After a VERY long break, I am truly back!!!

I took a very long break during which I almost lost my momentum, but not my love for model railroads. There were a couple of attempts to update this blog, but nothing worthy of sharing. During that time I managed to assemble and sell a bunch of buildings. If I find the time and energy, I may provide a few photos of those buildings, but I will mainly focus on what is happening now.

Progress report
Currently, I have completed the following kits, which I am about to list on eBay for sale, as well as share information with you:

• DPM Front Street
• DPM Carol's Corner Cafe
• DPM Kelly's Saloon

Also, I am almost done with the following kits:

• DPM Robert's Dry Goods
• DPM Skip's Chicken & Ribs
• DPM Goodfellows Hall
• IHC 100-14 2nd Hand Rose (Storefront series)

Already under way are the following:

• DPM J.C. Nickels
• DPM M.T. Arms Hotel
• DPM Walker Building
• IHC 100-22 (Brownstone series)
• IHC 100-23 (Brownstone series)
• Walthers Merchants Row IV
• Magnuson Merchants Row III (similar to the above kit)
• Bachmann Spectrum Department Store

Building on a solid foundation
In future posts, I will share my experience in putting together city blocks. Although far from being able to demonstrate some kind of success, I feel confident that I am on the right track. Let me submit this photo as the first of many steps towards accomplishing my goal, which is currently to properly present buildings I intend to sell (mainly on eBay). What better way to show potential buyers what they can do with my buildings than actually making them part of a city block?

Not all the kits are completed, but you can at least get some idea of what a small city block will look like. The only let down for me is that the length of my city block (measuring 24") is not enough to hold the number of buildings that I envisioned previously, thus forcing me to rethink the size of the sidewalks. This can be resolved by using "skinnier" buildings, but this can't always be the case.

In the upcoming weeks I want to be done with creating a nice looking base for my city block exhibit. First, I will need to remove the film from the 24"x18" clear acrylic sheet. Second, I will need to measure and scribe the sidewalk lines. Next, I will need to wash, paint and weather the sheet so it resembles a real block. Lastly, I want to add road name signs, fire hydrants, trees and various other streetscapes. The whole process will be recorded/captured and shared through this blog.

Avoid delays
So, what is keeping me from moving faster? Most modellers can put together the majority of the aforementioned kits within a short period of time. Technically, it can be done in a day, or less, or if you streamline the process you can put together several kits within an equal number of days, to average one per day. If I was to break down the process I would probably do so in the following manner:

1. Remove parts from the sprues, fill in holes with modeling putty or spackling paste and smoothen surfaces when necessary.
2. Wash the parts with soap and warm (not hot) water and let them dry.
3. Paint parts with plastic-friendly spray, or prime them if acrylic paints are used instead.
4. Paint window frames, doors and other details.
5. Apply color washes, or use spackling paste to create mortar lines (if the surface is brick).
6. Add window glazing (use thin clear styrene sheet) and window signs and dressings.
7. Create the roof of the building using your favorite technique - more on that in another entry - and add roof accessories for realism.
8. Glue the walls very carefully and make sure that there are no gaps and no unpainted areas are visible where the walls join together.
9. Add the roof and carefully fill in any blank areas along the edges with putty or glue. Paint the areas where the roof joins the rest of the building.
10. Weather the building using your favorite technique and spray carefully with matte finish or dullcote spray - more important if you use acrylic paints and pastel chalks.

Another long absence...

Another long and unplanned absence from posting on my "diary" (blog). I have been fighting allergies for the last 3-4 weeks, so I stayed away from glues and paints as much as I could.

Some progress has been made and I will be posting photos soon. I added the window "glasses" and blinds, but I am working on some options for the large undecorated windows on the first floor. I will probably turn one corner into a cafe/restaurant and the rest into a department store or clothing store. I am also trying to decide on the decals that I will place on the exterior - at least one - and possibly a sign at the top of the roof.

Recently, I had the opportunity to put my hands on many buildings I like from the Home of Yesterday and Today series (made by IHC). I don't have a favorite, but I love the Brownstones the most, followed closely by the Gingerbread homes, the Storefront homes and the Colonial homes. I contacted IHC, requesting information on their plans to reproduce the above series, or create some new ones. They mentioned to me that they plan of releasing some in 2015, but they didn't make it clear whether they will produce new designs or stick with the old ones. I certainly want to see the Business District series getting re-released, but I don't mind some fresh ideas.

Stick around and more information (and photos) will come.

Current projects.

Back after another long pause... I have been busy working on several buildings I try to list on eBay and naturally I placed this blog on the back burner. Can't promise it won't happen again, but for now I am back.

Some time ago, I began work on Magnuson's Victoria Street Townhouses, a hard to find and somewhat expensive kit that features four historic townhouses. This kit is considered to be a craftsman kit, but I would rather call it pain-in-the-rear-end kit. The two side walls came crooked and I had to use heat to reshape them - a vast improvement but still not perfect. As you can see in the photos below I have primed the areas that will eventually be painted.

(Photos will be posted here)

 
The second kit I have been working on is Bachmann's Department Store. Not hard to find, but usually expensive. Parts were also primed and spray painted - I used acrylic wash for the mortar lines. The brick walls didn't come out the way I hoped, so I had to remove (wash out) the acrylic paint and opt for spray. Unfortunately the spray I used (produced by Krylon) proved to be a disaster. Hopefully, the weathering job will fix some of the imperfections. Currently I put this project aside, but more details will become available when I resume work on this kit. For now, I can share two photos of the more detailed facade.

The photo above was taken before I added the brick-finished additions at the top and bottom. They are visible on the image below (shows one of the shorter sides of the building):

Currently, I am working on a M. T. Arms Hotel kit by DPM. It looks similar to Bachmann's Department Store, but it is significantly less detailed, easier to assemble and quicker to finish, although painting the finer details proves to be a more time consuming task than I thought. If you decide to go with the more popular coloring schemes (for this kit), you will end up with a less inspiring product. I took a different route. Here is the image of the kit:

First, I removed the sprues and smoothened all surfaces that needed smoothing. I still don't understand why DPM placed sprues in some windows, making it easier to damage the window frames, but with careful work this will only take a few minutes. The next step was to wash the parts with warm water and liquid soap, which is a pretty standard practice, as it prepares the surface for a good paint job. After priming the walls (only the exterior) with white primer, I sprayed the non-brick sides. Sorry, I don't remember the color name, but it is some sort of darker beige, which is close to the original color of the kit.

The brick walls were actually painted using acrylic paint, but I was very displeased with the result. I washed the two walls and spray painted them using the same dark beige color I used for the other two walls. Once the paint dried, I painted the window frames using acrylic paint. Not the best job, but in real life we rarely see perfection. I ran a burnt amber wash and the results were simply great!!! See photo below to get an idea:

Not bad. It looks much better in real life, but even as is it doesn't look bad. The next step will be to paint the window frames once more and take care of some imperfections that can be fixed easily. Then, I plan to weather all four sides using chalks, add the "glass" and window dressings/blinds, glue the walls together, place the roof and put whatever final touches are needed.

There will be actual reviews of the kits, but for now I must say that working with DPM kits is fun. Some modifications are needed, occasionally, but they are all worth the time. Bachmann's Spectrum line - The Department Store is part of this collection - offers several structures as a great way to add realism to your layout, but these kits are far more involved. Last, but not least, Magnuson's townhouses are very nice to have, especially if you can buy 2-3 copies of this kit, but expect a lot more work. Even without the crooked walls, this kit requires a lot of smoothing and filing. Once done, however, I expect the townhouses to be my favorite project so far.

Back from a long absence.

It felt weird not having posted anything at all for over four weeks. We got a lot of snow recently and my son's week-long break from school sort of required all of my attention and focus on him. Beyond that I had to play catch-up, but I am back now and I aim to keep this blog alive!

Thus far, not many people have discovered this little page, but I intend to provide enough useful information to make it worthy of your frequent visits. While the material covered will be targeting beginners, you may find a few useful posts and ideas even if you have passed beyond the entry level. Very soon I will begin reviewing building kits that I put together myself, so please be patient with me as I am trying to create a "template" that will make future reviews easy for me to write and interesting for you to read.

Let me begin with a very tiny review of a kit that I built several weeks ago and made available on eBay for sale. At the time of this writing it is still available, and if you are interested you can find it if you search for "HO Scale Built-Up Kit - Model Power Burlington Mills Factory" - item number 151239623028. In the photos below you can see the finished product, minus the signs, which I didn't glue on purpose; the buyer may have a different use in mind. I used acrylic paints and the colors are very close to what the unpainted kit looks like.

Admittedly, I could have done a better job with the roof "accessories", but that would be an easy fix for someone who has basic skills in building kits.

I think that the right side (relative to the front; seen below) turned out nicely and fairly realistic. I decided against the recommended plans because I wanted to have one side store window only. The rest could be used as storage and therefore the need for windows diminishes; you don't want the thieves to break directly into your storage room :)

A couple of "aerial" shots of the buildings showing the rear, left and right sides of the finished kit. Probably it would have been a great idea to use ballast on the roof, but maybe next time I will consider that.

The rear of the building is pretty realistic, I think. What most of us would expect from an industrial-looking urban structure. Yes, I said "urban" because of the store front.

Once more, the left side of the building (photo below). A little deviation from the original plan, but it looks better, I think. Again, sealed windows on the ground floor provide additional safety, in my opinion. Maybe an adjacent single-story building could be considered, possibly with a small alley.

The above kit was purchased as part of a 3-kit bid on eBay. No, it wasn't 3-kits-for-the-price-of-one, but it was a decent deal. Along with one more identical kit, I now have four of them in my possession, although I intend to keep two of them and sell the other two. My choice of colors will be different next time.

Model Power did a good job providing a nice and easy to work with building kit. In some cases I had to use a file to smoothen the edges, but this is the case with many kits. Once I did that, everything came together easily. I feared that the stairs were going to be a little more challenging, but at the end they turned out to be easy to assemble. Let's now look at the steps taken to assemble and paint the kit.

Step 1
The very first thing I did was to soak all the parts in warm water and soap; a highly recommended step for ALL kits, sealed or otherwise. Let the kit parts dry very well before you do anything with them.

Step 2
Ran a thin light color (close to beige) wash to accentuate the details and crevices of the structure and create the mortar lines.

Step 3
Dry brushed the exterior, thus highlighting the brick walls and add some depth to the building.

Step 4
Primed the smaller parts, including the window frames, the base and the roof; this could be done after Step 1, actually. From assembling another kit, I found that it is hard to do the mortar lines if everything is primed, but this depends on the material used. More on that in the future. Also, I took care not to prime areas where glue needed to be applied.

Step 5
Painted all the smaller parts (i.e. staircases) with the color of my choice, which was very close to the original. In the future, I will need to re-work this step because I think the results will be better if I glue the parts together, then prime and paint them (see Step 10).

Step 6
Glued the window frames and added the "glass". The latter is nothing more than regular see-through plastic that comes with a variety of things, like toys, cake/cookie boxes, etc. I sprayed the clear plastic sheet beforehand with matte finish to create a glazed window effect and used a regular adhesive to place it behind the windows. I have to admit that the inside of the frames made it a little hard for me to glue the windows easily because the surface was a little "raised" instead of being completely smooth, but once the glue dries there is no problem. Also, glue helps enhance the "glazed window" effect and since it dries clear don't be afraid to spill it all over. Stay clear from the exterior walls and outside frame, though. Don't bother with Clear Parts glues if you used the aforementioned plastic as glass.

Step 7
Painted the roof dark gray and the base lighter gray, but you can use your imagination and paint them with colors that make more sense to you. Just try to be consistent with the sidewalk color if you plan to use your building on a layout.

Step 8
Glued the walls and roof together - the front consists of two parts: store front and the top two floors. Paid extra attention to ensure that there were no gaps in the corners and base of the building. Model Power seems to have done a good job because I didn't have to try hard to keep the pieces together. No visible gaps to speak of, except for the base. In this case I needed to do a little filing in a couple of spots.

Step 9
Assembled the roof components and glued them on the roof. Remember that the roof is exposed to the weather conditions a little more than the rest of the building, so weather it accordingly prior to adding the roof components. As part of this step, I weathered the exterior of the building. I added a darker tone in the areas underneath the windows, as well as the side pipe (better visible in the last photo).

Step 10
Lastly, I put together the fire escape ladders and added them to the building's facade.

Lessons learned
As usual, there are lessons to be learned from assembling this kit and they all apply to other kits.

• Prime everything except for the exterior walls, unless you use chalk pastels for the mortar lines. I missed to prime the door in the rear of the building and the store front, which made it harder for the acrylic paint to stick well.
• Assemble the fire escape ladders and then prime them; keep the stairs separate, though, and only "install" them at the end.
• Spray the building a couple of times with matte finish, but leave some time between the two applications. I didn't apply any finish, in case the buyer prefers to do other things to the building, but chances are you will want to apply matte finish once you are done.

Thanks for reading this, if you got this far :) Another similar review is coming up for the Colonial House kit by Patal, so stay tuned.

Starting with the right foot...

Third post for me and I am slowly warming up to the whole "blogging thing". There is a lot of information to share with you, so I will try to keep my posts short, but useful. This post is not for seasoned railroad modelers, so feel free to skip it if you want.

One good source for those who are starting to get into model railroading is a small publication, titled Model Railroad Club Magazine, and offered by Bachmann, one of the most popular manufacturers of model railroads. While more popular among beginners, Bachmann is, nevertheless, a good choice for everyone who wants to enjoy this hobby, without being too concerned about accuracy and high end features. I happen to have a good number of Bachmann products and I am very pleased. The third issue of Model Railroad Club Magazine is finally available and can be found in the following address:

http://www.bachmannmodelrailroadclub.com/

The 2013 edition, delayed by almost a year, is the most recent issue, but you can access the other two, as well. It is not a complete guide to model railroading, and it caters mostly to Bachmann products, but don't be alarmed, as pretty much everything you read in that publication applies to and works with other brands.

Enjoy!

Third attempt in creating attractive mortar lines.

Railroad modellers who love to include buildings in their layouts face several challenges. Among these challenges are avoiding gaps between the kit parts and painting the mortar lines to create a more realistic building.

In the following photos you can see some of the steps I took to accomplish the above, at least partially. This building kit has been released by Life Like under the name Belvedere Hotel, but it is also known as Downtown Hotel. The small clamps I used helped tremendously in keeping the pieces tightly together before liquid cement was applied.

Not perfect, but not bad either, I think. The interior was painted black in case I decide to install a light bulb inside the building. The walls are not "dense" enough to block the light and I don't really want to have "see through" walls.

The last floor and roof are not really glued because I am still thinking about the possibilities. This is also why the gaps between the second floor and roof may appear large. Question: Do I want to install floors? If I do, I have to make it easy to place light inside and change the bulb if needed. This will also allow me to place some people near some of the windows.

This project is a work in progress, but I really want to finish this as soon as possible. I have one more kit like this, so if I am not happy with this one I can always do better with the other one. Eventually, I may purchase a couple more kits and "steal" 1-2 floors from each one so I can build the second one as 5-7 story building.

Lessons learned

With every success comes a failure... or so it seems. There are things I learned from building this kit - although I am not finished yet - and here are the lessons:

• Always use clamps. I did that and it was major help.
• File the bottoms, tops and sides of the walls to ensure smooth surfaces.
• Do not color the interior until the main structure is finished.
• Do not paint any areas where glue will be applied. In this case, the gray bases should have been painted after glue was applied.

Welcome to my railroad modeling blog!

First post in this new (for me) venue. In this blog you will read about my adventures in model railroading, my thoughts, my plans, etc.

There is no previous history between me and model railroading. As a kid, I only had one train set that my mother bought for me as a gift during one of her visits to England - I grew up in Greece. It was an HO scale set that featured a steam locomotive a box car, a gondola and a caboose. Nothing to get me interested in model railroading.

It wasn't until 2 years ago that I got interested in doing something more. My son had developed a love for trains - along with dinosaurs, Transformers, Lego kits, etc - and since he loved the movie Polar Express, I wanted to re-create that little adventure for him. I begun with the acquisition of a Bachmann DCC Berkshire 2-8-4 steam locomotive, which resembles the locomotive you see in the movie. I bought 4 coach cars and 1 observation car to go with the locomotive and my son was more than happy.

A train without a village and a North Pole is not much of a Polar Express, so I purchased a lot of trees (the ones used for Dept 56 villages) at ridiculously low prices - thanks to the after Christmas sales - and a bunch of Dept 56-like buildings from Dollar Tree. The picture was nearly complete. Before and during Christmas (2013) I purchased some more buildings from the Dollar Tree, along with trees and my collection grew nicely. The element of "boring" has been removed for now.

My adventure in model railroading started a little less than a year ago, when I begun to spend time - and money - in getting train stuff: freight cars, locomotives, buildings, various accessories... The list goes on and on. That is when I actually begun to plan my permanent Polar Express layout, which has yet to materialize, but has also become a lesser priority, since I will be working on a different, simpler layout in the next few months, assuming that my finished attic gets cleaned up first.

So, feel free to follow my adventure and hopefully learn from my successes and failures as I am slowly diving into the world of model railroads. Also, feel free to share your own thoughts and experiences... positive and negative.