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.

 

Company House by American Model Builders Pt.2

The earlier post on this kit says I had been working on it back in 2016. At some point after posting I glued the walls together and put the roof on. That was the state the building was in when I re-started working on it.
The original was a company housing unit. I changed it into the office building, added a couple of lights, a few signs, and the shutters to the front of it. One shelf orphan done, yet many more to go.

Building Gusano Loco by FOS Pt.2

 I made a little step towards completion of the diorama after Gusano Loco was featured in one of the "On the workbench today" posts and then it got shelved. This time it was self inflicted. I wanted a grill on the diorama. Perhaps I could have bought a casting somewhere, but I decided to scratch build one. The idea turned into prolonged procrastination and then I completely lost the interest. Earlier this year I reviewed the shelved projects making the list of the ones that could be completed in the shortest amount of time. You know, quickly finish one two projects, get juices flowing, motivation going. Gusano ended up on that list and that in combination with someone's interest in it made things happen.

 

Little Lou's by FOS

I've had Little Lou's in progress for so long that I thought I must have had a blog post. It turns out I had not.
I have had at least a couple of restarts. My first attempt got me all the way to the roofing. The roof needed to be covered with V shaped shingles. The pilot model had them as asphalt or maybe slate(?). I painted them as rusted metal sheets. Then I went to install them and ran into a couple of problems. The shingles had the adhesive backing. The way they had to be installed provided very little contact between them and the roof. As a result the roofing just didn't want to stay on. The second issue was not enough material included. The project got shelved. Eventually, I drew up the shingles in a CAD program and used Circuit Maker to cut them. I ended up using glue to get them to stay attached to the roof. Then something small like being one corrugated metal panel short derailed the project again. Finally, the stars aligned. I was contemplating yet another re-start and someone was interested in the diorama. The rest, as they say, is the history.

 

Kimball Print Shop by FOS

A little detour in my FSM journey, but influenced by my last build. The FOS monthly club kits are small structures that don't require a lot of effort. Nonetheless, the majority of them are fairly interesting. Others would possibly disagree with me, but I found the Kimball Print Shop lacking the spark so I modified it.
The changes I made weren't big, but quite significant for a structure of such size. I replaced the clapboard siding of the first floor with stucco. I glued the windows inside out to make them look more like masonry. Also, I moved one because after removing the bump it was in an odd spot. The bump ended up on the second floor. Finally, I covered the roof with "tin sheets" instead of the tarpaper.
I hate to be patting myself on the back, but I think the resulting structure has more character than the original.