ERTL Farm House Set

I picked up one of these online. The ERTL stuff is listed as 1/64th scale (same as the Machine Shed. See that here, here and here) but I think it runs a little big.

Here's a repainted Heroclix mini for comparison.

 and

It's a small-ish house but it works for me. Well... it WILL work as soon as I finish it. ;)

How will I finish it? 

Well..., I started by cutting down some left over illustration board to fit in as interior walls. They measure 1-7/8" high. The short walls are 4-1/16" wide and the longer walls are 6-9/16" wide.

Next, I cut them and placed them in the house to make sure they fit. Adjust/trim as necessary.

Next, I grab a knife and "score" into the board from the outside using the windows as my guide. You could use a pencil or pen here too, I just went in with the knife.

Then cut the windows all the way out.

Place them inside to see how well they work. As you can see in the picture below I also measured out the floor space and cut a piece of board to fit. Right now, since I haven't decided if I'm going to glue the walls in or not, I recommend cutting the walls first, then measure for the floor. This way when you place the floor in it helps to hold the walls in place. My idea is to be able to swap the walls out so that I can have different color walls or paneling or things like that.

Next I grabbed a bunch of coffee stirrers and started laying out a floor. The more narrow the better as far as I'm concerned.

I started by laying out 4 sticks and measuring them for the width of the interior floor. Then I started glueing the floor slats to the support sticks. I had to add extra support sticks periodically to help keep the sticks close together and to keep them from bowing or warping.

Next time I'm going to vary the pattern a bit more, this is a little to "patterny" for my tastes. It should look more like a hardwood floor.
Yeah... nitpicky... I know.

It does look pretty cool when placed inside the house.

That's it for now. Coming up I plan to:

  • Create another hardwood floor for the second level

  • Create the attic

  • Create a basement space

  • Paint the exterior of the house

  • Figure out how to make some better shutters
  • Make it so that the door can be opened. Maybe.
  • Make some interior walls that can be arranged in different configurations.

  • Create a stairwell

  • Make or buy some furniture

  • I'm sure there's more but I can't think of anything else right now.

Life and stuff...

With the added expense of daycare my wife and I decided that we could no longer afford our studio space. We gave it up in the fall and I moved everything into a storage space. The goal was to have enough room in there to be able to go in and do a little work now and then.

Sadly, that goal was not attainable. It starts with properly labeled boxes and the intent of having an organized space and it ends with a mad dash of cramming everything into whatever available boxes you have and throwing it into the storage space.

The new, altered, goal was to just be able to find stuff so I could bring it home to work on. That goal has been met. So far.


Speaking of goals, I have decided to try and paint 10 minis a month. Or 120 miniatures by years end. I'd also like to include building a few IHC Homes of Yesterday and Today model kits. Lets say 4 of those (I have 6 or 7 of them).

 I have all 5 of the storefront buildings.
     300-14 Second Hand Rose

     300-15 South Street Smoke Shop

     300-16 Rita's Antique Shop

     300-17 O'Weeds Greenery

     300-18 Grant Cary's Apothecary

And 2 of the Gingerbread houses:
     300-2 The Queen Anne House
     300-3 Steiner House

I will take some pics at another time (and detail my plans for them), until then these ebay pics will do.

All in all it seems like an attainable goal as I have already painted 21 minis. So, January and February are basically covered before February starts. Though I suspect that at the end of the year I'll have about 50-60 painted and maybe 1 IHC kit put together (I have already started on one IHC kit as I type this so that should get finished). I have to add the ERTL farm house to this list.

Game Board

Awhile back I realized that I would never get anything done if I didn't figure out a way to focus on my projects. I start on a project, get about 1/4 of the way into it and think of how I could make something else. That would then draw my interest into the new project leaving the old one sitting on my desk. Repeat that thought process about a 100 times and you can paint a picture of what the studio looks like. I have an area of "to paint" miniatures, and an area of "to convert" miniatures, some random 1/48 scale cars to weather, a few 1/48 scale motor homes & ambulances to convert, a pile of white plastic fences that I'm building a gate for (that opens, of course), there's some mesh to make chain link fences, a box of o-scale train tracks, 4" card board tubes and fake brick to make some subway boards, some black grout and plastic strip that will eventually become a paved road set, boxes of 1/48 scale city building models to put together, and on and on and on...

So... my idea to focus came to me as a game board set. I figured I had most of the parts to set up a farm house and surrounding area.
I had made some wood fences .
http://confessionsofaminiaturemodeler.blogspot.com/2013/10/making-fences.html
I had bunch of trees and I had made the fields already.
The silo was painted.
http://confessionsofaminiaturemodeler.blogspot.com/2013/10/thrift-score.html
I had my Machine Shed.
http://confessionsofaminiaturemodeler.blogspot.com/2014/04/ertl-farm-country.html

And I found an Ertl farm house (which I had started working on how to add some interiors to). Most of my grass boards were in pretty good shape and I felt like this was my best shot at getting something done. There is a TON of stuff to do to it still but it's coming together.

The ERTL Machine Shed conversion Part 2

I built up the area around the door and added some side supports.

Then I sprayed the interior pieces with the metal spray. I'll have to write it down next time I go to the studio so I can post it here. I really like the look of it on the structures.

Some miniatures for scale purposes.

And the door pieces (again, I forgot my camera so no step by step pics).
I glued a thin piece of plastic down to the inside of the door, then added some strips of plastic to give it some depth.


Next I will add a black wash to the inside to give it more depth, then add some rust spots.

After that,  I have to mask off the interior and spray the exterior of the building and the roof.
And finally,  I have to create a poured cement floor for the interior.
And since nothing is ever really finished. I might add an interior office type structure, or some work rooms on one end, or along the side maybe? Dunno. We'll have to see what happens when I get closer to finishing.

The ERTL Machine Shed conversion Part 1

Recently, I posted about the ERTL Farm Country Machine Shed set. (http://confessionsofaminiaturemodeler.blogspot.com/2014/04/ertl-farm-country.html)
I'm really happy with the way it looks with all the 25-28mm/O Scale/1:48th mish mash of stuff I have going on so far. Once I finish I'll take some better pics for scale purposes.
So far, I've glued the roof pieces together and sprayed them with a gun metal-ish silver spray paint.
I had forgotten my camera for this step so there are no step by step shots. (I can't afford to waste any time in the studio by going back home to grab the camera). Here's the roof.
I plan to spray it with a dark(ish) green.

And the inside of the roof.

I scraped off the numbers and mold marks so that the interior would be smooth. Then I cut some strips of plastic and glued them on to give it some character.

Next I cleaned up the wall sections and glued them together.
Inside walls (you can see the circular mold marks)

 Outside walls

Then I took some of these drink stirrers (Not sure where I got these, which is a bummer because I can see lots of uses for them now) and cut them down to make support beams for the walls.

Pic of the stirrer support beams,

Then I used some plastic to cover up the joints.

I'll spray the interior with the gun-metal silver and the outside with white.
Here's a shot of it (mostly) together.

I still have to figure out the outer doors and the large sliding doors but it's coming along nicely so far.

Boats

I found the same Dollar General boats at Toys R Us. 

The Toys R Us price?

$5.99

AND...

It has a slightly better paint job to it and looks a bit nicer to me.
Even though it's pretty much the same boat.

ERTL Farm Country

I had read online that the ERTL Farm Country play sets were good for O scale trains.
I figured it should be close for wargaming minis (28mm-ish). Well... they aren't perfect exactly, but they sure are close. For $24.00 (plus shipping) I got the Machine Shed playset and I think it's pretty awesome. A little small but these things come in all different sizes anyway.
Next I want to get the Barn set, then the Farm House.

I'll clean them up and try to buildup the insides a bit where they lack some detail, then get them painted up and weathered. They're going to look great on the Farm board I've been working on.

Getting there...

I usually feel like I'm not getting anywhere when I go to the studio. I look around and there are bits and pieces of stuff that I like and a pile of things to work on.

Yesterday I decided to set something up to see where I was in developing a "board" for playing. It's not much but it's better than I thought.

I'm hoping to finish a few more things over the weekend and take some better pics but this will do for now.

I need to finish the bases on the trees, more scenery boards, and I still need to build a barn, chicken coop, farm house, windmill...

CVS and Chiberia

It's cold. I had a dentist appointment today and I was running early (which almost never happens to me), so I stopped into a nearby CVS Pharmacy to warm up. I wandered around for a bit and found myself in the clearance aisle. I spotted this:

The price was marked as $19.99, which is (in my opinion) WAY to high for this set. I looked it over and laughed. There were maybe 5 or 6 things that I could use and I thought "No way am I going to spend $20 on this."
Then I noticed the signs nearby. 50% of New Years Eve Items and 90% off Christmas. Was this set Christmas? I snatched it back up and looked around. Hmmmm... gotta check this out. 90% off would be like $2.00. I would pay $2.00 for the boxes, barriers, barrels and gas cans in the set. I wandered up to the checkout, ignoring the funny looks I always seem to get when I buy toys, and asked the cashier if she could price check it for me. $1.99.
I said "I'll take it."

 I included a heroclix mini for scale.
The little guard house is tiny but with a little work I can turn it into a useable gate.

Not bad for $1.99
Plus, I figure I can sell the vehicles on ebay. Maybe there's somebody out there looking for some military stuff for an HO train layout.

Where are you, you spongy, yellow, delicious bastards?

I grabbed a yellow Hummer the other day while out running errands, and it dawned on me that something was missing. Dale Earnhardt's number 3 of course. Now I just need to grab some good Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita & Little Rock figures.

Thrift Score.

On Monday, I stopped at the local thrift store to find some items for a Halloween costume and stumbled upon this.

Mondays are 50% off days so this grain silo was 99¢.
I took it to the studio yesterday and cleaned it up. Here's a shot to show the scale.

 I was probably not warm enough for spray painting, but I did it anyway.

Next, I have to weather it a bit and add some rust and such. I may even rig up some kind of interior for it. Just in case the players want to explore the inside. ;)

Weathering done. Thinking about altering the door to be closer to mini height.

Making Fences

I'm currently working on scenery that can be used in a modern (or wild west or even post apocalyptic) setting or fantasy setting. Standard stuff like these hand made fences.

Choose your post. I grabbed a rubber banded bundle of 15 of these at a yard sale for $1.00.

The guy tried to tell me they were hand carved. I looked them over and I asked him if the bar code on the bottom was "hand painted". Anyway...

Cut them to the desired size.

I recommend sanding them to give it a flatter edge. It'll help keep them straight when you base them. I, also, recommend grabbing a sander like this. It's nice. I bought this beauty (the Sand-It) online at www.micromark.com. I also grabbed a Duplicate-It. Which I recommend.

Then I soak them in a watered down black paint bath. You don't have to leave them in there for very long. Also, as a side note, you don't want to mix up to much as the mixture starts to stick after awhile.

Set them somewhere to dry for at least a few hours. You don't want the water interfering with the glue. If you're in a hurry, set them under a lamp to speed up the drying process.

I am currently working on a more sophisticated version of this (I have a tray that I've glued a ruler too and plan on getting some double sided tape to lay down). But for now the duct tape dopes the trick just fine. It helps keep things lined up and makes it MUCH easier to glue together. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to have an issue with objects sticking to my fingers better than the glue can hold.

Add your glue drops.

Then your fence pieces.

Clean up the excess glue.

And place something heavy and flat on it so it dries straight.

When it's dry you can trim off the extra over hang of the fance and add your bases ( I use clear plastic, post on that coming soon). And add any extras at this point, like grass, bushes, tall grass, etc.

And finally...