I added on the lettering using dry transfer decals.  After adding the small lettering I decided to redo it in another location.  I find that is one of the nice things about dry transfer is that they are relatively easy to remove if you decide against them.  I did this by using the tip of a hobby knife to scratch them off.

I then added all of the final details, using grab-irons from a detail upgrade kit available for this model.  I decided that buying the upgrade kit would produce better results than trying to make them myself.  For the next kit I will think twice about them, because while they certainly were convenient it would be easy to make them.  Included in this detail kit was an etched metal kit for the end ladders.  This would have been a very good looking upgrade, however I found that my soldering skills were not up to the task – they will make good additions to a scrap pile some where on the layout.

After final touch-up, I sprayed the model with dull-cote.  I didn’t bother masking the windows as I did not put an interior in it.  I then used chalk to weather the caboose.

I have to thank my wife for the beautiful picture of the completed project taken on my “work in progress” layout.

After reviewing some of my previous posts, I realized that I hadn’t put up the final pictures of this fine model.  So, without further ado, here they are:

(I just had to say that, lol)

Here is a picture of the rear of the house, showing off the back porch.

And here is a view of the right side of the house.  You can see the seams on each end of this wall.  This is so I can remove this wall with little damage to the building if I ever decide to put an interior into it.  When I place it on a layout I will cover this seam with ivy.  I will also lightly weather the house after it is in place to fit the location.

I constructed the front porch using the same techniques as I did on the back, building a wood frame under the floor and using it as a mounting point for the lattice.  I didn’t bother installing legs on this one either, however it would have helped in the installation by keeping the back corner of the porch up while waiting for the glue to set.

I painted directly over the cardstock for the porch floor and continued with the assembly of the porch.  When installing the gingerbread I found that it was much easier when using a curved pair of tweezers to hold them.  I used the same technique as before on the gravel for the roof, painting the surface with roof brown, followed by a coat of scenic cement, and then sprinkling on the ballast.  I then used a pipette to add cement where needed.  I found in a couple of spots the ballest ended up getting stuck on the walls higher than I wanted.  The best solution for this was to use an x-acto knife to push these spots down before the glue dried.

I assembled the back porch following the directions.  The cut out piece seemed to fit a little bit strange so I had to do some cutting to get it to fit correctly.  I used Elmer’s wood glue to hold the pieces together.  In the foreground of the picture you can see how I framed the porch with scale lumber, and after it had dried I used the pieces of lattice to build up the rest of the porch.  I didn’t bother installing any posts going down as you can’t see them anyways.

I then painted the porch and installed all of the “gingerbread around the edges of the roof.  The roof was painted with Floquil’s roof brown and then covered with fine ballast to provide texture.  Using the ballast is a good way to cover the small cuts and adjustments that were needed on the roof.  Also in this picture you can see where I added the “spears into the gingerbread around the roof of the model.  I had to use putty around some of them to fill in the gaps, but it was easy to hide the patches.

For this section of the build I installed the chimneys first, after assembling them.  I painted them by dry-brushing a couple of colors over the gray primer coat.  I used a ca glue to assemble them and to fix them to the wall.  I then cut each of the pieces of the parapet into the correct length, and then held it up to its final location to judge the angle I needed to cut it at.  As you can see in the picture there was a slight gap between each one, but I was able to use Squadron white putty to cover those.  You can’t see it from the picture but I made sure to paint each of the pieces before installing them, as it would have been difficult with them already in place.

After the glue had dried (it took only a couple of minutes) I began the installation of the special molding on both the parapet and the top section of the mansard roof.  At each of the major corners I left a gap for the “spike” that would go into place.  In this picture you can also see that I began to fill in the top of the bay window with putty.

After the glue had dried on the roof paper I removed the tape and began by touching up all of the roof.  I then dry-brushed several layers of color on the roof panels.  I used two colors of green and then used a dark gray and a light gray which I also used on the gravel portion of the roof.

I then began to cut the various pieces of the roof to the neccesary shape, using hobby cutters to cut them slightly over sized.  I then used a hobby knife and files to fit them in the needed spots.  I used them to cover the edges of the roof panels.  I dry-brushed the colors of the chimney to represent stone.  I intend to paint the trim later.

After I finished installing all of the copper sections of the roof, I painted the top section of the roof using floquil’s roof brown.  As I did not mask the top section when spraying the contact cement, it left a little bit of texture.  My only intent was to save time when masking as it would be covered by the fine ballast.  Once the paint had dried I painted on Woodland Scenic’s Scenic Cement on to the roof.   I then held the model over a small box and sprinkled the fine ballast into the glue.

After knocking off the excess ballast I used a medicine dropper to float extra scenic cement into the areas needed for complete coverage.  I painted the white areas of the roof with a color to match the rest of the copper roofing.

After waiting for the glue to dry I dry-brushed the copper areas of the roof.  I did this by using five different colors, starting with a dark green, then a lighter green, followed by a dark grey for shadows, and then a light grey and a final very light coat of white for the highlights.  The green was only on the copper sections of the roof, the grey highlights continued onto the gravel on the roof.

Once I had completed installing all of the windows, I began work on the roof.  My first step was to use and x-acto knife and trim all of the roof panels so that the seams were fairly straight and smooth.  I found that a slight sawing motion provided the best results.  Do not worry about small divots and such as they will be covered by the copper roofing paper.  Any large gaps I filled with squadron putty (I used a little green, but found that as it was an old tube, it was really hard, so then I switched to the white).

After filing down all of the filled areas and any other rough areas I masked everything  but the roof sections so that I could use contact cement.  As I have mentioned in previous posts I prefer using 3M’s super 77.

After waiting a couple of miniatures I installed the strips for the copper roofing.  I only installed it on the Mansard sections of the roof as per the directions.  At each corner I used a strip of the cardstock to cover each gap.  As you can see I used the Scotch blue painters tape to hold each of the strips into place.

After cleaning all of the castings, using an x-acto knife and a selection of jeweler’s files I primed and painted the window and door castings.  Once the paint had dried I cut the clear plastic to the correct size by using a razor knife and a steel ruler.  I attached them to the window frame by carefully using zap-a-gap.  I have heard of the technique of using white glue to reduce “crazing’ of the clear plastic, but I used a micro brush to spread the glue.  Using this technique I had fairly good results with only a little fog on a couple of windows.

After waiting a short time for the glue on the clear plastic to dry I test fitted and then glued the window frames into place.  The test fit was very important to make sure that each window fit correctly and was square.  The only mistake that I made in doing this was to not fill the larger openings while I was installing the windows.  This left a couple of small gaps which will be very difficult to fill later on, however I think that I should be able to hide them by using “ivy” along some of the windows.

Once I had all of the brick paper glued into place, and the windows and door openings had been cut out, I started working on the roof.   I made sure to test the fit of each piece before gluing it in place using the Elmer’s wood glue.

Going back to cutting out the windows, I found that the easiest way to do this was to stab in the general area of the window with a hobby knife, and carefully cut around the edge of the cardstock.  I also found that using a slight sawing motion had the best results.

For the mansard portion of the roof the overlap on the panels match the placement of the wall panels below.  After gluing all of the mansard sections I glued the top in place, and once it had dried I used a hobby knife and cut top to match the panels as needed.  Installing the tower panels brought about quite a lot of cutting and fitting.  There was one panel with a bit of overlap at the final part, but once I had tapered them  into each other it balanced out.  The top section was very challenging as the pieces did not fit together very well.  I had to make slight adjustments to two of the large pieces, and had to custom cut panels for the D and E sections.  In hind-sight it might have been easier to cut a little bit from each of the other panels to make them fit, however it looks OK.

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Doing the top portion of the roof in this way most likely made the pitch of the upper roof different than the kit, but looking at examples elsewhere it is not an issue.