Yard Office #3 by FOS

The Yard Office #3 was the kit that I didn't consider building. I built the Railroad Kits/Ed Fulasz version of the office a few years back. The addition of the laser cut part just didn't provide enough draw. But then I received a request for one. Well, the interest was for the original version of the office, but at the time only the combo from FOS was available. I needed to separate the brick part from the wooden add-on and build as close to Ed's as possible and then do something with what was left. I changed the roof  line of the wood building a bit, trimmed the height of the walls, dropped the dock, added the missing wall, and set it on a concrete platform. Had I not made the building lower it would have looked oddly high, the entrance door would have been high up in the air for no apparent reason. The freight door would have been up as well, but that could have been somewhat acceptable. Once I lowered the building it looked smaller than its removed Siamese twin. I had to raise it up. Here came the concrete platform to rescue. Both doors had the reason to be high up now. It would have been fine to stop at this point, but I went one step further by adding a hill behind the building to blend in the building into the scenery. Going back to the brick building, I designed and scratch built the entry into it because the original version had one and also because otherwise it would not have had an entrance at all.
I hope this short explanation of why I did what I did will help the readers of this blog with their kitbashing decisions. I have seen quite a few scratch builds and kitbashes that would not be plausible in real life or would be complete engineering failures.

 

Murdock's Fasteners by FOS

Back to the regular programming so to speak. I built the Murdock Fasteners kit close to 6 months ago. It was one of FOS kits that had escaped my attention. I am sure once it came out I added it to my mental buy list, but then somehow it got dropped. I realized that only after I received a request to build it.
Murdock Fasteners is a nice little background kit that is easy to build. It has a slight problem though. The left side wall is about 1/16" too narrow. Possibly the trim is supposed to be glued to the far end of it, but the trim isn't shown in the drawings. It is quite possible that there isn't enough 1/16" stripwood included for that extra trim either. Can't remember now. As you may have guessed already the solution was to just glue a piece of trim to the far end of the wall. Other than that I have no other issues to report.

 

Seckler's Marine and Charlie's Gas by FOS

Not sure how did it happen, but somehow I skipped one of the dioramas I built last year. Originally the structures I used on it were supposed to be a part of different diorama. However, it was taking way too long to build and I had no problem building a smaller version when asked. I named the Seckler's Marine building after my co-worker who retired around the time I started building the kit. So much respect I had for him back then. By the time I finished the diorama all of it had gone down the drain. Not sure if I should take it as a hint and stop naming the businesses after the people I know and use the movie and show character names instead. Or just use what name the kit creator came up with. 

 

Building Green Dragon kit by FOS Pt.2

I talked about the Green Dragon last time almost five years ago. I can remember exactly when I started it, but I think it was right after I purchased the kit. I would say late 2012 or early 2013. Then it seems I picked it up again in 2017 just put it back on the back burner soon after. I say "it seems" because after about 100 of completed kits it is a little hazy. It is hard to tell when exactly I built or started them. Sometimes I think I built a certain kit two years ago and it turns out to be five.
I don't have much to say about the Green Dragon. There wasn't much left to do really. I could have finished it a long time ago, but it is much harder to pick up again a started kit and a new one.

 

Three Finger Freddy's by FOS

What attracted me to Freddy's was a big rooftop sign and the car dealership style flags. The building itself is just a nearly rectangular warehouse. Now, taking something boring and turning it into something fun requires some talent. Doug Foscale definitely has it. As expected the building itself didn't pose any problems. Making the rooftop sign was a little harder manly because the letters had little connecting bridges that had to be removed after sign gets glued onto the framework. Removing the bridges required some patience. The most challenging turned out to be the flags. I glued them on a sagging thread and they just didn't want to point in the same direction. Next time if there is any I am thinking of having the thread straight while gluing the flags. Overall it was a fun build and slightly challenging.

Derito's Meats by FOS

Derito's Meats was the very first FOS Kit of the Month. Perhaps I should have kept it untouched. Who knows, it may be worth some serious money down the road. It is too late though. I already have it built. I renamed it after my co-worker.  Back in a day when we worked in the office we used to talk about the smoked meats quite a bit so naming the meat store after him seemed very appropriate. Besides the name I made a few other changes. I moved the "bump" to the other side, added a window where the "bump" was original supposed to be, and also added a vertical sign. All in all it's been a fun build like the majority of FOS kit builds are.

 

The Freight House by FOS

The Freight House is one of the FOS monthly kits. Like few others from the series that I have built it has gone through some changes as well. I moved the "bump" to the other side, reversed the back, replaced the brick foundation with the cut stone, and the regular painted tarpaper roofing with the Paper Creek weathered tarpaper. My favorite part of this build though was that the kit didn't turn into another shelf orphan and got done in reasonably short period of time.