About ten or twelve years ago, I bought quite of few eBay “lots” of craftsman kits, ranging from wood to plastic. From those I picked and chose kits from my era, the 1890’s–mostly offerings from Muir Models and Campbell’s. The rest I turned around and sold on eBay.
One model I kept, even though I figured it wasn’t quite right, was a freight office and crane by Wills Craftsman Kits I figured would look good on a team track. I rationalized it by saying that people in California came from all over and a stone building might be out of place, but some tradesman from across the pond probably just built what he knew how.
So today, I opened the kit up and was surprized to see that there were just sheets of plastic with either stone work, bricks or flagstones. They figured it was up to me to cut everything to size and make it all work.
They did provide a sort of a template sheet and with dimentions (all metric scale of course) and they provided a booklet that made suggestions of how I might make the cuts and glue things together so things have a half-way chance of working out. The book told how to make sand blocks and a cutting table for when I had to make circular cuts and stuff with a jeweler’s saw.
Now after reading that book, I figure I can at least fake a good job. My pappy always told me that the difference between a master and an apprentice is that the master can make his mistakes look like they were meant to be that way.
But I would be remiss if I didn’t call upon the experiences of those of you that have gone before where I am about to tread.
So what tips, tricks, and techniques would keep me from learning the hard way? What should I avoid?
I know what you’re doing here. You’re gonna wait until I really screw something up and then say, “You shoulda done this and that. Everyone knows that.”
[(-D] Yep, we all got together on through PM and decided to let you sweat it out! [(-D]
I’ve never built a craftsman kit, it’s on my list of “one of these days”, even though I don’t have a spot for such a structure on my “modern” lay out, a diorama would be fun. I just love to model things and build things.
I had to Google what you have, and I think I found it, a freight house type building, with a seperate crane on a loading dock structure.
It looks a little Europeanish, buy hey! thats where are ancestors came from, and like you said, they built what they knew.
The place is Rock Ridge, so maybe take it a little farther, and make it look like what the native stone in the area would be, or at least in color.
It sounds like a starter kit for scratch building. I would assemble a Campbell or Muir kit first to get the hang of craftsman kit building then have at it.
I waited too long to get into scratch building, it’s a blast.
I’ve built several of each. One was so old that the wood was moldy, so I replaced the main pieces with polystyrene and I liked the way it came out. Now I either reinforce the walls with polystyrene or just replace them with the plastic. I’m working on a two-stall engine house I have to shorten and waiting for the polystyrene sheets to arrive.
I like your first stratch-build project. I really like the floor plan on the floor.
Don’t think I heard that name before, but I bet if I peruse appropriate era magazines it may well come up.
This sounds like one of the original types of craftsman kits, none of this laser pre-cut rubbish. I have a Campbell bridge - which I will be putting together a LOT more things before I attempt this. Not that cutting wood to length is particualrly difficult. I know I have another bridge kit stashed away somewhere - can’t think of whose it is - I think it’s a plastic one, but NOT Micro Engineering.
I know there was a bit of a delay between your first and second posts, but I don’t think anyone’s trying to avoid your topic or waiting for you to screw up (that’s a given, no need to wait). [:)]
But it is Sunday morning, and a special one at that, and I suppose a lot of guys are serving breakfast in bed to the little woman or making pancakes for the kids (or grandkids).
Regarding SI. System International. The metric system. You know, millimeters and whatnot . . . there are companies that make tools and rulers and stuff, sized and marked specifically to handle your kit. Once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to deal with. You will not have to burn brain cells to determine whether 13/64" is bigger or smaller than 5/8", and dividing 1’-7" into three equal parts would vex any of us. Give the SI a try, you might like it. Embrace the suck.
Robert
PS If Mel’s photo is the kit in question, it seems like a reasonable first effort.
I have no issue with the metric system. Learned it years ago and it’s still a wonderment that the USA public (not science and industry) hangs onto the English system tooth and nail.
But it’s a pattern. The QWERTY keyboard was designed in the mid-1800s to slow typists down so the typewriter keys wouldn’t stick. They literally studied the New York Post and made the most common letter patterns the hardest to reach and the most difficult to type.The mechanical issues were long since solved by the late 1800’s and in 1910, the Dvorshak keyboard was invented. With the Dvorshak keyboard typists could type 300% faster with fewer mistakes.
I took a class in high school (Miss Gatz) and learned how to type with all ten fingers on an Underwood manual typewriter (a very nice piece of technology, the Steampunk crowd loves it). Now, I have to re-learn everything using two spastic thumbs. I could speak into the so-called smartphone a la Star Trek, but not every voice is recognized, and the result contains a lot of misspelt anthropes.
Wills has a number of interesting items among their offerings, which I see from time to time at swap meets (but almost always “previously owned” stuff). It is now part of Peco. A bit of history about it, and some examples, can be found here:
What I have found mostly are parts and scratch building supplies, plus some simple kits. The packaging is usually a sheet of cardstock with a plastic bubble around the materials.
That website above has this mention of the Craftsman series:
More advanced modellers will find the ‘Craftsman’ series of kits provides them with a good range of larger models. Parts are cut out of sheet materials using templates before assembly and painting. The third modelling option Wills offer is the means to customise a kit or make an entire model from scratch using their range of material packs. Wills believe that through these three types of Wills models, you have the widest possible choice to help you build whatever you need.
Like a lot of very early craftsman kits, alot are not worth building though some have provided templates to build in other materials or provided great scrath building materials themselves. Even today I have seen laser kits that are not worth building due to bad planning or materials.
This is a very early craftsman kit, personally, I wouldn’t touch it since there are so many better quality out starting in the late 60’s. That kit dates fron the 50’s I think. A great kit at the time but that was well over 50 years ago.
I hope you build it and post photos. I love all the plastic patterned sheets Wills offers. There is a dealer in the Baltimore/Washington area that sells a lot of their products and I’ve purchased a good many over the years. They give offer a lot of neat items that are rarely seen at shops in the US.
Also, you’ll wind up with a pretty unique structure that not many people will have on their layouts.
One good thing…if you have any gaps or wrong cuts, you can always mix up some glue and small pieces of scrap to make up a “putty” and fill them in before painting.
And back the joint with some plain styrene. That’s also a technique I’ve seen in some magazine articles - instead of trying to cut a square window opening int he middle of a sheet, cut down what would be one side of the window and on one piece cut in the window opening (3 sides instead of 4) then splice the two pieces back together.
