Junction Farm (BESTTrains kits)

[elwoodblues]

Dave,

The barn is looking great, looking forward to seeing the next picture with the shingles in place.

[deemery]

Underside of the roof under construction:

Yesterday I did the Bar Mills grey wood shingle strips.  i attached them using a glue stick.  This is something I learned from Bob Van Gelder's kit instructions.  Talking to Bob, he said "no problems with the glue stick failing over time."  After the strips are all installed, while the roof is still flat cardboard, I run a rubber roller over the roof to press down the shingles.  Then I flip the roof back over, and run a small line of liquid glue (I'm using Testors clear canopy glue equivalent) along the edges of the shingles.  This locks the shingles into position so they don't come loose later (particularly when trimming the shingles to the edge of the subroof.)

Then I started adding bracing.  The lower piece has a piece of wood cut to the gable shape, with 1/8" square glued to it.  Once the glue sets on the one side, I'll add the bracing strip (top) and glue the subroof to the other side of the bracing.  Then I'll add bracing running the other way on the roof.  When that's done, I'll trim off the shingles from each edge of the roof. 

I painted the edges of the cardboard subroof BEFORE trimming the shingles.  That way any slop was caught by the underside of the overhanging shingles.  Then using a -brand new- X-Acto #11 blade held at a shallow angle, I trimmed off the shingle edges.

Then I drybrushed 2 colors onto the Bar Mills shingles.  The first is 'Barnwood', which I drybrushed (using a bristle fan brush) in both directions.  This tones down the grey and adds a bit more texture.  Finally, I used a light yellow and drybrushed solely from the bottom to the top, to catch the edges of the shingles.  I also ran that along the sides of the shingles.


And on location:

The darker roof will look good against the forest green backdrop.  Now really what I should have there are open fields, particularly given my era (when forest cover was at its minimum.)  But you go with what you can get...  

Next up, the farm house. 

dave

[deemery]

There's still some details to add to the barn, but I opened the house kit.  This is interesting, the walls have 2 pieces, a wood subwall (laser-cut from basswood) and a wood outer wall (laser cut from clapboard siding.)  The first step is to laminate those two pieces of wall together (x 7 sides of wall all told.)  I brushed on diluted yellow carpenter glue, brushed onto both wall pieces.  Then I aligned them and put them under weights.  After about 30 minutes, I went back and double-checked alignment.  Once the glue is set, those walls are probably permanently aligned.  Tomorrow I'll double check everything, do a test fit, and then probably spray paint the walls white (outside) and dark grey/black (inside).  Then back under the weights for a day to cure.

dave

[Michael Hohn]

The Bar Mills shingles are a favorite of mine, using them on several projects.  They look perfect on your barn.

Mike

[PRR Modeler]

Very nice looking shingles.

[Larry C]

Dave very nice looking barn and the shingles are spot on.

[Rick]

Dave, sorry about your foundation mishap.
Happens to all of us and glad you were able to get a replacement.
Great colors on the roof.

[deemery]

The nice thing about tab-and-slot is it's really easy to do a mock-up of the structure.  It's a bit hard to get the full shape without the roof.  


These look good together, although the exact position of the house is not set.  I figure I'll build it, then play with the assembled structure.  The height of the structure above scenery is approximately correct, given the foundation, etc.  

dave

[Michael Hohn]

That's a nice looking kit. Wise choice. Should be fun.

(I really like the looks of all the B.E.S.T. products.  I'd build more if I didn't do so much scratchbuilding.)

Mike

[jbvb]

Most Center-Chimney Colonials' front doors face the road. Mine doesn't, but "why" was told to my grandparents when they moved here.

[deemery]

Most Center-Chimney Colonials' front doors face the road. Mine doesn't, but "why" was told to my grandparents when they moved here.

One thing I've noticed here are some houses of the period have 2 doors, one that faces the road, and another that faces the driveway.  Yours is that way, right James?

dave

[Jerry]

Dave great job on the roof.

Jerry

[elwoodblues]

Dave,

The roof of the barn looks treat.

Once done the house looks like it will complement the barn. 

[jbvb]

Most Center-Chimney Colonials' front doors face the road. Mine doesn't, but "why" was told to my grandparents when they moved here.

One thing I've noticed here are some houses of the period have 2 doors, one that faces the road, and another that faces the driveway.  Yours is that way, right James?

dave

In my case, the Big House (Center Chimney Colonial) faces the hilltop and main road about 1/2 mile away. The door we use goes into the Little House, then to the driveway (and farm fields) opposite the road. The Big House also has a less elaborate door facing the road, but there's always been a relatively steep bank there, so I doubt it ever got a lot of use.

[deemery]

I reworked the road going from the bridge up to the farm:

There's still some road grading to do. The road now curves around that little bump about dead center in the photo, rather than running on the near side.  With some scenery there (an orchard?), that'll add a bit of space between the bridge and the barn.

I also did some painting for the trim/doors.  That's currently drying underneath weights.  There's part of each door that bent a bit, I need to decide how I'll handle that when I assemble the doors from the laser-cut pieces.  It might turn out to be a 'happy little accident', we'll see.

The instructions say to assemble the doors onto the walls before assembling the walls together.  Once that's done, I'll look again at the wall segments and decide if I need to add bracing before assembly, or afterwards.  The 2-part wall pieces are quite sturdy, but they can still get a bit of warp since grain runs the same way for both pieces.

add One thing I'm considering is there is no door on the farmhouse wall that faces the barn.  That strikes me as a bit unlikely.  So I'm thinking about whether I can add a door on the 'annex' one story addition. 

dave