Magnuson Victoria Townhouses

[madharry]

This kit has been kicking around for too long. The problem was the warped resin roof which broke in two possibly a decade ago and the kit was put aside.
However I decided to have another go at it. After several goes at trying to glue the parts together only one wall remained undecided to join the rest of the structure. I have not really been into weights and clamps but enough was enough and I bought a big one!
Hopefully this will persuade the wall to join the others and I can get on with completing the structure.
Mike

[Mark Dalrymple]

Mike - if you visit a city built on a hill you will notice that these sorts of structures often did not have flat roofs, but instead hip or gable roofs.  Its fun to change them up and help personalize the buildings.

I'll be keeping an eye on your progress - I have this kit in my stash, but I think it will get a severe kit-bash.

Cheers, Mark

[GPdemayo]

A challenge like this keeps things interesting.....

[PRR Modeler]

Nice looking buildings.

[postalkarl]

Mike:

Looks great so far. I'm sure you will do just fine wit it.

Karl

[deemery]

I have parts of one of these from my original layout.  I'm sure it'll show up on the new layout, once I get around to planning and building the town.  (That will be a while, right now I'm still on the 'benchwork'/'initial track work' phase.)


dave

[ACL1504]

Mike,

Nice job on the townhouses. I have all of the Magnuson kits and most of them have warped walls due to just sitting in the boxes for 35+ years.

I've been able to fix the walls by using a hair dryer and warming the walls and setting them flat on glass with lightweight weights. I've also been successful with running very hot water over them and setting them flat.

Just more info you can store away.

Tom

[Blazeman]

Always admired that structure. Don't think they did it in N though.

[madharry]

Thanks everyone for watching. I got round the cracked roof by painting it with PVA and adding fine dirt/ballast to the top. The walls all needed some fettling to fit properly but it looks OK. I took the unfinished model to our railway club last night to see if it would fit on our new tram layout. It does so I will endeavour to finish it so it can take it's place in the town of Caffrey's Quay. More pictures soon............
Mike

[madharry]

I was not looking forward to adding the mullions to the windows. There are 95 of them! The instructions call for cutting the scale wood and then adding them to the acetate with a small amount of glue.
Just to make it easy each window on each house is a different width.
So my solution was to add the mullions to the inside of the walls in long strips secured with glue either side of the window. The result is much nicer as the mullions are all in line, no glue shows and you do not have to cut to different widths and then juggle with placement.
Decide for yourself. The wall shown took 5 minutes to do............
Mike

[GPdemayo]

That's an inspired solution Mike.....

[madharry]

Thanks Greg, it sure saved a lot of work.........
I have added chimney pots to the cast chimneys on the roof (small pieces of tubing) and the staircases to the buildings front.

Next I will look at some weathering and window shades/curtains.
Mike