Rugg Manufacturing - SRMW Kit 170

[Janbouli]

I think weathering with chalks would work well.
Avery simple youtube film from GCLaser

[Mark Dalrymple]

The kit is coming on a treat, Vince!

You are getting a very good fit with all the different mediums and height changes.  I did a scratch-built kit inspired by Rugg - I shrunk the base a bit and stretched the height and installed it on a steep hill with a road curving around the back.  I remember leaving my vertical bracing hanging below my clapboard walls and gluing my block-work walls to them which made the latter assembly of the walls much easier.  Of course I used Slaters plasticard for my blockwork which was pretty much the same thickness as the clapboard.  It would be very difficult to use this technique with thick plaster walls.  I enjoyed the build immensely - and with all the different roof lines at different heights it is a real eye catcher.

Cheers, Mark.

[vinceg]

I think weathering with chalks would work well.

Thanks -- I'll give it a try. Also, thanks to everyone for the encouraging comments.

Vince

[Janbouli]

I think weathering with chalks would work well.

Thanks -- I'll give it a try. Also, thanks to everyone for the encouraging comments.

Vince

Try it first on a piece of scrap wood from the kit , possibly painted in the same way.

[postalkarl]

Hey Jan:

Thanks for the great video. Looks great so far.

Karl

[ACL1504]

Vince,

Wonderful build and thread. You have Rugg in my layout colors, white with green trim and windows.

Well do, very well done.

Tom

[vinceg]

Productive weekend. Last time I mentioned that I was going to put window shades on all of the windows I forgot to do. Not surprisingly, it is far more work to put in the shades once the walls are raised. Hopefully this painful lesson will serve to remind me to do this when doing the basic wall preparation in the future. I also tried weathering some large doors with just chalk. Here are two examples:



First, these pics show a couple of examples of windows with shades (done before raising the walls). I simply glued some artist paper strips behind each window. I went with a light color of shade rather than a heavily-faded yellow color. After trying a few different samples, I decided that I liked this best.

Second, you can see how I treated the doors. I think the results look OK but not particularly notable. The steps were:

• Prime with Camo Khaki spray (rattle can) paint (these doors are pewter)
• Paint with multiple coats of very thinned artist acrylic paint (White Wash is the color - same as the walls)
• Scrape on some medium gray chalk dust with a single-edge razor blade
• Push the dust around with a soft brush
• Rub the dust into the crevices with thumb

The Camo primer base coat makes it possible to get some coverage with the watery acrylics. Then, by using many thin coats, the casting relief detail is not filled in. This is different from what I did years ago where I would try to apply the color all in one coat. Requires more patience than I am used to, tho. Finally, I think the chalk is a nice effect but I am not sure how durable it will be. I should have hit it with some matte finish afterward but didn't think to do that. Next time. I also should have done an A/B comparison with a simple inkahol wash. Will definitely do this test on my next kit (or I will try it if the chalk effect wears away while I am doing this build).

Note the windows in the doors of these pics have no glazing. I added that after this picture was taken.

One other note - this is a good example of the nail hole effect that you get with the RB Productions Rivet-R tool and the .65 mm wheel. I do like nail holes and this effect seems much better than the even-more-oversized holes you get from the usual pounce wheels.

[vinceg]

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that I am using Canopy Glue instead of Micro Krystal Klear for my windows. The rationale was that it was much easier to apply because of the nozzle on the Canopy glue bottle. I also mentioned that I thought I was destroying the window panes because I applied the glue while the windows were still on the sprue. My belief was that I was ripping the clear rubber while handling the windows in the process of clipping from the sprue and applying to the appropriate walls. I now know that isn't true. I am now "glazing" the windows after they are installed in the walls. Here's an example:



Note you can see imperfections in several panes. In some cases, holes appear and in other cases the window just appears "ripped." My assumption is that, despite the fact that I apply a fairly liberal glob of glue on the back of each pane, the Canopy glue still shrinks enough that it causes the window to rip in some cases. As I mentioned before, the fix is simple - just apply more glue on the back after the window is dry. The holes and rips are filled in and it looks OK.

I don't recall this ever happening with the Micro Krystal Klear. I am still not going back to MKK for this kit - too big a pain to use a toothpick or wire for each pane. But, what I will do is wait until I empty one of my Canopy glue bottles and fill it with MKK so that I can try using the nozzle with MKK. If those do not rip, then I will know it is just a difference in the shrink factor. If they do rip, then I guess the nozzle technique just applies a thinner film of glue.

All of this said, I do still think I like clear styrene panes better. But, they have to be right up against the back of the mullions to look good. So much more work. Next kit, I will try to give a little more thought to how to make that process a little easier to do. I would love to hear from anyone who has ideas in this area. Probably no shortcuts, tho.

[vinceg]

BTW, I have started shrinking my pics a bit before uploading. I was feeling guilty about consuming so much storage and in reviewing the posts, it seemed to be a pain to have to scroll so much to see everything. So, now I'm shrinking by 75% in each dimension. I think they're still big enough to be useful but I would appreciate any comments regarding the new, smaller size vs. what I was doing.

[vinceg]

I found that I made a mistake in bracing one of the walls - in particular, the clapboard siding for Wall "M". Here is the suggested bracing diagram from the kit:



You can see on the right side of this wall there is a 1/8" holdback for the vertical brace. That is, of course, to accommodate the (presumably flush-glued) vertical brace on the perpendicular wall. Well, I saw a "similar" gap on the left side (see the red circles) and naïvely assumed the same 1/8" gap. Rookie mistake. With a little thought, I should have realized that it would not be likely that another 1/8" brace would be slotted in here. I should have thought to look forward in the instructions to see why this gap was made. The reality is that this slot is needed to accept a braced, perpendicular wall. That means that the gap needs to be 1/8" plus the width of the clapboard. So, I had to chip away some of the bracing I had installed. Easy enough with an No. 17 blade. Here's the result:



Good thing I needed the space on the left and not on the right.

And here's a peek at what it looks like with the wall inserted (birds-eye view looking down from the top of the wall):



By the way - one side note: In the first pic, look over to the right for the bracing diagram for Wall "N". This is an example of my earlier post about how a few of the pictures showed the bracing on what appears to be the milled side of the wall. It isn't. As I mentioned before, in most cases, looking at the geometry of the braced wall and looking at pictures will keep you out of trouble.

[vinceg]

About to raise more walls. Test fitting showed a lot of unevenness in the top of the foundation castings. I used a flat file to even things up a bit.



After finishing the filing I went back with my Polly S Boxcar Red paint to make sure I had color near the visible edges of the foundation castings. You can see some of this to the left. I really should have done this when first placing the castings (as is suggested by the instructions. However, it does seems easier to test fit and look at these things after the walls are braced.

[vinceg]

Time to raise some more walls. The instructions call for putting up wall "M" next (that's the wall with the notch I had to expand two posts above). I decided it would be a better idea to raise wall "W" instead. See the following picture:



The wall you are looking at is Wall W. There is very little room to play with this wall. It is fixed on the right side to wall "A" and follows the foundation. It will be glued perpendicular to Wall "Z" (see the red line and the 'Wall "Z"' designation on the photo). Additionally, there is another, same-length wall (Wall "X" that will be located above and "in" toward the building - see the red arrow for where the right side of Wall X will be glued). Wall "X" will also be glued to wall "Z". Therefore, I was very concerned about the positioning of Wall Z. If I were to glue in Wall M first, that perpendicular wall (the one I just expanded the notch for) would determine the position of one end of Wall Z. Depending on how "M" is placed on the foundation, Wall Z's angle will be changed. Imagine Wall Z as a see-saw with a fulcrum at the point where it touches the wall shown (Wall W). The more Wall Z is pushed to the right at the bottom of the picture, the more of a gap I will have with that upper Wall X. And, Wall M's position controls that see-sawing. Therefore, I wanted to place M according to where it needed to be to make sure Wall Z would properly contact both Walls W (shown) and X (red arrow).

(Yes, I thought through all of that but neglected to look at why there was a notch in Wall M two posts back....nuts, eh?)

Anyway, that is why I chose to glue down the wall you see here, first. In the end it worked out.

Another note - if you look at the door here, you can see that it's gray. It is really painted white. I overdid the process of scrubbing on some gray chalk. I subsequently cleaned this up a bit by scrubbing the door with a damp Q-tip. I will later have some pictures that show the resulting effect.

[vinceg]

So far, I have to say that this is the most challenging kit I have built -- by far. I love the structure and the kit. But aligning with the foundations and the complex relationships with the additions are much more difficult than the boxy buildings I had previously built. I suspect the ride gets wilder when I get to the roof. We'll see.

OK, enough of the long-winded explanations. Here are some pictures showing where I am at. You will see that I started to play with some more weathering of the walls. Lots more to do there but I wanted to try a few things. You will also see that I am missing some corner posts. Will get to that next.











Cheers - I'll be back with more progress after raising more walls.

[tom.boyd.125]

Vince,
Your SRMW Rugg build is looking great. Will have to reference this thread when it comes time for that kit here.
Most factories did not have shades, except the office area, so your are fine to leave them off on your project.
Tommy

[Dave K.]

I think she's looking great, Vince.👍🏻 I dropped canopy glue for MKKa couple of years ago, although I'll also use acetate sometimes. Just my preference...everyone has theirs. Build on!