Horwood Brothers Gas, Oil and Service - Rail Scale Miniatures.

[ACL1504]

Howdy Tom,

That is one heck of a score.  Congratulations.  I loved that kit when it came out, but spent my money on Banta's Pro Patria mill.

I am excited to follow your build. It promises to be fun.

Have fun,
mike

Mike, Howdy,

Yes, I was very happy to get this one at the regular price not to mention how very fortunate I was as well. The Banta Mill is a nice kit for sure.

I'm happy to have you following along on this one.

Tom

[ACL1504]

So forgive my ignorance on wooden kits, but do you intend to use the wooden base as a base for the structure only or as a diorama base that will slot in the layout?

Is it viable to replace the floor with styrene or something 3d-printed? Or at least add bracing below the base?

Yannis,

No problem and no question is an ignorant one. Yes, I will use the kit base as I'm satisfied it will work. The entire kit is supposed to sit on a diorama but I'll build the kit and place is on the layout as a removable diorama.

Sheet styrene won't work as a base. Bracing on the bottom of the wood base in this situation isn't an option.

Tom

[ACL1504]

There is a checker board flooring paper that is to be glued to the base.



Once the flooring is glued to the base, Dario suggests taking an Xacto knife and trimming the excess flooring from the base.



Then the walls are to be glued in place on the base. As I mentioned, I've read through the instructions and planned in my mind how I want to proceed with the build.

This particular step will be skipped by me until later in the build. I'll explain my reasoning as I get into the build.

[ACL1504]

There is a diagram of how the walls fit together around the outside edges of the floor base.

In the diagram shown below, note that wall "C" fits between walls "B" & "D".

[ACL1504]

If you glue wall "C" in place, wall "D" won't fit correctly on the front of the base.

Wall "C" is 1/16" too long. I know this as I test fitted the walls around the base.





The next photo shows how long wall "C" is. It is as long as the wall is thick.

You may think that you can leave wall "C" as is and added wall "D" to the front. If you do this, you have a serious issue with lining up the other wall "E".

[ACL1504]

I incorrectly highlighted in red the bracing. However, the wall is still shown as fitting between the two walls mentioned above.

I used a wall section and marked in red the area I need to remove from wall "C".





Now the wall "C" is the correct length. I made another test fit and now all the walls fit correctly around the base.

[PRR Modeler]

Nice job Tom. This looks to be a fairly complicated build.

[Vietnam Seabee]

Kudos, Tom.. I didn't read and plan ahead as you did. I glued wall C as provided assuming the instructions were correct. I don't recall how I overcame the issue 'after the fact' but I believe it to be corrected. Has been awhile since I worked on Horwood
terry

[Jerry]

Tom glad you pre fit everything before going ahead.

Jerry

[Larry C]

Tom nice save on the walls and better to dry fit than regretting it later.