Building G.Wilikers Machinery Wholesale by Fine Scale Miniatures Pt.3

FSM kit #7 is done! It has taken me roughly 8 months to build. At this pace I will have to live until I am 100 if I want to build all FSM kits that I want to build. There is no other way around it. OK, maybe not that long. I just finished perhaps most complicated FSM kit. The rest should go together faster although the Brambell might be close contender.
For the next few months I will be working on the shelf orphans aka started and unfinished projects. Ideally, I would like to complete them all before starting anything new, but that isn't very realistic. Cutting down to 30 from 38 would be nice. I'll be starting South River Modelworks Delabarre and Tap kit soon but it doesn't count because it isn't my personal project.

Dead Horse Bay by FOS Scale Models

It so happens this is my first and last post on Dead Horse Bay build. This was one of my shelf orphans. I started the kit on impulse. The excitement faded away and like many others it got shelved. It has been so long since I got back to working on the kit that I don't remember when exactly. Was it before New Years, or shortly after? Anyway, Dead Horse Bay is no joke and it has consumed a large number of lunch breaks. I persevered though and didn't orphan the kit second time.
The Bay is looking for new home. If someone wants it or knows someone who would like to have it please use contact form and let me know. It isn't free, but I won't hurt your wallet too much. The window of opportunity is small though. It goes up for sale on eBay Sunday afternoon.
The next kit that I will get finished is G.Wilikers. I have some progress photos on my FB page at Vilius' Workbench Chronicle. As for the lunch break projects, I'll do yet another shelf orphan.

Building G.Wilikers Machinery Wholesale by Fine Scale Miniatures Pt.2

Let me start with some bad news first. If you are FSM kit owner and thinking about selling you are out of luck at the moment. The prices on eBay are at historic lows. If you are looking to buy one then it is great news for you.
I am feeling exhausted. G.Wilikers is such enormous kit. Not only in size, but in complexity as well. It rivals Swakhammers for sure. I don't think there is another FSM kit like that. G.Wilikers is also very deceiving. I thought I would be done by the end of April, then May. I am still working on it. The target now is end of June. Fingers crossed.

Building G.Wilikers Machinery Wholesale by Fine Scale Miniatures Pt.1

I am not sure if it is good decision or not, but I started my Facebook modeling page. It is called "Vilius' Workbench Chronicle". This is where my  "On the workbench today" posts for the past two months ended up. I fell for the convenience, I guess...
I think I am past half way point building the G.Wilikers kit. I am starting to "plant" the sub-assemblies on the diorama base. It is coming to life now. It was a lot of hard work to get to this. Perhaps I would work faster if I adopted "good enough" approach. Only I can't make myself do that. I joke about it, but I might have OCD after all. I have had some thoughts in the past of building models professionally. The truth is I would go broke in no time.

My way of doing window "glass"

I took couple of pictures yesterday for the "On the workbench today...", but then I decided make very short short tutorial.

I start by scanning the backside of the windows and doors. I load then the image into my CAD program. I use TurboCAD. Perhaps Photoshop, Illustrator, InkScape can be used as well, but I like the convenience of the CAD. In it making parallel or perpendicular lines is a breeze. However, out of several CAD programs I tried only TurboCAD allows to load a picture and trace over it. It has been some time since I did the research though. Things may have changed.
After I load the image into TurboCAD I trace over the areas where window "glass" should go.



Then I copy the tracings, rotate, copy them. The end result of this step looks like this.



I print it, glue it to the acetate using rubber or paper cement to make sure it stays in place while I am cutting, but still is easy to peel off.

I put cut out acetate pieces into a container with rubbing alcohol for 10 or so minutes to remove fingerprints and whatever else might be there. I take them out with a pair of tweezers, touch the edge of the acetate against a piece of paper towel or coffee filter to remove the excess of the alcohol, dunk in a clear acrylic and place then on the back side of the windows and doors. In this case I am using semi-gloss acrylic for somewhat dirty appearance. I also use a mixture of semi-gloss and matte for dirtier windows and gloss for the clean ones.

Note. The second pair of images are of Wilikers and the first one is form different project.