For the first time in a very long time I have had some bench time this weekend. Months back I had started the wall construction of the Sierra West Kit University series tool shed. This is not a construction thread as I only bothered to take shots at the end.
I found the kit to be an excellent primer to get me back into the groove. Brett provides and excellent service and value with this type of kit.
No place yet for it on my layout, but I am planning a new peninsula that will include Scotty Mason’s Roundhouse and I think this little structure will fit right into that scene.
There is a ton of details for such a small structure. I really had some fun working on the castings this afternoon.
I plan to add a bit of powder to this and stain up the deck wood on the platform with some oil stains.
If you are a lurker out there that has not yet tried your hand at a craftsman style structure, this would be a good starter. There are some excellent detailed instructions with the exact steps to take to prepare, cut and weather the wood. The kit itself is not hard, but is certainly not a quick assembly from pre-cut parts. I would recommend it to anyone interested in trying something beyond the very basic.
Didn’t you know that Sierra West makes “box of sticks” kits? They feature board-by-board construction with lots of great cast details. Using a paper template, one constructs the framing, then attaches individual boards to make walls. Details for construction and painting/staining are very detailed. As I recall, I spent some $80 in paints for constructing the wood cutter’s kit (which has been pictured on this forum a couple of times so won’t bore you with that again.) If you have patience and can follow instructions, your Sierra West kit should come out great.
Yep, everything you see in the photos came with the kit. Lots of very neat detail castings for such a small kit. There is a lovely engine block, which does not really show in the photos.
Thanks for the comments everyone. Mark summarized very well what this kit actually is. It might seem like a challenge, but the instructions are so well done that it is not hard at all to follow along and get good results. It truly is the antithesis of the ready-to-run structures that are flooding the hobby shelves now. I did not keep track of time, but there are a number of hours work in this structure. For me, that represents great value for my hobby dollar.
This makes me feel rather guilty about how long a mere Intermountain boxcar kit has been sitting on my workbench waiting for me to attend to the fact that I botched the roofwalk casting in step 2 or whatever … Very nice work.
If I had to guess on the time, I would say it took me about 10 hours. Truthfully, I am not a real fast modeller. I tend to ponder things and wander off to make cups of tea. So who knows, maybe more time, maybe less. The fun is in the doing anyway, so I’m not all that bothered by how long it took.
If anything, Sierra West kits have too many castings. Using them all with the individual structures they come with, the resulting models can result in an excessively cluttered look. (It depends on the kind of “look” one wants.) But who is complaining? Any extra castings can be well used elsewhere on the layout.
The retail price is really not out of line, considering all the “extra” parts. I’ve built a number of plastic kits and then spent quite a bit more on those “extras”.
My question on the time was to get a feel for it. Ten hours actually seems short for something of that detail and finish. I will surely keep Sierra in mind when I’m looking for something “new and different”!
Great job! A really nice model, there. Makes me want to start building some of the Kanamodel (Canadian prototypes) structure kits I have.
Here’s a question: did you glue down the detail castings, leave them loose to be repositioned at will, or a combination of both? I’m always curious about other’s approaches to these things.
I did glue the ones that are on the platform, I don’t intend to move them. The surrounding ones, and ones leaning against the platform were just placed. It will be some time before this gets onto the layout, so have no idea how I will arrange them when it does get placed.
Hello You did a very nice job Thanks for posting it. I could use one of those to and even have a spot for it. Is there any thing you would do different if you were to build it again? I can’t tell from the photo but is that a tin roof or roll roofing? Keep up the good work Frank
Thanks, the only thing I would have done different is to have got on with it quicker[:)] I followed the kit instructions quite closely because I wanted to absorb as much of Brett’s techniques as possible. The roof material is the rolled roof that came in the kit, weathered per kit instructions. I probably overdid the brown chalks on the roof as it looks as though it is a bit rusty in the photos. This is less obvious to the eye in person in natural light.
Simon, you did a very nice job with this kit. As I’m sure you discovered while following Brett’s instructions, they’re essentially a complete course in scratchbuilding techniques - whether the construction is board-by-board over frame or board-by-board and sheetwood over a cardstock wall shape. My favorite ‘trick’ of his is the ‘stripwood trap’ for making neat corners without hiding the corner with trim. I’ve used that trick several times on scratchbuilt structures of my own. I’ve been a big fan of Sierra West kits for about a dozen years now. I have the complete Deer Creek series (and have most of them built) as well as several others that are not part of the series but are still a close enough ‘fit’ to blend in with the others on the layout. As for the issue of castings that was raised in some earlier replies, I say you can never have enough. Having studied many c. 1900’s photos of logging towns, camps, and structures - as well as having been around my father-in-law’s construction company yards for years - I know how junk and clutter can build up in a relatively short period of time. So I have no problem with all of the kit castings - they only add to the realism of the scene, as far as I’m concerned.
