After wiping off the excess paint to color the grout in between the bricks I glued the acetate on the window frames and doors.  The reccomendation from most sources is to use some form of white glue to hold it in place, but as I intended to weather the building so that the glass would not really be clear anyways, I used Zap-a-Gap.  This allowed me to install the “glass” much faster than using white glue would have done.  Here is a picture of the building after all the windows and doors had been installed:

The next step was to airbrush a layer of dirt on the building.  Unfortunatly for me I did not thin out the paint far enough so it ended up leaving some rather large splatters.  This ended up working out in the long run as I then used chalk to blend everything together.  Here is a picture showing the roof with one side showing the airbrush and the other showing the chalk blending it in:

I also used chalk to blend on the rest of the building, using a piece of sandpaper to grind the chalk into a fine powder.  I usually use a couple of different colors and use the application brush to blend them.  Here is a picture showing work on the walls of the building:

As you can see in the picture, I also used the chalk on the windows which had the effect of making them very hard to see through (just like most industrial buildings that I see in Oakland, CA).

At the San Leandro Historic Railway Society’s winter show I won a Kato NW2 switcher from the raffle.  I am happy to say that this model turned out pretty well, and runs nicely on DC.  Unfortunately is was very difficult to install the decoder for DCC in this model, as no room is available inside of the model.  I was forced to mill out a portion of the weight under the hood to allow enough room for a N scale decoder from NCE. On the plus side the Kadee couplers I used to replace the horn-hook style couplers included with the model slid right into the existing pockets once I assembled them.

Two different options for the exhaust stacks were included, indicating the phase one and phase two (as built).  The detail parts were crisply molded and easily installed, with only minor enlarging of a couple of holes.  The directions were very clear and used diagrams of both the model and the parts sprues indicating the location for each part.  For the smaller parts duplicates were included in case of damage.  The directions stated that these parts could be just snapped into place, however I used Zap-A-Gap to make sure they would not fall out.  The lights use yellow LED’s, which I admit look a little strange – and I will be changing them out eventually.

Other than the difficulty in installing a DCC decoder into this model I would have given it top marks.

• Overall: 7
• Provided parts: 10
• Instructions: 10
• Value for price: 7
• Overall quality: 8

This kit is the first one from InterMountain Railway Company I have built.  Having only built simple Athearn kits before I was pleasantly surprised to open the box and find a model of so many parts, all of which were crisply molded.  The sprues contained no flash  The multi-page assembly instructions and the included exploded diagrams made for easy identification and installation location of parts.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being worst, I would rate this kit as follows:

• Overall: 9
• Provided parts: 10
• Instructions: 10
• Value for price: 9
• Overall quality: 8

This was a fun kit, would not recommend for a first build due to the fragile parts, but an excellent kit for all the details included.

I have finally taken the Fryxell Feed and Seed kit from JL Innovative Design as far as I intend before putting it on my (as of yet not built) layout; with the exception of the porch roof and the completion of the lobby roof.  I intend to leave the final weathering and details until that time to make sure that it will fit into the scene.  As you can see in this picture I have completed the weathering on the metal portion of the roof, added an interior to the office, and completed the office roof.

Notice how I have varied the individual pieces of the metal roof to make it look like some of the pieces have been replaced.  I used the Elmer’s glue pen to attach the signs into the office.  It did leave a residue, but as this area will not be completely visible it will not be a problem.  I painted the office roof black and then used the Eileen’s tacky glue to attach the gravel.

I decided that I needed the corrugated metal roof to be rusted and corroded to match the peeling paint of the Fryxell Feed Store.  I used Ferric Chloride to “rust” out the individual panels once I had cut them to the needed size.

-Safety Note-

Make sure to fully read the directions on the bottle when using chemical etchants.  Use safety equipment as directed and make sure to use in a well ventilated area, preferably outside.  Make sure to follow local regulations on disposal of used etchant.

I dipped the pieces into the solution and left them there until they “boiled” violently.  I then swished the pieces in water to stop the reaction and set them to dry after wiping the gunk off of them.  Once dry I attached the pieces to the cardstock sub-roof using a CA type glue, although in the future I think I will use tacky glue.

Once I attached the roof panels I used a mixture of several different colors of pastel chalks to provide the rusted color I wanted.  I then sealed the roof using Dulcote.