenge Build

[S&S RR]

Just found the forum and registered. I'm excited to follow this thread as I just placed an order for this kit last evening. Haven't tackled a large craftsman kit since Builder's In Scale Waterfront many years ago and am following and making notes for when the kit arrives.

Welcome to the forum. Consider doing a build thread on you first build in many years. Your watching one of the best on this thread.

[MAP]

Excellent weathering on the building Mike.  I'll be at the Springfield show and will make a stop at Artie's.  Let's see if I pull the trigger this time.

[Mike Engler]

Welcome to new and old friends. Thanks for your interest and spending some time here, and for the kind comments. Jim Mooney offered this a couple of days ago:

shoot !
directions should have told you to trim that vent hole with 2x6...just checked mine...forgot it...sorry..

So I looked at the vent at each end of the cupola and agreed they do need outlining, and I can fix that! Here is where a good idea went bad. The first photo shows what happened when I removed the vent, and then lined the vent hole with 2x6's. I forgot that the vent would not fit into the smaller opening with the added stripwood. So I trimmed the vent to fit, and the result looked awful. Plus I wrecked the  trimmed down vent.

The entire cupola is very small, and the photos show it resting on a 1" diameter bottle cap- my monitor shows it about 6X and shows a lot of modeling and decorating sins. I decided to remove what was left of the vent, and the stripwood, and make some frames for the vent openings. I used the wonderful drawings contained in the kit to make the frames, and applied them to both openings. I also borrowed one of the vents from another building in this kit- T.J. Reillys. (Hint- maybe I can get Jim to put in a good word for me to get a replacement vent?)

The last photo shows how they turned out, and I think it works. I'll comment more on the instructions later, but believe me when I say the plans and drawings are incredible and there a lot of them. Views from every direction, exploded view, 3D, and some great color photos with many more on the website. I think Jim Mooney designed this kit and it is a great job. I think I could build it with just the drawings.

[jerryrbeach]

Mike,
The vent looks much better to me now that you have framed the opening.  Great recovery!

[Dave K.]

Enjoying the thread!👍🏻

[MASIGMON]

Mike, Your build is coming along nice.  When I 1st saw the add from Bar Mills I new I had seen the middle building with the water tank before (if it was not the same it sure was close).
I went back through my notes & there it was back in 2007.  Over on the Railroad Line Forums Karl Osolinski on 1/28/2007 started a scratch build of what he call The Building of Sellios Avenue.
It took Karl "O" a few years to complete the build (6/2/2009) .  When you start building that building you might want to take a look at what Karl did in the scratch build.  As always with Karl O the workmanship is outstanding & well worth going down memory lane.
I am not saying Bar Mills copied Karl work I am saying the 2 structures look very close
Mike Sigmon   

[S&S RR]

Mike


Your build is looking great.  I just wrote on the box top of mine revisit Mike's thread for updates to the directions before building.

[engine909]

John, You just confirmed, you are a smart man. Great work Mike. What's new, right?
ed

[Karl O]

Mike, Your build is coming along nice.  When I 1st saw the add from Bar Mills I new I had seen the middle building with the water tank before (if it was not the same it sure was close).
I went back through my notes & there it was back in 2007.  Over on the Railroad Line Forums Karl Osolinski on 1/28/2007 started a scratch build of what he call The Building of Sellios Avenue.
It took Karl "O" a few years to complete the build (6/2/2009) .  When you start building that building you might want to take a look at what Karl did in the scratch build.  As always with Karl O the workmanship is outstanding & well worth going down memory lane.
I am not saying Bar Mills copied Karl work I am saying the 2 structures look very close
Mike Sigmon   

Hi Mike,

I know I'm slow but the Sellios Avenue I built didn't take 2 years to build. I started it on January 28, 2007, and finished it on May 19, 2007. Mario revived the thread on June 1, 2009 asking me for some dimensions on the structures I did for the scene.

Karl O
Berkley, MI

[bparrish]

George ....

Welcome aboard.

See ya
Bob

[Mike Engler]

Thanks all of you for commenting. Mike, we'll take a look at that one. I remember Sellios Ave.- and the builder just posted!

Hey Karl- really great to hear from you and it would be an honor for you to post a pic or three of Sellios Ave. right here. For all of you tuned in Karl is a legend and one of the very best modelers I have ever known. Let's hope he will favor us with some photos of his work, or maybe even a build thread.

[Mike Engler]

Haven't posted progress in a few days and there has been some, but I'm having computer problems and am using a back-up. I've documented the problem in a thread started a couple of days ago by Bob Parrish on 'Baggage Car'.

Thanks for all of your comments. Karl Osolinski sent me a few pics of his Selios Ave. build and hopefully he will let me post them when I start the second building of this kit. I guarantee mine won't be up to his standard.

The foundation on Sal Manilla's has a base of several pieces of die-cut basswood that is then covered with four pieces of styrene castings of stone walls. Here is what it looks like:



Well that was not what I had in mind- giant photo! I'll try again when I either get my old Mac back (or a new one!) or learn to use this one. Thanks Jim- Lenny is the go-to guy!

[JimMooney]

Just saw your fix..
if you want replacement parts call Art (yeah right....!) I mean Lenny and ask him to send you what you need
maybe 1x4 trim might work better anyway...

[Mike Engler]

Thanks Jim. You must have gone to Springfield- PSSD, Post Springfield Stress Syndrome.


I'll try another foundation build photo:




Sorry worse.

[postalkarl]

Hi Mike:

Foundation looks great. Keep the photos coming.

Karl