Mile End Garage (Working Title)

[Skidsolo]

It's going to combine all of the following:



In the garage will be this. Possibly mid way through prepping for a respray into a civilian colour:



This will be the garage owners transport, painted in a civilian colour:



This will be propped up outside in military colours and have a 'For Sale' sign on it:



Equipment for the interior:



The small boy from this kit, kindly donated by a member on another site. He'll be looking 'longingly' at the motorcycle:



A petrol pump:



The garage owner:



The garage owner's father:



First up was to cut out all the vac formed walls etc. Quite thick styrene so it took several passes with the hobby knife for each cut. About two hours in all.

Gluing the halves together took about another two hours, as each piece had to be glued in six or seven places, allowing about a minute for the MEK to cure, before moving on.

It's not precision work as you can see and just like the wall in my Retreat From Leningrad diorama, there is plenty of filling and filing/sanding to do before construction can start.

The straight edges should be OK with a little block sanding.

[S5 modeller]

Oooh this looks interesting, will be keeping an eye on this build.

Edited March 11, 2014 by S5 modeller

[Billydick]

Oh Excellent stuff .... looking forward to seeing the 'Indian"

BillyD

[Nick Belbin]

Yep, sign me up - neat idea.

Nick

[Skidsolo]

Thanks guys BUT...........

................ Oh boy!!! Joy of joys!!!

Tried to join the first two walls......what on earth am I meant to do with this?:



Both are at 90 degrees and both are vertical!!! Trial fits show the rest to be the same. No wonder the only built one I found on the web, was the one on MiniArts own site.

I was really looking forward to this but it's turned into a nightmare already.

[Skidsolo]

Dug around the web a bit more.

This guy seems to have struggled big time:







While this guy seems to have made it work:

http://www.amps-armor.org/ampssite/reviews/showReview.aspx?ID=1993&Type=FB

Guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and put my thinking head on!!!

[roymattblack]

But not the roof.......

I would try cutting the 'angles' more to 45 degrees and using evergreen strip to make vertical 'planks' to cover the joins and gaps.

Maybe I'm odd, but projects like this are often more 'fun'....

Roy.

[Skidsolo]

I thought about trying to straighten the 45 degree joins by using my bench belt sander. I even made up a crude but effective wooden jig to keep things straight. While they were somewhat better, I still wasn't happy.

When pondering the meaning of life, in the smallest room in the house, it suddenly struck me that I was trying to achieve several things at once: Rigidity of the structure, alignment vertically and alignment horizontally. With that in mind it seemed unlikely that I would achieve them all without some additional support. Particularly the rigidity.

The brain cell was engaged and this is my proposed solution. Just need to buy some more box section styrene.

The plan is to concentrate on getting the angles right and the rigidity. Then see what needs to be done to sort out any gaps.

[Pete in Lincs]

Why not just use wood? Modelshipbuilding for the use of.

It will have the texture already and is easy to cut.

Probably cheaper too.

With pins/wire into the structure & Araldite,

You should have a strong & straight building.

[roymattblack]

Or 10mm ally angle..... You can get it in larger DIY stores such as Homebase and B&Q.

Cheap as chips - a 3m length is about £12.

Araldite it in place.

[Skidsolo]

It will have the texture already and is easy to cut.

Pete..... the styrene will be completely hidden when finished and any gaps filled with filler.

[Skidsolo]

With the garage temporarily on hold, I have made a start on the 'Tilley' pickup.

It has full engine detail but at 1:35 scale is going to be a tad challenging to wire. Especially the distributor. Need to find some suitable diameter wire too.

[Natter]

Al, have patience when you're cutting and take some time to shape. I have had one of these 'ongoing' as part of a 'project' for about 18 months now; on and mostly off. It is my first time with MiniArt, or any kind of vacform for that matter, but it can be done neatly- see below:

The gaps between the roof and the walls will need a little work, but they're not really that bad. I just used a steel rule for a straight edge and a nice sharp scalpel, with ten amounts of patience added every minute! It can be done. Minor gap filling is done with cyano and I will tidy up and texture later. The project is due for completion in about 2026 - maybe.

[Skidsolo]

Thanks for the tips Natter. Yours is looking good. How far on with it are you?

I'm happy to say that my 'rescue plan' for the garage, is working out pretty good.

First I cut away some more material from the corners to allow some retangular box section to be glued in with MEK:



This gets done on one side of the corner only.

Using liberal amounts of CA on the box section, I was able to make acceptable joints that some filling and sanding should easily take care of:





There is (naturaly... LOL) a gap on this inside but 'I have a cunning plan':



And it is this:



The bottom of each internal corner styrene upright, will be located into a hole in the base board, to further aid in final rigidity. Which is why I needed to ensure I was happy with the final layout.

I also finished up the Tilly. It's put to one side for now as it will get some weathering further down the line. If the paint looks a bit dull and orange peely, that's 'cos it's meant to represent a 'flash over' paint job!!

[Silver Fox]

Lovely work on the Tilly.

[Skidsolo]

Thanks SF.

Talk about three steps forward and two steps back!!!!

The walls are up but it now has more twists and warps than a twisty turny thing.!!!









This is the gap at the right hand corner without the annex attached.



And this is how it will be with the annex glued to the garage.




In addition, the inside of the annex is going to have to be painted before it's attached to the garage as access will be very difficult afterwards.

So... on to plan C which is to paint the inside of the annex, glue the two sections together, then pin the whole lot to the baseboard to pull everything as straight as possible. At least that's the theory for now.

[Radleigh]

I really need to build one of these miniart vacs, I have wanted to do a dio for years and now seeing a few getting built is spurring me on!

Keep it up mate it'll be worth it!

[Skidsolo]

Thanks Radleigh

I now have the main body 'pinned' and epoxied to the base. This not only firmly secures it but has allowed me to get everything straight:





I have also painted the inside of the annex, as later it would be very difficult to do. I started by spraying red oxide primer:



Followed by a liberal wash of AK Interactive 'Africa Dust Effect's':



When that was thoroughly dry, I damped a nasal tissue in some of AK's thinners and dabbed away the excess to leave the mortar in the recess' then the timber was given two coats of brushed Revell Aqua Colour Matt Brown.



The timber was then treated to two coat of AK's Panzer Brown/Blue enamel wash (of all things LOL) to darken them and bring out some of the detail:



Trial fit of the annex reveals that all is good and justs need epoxying to the base and CA on the walls to main structure joint. The front will need filler of course but hey ho! I'm pleased enough.



I'm going to scratch build a Netty and put it in this corner:

[Natter]

Beautiful little Tilly you have there. The AK Interactive method for the mortar is brilliant. If I ever get any further with mine (what I showed is where it is at) I may have to steal your idea, it looks so effective.

[Skidsolo]

Thanks Natter.

The old 'Two steps forwards and one step back' strikes again. No sooner is one problem solved when up pops several more.!!! Oh Joy Of Joys!! LOL

I attached the gable end and then trial fitted the larger roof section.

The underside has some locating slots which match the the cladding on the gable end.



That's fair enough but when lined up, things go wrong at the lower end:





I plan on cutting out the blacked out section, which should, I think, correct both problems.

[Mr B]

Very nice work and a great idea.....hope to see it done up soon

rgds

mr b

[Radleigh]

Looking good

Could I ask for a photo of the building next to something to give me a rough idea on size (a cup maybe?)

[Skidsolo]

The old 'Two steps forwards and one step back' strikes again. No sooner is one problem solved when up pops several more.!!! Oh Joy Of Joys!! LOL

I attached the gable end and then trial fitted the larger roof section.

The underside has some locating slots which match the the cladding on the gable end.



That's fair enough but when lined up, things go wrong at the lower end:





I plan on cutting out the blacked out section, which should, I think, correct both problems.

Well it worked!!! At least well enough.







There is still a gap under the annex roof but it's much smaller now:



Gluing it down will bow the roof down a tad but I think that will be perfectly in keeping with the structure anyway.

I wanted a dusty type look on the inside of the roof, so, I gave it a brushing of the 'Snow' powder out of Tamiya's Weathering Master kit. Then some of the 'Rust' followed by more 'Snow'.

A member on another site, suggested that scoring the underside of the second from top row of tiles on the roof of the annex, would change the angle of most of the roof and make it look better!!

He was right, I think looks way better this way:

The annex roof is now permanently fixed in place:



I also added some styrene underneath the sides to give some depth. This still needs to be filled.

I wasn't overly happy with the inside of the roof, so after spraying the base coat for the interior, I re-did it. This time with MIG Dry Mud fixed in place with MIG Thinners. Looks better to me now.



Hey! and wadya know!!! Dodgy Denis has bought himself a pair of race cars even before his garage is finished!!! LOL

Hmmmm..... this looks a bit messy. Hope it cleans up OK.



Hindsight as they say............... Should have applied the putty to the edge of the annex wall, BEFORE attaching to the main structure.

C'est_la_vie!

The clean up went OK but it's still a bit rough for me:







So, rather than faf on with more clean up, I decided to use it as an excuse to add an additional feature.

Here's a mock up:



The finished product will have the barrel drilled out with 'water' and the roof will have a half round gutter.

The resin bits for the Tilley arrived this morning. The canvas cover and radiator are a HUGE improvement over the Tamiya parts......







.....but some parts such as this bucket are going to need some careful work!!

Edited April 2, 2014 by skidsolo

[Skidsolo]

And just for Radleigh................

Edited April 2, 2014 by skidsolo