A Beginner's Guide to Building Craftsman Kits

The purpose of this article is to give an introduction into the basic tools and techniques I use when building craftsman type wood kits. For the purpose of this article I used one of Bar Mills Magee’s Tire Repair kits. These are readily available, relatively inexpensive, and require most of the basic skills needed to build any craftsman kit.



Tools:
X-ACTO knife with new blade (or new razor blade)
Nail shaping board(the one I use is a 100/180)
Paint brushes (I just grab one that looks like the right size for the job)
Scissors
Engineering square

Glue:
Yellow carpenter glue
Aileen’s tacky glue

Paint:
Grey primer spray bomb(cheap ACO brand or whatever)
Building colors of choice (Floquil, Polyscale, Craft paint) more on this later

Weathering:
A/I solution(20 drops ink 1 oz. 91% Isopropyl alcohol)
Durham’s water putty

Miscellaneous:
Black Sharpie
Tooth picks
Sticky notes
Sand Paper 220 grit

Hopefully you should have most of these things in your collection of tools and accessories already. The grey primer is a couple bucks at any hardware.



I have decided to paint my model green with cream trim. You can pick any colors you like or you think are appropriate for your locale and era.


Step 1

Preparing the walls

Cut out walls B and D. Add 5/64 corner posts following the instructions.

Tip 1- the package for this kit makes a good parts holder. Rather than having your parts floating around the work bench, just keep them in the package. I cut mine in half.

Use an X-ACTO knife with a new blade or razor blade to cut the gates in the carrier sheet. They are very thin so it doesn't take much. Sand the gates off flush. A couple swipes with the sanding stick will do it. Be extra careful when sanding leg next to door, you don't want to accidentally snap it off. If you do, carefully glue it back on.

Working with the walls face up (so you can see the laser cut board pattern) glue 5/64 square stock to each corner so it's flush with the back of the wall using wood glue. This creates a slight reveal on the front. Make sure the bottom of the strip wood is flush with the bottom of the wall. It requires less cutting that way.

Tip 2- the other half of the package can be used for a paint and glue palette.

Tip 3 - Keep some water and a small brush near. If some of the glue squeezes out you can use the wet brush to clean it up and it won't damage the model.

Allow the glue to dry (I waited about 15 minutes) then trim off even with the top of the walls matching the pitch (angle) of the roof. I do this by aligning my blade with the wall and cutting through the wood.

Step 2

Bracing

There is no mention of bracing in the instructions even though they provide it. The manufacturer may feel that with a building this small it is not necessary. I choose to add it to mine. I think it will reduce warping when I paint. You can see in the pictures where I placed the braces. Be sure to leave space at the edges where the walls will meet.

Tip 4 - When cutting the bracing I take two pieces of the material and place them flush to one edge then cut the wood flush with the other edge. No measuring required. The picture is blurry but I hope you can make it out.

Ok this is where I will deviate from the manufacturer’s instructions. They suggest you assemble the four walls and then prime. I am going to prime all the parts at this point and assemble the walls in the flat then form the box once they are complete. I believe this will be easier. I had a spray bomb from the hardware that I have been using for a few years. Prime both sides of the walls, the detail sheet, the plastic windows, the metal castings and the self stick roofing. Let all this dry for about 24 hours.

I am assuming that we all use proper technique when we spray paint and I will not get into that here.

I did not weight my parts while drying and did not experience any warping.

Step 3

Painting

I use craft paints for most projects any more. They are inexpensive. They offer a wide variety of colors. They clean up with water. I don't want to get into a long discussion about the pro's and cons of different paints here. Use whatever you are comfortable with. All the painting on my model other than the primer was done by hand.

I selected a dark green for the walls and an antique white for the trim. The sign will be left primed and weathered later.

Be sure when you paint the walls that you paint around the corners of the edges on the front and back walls.

After I had painted the walls they were bowing just slightly so I weighted them while they dried. It was primarily the side walls which only had bracing at the top and bottom.

After the paint dries (I am impatient so I only let it dry about an hour) I used the sanding stick and very lightly dragged it with what would be the grain of the siding. This created thin scratches in the green paint revealing the grey beneath. This is pretty evident in the pictures. Use long vertical strokes. I am sorry I forgot to take pictures of the walls before I did this. This is where a light touch is very helpful. Also less tends to be better than more. I would say I used no more than one or two strokes for each width of the sanding stick.

Step 4

Windows and doors

I changed my mind about order and decided to put the windows and door in next.

The manufacturer leaves us to our own design on glazing the windows. They do give us a sheet of clear plastic. It would have been nice if it had been laser cut.



I began by mounting the Hexagonal window onto the clear plastic sheet. Then I carefully cut around it with a sharp X-ACTO. Mine required the tiniest bit of sanding to fit in the precut hole in the wall. Be sure to test the fit before mounting it to the trim.

For the door, line up the bottom of the door with the bottom of the trim. Be sure the trim and the door are oriented correctly. There is the suggestion of a handle in the door trim. I used my pencil to highlight it slightly.

Cut the windows out and sand the gates. Test the fit. I had to sand the openings slightly to get the window castings to fit. Be sure to orient the windows properly in the openings. If you look closely in my photos you can see what is top and bottom. Basically you need to be sure the sill is at the bottom. Also on the side wall make sure it is oriented correctly. The larger space is below the window. Glue the castings into the wall openings with tacky glue.

I wish I had a good suggestion for glazing these but I don't. Since this is not a contest model I just cut out pieces of the clear plastic and mounted it to the wall behind the window. The gap is not too noticeable. I used the tacky glue to mount the clear plastic as well.

I also included a picture of the paint and glue pallet so you could see what I was talking about.

Step 5

The Signs

This is going to be kind of long. The techniques are not difficult they just take a long time to explain. In fact I probably did them in less time than it will take me to write these instructions.

First I cut all the signs out with a sharp X-ACTO knife. They are located on the instruction sheet. There are four of them. Set the large Magee’s sign aside to use with the rooftop billboard.

I made the tire repair sign as a "tin" type sign. Improvising a little, rather than using card stock I used some of the clear plastic that was left over from the windows. I applied the paper to the plastic using the tacky glue. It dried sufficiently to cut it out in just a couple minutes. I lightly sanded it with some 200 grit sand paper. A super light touch is the key here. Only a few swipes with the sand paper are needed. This whitened the edges just slightly. Then I took some of the trim paint (antique white) and diluted it to a thin wash and coated the sign. The wash was just mixed on my pallet. I put a drop on the pallet and added a couple drops of water till it was pretty thin. It left a very wet coat of paint on the sign. I took one of my handy dandy small paper towel sheets and dabbed of the paint wash. This created a faded look to the sign. If you don't like the looks after one coat you can add a second or third till you get an appearance that is pleasing to your eye. Then I applied the sign to the front of the building with tacky glue. 

Tip #5 - I cut paper towel into smaller more manageable sheets and keep a pile on my work bench all the time. The pieces I have now are approximately 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 but it depends on the size of the original paper towel. I just cut the paper towel in half with scissors till I get the size I like.

The other two signs I used a couple additional techniques to get the appearance of painted on signs. I used the same procedure for both. First I sanded the sign on the back with the 200 grit sand paper to thin it. Be careful not to sand through the paper. You might even try this on a piece of scrap just to get the idea of how it feels and works. I do my sanding gently in different directions so that I am not concentrating too much pressure in one spot. I also find that the appropriate thickness is about the time the edges start to fray just a little bit. Once I have them thinned to my liking I turn them over and I used some 1000 grit sand paper. The idea of this was to remove the shine on the front of the sign. It also allows the water and glue to penetrate the paper better. When you do this you don't want to remove any of the color off the sign.

Once the signs are prepared I coat the back with thinned Elmer's glue using a paint brush. I don't know the ratio of glue to water. I put a little glue on the pallet and add a couple drops of water till it is the consistency of milk. I then locate the sign on the building where I want it. I take some more water on my brush and thoroughly wet the front of the sign. I then take a piece of the paper towel and dab the excess water off and apply slight downward pressure onto the sign to settle it into the detail of the wall. Do not rub it. 

Allow the signs to dry for a while, 30 minutes or so. Then go back and using the sharp X-ACTO slice through them following the board pattern. Wet the sign again with plain water after this is done to get the edges to conform to the boards. Follow the dabbing procedure again to settle the sign and absorb the excess water.

If you look at the picture with the "Flats Fixed" because it is blown up so far you can tell that I messed this sign up slightly. It was not dry enough when I cut through the paper to reveal the board pattern and I slightly tore the paper across the two F's. Fortunately in 1:1 scale it is less noticeable.

All the signs will get a little more weathering when we do the general weathering of the model in the last step.

One other thing I did at this time was add a track for the door. I was looking at the picture of the kit and noticed that they had added one to their building. There is no mention of this in the instructions though. I took a piece of the carrier sheet P32S which had the door and windows in it and stained it with some brown paint I had. Then I stuck it onto the model using the adhesive backing on the part.

Tip #6 - I added a curtain to the front window. I have a piece of single ply tissue in my junk pile on my work bench. It has been soaked in thinned antique white paint and allowed to dry. It is for just this purpose. I cut out the appropriate size piece, scrunch it up a little in the vertical plane and glue it onto the back of the wall to represent an old curtain. If I want it to look like a shade I don't scrunch it. I leave it flat.

At this point I assemble the walls into the box. I generally make two L's using my engineer's square. When I glue the side walls to the front walls I make sure to line up the backs so that the reveal of the corner post is evident on the face of the sides just like the front walls. Then glue the two L's together making sure everything is nice and square.

Step 6

The Roof

I cut the cardboard roof out of the carrier sheet. I then took my AI solution and painted around the bottom edges so that they darkened up just a bit on the underside. If you have a black magic marker you could use that as well.

I bent the roof to match the contours of the structure. I applied a coat of tacky glue to the tops of the structures walls and placed the cardboard roof into position. I held it in place for a couple of minutes and that was enough for the glue to set sufficiently to hold the roof on. Let the glue set up the rest of the way before continuing. With tacky glue an hour is probably long enough.

The roofing material supplied with the kit is pretty decent. I had primed mine grey when I primed the walls. The first step I did in adding the rolled roofing was to cut the sheet of roofing material in half. I didn't measure, I just eyeballed it. If you don't feel comfortable doing this go ahead and measure. As it turned out, cutting it in half turned out to be just the right length for the width of the roof. I started from the short side and worked from the bottom to the top. I start the roofing with a couple inch overhangs on the side. This is an eyeball dimension; it is just what looks good to me. I always start at the same edge to get a consistent overhang on one side then I only have to trim one edge. On the first row I overhung the bottom edge a little more than the side edges. Again the dimension is not critical just what looks ok to you. Each row is overlapped slightly. The overlap is not something that is readily noticed on the finished model so it doesn't need to be perfect. Be sure to keep the strips straight though as you move up the side of the roof. This is important; the eye can determine slight variations in dimension and angles. You don't have to measure but use your eye to make sure you are keeping things straight. Stop just short of the ridge of the roof. Move to the other side of the roof and work your way up in the same fashion. The ridge is just another strip placed so that it covers both sides. I suggest folding it in half prior to removing the backing from the adhesive side. This material stuck well without any additional glue. At this point trim the edge of the roof if there are any pieces sticking out, and the basic roof is complete.

Weathering of the roof was done with AI solution, black chalk and Durham’s water putty. First I brushed on AI solution in the same direction as the rolled roofing. I did not allow it to puddle at all. If you get too much on you can soak it up with a tissue. Once that dries I took black chalk and streaked it on in the direction of the pitch of the roof. Go easy on the chalk. Build up light applications to the desired appearance. The final coat was a general brushing with the Durham’s. 

That pretty well completes the building. I installed the roof sign and added a little junk onto the roof. This is a nice little kit and it is well suited for a first time builder. 

Have fun,

Glenn