Dave's Antiques


DaveInTheHat

Active Member
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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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I sprayed it with coat of Folk Art Antique white.

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Next a heavy coat of Folk Art Black Cherry.

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

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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.

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

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

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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.
 
Dave- I tip my hat to you!
You did an excellent job.
I have heard of the salt weathering, but I had not seen the results before.
Thanks for the photos.
 
Dave - Nice how-to on building a craftsman kit. Salt technique is new to me. I must try it sometime.
 
Ditto on the salt weathering ... I think I'll try it on the back side of the Engine Maintenance/Storage building I'm doing to see if I like it - then I'll do it for the front if I do like it.

Did you use regular table salt or more granular sea salt ?

I like the way it turned out! :)
 
I used regular table salt. It turned out ok, but not the way I wanted. I'm probably not doing it right.


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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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Here's a link to more pictures: http://public.fotki.com/daveinthehat/davetown/daves-antiques/
 
Nice job on the build, well done. Looking forward to seeing the store. I have only built one laser cut kit and was a bit apprehensive but by taking a bit of time it came out great. I usually scratch build, but this particular laser cut kit fit the bill I needed it for and was well worth the time & $$.
 
I've done several BEST kits. The Santa Fe Café and Clough Service Station. Both built up well, good instructions, nice results, and you don't have to be an expert, just go slow and be patient. Brian Bollinger goes to the Amherst show in Springfield and I buy one of his kits a year! I have a DVD on kit building that shows the salt technique. You're doing it right as far as I can see! Nice work!
 
Looking good. I was baffled by the salt application till I saw the results. Very impressive. I'll have to try that.
 
Thanks guys!
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.

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

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

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Dave first I've seen of your build thread. They both came out looking great. Makes me want to pull out one of my many kits and relax a bit. I will be trying the salt weathering technique now that I've seen your great results.
 
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.

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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.

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Looks great, was there much problems cutting the glass? Just thinking, I bet the little microscope glass thingy's wood make for good windows.
 
Took me a few tries to get the hang of cutting the glass. They way that seemed to work best was to use light pressure, just enough to scratch the glass. Flip it over and position the scratch just past the edge of my ruler. Then a soft tap and the glass snapped off clean.
 
Kinda slow progress here. I've gotten a little weathering done on the buildings and work done on the base.

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

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The buildings are now mounted to the base.
I've been spending time working on the landscaping and painting all the little stuff.

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