Dave's Antiques

[DaveInTheHat]

This is my first laser cut craftsman kit. I got this kit with a gift certificate that I won in a contest. I've actually been a little nervous about building it. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because the cost is about a third of what I spend per year. My hobby money is very limited. I probably spend about $100-$150 a year, most of that goes for paint, glue, building materials, a few people, and cars. So, having a craftsman kit to build is something kinda special for me.

I was really impressed with the kit. It's made by Best Trains. The box is really nice. Embossed printing and its like something that jewelry would come in. The picture of the finished model is really clear, which makes it nice when you need to see small details on how things go together. This was a really nice kit to build. I thoroughly enjoyed it.



Inside the box there's a couple pages of great instructions and all the pieces have been carefully packaged and thoughtfully arranged.





This is a simple kit. All the pieces are cut perfectly. The windows and doors at made by Titchy and fit in the openings without any problems. The metal castings are nice. They do need a little bit of clean up, but nothing major. Mostly just a little flash.



The are two ways to build the kit. A short version and a long version. I chose the long version with the addition on the back. The wood for the kit is color coded which makes it really easy to use the right pieces in the right places without having to measure anything. Only the corner pieces and the trim around the roof need to be cut. That was done quickly with a razor blade. I used Titebond wood glue and had the building together in about an hour. Most of that time was waiting for the glue to dry. I added 45 degree pieces in the corners to help keep is square.



After the walls were together and cleaned up a little from some excess glue I gave them a coat of ink and alcohol.



I sprayed the building with Aqua Net hair spray and threw salt all over it.



I sprayed it with coat of Folk Art Antique white.



Next a heavy coat of Folk Art Black Cherry.



I rubbed the salt off with a small wire brush and painted the trim Antique White.



The windows and doors went in easy. I did run into a bit of a problem with the "glass" that came with the kit. It has a printed outline on it and I cut it on the wrong side of the line, so they was all too small. I ended up using Scotch Tape for the glass. Sticky side out and then a coat of DulCote to keep dirt from sticking to it.
The roof is card stock and it's cut to fit. It fit perfect. The tar paper is peel and stick stuff that works really nice.



The roof shingles are peel and stick too. They're in strips. A little tedious, but I love them. They look really great.



So this is finished until I get it mounted to a base.



After I get it glued to a base I'll do some weathering and add the signs and the castings and all that other little stuff. I'm planning to have those Woodland Scenic painters painting the building. I'll have a small section with fresh paint on it. I'm thinking about having some other construction going on too. Sort of like the building is being rehabbed.

[GPdemayo]

Nice job Dave.....

[deemery]

It's great to see you tackle one of these kits, and Brian does nice work on BEST kits and instructions.


dave

[ACL1504]

It's great to see you tackle one of these kits, and Brian does nice work on BEST kits and instructions.


dave

I'll be following this build. I've seen the salt trick on vehicles but not on structures.

Tom

[bparrish]

Dave....

I like your solution to the window problem. 

Consider this for your next build. One of my maxis in coaching modelers is that nothing looks like glass except glass. You might want to go back on this kit but the scotch tape is really cool.

You can find microscope slides and covers at most hobby places and in some camera places tha stock microscopes.    The slides are 7/8ths by 2 1/2 inches. The covers are 7/8s square.  Thickness does not matter as that cannot be told by viewing when the model is done.   Do not use super glue as it puts up some blue color when it kicks.  Plastic glue or walthers goo will work. 

Cut the glass with a carbide tip machinist scribe available at the big box home places. Use a straight edge and a single pass will do it. 

Let me know what you think. 

See ya
Bob

[DaveInTheHat]

Thanks Bob, I'll have to try that.

[jerryrbeach]

Dave,
I really like the way Plewak's / Dave's Antiques is coming.  Add me to the list of those never having seen salt used for structure modeling.  It certainly gave you an interesting peeling paint finish.  I'll be following along to see what details you add. 

[Zephyrus52246]

Nice looking build so far.  I've not seen the salt used, either.  Of course, with my high blood pressure, I'm supposed to avoid salt.   


Jeff

[lags50]

Hi Dave, nice job. I have two questions. Why the first coat with spray white? And did you use regular table salt? Thank you in advance.

Larry

[DaveInTheHat]

I painted the first coat of white because I was hoping that where the paint chipped off there would be a different color under the red color. It worked in a few places. It doesn't really show up in the pictures.
I just used regular table salt.

[DaveInTheHat]

I started on the building that's going to be next to the antique store. I started with this kit.



It's got a lot of stuff in it. Lots of little castings and details. Seems like a pretty nice kit.



The side walls are board and batten on the bottom and horizontal siding on the second floor. I glued studs on the inside of the bottom walls and then glued the top walls to the studs so that I wouldn't have a glue seam between the two different sidings.



The kit comes with stuff to make a flat roof with exposed rafters. I though it would look strange so I made a roof out of illustration board.



The roof looked a little empty so I made some dormers.



While I was waiting for paint and glue to dry I painted all the windows and doors dark green.



The dormers got siding that I made by gluing on overlapping strips of card stock. Then I put on Campbell's paper shingles. So, the whole roof is made out of paper. I gave it a coat of medium gray and painted the siding on the dormers antique white. The building got the salt treatment and I coat of antique white. I'll start chipping the paint tomorrow.



Here's a link to more pictures: http://public.fotki.com/daveinthehat/davetown/daves-antiques/

[DaveInTheHat]

I used this wire brush tool to knock the salt off. Going with the grain of the wood. It takes a little bit of the paint off. Rubbing it with firm pressure changes the color of the paint a little bit.



This looks a little better. I want it to look old without giving it that "haunted house" look.



I'm still going to do more weathering with paint and pastels.

[DaveInTheHat]

I got a little more done. Progress is slow because my hands are bothering me a lot.
I used real glass for the windows. I never did this before. I like the way it looks.



I'm close to being finished this building. Details need to be added and weathering. I replaced a few of the laser cut parts with my own version of them.

[John B]

Dave,
Great job so far (as usual). Never in my life would I have ever thought to paint a kit with hair-spray and salt.  Cool idea

[DaveInTheHat]

Kinda slow progress here. I've gotten a little weathering done on the buildings and work done on the base.






I made some trees. I don't enjoy making trees.