Building Calamity - The Tools

I have used a lot of different tools putting together the laser cut buildings that make up my Old West town of Calamity. First, I would like to emphasize that you don't need fancy tools to put these buildings together, some large rubber bands will do the job. Model railroad laser cut kits tend to be more complex and tools definitely help get those together. In general tools make some things easier, especially when it feels like you need four hands to get something together. If you like to scratch build your own structures some of these are downright invaluable. If you see a stock number, that's the stock number for that item from Micro-Mark

First up are the spring clamps. I have a bunch of spring clamps in a variety of sizes. I'm showing the two smallest clamps I have and the ones I use the most often. The small multi-colored clamps came from Micro-Mark. I bought the bucket of 50 (stock #82979) and there have been times when 50 hasn't been enough. The rest of my clamps I picked up at Home Depot can came in a nylon bag for like $7 (NIL 22-Piece Spring Clamps). There were 4 different sizes of clamps in the bag, the very largest I rarely use (at least for hobby use) but the other three sizes I use all the time. The smallest is the same size as the ones I bought from Micro-Mark and are a bit stronger. My own philosophy you can never have to many clamps.

The next clamp that I use quite frequently is the "right" clamp. This is used to clamp two pieces together that are at right angles to each other. The pair I have are probably close to 30 years old at this point and I have no idea who made them. Although I use these frequently they aren't particularly good clamps. There are better ones out on the market and I'm considering replacing the pair I have with something newer.

The clamp I really like, although it can be a bit fiddly, is the mini 4 corner clamp (#60716). It will go from 1/2" x 1/2" up to 4" x 5". Basically it wraps around a cube or rectangular building to pull the corners in tight and square for gluing. Its not possible to use this clamp in every situation but I use it whenever I can. Quite frankly though some rubber bands would do the same job just not as well since the rubber bands can't hold your object square.

While I'm talking about keeping things square here are some neat little 90 degree angle plates (#60713) that I picked up recently. These are 1"x1"x1" and I use them to keep parts vertical while glue sets. This is the smallest size that I could find.

The other way to keep larger items square while they dry is the magnetic jig (#60304). This consists of a steel tray with the edges turned up at 90 degrees. Then you use the magnets that are sandwiched between the plates to keep everything tight and square while the glue dries. These are powerful little magnets and it takes some effort to move them. I picked up the extra set of 8 magnets (#60305) and I'm quite glad I did, they have come in handy.

My last handy tool helps me keep things square and can be used to help weigh things down. These are 1-2-3 Precision blocks. I have an economy version which was just the blocks (#84644) and an ultra precision set that came with a case, screws and an allen wrench (I got these from Shars Tools). Apparently these are used to gauge things in some type of machining process. I use them to hold things in place (they weigh about 1 pound each), and since they are machined at precise 90 degree angles they can be used to hold things square as well.

Beyond that I use the regular assortment of modeling tools; x-acto knives, razor saws, pin vice and files. I prefer Titebond Carpenters glue  for the laser cut mdf and plywood kits. Super glue is not a good choice as the surfaces are so porous. Regular white glue or PVA will work just fine as well. And remember if you don't have these tools all of the laser cut mdf and plywood buildings will go together fine using just a few rubber bands to hold things together while the glue dries.

Calamity gets and Undercoat - Weathering Old West Buildings

I started this last weekend and discovered I didn't have all the materials and none of the local craft stores had what I needed. Fortunately Dick Blick ships quickly and I had the rest of my materials yesterday. I started with the Gamecraft Miniatures building last weekend to decide which fabric dye would work the best. I tried three brands of black; Rix, Scribbles and Dye-na-flow fabric paint. The Gamecraft building was primed with my airbrush using an acrylic primer ( I don't remember the brand). The fabric dye just didn't flow evenly across the surface and left a lot of streaks. Of the fabric dyes Scribbles and Dye-na-flow, are the best choices as they are actually black. The Rix comes out decidedly purple so I won't be using that one anymore. I picked up the fabric dyes at Joannes. The first pictures are of the Gamecraft building and I'm just unhappy with it, the back was done with the Rix dye and you can see how purple it is in the pictures.

Friday the inks arrived that I needed to pull off the effect. I purchased two different brands to try; Liquitex and Trans Mix Media Brilliant Ink (by Chartpak) from Dick Blick. I also primed the next two buildings with Kilz primer. I thought that the enamel surface would let everything flow a bit easier. I grabbed two Sarissa Small Heroic buildings for the next attempt.

I grabbed some big bottle gaps to serve as large palettes. The Scribbles dye comes out very thick so it needs to be cut down with water to create a wash. I had a cap each of Liquitex Burnt Sienna and Raw Sienna ready to go as well. The process works much better if everything is wet (well except the primer, that should be dry).

Pick a side to work on liberally apply the black fabric dye wash, as it dries this will give that nice silvery gray color for exposed wood. Your brush strokes should be in the same direction as the wood planks. While this is still wet apply a bit of raw sienna in places that are more protected, under the roof eves, under the windows any place where there is more protection. Use the burnt sienna (The Liquitex Burnt Sienna is really strong and you should probably cut it a bit with water) in the most protected locations. Feather the inks together with the same brush, then feather some black up into the area. You are going to create different tones in the wood this way. After the initial feathering I added a bit of raw sienna into the lower portions where I already had black. This gives a random look to the wood. For a newer building use more raw sienna, just keep in mind that exposed wood tends to weather very quickly especially in areas that see extremes in weather like Colorado.

Let everything dry a bit, you may need to go back with the black if it dries lighter than you would like. This is definitely a season to taste technique. This goes quickly, I did all three buildings inside of 30 minutes. This "undercoat" will serve two purposes. For the sides and backs of the buildings it will be the finished look. Paint was quite expensive in the Old West and typically only the front of a building would get painted, especially because of the boom and bust nature of small towns in the Old West. On the front of my buildings this will become the undercoat. When I reach the color stage I'll borrow a couple of other railroad techniques to create a peeling paint effect to expose this undercoat.

At this stage I'm pretty happy with the results so I'll move on to the rest of Calamity. Pictures will probably help explain what I was doing better than my writing so on to the snapshots!

1st attempts with the Fabric Dye.

Started with the Rix dye which ended up quite purple. Then went over it with the Scribbles brand. Now the whole back is really to dark. I might just paint this up as a rare building painted on all 4 sides. Or re-prime and try again.

Sarissa Precision Small Heroic Plus building. Primed with Kilz

Liquitex, Raw Sienna on the left, Burnt Sienna on the right.

Scribble, Black Fabric Dye

Scribble straight from the bottle, thicker than Vallejo! Add water to create a wash.

Apply black over the whole side. A bit of raw sienna higher up the side and under the window. Burnt Sienna on the very top board. You can see the different tones this creates.

Front of the Sarissa Small Heroic buildings, finished.

Back of the Sarissa Small Herioc buildings, finished.

Trying to save the Gamecraft Miniatures building. I think I can call this a sucess.

The back is still way to dark. Although it looks better in person. Maybe I'll just paint all four sides.

A small Calamity street shot

A small Calamity alley shot

Reaper's Kickstarter Cases

Reaper is getting closer and closer to their shipping date for their Bones Kickstarter. From our perspective things are looking pretty good. They released this little video today about the cases that you could order as part of the Kickstarter. I think all the boxes on those pallets contain cases.

Mini Cases

Okay, I'll update this a little bit. Reaper has received 9 shipping containers of stuff so far, that's all the cases and a good chunk of the Bones. They are waiting on a few more containers to arrive so they can start putting stuff together.

One Holers from Gamecraft Miniatures

Truly no Old West town would be complete without a few outhouses. I ordered two packs from Gamecraft Miniatures. These were a fun little diversion, there is even some variety with three different doors to use. Just a fun little diversion. I also tried out one of my model railroad techniques to get that nice silvery gray wood color you see on unprotected wood. I like the technique but it came out a little streaky so I think I'm going to re-prime the building with an enamel based primer and see if I can get a smoother look to the surface. I also ordered some inks to use to feather into the silver gray color. Hopefully those will be here this week and I can start making some painting progress on the buildings.

Anywhere is a bunch of outhouses for your viewing pleasure. Oh and I worked on new bases tonight for the Citizens of Calamity so our favorite lady huckster will be getting a new base shortly.

Five Buildings from Sarissa Precision

Close on the heals of my Battle Flag buildings came five kits from Sarissa Precision. They arrived safely this time! I picked up a couple of homestead style houses from their North American line as I felt that I was a little short on places for the citizens of Calamity to live. I also picked up the Railroad stations and two more regular Heroic buildings one small and one medium. The basic construction techniques I have developed are the same ones I used on these, so lots of clamps, Titebond carpenter's glue and a good sharp knife. If you are looking for buildings that look more like homes then definitely check out North American section of the Sarissa Precision website. All of these buildings are suitable for the Old West. I picked up the "House - Stone Chimney #1" and "House with Porch - Stone Chimney #1.

Sarissa has a lot of kits that no other company is making yet. They have a terrific line of Adobe style buildings which would be very useful for a southwest theme, along with the railroad station and all of the different homes in the North American line. If you are looking for the unique kit then you definitely need to check them out. They produce a high quality product with functional instructions (they could be better but are adequate to the task) that produces a good looking building for the table. Their buildings come with flat roofs as standard so if you want a pitched roof  be sure you select that option. Unfortunately there is not an option for a pitched roof for their Heroic Large Buildings only for the small and medium Heroic buildings.

Because I have covered my construction methods in earlier posts I'll cut down on the number of construction photos to show you. I did have a number of problems with all of these builds to the point that I thought Sarissa had moved from 2mm MDF to 3mm MDF. I contacted Sarissa and Steve indicated that there is a tolerance in the material and sometimes it is thicker than 2mm. I checked mine this morning (perhaps I should have checked that when I was having problems!) and the MDF for all five of these buildings measures out at 2.5mm thickness. Doesn't sound like much but when everything is cut to such close tolerances that makes a huge difference. Steve offered to replace components if I needed them but since all five have been assembled it seemed pointless to get replacement components for them. Once I figured out that things seemed to thick I just filed down the spots where there is a tab that has to fit into a slot. The chimneys in both houses had to have the bottom cut off so it didn't extend below the floor, I don't think that had anything to do with the thickness of the MDF. I guess the moral of the story is check the thickness of the MDF before you start building so you will know what to do to make everything fit correctly.

Starting off with "House - Stone Chimney #1"

The Parts

The Instruction sheet

And here we are already finished up and with our favorite Huckster for scale
I had problems with the getting the tabs on the roof to fit and you can see the result above where I broke off a portion of shingle next to the tab.

And from the back. No fast exit here unless you go through the window.
I had problems with getting the tabs on the walls to fit into the floor slots.  I think they have changed from 2mm MDF to 3mm MDF and forgot to widen some of the slots to accept the new width.

And now moving quickly on to build #2 "House with Porch - Stone Chimney #1"

The Parts

The Instructions

The inside of the Chimney wall. If you look at the base of the chimney you can see  where it extends below the tab for the floor. You can cut it right on the lines and it will fit. I'm not sure that its suppose to work that way but this gets it in place with almost no pain.

Gluing the back wall  shed in place

Gluing in the front windows

Test fitting the roof. I filed a bit off of both sides of the tabe as well as the slot they are suppose to fit into.

The front with the roof in place. The two porch supports on either end are actually part of the sidewalls. This joint is fragile! I managed to break both of these ends off before I was done assembling the house. Fortunately they were pretty simple to glue back on.

The finished house from the front

And a figure for scale. I promise to paint another citizen of Calamity so she won't be so lonely.

Since I have built the stores from Sarissa before I decided to go for the train station next. These are among my favorite structures to build so I was really looking forward to this one. I have to admit that this is not my favorite kit. I don't think that it is very well designed and it certainly has some unprototypical features that really bother me. It also suffers from the fact that the tabs and slots required filing to get a good fit which also applies to the two interior walls which are harder to get into to file down because the exterior walls are fragile. If you force MDF hard enough it will break!

The Instructions

Straight from the bag!

Sorted out the parts

Here is a wall sub assembly. If you click on the picture to see a bigger version you can see how I have filed down the tabs so that the will fit (I did front and back sides). The two long vertical slots make this piece a little fragile till you have it mounted on the platform. (this is the front wall)

The back wall, again the tabs have been filed down (in width, not length)so they will fit into the platform slots.

Walls mounted to the top of the platform. They served as a guide to gluing the bottom of the platform in place. The tabs actually are long enough to go through both pieces.

The two interior walls slotted into place. I had problems with the front and broke some of the MDF but the break is hidden by the walls so not a big deal.

And the back, or non-trackside. On most protoypes this wall would be flat and wouldn't have those wings around the door. (That's a prototype thing and not likely to bother your average gamer.

gluing the door and window piece on to the exterior wall.

Exterior walls in place and the frames for the passenger shelter roof are in place. These also had to be filed down to fit into the slots in the platform.

The roof went together nicely. I did file the slots a bit and the slot for the chimney had to be filed as well.

A look from the trackside. It looks good, despite my frustrations with getting this one built.

A look from the street side. Looks good except that little alcove with the door is going to bother me.

Passenger Shelter Scale Shot

Building Scale Shot

From here I moved on to the small heroic building (with optional pitched roof).

Instructions and Parts

Sub Assemblies

Gluing up the roof

Using my clamps to square up the building and let the glue set

Adding the other side to the roof.

And the finished building. Fast build. I still had to file down all the tabs though to get them to fit.

Finished from the back

And a little scale shot.

And then the final building; medium heroic with pitched roof (optional)

The Parts

The Instruction sheet

And the finished building. You do have to be careful with the front framing. The framing is all cut as one piece and the  two larger windows snap off pretty easy and the whole thing is very floppy till you get it glued down in place. Fixing the window that broke off was very easy.

The backside finished. Again I had to file down all the tabs that had to slot down into the base or  upwards to hold the roof.

And a scale shot.