Christmas 2020, Father Christmas was kind enough to deliver a number of cast resin buildings for the Claptowte Railway, including a Kippo Models Station Building and Toilet Block. I had not previously had any experience of putting together resin building kits, so it was logical that I start with the smallest and simplest, this being the Toilet Block.
The Station Building and Toilet Block parts came wrapped together in a single parcel. The first thing to do was separate the parts, Kippo having helpfully marked most of the Toilet Block parts with TB, in pencil. Once I had gathered the parts, I set about them with files and abrasive paper to clean up the various mouldings. When this was done, everything was given a good wash in soapy water to clean off any mould release agent.
Although the parcel contained a set of assembly instructions for the Station Building, there were none for the Toilet Block. I fired off an email to Kippo Models and received an almost immediate reply from Edward Williams of Kippo Models. It appears they do not include instructions with their smaller kits but he referred me to a tutorial video on Youtube, in which he was co-incidentally assembling a Toilet Block. There were two videos, one dealing with assembly and the other dealing with painting. I found these both very useful and adaptable to my needs. I have included the links for anyone interested.
I assembled the main structure, as per Eddie's advice, using Gorilla Superglue to assemble and then worked some Unibond Repair Metal, similar to plastic padding, into the corner joins. I then attacked some of the roof slates to give the appearance of a few cracked/broken ones. The only part of the assembly that I am not certain about is the fitting of the facia boards to the end gables. This part of the assembly was missed in the video. I am not happy with the fit of these parts and will probably fabricate new ones from plasticard.
I gave all the parts a spray of grey plastic primer. Once the building was primed, for a first attempt I was very pleased with outcome of the corner joints. I did not spray the boards for the gable ends, as stated previously, I am not happy with the fit and I may fabricate my own, in any case they will be the last parts to be fitted.
With regard to painting the brickwork, my intention was to attempt to replicate the appearance of the brick paper that I used on the scratch built items for the Claptowte Railway. This was the first resin kit that I had attempted to paint. The method that I used was to treat the overall spray grey plastic primer as the mortar colour. The raised texture of the bricks was painted by means of a sponge wiped across the raised textured surface of the bricks using different colours and gently dabbing and blending. The odd bit of detail colour was applied with a paintbrush. I bought some white sponge wedges used for applying and blending makeup, £6 for forty from Amazon. I cut a wedge in half as half a wedge was big enough, and I only used three wedges to paint all four buildings. For a first attempt at painting brickwork I was pleased with the outcome, I feel that I managed to capture the feel of the brick paper, even thought the paint came out a little darker.
The next photos show the building with the doors, guttering and down pipes, painted and ready to glue on. I am waiting for some 'weathered concrete' paint to arrive, to overpaint the lintels above the doors, before I complete the assembly. Also waiting to be added will be some facia boards on the gable ends. Until the guttering is in place I cannot gauge the size and fit of them.
As can be seen above, I have also painted the roof.
Once the guttering was glued on to the front and rear I was able to properly assess the fit of the facia boards to the gable ends. The angle of the facia boards did not co-inside with the angle of the roof. Rather than fabricate new boards from plasticard, I decided to alter the resin castings. The first thing to do was saw through at the apex and file the ends to alter the angle. I then glued the two halves together and added a decorative plasicard offcut to hide the join line. I then reduced the lengths of the sides to fit between the guttering. Once painted, they were glued straight on to the gable ends. The downpipes were then glued to the guttering.
One substitution that I did make was to replace the ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gentlemen’ moulded signs, supplied with the kit, as these appeared to me to be over large. I substituted them with smaller, neater brass signs purchased from Pendle Models.
An addition to the building was to install a 3Volt LED wall lamp, purchased from eBay, to the front of front of the building. This is powered by a 2 x AA switchable battery box. The battery box is held in a cradle, glued to the building interior, and secured by a moveable arm to facilitate the changing of batteries.
The finished Kippo Models Toilet Block for Gernise End Station on the Claptowte Railway.
David
The Station Building and Toilet Block parts came wrapped together in a single parcel. The first thing to do was separate the parts, Kippo having helpfully marked most of the Toilet Block parts with TB, in pencil. Once I had gathered the parts, I set about them with files and abrasive paper to clean up the various mouldings. When this was done, everything was given a good wash in soapy water to clean off any mould release agent.
Although the parcel contained a set of assembly instructions for the Station Building, there were none for the Toilet Block. I fired off an email to Kippo Models and received an almost immediate reply from Edward Williams of Kippo Models. It appears they do not include instructions with their smaller kits but he referred me to a tutorial video on Youtube, in which he was co-incidentally assembling a Toilet Block. There were two videos, one dealing with assembly and the other dealing with painting. I found these both very useful and adaptable to my needs. I have included the links for anyone interested.
I assembled the main structure, as per Eddie's advice, using Gorilla Superglue to assemble and then worked some Unibond Repair Metal, similar to plastic padding, into the corner joins. I then attacked some of the roof slates to give the appearance of a few cracked/broken ones. The only part of the assembly that I am not certain about is the fitting of the facia boards to the end gables. This part of the assembly was missed in the video. I am not happy with the fit of these parts and will probably fabricate new ones from plasticard.
I gave all the parts a spray of grey plastic primer. Once the building was primed, for a first attempt I was very pleased with outcome of the corner joints. I did not spray the boards for the gable ends, as stated previously, I am not happy with the fit and I may fabricate my own, in any case they will be the last parts to be fitted.
With regard to painting the brickwork, my intention was to attempt to replicate the appearance of the brick paper that I used on the scratch built items for the Claptowte Railway. This was the first resin kit that I had attempted to paint. The method that I used was to treat the overall spray grey plastic primer as the mortar colour. The raised texture of the bricks was painted by means of a sponge wiped across the raised textured surface of the bricks using different colours and gently dabbing and blending. The odd bit of detail colour was applied with a paintbrush. I bought some white sponge wedges used for applying and blending makeup, £6 for forty from Amazon. I cut a wedge in half as half a wedge was big enough, and I only used three wedges to paint all four buildings. For a first attempt at painting brickwork I was pleased with the outcome, I feel that I managed to capture the feel of the brick paper, even thought the paint came out a little darker.
The next photos show the building with the doors, guttering and down pipes, painted and ready to glue on. I am waiting for some 'weathered concrete' paint to arrive, to overpaint the lintels above the doors, before I complete the assembly. Also waiting to be added will be some facia boards on the gable ends. Until the guttering is in place I cannot gauge the size and fit of them.
As can be seen above, I have also painted the roof.
Once the guttering was glued on to the front and rear I was able to properly assess the fit of the facia boards to the gable ends. The angle of the facia boards did not co-inside with the angle of the roof. Rather than fabricate new boards from plasticard, I decided to alter the resin castings. The first thing to do was saw through at the apex and file the ends to alter the angle. I then glued the two halves together and added a decorative plasicard offcut to hide the join line. I then reduced the lengths of the sides to fit between the guttering. Once painted, they were glued straight on to the gable ends. The downpipes were then glued to the guttering.
One substitution that I did make was to replace the ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gentlemen’ moulded signs, supplied with the kit, as these appeared to me to be over large. I substituted them with smaller, neater brass signs purchased from Pendle Models.
An addition to the building was to install a 3Volt LED wall lamp, purchased from eBay, to the front of front of the building. This is powered by a 2 x AA switchable battery box. The battery box is held in a cradle, glued to the building interior, and secured by a moveable arm to facilitate the changing of batteries.
The finished Kippo Models Toilet Block for Gernise End Station on the Claptowte Railway.
David
Last edited:
-
7
-
5
-
1
- Show all
