A group build....

QUOTE (KGR @ 20 Feb 2013, 08:25) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I supported my local model shop for my kit, no P&P charges for me and a little bit of trade for them.
Keith,
That's what I'd usually do, but for anything OO British Railways I get a vacant look from my local model shop - they do sell Peco track at ourageous markups though

Hattons (and occasionally other vendors) turn out to be my "LOCAL" model shop for such things - I'd love to avoid the P&P charges, but my CFO has suggested that the "bus fare" of around $1100 USD to get to Hattons is unreasonable, funny but seems perfectly reasonable to me, since I would then be able to browse with lots of other anoraks...

Im still waiting for mine and I dont think Nick has had his yet so all we can do is plan

QUOTE (Big Dave @ 21 Feb 2013, 10:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Im still waiting for mine and I dont think Nick has had his yet so all we can do is plan

Came home to find my kit waiting for me Dave has your's arrived yet

As it appears that we have enough to get started, here we go.

What most of us should now have:


An unopened Dapol kit.

Having opened the bag, this is what we find:


All the bits, bearing in mind the age of the tooling, the parts are still quite crisp and not warped. Plenty of glazing included, but not included in this shot.

And the final photo for now, the windows.....


More on these later.

So observations and thoughts:

1) I think I can see a lot of possibilities here.
2) This should be fun
3) Raiding of the kit spares box will be, um, interesting.
4) Those windows......I have a couple of ideas.

Well, that's all for now.

Regards

Like my example apart from walls the front wall is fine & warp free the other walls are slightly warped hoping overnight weighting will cure them of it.

Mine came first post at 3. 45 pm yesterday very fast post we have :yikes nit looked at mine yet will now reading yours Nick

Well, did a bit of trial fitting late last night and everything seems to fit where it should (so far at least ). My thoughts at the moment revolve around fitting internal walls/ceilings/floors etc. which with the possibility of some lighting has thrown up a small, but not insurmountable problem, which is there are some moulded gaps at the front of the roof - looks like a job for filler.

Well, that's my state of play at present.

Observations anyone?

Regards

I'll "open" mine later today - having just got back into the game, I don't have a "kit spares box" to raid, so I might just be the one to build a "control/reference version".

I'll build it exactly as instructed with no changes and you can all compare your excellent modifications against the control build - how's that?
Of course, mine will then probably have to be "condemned" at the end of the exercise and I'll have to get the local council to come in and bulldoze it

I hope for a post from BC sometime tomorrow - until he gets hs kit he's been very quiet......................

Regards

QUOTE (7113 @ 22 Feb 2013, 13:28) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Well, did a bit of trial fitting late last night and everything seems to fit where it should (so far at least ). My thoughts at the moment revolve around fitting internal walls/ceilings/floors etc. which with the possibility of some lighting has thrown up a small, but not insurmountable problem, which is there are some moulded gaps at the front of the roof - looks like a job for filler.

Well, that's my state of play at present.

Observations anyone?

Regards

Hi Dave,

Made a start on sorting the gaps in the underside of the roof i'll post some pics soon

I am going to work on the principle that this is a kit build so the parts of the kit should be used in preference to replacing them with parts of a higher standard, but parts can be improved within reason. If I wanted a high quality building I wouldn't start from here. I did think it could be one of those surburban houses that had been demolished and a block of flats built in its place but that is going a bit far as well.

The choice of this particular kit is truly inspired since it is so bad that it does open up lots of possibilities for modifying and improving.

Looking at the kit I felt there were some glaring architectural errors. The house is basically a complete work of fiction. A quick look at pictures of detached houses with a built in garage showed all of them have the door in the middle of the house not at the side. I won't claim all houses have the door in the middle or someone will prove me wrong, but most do. I have attempted to come up with a plausible interior layout to match the positioning the doors and windows and have come up with this.



Now the errors really show as the staircase goes right across the kitchen window and the chimney in the side of the roof is above the staircase where there would not be a fireplace. The bathroom has two windows where it would normally have only one and the small bedroom has too much window.

I am going to blank off most of the windows in the side wall and remove the side chimney. This means that the pebbledash finish will have to go as I cannot match that on the blanking pieces. This is a good thing as the moulding is such poor quality that there are distortions where the corner thickening for bracing occurs. The side wall will be something like this.



I will need to reproduce a section of roof for blanking off the absent chimney. The centre chimney should really have 4 pots but that needs a bit more thinking, I may put up with the 3. The pots themselves will get some improvement.

Something will happen to the windows but I haven't decided what yet.

The front wall moulding is badly warped on my kit so I will make some sort of base for it it help pull it straight and perhaps put the odd internal wall just for bracing. I do not plan to fit lighting.

That's the plans for now. I may come up with a few more bits as I go along.

Stu

As promised a couple of pics to easily solve the roof gaps, cut a strip of 20/30 thou plasticard 3mm wide & glue the strips to the rear of the gaps ........ mark the locating lugs as i have done in black removing these carefully will make sanding things flush a bit easier, the other three sides provide enough of a guide to fit the roof.



A few blobs of Humbrol Model Filler & it's ready for sanding



There is a nick in the roof edge that needs a smidge of filler as well, the cause of the nick in the roof being broken away from the sprue at the factory.