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Missouri History Museum Model
Railroad Layout
 by Glenn
Koproske
photos by Richard Schumacher
The first thing you should do when building any kit
is to browse through the instructions and look through
all of the parts, in order to get a feel for what kind
of project it will turn out to be. You will be able to
see if there are any tools or paint colors you have to
go out and purchase if you do not have what is required
on hand. You can also get a feel for how you might
modify the building. In this case, although the kit came
with the parts molded in realistic colors, I decided to
paint all the window frames white, instead of the sand
color of all the parts on their sprues. The top and
bottom floors of the building are large blocks and
columns in sand color, so going with white windows would
be a nice contrast. The awnings will be painted blue.
The rooftop details, including vents and a water tower,
were painted silver, and then weathered a rust color
with chalk powder.
 When
painting, the best finish is achieved with an airbrush.
Pick out all of the parts that will be the same color,
and leave them on their sprues if possible. Small
detached parts will blow across your table from the
force of the spray from the airbrush. With this model,
some of the window frames were incorporated in pieces
for the building sides, while some were separate parts.
That meant that they had to be masked off. If you do any
airbrushing on a regular basis, it is very handy to have
specialized masking tape, in widths of 1/16, 1/8, and
1/4 inches. Applying all the little strips of tape
around window frames is tedious, but the end results are
worth all the effort. There were still some windows that
could not be masked off because there were round columns
on either side of them, so they had to be painted by
hand. No matter how careful you are, you will paint
outside of the lines, so to speak. A single edged razor
blade or hobby knife will allow you to scrape off your
errant brush strokes.
Before anything is assembled, and after you have
applied all your color changes, you have to spray Dull
Cote over all the parts in order to kill the telltale
plastic sheen. This is a very simple thing to do, but is
something that many modelers ignore, and their finished
plastic buildings look just like plastic.
One other recommended step is to apply a commercial
mortar mix on the brick walls. Just brush it on, wait
for it to dry, then wipe it off. The product is
forgiving, and you can get back to it the next day if
you have to before it dries too hard to effectively
remove. This fills in the mortar joints with a white
color between the bricks on the walls, and is a very
realistic effect. Again, this is another way to get rid
of that plastic sheen.
This building kit was engineered so that you do not
have to glue in the window frames and glass. There are
pegs molded on the back of all the walls, and the window
glass has matching holes. Put the window frame in its
opening, then push the glass down so the pegs go through
the holes and lock in place. The glass holds the window
frame and itself by the friction fit of the pegs through
the holes. This is a real savings of time and effort.
Since this kit represents an older building, take the
time to apply partially drawn window shades. We want to
simulate the pull-down and roll-up kind of shade. There
are three ways to do this. Sometimes the manufacturer
will supply a sheet of paper with curtains drawn on it
in the shape of the window openings. You just cut them
out and glue them over the back of the glass. Lacking
that, you can use colored paper or a manila folder and
cut pieces out that are larger than the window opening
so you have an area to apply glue. Do not use masking
tape. Although it is the right color and is very easy to
use, it will dry up over time and fall off inside the
building. I chose a third method, antique white acrylic
paint from a craft store. Use a wide brush and apply it
thickly, right on the back of the window glass. You have
to be careful to make the lower edge of your paint
stroke a straight level line, or else you will have
crooked window shades. Look at the front of the wall at
each window to see if you have to make any adjustments.
Don’t be afraid to put more paint on. Make the shades
drawn to varying lengths. Leave some windows blank. The
more windows you do like this, the nicer the effect will
be.
The instruction booklet takes you through assembly in
sequence, which allows faster assembly and less time
agonizing with how to put the kit together. I like to
use PBL nippers to remove parts from their sprues. A
flexible sanding stick comes in handy to remove any
remaining nubbins. Walls are put together as
subassemblies, then erected floor by floor, around the
building. One of my favorite products is Faller Plastic
Cement. It has a long thin built-in metal applicator,
and sets up quickly. You do not have to hold the pieces
together very long, and they do not pop apart
afterwards. If you work patiently and carefully, you can
make almost invisible seams with no sloppy glue marks.
After the walls are finished but before the roof is
applied, it is a nice touch to install a view block. As
it is, if you look at the building, you can see all the
way through it to the other side, because there are no
interior walls. I like to use a small piece of black
foam core board, cut to fit on a diagonal slid down
between opposite corners of the interior walls. Using
this diagonal trick allows one piece of view block
material to take care of all four walls.
I chose to delay applying exterior details such as
awnings and fire escapes until the building was
assembled. These parts protrude from the flat wall
surfaces, and you want to be able to lay the building on
its side from time to time during the assembly process.
This way, it will lay flat and you won’t break
anything off. When it came time to put these on, several
very small holes had to be drilled. A drill bit set with
numbers ranging from 31 to 80 is a nice thing to have on
your workbench. The supports for the loading dock awning
would not fit in their holes, and it took several
successive drilling operations with larger bits to make
these pieces fit. With these tiny drill bits, you have
to use a pin vise or other such hand-held tool, and use
finger power to drill holes. It is easy to snap the
smaller drill bits off.
When assembling pieces that you have painted, you
want to scrape the paint off the edges that will be
glued. You want the glue to stick to the plastic, not to
the paint.
I chose to leave the roof pieces loose at this time.
Since it fit snugly, it will not fall out on its own,
and provides access to the inside of the building for
fixing something, or installing lighting.
The last step is applying decal signs on the walls.
Nothing brings a building to life more than signs (and
people, of course!). Bachmann included two decal sheets
of signs, and I chose subjects that would be pertinent
to the hotel. Signs for parking, the top floor
restaurant, and the coffee shop. After they dry, an
overspray of Dull Cote will tone down the shiny surface
of the decals.
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