Hello folks,

I started my project of building Avram and Bartholow into one large diorama. I have no idea how the structures will be placed so I need to get them all built before I can do anything.

I decided to begin with the main Avram building. I'm not a big fan of scribed, plank siding so I made all the walls board-by-board....sure used a lot of stripwood.

So, here is where I'm at. I should be able to get the windows and doors in tonight and assemble the walls tomorrow.

Karl O.  Berkley, MI

The following images kindly provided by Karl.

Perhaps some folks will recall those homemade spring clamps I cobbled up a few months ago. Well, I used them to glue this building together (along with two bar clamps) and they are the berries. I've never glued a structure together so quickly and easily. They grab the inside bracing and outside part of the wall and nothing moves or drifts. I placed the building on graph paper and it was perfectly square. I'm really glad I took the time and made the little clamps....here's some terrible photos showing how they work.

Karl O.
Berkley, MI

There is a cardboard sub-roof on the overhang at the back of the building.
You can just barely see it in the photo.
It's only 1/32" thick so if I used regular white or craft glues to glue it in
it would wrinkle, curl and distort.

So, out comes the Yes Paste which is a water-based, dextrine paste
but with much less water than regular craft-type glues.
You can slop it on the thinnest paper and the paper will never wrinkle
or curl, it doesn't run and gives plenty of time for re-positioning.
It's great stuff.

Karl O.
Berkley, MI

Hello folks,

I built the docks, overhang support, small shed and the 2nd floor porch
support today so I did get moving along.

I tend to stray from the instructions on a few of the assemblies so I'll
caption some of the photos to show how I did them....this is where I'm at.


The docks on the first floor have been added and also the support for the back
overhang...it's just sitting unglued (and very crooked) underneath the overhang

Next was the second floor porch support...
instead of building it on the structure I chose to build it as a
separate assembly which allowed for adjustments and leveling of the parts.
I built the main front frame on the kit template and then glued it to an index card.
I then set the top crossbar on a piece of gatorboard and glued the short end supports to the frame.
After that I glued the back crossbar that will be glued to the wall....looks like this.
I held the piece against the gatorboard with heavy metal weights.
I now had a completely square framework for the porch.

I then took the frame and placed it against a block and held it with another block so I could lay the platform boards....
this made sure that each of the boards would be even at the back crossbar that attaches to the wall.

OK, so now with the completed porch I want to make sure that all four of the legs are the exact same length so they attach to the bottom platform perfectly. This can be a painfully aggravating part of the assembly. So, instead of getting crazy, I took the entire assembly and placed it against the stop on the NWSL Dupli-Cutter. It was too thin for the main front clamp-down to grab so I put a piece of taskboard under the clamp and tightened it down with a very slight overhang to sand off the legs to the same length....perfect, with no distorting of the delicate legs....the part is done and ready to be glued to the main building.

There's a little shed on the opposite end wall that is built from cardstock.... I built it but I'm not a big fan of cardstock buildings so I cut a new shed from a block of 1" basswood. I'll chisel out the opening for the window and cover the block with individual boards or maybe tarpaper

I got a little more done on my project but it's been brutal. This is the story of the little diner building in the Avram kit.

First, I glued the end walls to the long walls to the same end....had to take them apart and do over. I reglued the end walls to the long walls and then assembled the building only to find that when I put the flat roof on I glued the higher wall on the wrong long wall. So, now I had to take the entire building apart, remove and swap the two end walls and then glue the stinking thing back together.

The next thing was the roof. I believe this kind of roof is a modified hip roof. The kit roof is printed on .020 chipboard and is of the scribe and fold type to achieve the shape - not my favorite thing. Well, I made it, glued it to the ceiling and put it on the building and spent about 2 hours trying to straighten it and attempting to get it perfectly square....wasn't going to happen. I took it all apart and decided to build the roof from .030 styrene....that was 3 days ago.

Today, I finally came up with a way to make a perfectly square hip roof. Here's what I did.

I made templates from the torn off roof and cut the 4 new pieces out of styrene.....the old roof is on the right. Then I made a simple stripwood frame the size the roof would cover. I put the two side pieces in the frame and glued them where they meet.....perfect!!

I then glued in the front and back triangles and the roof was done. It was so easy to do and it's perfectly square

The last step was to cut the ceiling from .030 styrene and glue it into the roof. I put the hole in the ceiling so I could pour hydrocal into the roof....it will make the assembly much more solid and sturdy. You won't see the little cutout because it sits over the interior of the structure. So, after the hydrocal dries I can apply the rolled roofing without worrying about crushing in the roof.

The Avram buildings are near complete other than gluing them down, adding the various assemblies and final weathering. The Bartholow coal bunker is also moving along.

I did get sidetracked a little this past week. I've read some discussions on which India ink to use for our weathering wash and decided to experiment with some. So, I gathered six different inks and two dyes. I mixed them the same and then adjusted the densities to one that I would use for a wash. The Staedtler Mars ink is really strong - it needed four times more dilution than any of the others.

Well, this is what I came up with. The Higgins 46030, Fiebing USMC Black and the Fiebing Black all have a blue-black tint to them and all the rest look pretty much the same. It didn't make any difference if the ink was waterproof or non-waterproof ink - they all mixed up fine in 70% rubbing alcohol. I did notice with 91% or 99% alcohol the washes left a black speckled look on the wood when dry.

Boy, what a waste of time....they all look fine to me and I now have a lifetime supply of India ink.

Karl O.
Berkley, MI

I know how much we all like to glue on rafter tails but I had a bit of an epiphany this morning. Most of you probably know what I learned this morning but I thought I'd share it with you anyway.

The coal bunker in the Bartholow kit has a loft that requires 46 rafter tails. Flipping the building on its side and trying to glue them on is near impossible....you can't see the pencil lines on the underside of the roof and you just can't get in there to get the buggers on the side with the large lower roof section. So, I struggled, tried every tweezer I own and finally walked away.

Then it hit me like a brick....why not work from above? I cut out the rafter spacing template off the roof card and spot glued it to the roof. Holy cow, why didn't this ever occur to me before? No turning, flipping, fiddling, swearing....no nothing. The tails went on straight and evenly spaced without a hitch. It took about 45 minutes to glue on all 46 of them with the building just sitting in front of me......I was giddy.

I also had yet another discovery. I got this little bottle with a stainless steel tip that has a pinpoint nozzle with a .020 opening. I filled it with Elmers and gave it a try. This thing can put down a line of glue like you wouldn't believe - no overflow, no mess and a line 1/32" thick or less is no problem. The days of using toothpicks is over at Chez Karl O. I used it to glue the fascia boards on the coal bunker and it worked beautifully. Can I say....I had a very good morning.

Karl O.

to be continued.......