Building Swakhammer's Welding by Fine Scale Miniatures Pt.3

I suggest anyone who is into Sierra West Scale Models style modeling watch Netflix Original series Godless or at least fast forward through. There are lots of great ideas for painting and weathering. The set makers did great job. The series by themselves are entertaining as well.
I thought I would be done with Swakhammer's by the end of Thanksgiving break. I guess, I was wrong. It is a very large kit. Probably the largest I have been involved with. Perhaps not in terms of the size but in terms of number of parts, details, templates, etc. There is not so much left to do but there some tasks that may take time. It would be nice to finish Swakhammer's by Christmas though so I could start working on Skinner's full time.

Building Skinner's Row by Fine Scale Miniatures Pt.1

George Sellios over the years has produced many wonderful kits but Skinner's Row to me is the best. I am glad I have an opportunity to build it sooner than latter. The project is still in its early stages and again I am not following the sequence of tasks laid out in the instructions. Reading them is so boring. If I had to read the instructions two or three times as some modelers suggest I would give up building models all together. It is very popular opinion that the Master Creation kits are unbuildable due to the poor quality of the instructions but I am thinking I would do just fine. I don't mean to brag. It is just that my brain functions differently. As for Skinner's, I don't think I will need all that brain power. George's engineering is excellent.

Building Swakhammer's Welding by Fine Scale Miniatures Pt.2

I am back after the extended absence. I didn't do much modeling in September due to the trip to the Canadian Rockies and my brother's visit. While I thought that the break would make me jump back into building models it turned out to be quite opposite. It took me good two weeks to get into the mood. Perhaps I should have built some small kit to ease my way in but with 30 started and unfinished I didn't want to add yet another one to the pile. Finally, last week I started to pick up some speed and made decent progress. There still a lot left to do so I will be working on the Swakhammer's for a little bit.

Building Swakhammer's Welding by Fine Scale Miniatures Pt.1

My next project is this behemoth. I have good amount of work done already. It used to be my lunch break project until I had nothing else left to do that wouldn't create a big mess or stink up the place. Now it is going to be my top home project until I am done unless I get over my fear of doing one particular task and completely screwing up one of my older projects. If I finally man up I may switch for a couple of weeks because that project is long overdue.
I might have unbuilt Swakhammer's kit for sale once I am done with this project. Contact me for details.

Building Currier & Sons by South River Modelworks Pt.3

Where did the summer go? Well... Technically, it is still summer but it feels like it is gone already. We are heading into limited edition kit season. With South River Modelworks and FSM kit out of the picture we now have only two big players left, FOS and Bar Mills. It looks like FOS is moving into old FSM announcement slot i.e. late July, early August. They caught me by surprise this year. I expected them to release their kit sometime in September or October. Then about two days later Bar Mills came out with a limited run kit. It isn't their big yearly kit though. They are going to have that one around Christmas. With one already out and only one still coming the season isn't as exciting as it used to be. On the brighter side, it is much better for the wallet.
I can put a check mark next to Currier & Sons. Although I finished the structures perhaps two weeks ago it has taken me another two weeks of wrestling to finish some of the details. I keep telling myself that I should do the detail parts first but always end up doing them last. At that point I am thinking of something new and, unless I am doing diorama, the details part don't add anything to the structures themselves. Therefore, there is not much of the visual progress what creates this work with no reward feeling. That sometimes results in TV watching in place of model building. All of this is behind now and I can start something new. Well... If you have read my previous posts you know it is a lie. I am already working on new project. Or should I say projects?

Building Currier & Sons by South River Modelworks Pt.2

The pictures I am going to share aren't new. I've had them for about two weeks. I tried to write it but every time I sit down to do it I start falling asleep. Is that a sign of an old age?
I didn't exactly follow the instructions building this kit. The instructions call for adding the vents as one of the last steps but I added them before even gluing the brick building to the base. The reason is that the vents are heavy and I have to ship this kit once built. Therefore, I want them to be very well secured. Had I done them last I would have had only a little bit of glue holding them. Now in addition to the glue on the joining surfaces, I have wire that is glued into the vents. Each wire has a piece of wood glued to the end of it and the wood is glued to the wall. I hope that is enough.
I have been working on this kit for quite some time and I am already eager to do something else. Good thing about large kits is though that they give greater sense of accomplishment when done but the road to get there is long...

Building Cundy Cannery by Bar Mills Pt.2

I've had quite unproductive month when it comes to the model building. The real life got in the way for the most part. I have managed to finish the cannery though. It was fun medium size project. Everything came together more less OK. The brick foundation was a little pain. It is all in the  material that folks at Bar Mills use. The bricks come off easily and I had to glue them back, if I could find them. Next time I will apply wood hardener over the bricks in a hope to keep them in place.
With this note, I conclude my very short mini series on building the Cundy Cannery.

Building Currier & Sons by South River Modelworks Pt.1

Since yesterday I mentioned the other kit I should reveal what it is, I suppose. It is Currier and Sons by South River Modelworks and the part of the kit I was working on was the lumber storage shed. Everything was going smoothly until it was time to glue on the roof and it turned out to be too small. I didn't cut it out from one of the card that the roof piece was printed on. Instead I cut it out of the piece of cardboard I had. I made it exactly the same size as printed but the printout was wrong. Cutting new isn't a problem but I have to complete all of the painting and weathering steps. That takes time.

Building Cundy Cannery by Bar Mills Pt.1

It has been nearly a month since I finished the Graves kit. Have I been working on something since then? I have. I don't take breaks unless I travel. I mean extended breaks. After working on a model for few days I take a break but usually for no more that 3 evenings.
So... The next kit on the plate is Bar Mills Cundy Cannery. Actually, I started it while still working on the Graves. I needed to fill my lunch break modeling slot and the cannery was a good candidate. Majority of parts were wood or laserboard, no plaster and very little of resin. I was supposed to start working on another kit but it had plaster parts and because of that it was workplace incompatible. The cannery is coming together quite well and I may have finished it by now if not for the window vents and those few resin parts that had to be done at home. I switched to another kit for awhile with an intent to finish part of that kit before going back to the cannery but I then hit a road block and I had no other choice than to work the cannery again. It should be smooth sailing from now on.

Campbell Supply Co. Pt.1

Today I am feeling like giving up my beer adventure. I have noticed that some of the bottle caps of the beer I bottled two weeks ago are bulging. It looks like I have created few beer bombs. I don't know if it is an infection, incomplete fermentation or too much of the priming sugar. Since not all caps are bulging I am thinking it may be the infection or I didn't mix in the priming sugar in well enough and there was more sugar in some of the bottles. And everything was going just fine until the temperature went up from 68 to 74...
The Campbell Supply kit is one of the kits that has been started by someone else. I don't buy started kits intentionally. This is one of the cases when I don't pay attention to the pictures or the auction description. It wasn't too bad though. The roofs had been cut out but the rest of the parts were in sealed packages except for the office door. It is possible, it may have been shipped by the manufacturer that way. Since I own few other Campbell kits, I borrowed the door and made a copy out of laserboard. I have run out of steam building this kit though and I am posting this just as an illustration to my unfinished kit list.

Super Trees and AeroGarden Pt.1

I have enough of Super Tree material for at least a decade, but little scientist/farmer in my head is still wanting to grow it. I think, I have mentioned before that the weather in Georgia is not suitable for the plant. It likes milder temperature. Higher temperature makes it to mature too fast. The only option is to grow it indoors. I have tried that too but without good light source so the end result has always been less than acceptable. This time I am using AeroGarden unit. I didn't buy it just for the purpose of growing the Super Trees though. I thought I would grow sage and other herbs for my tea. I am not sure why but my herbs didn't do too well. They were fine for a while but then rotted at the base and died. Then instead of planting other herbs I decided to give STs a try. They started sprouting nicely, but then all but one died off. The one that survived though has turned into a nice plant and has also moved into the neighboring space. Hopefully, it will keep going.

Building Graves Elevators by Bar Mills Pt.5

I admit, I have new distraction. Back in NYC I saw few stands at the markets selling beer making kits and that reignited my interest in home brewing. I have always thought that some semi-serious
equipment was needed for that. I turns out that 1 gallon batches can be done without investing too much so I bought a starter kit and several beer making mixes. So far I have completed one batch, bottled two, and last night I brewed the fourth. This whole deal doesn't impact my modeling because I do it when I usually don't build models. However, it impacts my blog. It seems my brain is preoccupied with beer recipes, ideas for the brews, etc.
Bar Mills kits go together relatively fast and smoothly but not the Graves. It is quite difficult kit and it was clearly rushed to have it out before Christmas. Despite all that, I think I did a decent job on it. Would I build another one? No way. Don't get me wrong though. It is fine to build it once but two would be way too excessive.