Carolina Craftsman kit Rural Post Office.

[ACL1504]

Looking good Tom

Jim

Jim,

After your eye surgery, I'm very happy to know you can see the work.


Oh, and thank you Butty for the compliment.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Tom


Wonderful work my friend!

John,

Thank you, very much appreciate the kind words of support.

Tom

[ACL1504]

This afternoon, I enlarged Jeff's Post Office photo to 250%. I noticed in the upper left of the peaked front, I could just barely make out the exterior rafter detail.  So, lucky guess on my part.

Although Jeff refers to this kit as a Post Office, the picture appears to be an old county store with a country post office to the right. Not sure the government would advertise a coke product. Diet Pepsi, maybe, but coke, not so much!


The Canopy Glue dried and the doors and windows were glued in place.

The screen doors were finished and added to the building. Sorry I cut off the top and right side but I'll show the full frontal view later.



I treated the plastic doors and windows in the same manner as I did the walls. I think the weathering matches pretty well.

More in a few.

[ACL1504]

The walls are in the process of being glued together. This is why I couldn't take another photo of the front.


I should have the building together tomorrow afternoon and then I'll start the brick piers and roof.



The brick column was painted by first staining the bricks with thinned Floquil Reefer White to represent mortar. When dry and cured, I dry brushed Floquil Polly Scale Pacemaker Red on the column. The bright red color will be drastically reduced after weathering with A&I.



I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, late.

[Oldguy]

It's amazing how just a little quip can jog a memory.  Just the mention of the screen door push bar, brought back a flood of memories of the metal signs that used to go on those old push bars.  I have a couple of old stores to build myself and those signs are just what I need, but didn't really think of those signs until now.

[ACL1504]

It's amazing how just a little quip can jog a memory.  Just the mention of the screen door push bar, brought back a flood of memories of the metal signs that used to go on those old push bars.  I have a couple of old stores to build myself and those signs are just what I need, but didn't really think of those signs until now.

Bob,

I remember the metal push bars signs also. All the stores like this one that I remember also had Merita Bread stenciled on the screen above the push bars.

Tom

[ACL1504]

I glued the four walls together. I made sure the four walls were at 90 degrees and then gently clamped them while the glue dried over night.





More in a few.

[ACL1504]

Here's the full front view of the building I promised to post today.



After the four walls were dry, I looked at the span between the peaks and decided it was to large. I don't want the roof to sag over time so I added some cross bracing for the roof panel supports.





Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

I made sure the building stayed square while these braces dried.



I added two braces for the peaked roof panels and two for the valley between the peaked lower edge and the post office roof panel.



More in a few.

[ACL1504]

I was looking at the original photo of the structure and noticed the round top on the post office side chimney.



At my request, Groovy Jeff was kind and generous and sent me an extra chimney. I noticed on one end the brick wasn't laser cut into the scale lumber.



More in a few.

[ACL1504]

I decided to experiment and make this the exhaust end of the chimney.

I drilled a hole in this end and shaved off some of the sides using a new #11 blade.





I sanded the top until it looked similar. I then used the fine toothed Xacto blade and cut in some mortar lines. I used a small flat head screw driver for the vertical lines.





Continued after locating a cold Diet Pepsi.

[ACL1504]

I then used a round file to clean the exhaust hole. I painted on more white for the mortar lines and when dry I added the brick red and the black.



More in a few.

[ACL1504]

AH, that's good, nice and cold.

It appears from the picture, the chimney fits flush against the outside of the wall. I centered the chimney between the two windows.

I then used a #11 blade and removed the two center battens and the bottom horizontal board.



This is how it should fit on the wall.



More in a few.

[ACL1504]

The roof panels were laser cut to size. I removed them and let them rest on roof supports - nothing is glued at this point.





Notice the chimney sits fairly high next to the wall. This is due to the fact the store will be raised two to three scale feet above the ground. The chimney will not be this high when properly install. Just FYI for now.

Done for the day.

[PRR Modeler]

Excellent Tom.