Page 14 - November December 2007

FOS Scale Ltd – Degraw’s Poultry Market & Gordo’s Fried Chicken
FOS Scale is a husband and wife team that produce craftsman kits inspired by 1940s ‘Americana’. Their first kit was Big Lou’s Diner issued in 2003, which sold out within weeks of being issued. I created my own version of the kit, which I scratchbuilt from items in my spares box for the station area on my Mill Falls layout. Recently they issued another version of the kit – Little Lou’s Diner – and this sold out within four weeks. They make several limited edition kits a year and also have a selection of over a dozen ‘quick kits’ which are stock items. A selection of kits can be viewed on their website www.foslimited.com.
This kit, a limited run of 350 kits, depicts a typical 1940s poultry market and is still available at the time of writing. It comprises the main Degraw’s Poultry building, a sidewalk, the small fast food outlet – Gordo’s Fried Chicken – and a railroad loading dock.
The kit comes in a strong white cardboard box. The kit instructions are detailed in an eight-page booklet with two pages of colour photographs of the buildings. There are also four reference cards and a leaflet on tips and techniques for painting and weathering structures.
Contents of the kit include:
• Laser-cut sheets for the wooden walls
and laser-cut sidewalks
• Cardboard templates for the roofs
• A packet of plastic windows, doors and
lampshades
• A paper sheet to depict rolled roofing
• A small sheet of laser-cut shingles and
some mesh material
• A sheet of laser-cut wooden chicken
crates and some plastic sacks
• Various metal details for chimneys and
stacks
• A sheet of signs and advertising and a
sheet of scale newspapers
• Stock wood for bracing the walls
• Stock wood for detailing and a length of
wire.
Starting the kit
First of all I detached the laser-cut walls from the carrier sheets. To aid construction I always mark the number of the part on its reverse side in pencil. Tip: make sure when you do this that the wall is the right way up with clapboards facing downwards, otherwise your walls could end upside- down!
Stain first
I stain all the wooden walls with Minwax wood stain (Driftwood). This seals the wood and leaves a nice aged wood look.
This will prevent the walls from warping when you apply water-based paint later.
Paint
For the neatest job, I have always found it best to paint the walls before erecting them. Also it is far easier to add advertising and signs and indeed windows and doors before you start gluing walls together. I paint the walls with acrylic craft paints. These are available at many craft shops for £1 per 2 fl oz bottle. There is a huge range of colours available. I used an Almond for Gordo’s and a mixture of Orange and Peach for the upper walls of the poultry building. I painted some areas of the walls with full-strength paint and then diluted the paint with a few drops of water for other areas. A small dollop of paint on the plastic lid of an ex-coleslaw container allows you to dilute the paint with water to the right consistency. In some areas I left the wood stain showing through. This kit had a supply of bracing material so I braced the walls first. However, as I had stained the walls this was not strictly necessary.
Windows and doors
The easiest way I have found to paint plastic doors and windows is to cut them from their sprues first. Then I attach a strip of double-sided tape to a piece of card, affix the parts to the tape, and then paint them using a spray paint such as Floquil’s Rail Brown #130007. Tip: when you cut the plastic parts off the sprues, always use a new sharp hobby knife blade and turn the part upside down so the window frame is flat against your cutting surface, as you put less pressure on the part this way and are less likely to break the window mullions.
To glaze windows I use Sobo Premium Craft & Fabric Glue by Delta. This is a very thick white glue that is easy to use, but you could also try Microscale Micro Kristal Klear. I dip a toothpick in the glue and then draw this across the backs of the panes. This forms a great glass effect once dry. Fourteen items took just three minutes to glaze, which is much quicker than any other method I know.
Construction
This began by adding the corner trim to the buildings as shown in the plans. I painted the trim for Gordo’s orange and that for Degraw’s brown. Before I added the trim to the corners of Degraw’s I painted the first five bottom boards a maroon colour. You can use tape to give a perfect line or do it freehand as I did.
I then fitted the windows and doors in each of the walls. Next came the signs and advertising. I wanted the signs on Degraw’s to appear painted on the walls. First I cut out the signs using a straight rule and new
Mike Carter
blade. Then I rubbed the back of each sign carefully with 220 fine sandpaper (I used K&S Flexi-grit). The idea is to make the sign as thin as possible without going through the paper. Afterwards I coated the back of the signs with white glue and affixed them to the walls. Then I ran my fingernail along each board starting at the top of each sign. When dried, the boards can be seen through the signs and they appear painted on.
The poultry building’s mansard roof has three formers to which you attach the roof cards. I have modelled the roof as looking in serious need of repair.
The loading dock is a mixture of laser-cut parts and wooden joists and supports cut from stock wood. Caution is needed with laser-cut parts as they are very easily snapped. I think the high temperatures of the laser cutting dries the wood, and sometimes a part can just disintegrate into literally dust.
Details
Some of the details in this kit are truly amazing. The chicken crates are a case in point. Imagine building a six-sided wooden crate just 3 by 5 measured in sixteenths of an inch. There were six to make, and I would advise using an Opti- visor, two pairs of tweezers and not in- dulging in two pints of London Pride before you start! The doors on the poultry building are also very cute. These are deli- cately laser-cut, and you mount the mesh fabric behind them to form an open- frame door. They lend great character to the model. The feathers of chickens get everywhere, and to simulate this it is suggested you use a small paintbrush to paint a tiny amount of slightly wet plaster onto the mesh.
There is a freestanding sign on each building. These give the model great char- acter. One of the reference cards has a cut- ting template for each sign.
There are several metal vents and chimney- stacks to be added to each model. To add these, a hole had to be made in the buildings. Tip: I use the closed tip of a small pair of scissors to do this. This tapered end of the scissors allows you to gently increase the size of the hole until the part fits snugly.
The kit comes with a laser-cut sidewalk for both buildings, which is great aid for installing into a scene on a layout. Degraw’s Poultry Market is a great addition to my Mill Falls show layout and joins the other craftsman kits that I have enjoyed building for it.
Construction time – 36 pleasant hours Price – $125 Bangforyourbuck–9outof10
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