I've been working on a Builders in Scale 630 Elm street for several months, in between coding binges and other chores. It is finally finished, or at least ready to be put aside until installation on the layout. (It will be at the front, so must be installed last.) Here is the realtors' view:
This will be on a street that will be part of a supporting diorama, so there will be a curb. The kit is a combination of wood and cast plaster. Boy, I think I did everything wrong that is possible with that plaster:
- The wall corners were not beveled accurately, so I had to file them and wound up doing repair work with squadron putty.
- I tried three kinds of glue and wound up with Walther's Goo. It went everywhere (goes without saying with goo, I guess) resulting in more cleanup and missing bricks. I also broke a wall.
- The inside of the plaster pieces is so rough that my trusty Legos failed me, and nothing came out square. I had to stretch the joints when adding the wood section (which is built separately). I broke the wall again.
- Since the wood and plaster parts were built separately, I didn't realize until I tried to join them that the wall lengths were off. Also the filing mentioned above was not really straight, so I had to add that ugly bit of vertical trim to cover the gap.
- Once the body was together, I built the roof, a pretty straightforward job. Only when I went to add the roof to the body did I realize the wood wall height was off-- I had to add some extra foundation to get the top edges to match, and re-fit the two roof sections.
- Oh, and I broke the plaster for the third time. I think I'll avoid that kind of kit in the future.
At least the Labrador in the window will get plenty of sun.
The back porch was a bit of fiddle-- the door bottoms did not match that well, and I had to lower the porch floor to a compromise. (Old houses sag a bit, right?) Assembling the framing for the porch roof was too much for these trembly hands. I wound up building a jig to space the unseen rafters and began my search for a really usable third hand*. I've documented the process of adding that gutter elsewhere. The ones supplied might have been OK for someone less fumble fingered, but they only gave me two, and they didn't survive my first efforts.
The garage wasn't much of a challenge, except I changed my mind about the placement after it was assembled, so I had to take it apart and do it again with the door facing the house. (One good thing about being a klutz, I get a lot of practice at carefully dissembling things.) The fence is made of scale lumber, which shows off my inherent masochism.
This is my first attempt at any sort of scenery. I started with a store bought tree and discovered there was no way it could be mounted on a 2 mm plywood base. So I built that octagonal flower bed to hold it. A magnet glued to the plywood grips the wire in the tree, so it is removable (as are the buildings). I used a Grasstech "My little Flocker" with Siflor static grass to make the lawn. It looks a bit dodgy, but most lawns around here do in the summertime. The other flowers came from my LHS bargain bin. They are one of the few things that looks better in photographs than real life.
The layout is low, so you'd have to bend over to get the above perspective. Here's the way it will be mostly seen:
Now on to the next door neighbor, who is a junk hoarder in a slumlord's dream.
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* I finally found one, thanks to Metrolink, who turned me on to GRS. Cost 63 bucks, but worth every penny.
