While doing the big “cleaning of the workbench” I had to do something with all the kits I had stacked waiting their turn to be put together. Most were either more work then I wanted to do right now or weren’t relevant at this time. There were a handful that didn’t need a lot of work and were relevant, were involved but relevant or just something that sounded like fun.

First were the water towers for the towns of Jackson and Brandon. I had bought these when I was in Milwaukee from the Walther’s store. They were half price so I had picked up two. When I had opened them up when I got home I found that the reason they were half priced was because most of the wire cross bracing between the legs had fallen off. No problem, I cleaned off the old glue, glued back the pieces that were still in the package, cut new wire pieces for those that were missing and painted all the wire pieces silver. Then I added lettering. The finished towers…

Next up was the “Silver Plume Bakery” by Banta Model Works (bantamodelworks.com). My plan is to use it as… a bakery, in the town of Brandon. I got it because finding single story retail kits for a business district is hard. Most are two or more stories high. Not the thing for a small town. Plus the building has character. Being a laser cut kit I kind of expected the thing to fall together as that has been my experience with this type of kit. Not the case here. I would not recommend this kit as I had to do a lot of adjusting, filing and filling, plus a little scratch building to get the kit to work out.

I thought that maybe it was just me or perhaps this one kit, but I was watching Gerry Leone (bonavistarailroad.com) on MR video Plus and he was using the same kit as a hardware store and had different issues, but as troubling. I don’t know if it’s this one kit or their entire line, just be aware that you might have troubles with this line.

That said, I did get it almost all together. I made a counter and a display case for the retail portion of the store as it has huge windows and screams for some type of detain. I went online and found a wallpaper print typical of my time period and printed it out for the store. All that is left is a couple of chairs for the local clientele, lights and something to put in the display case (a picture of bakery delicacies) and then add the roof and it will be ready.

Last up was a Russell Snowplow, A Walther’s Kit (walthers.com). Pretty straight build, it has a fresh paint job on it. I’m not sure if a will leave it that way and show it receiving maintenance on one of the short tracks in the roundhouse or I will weather it and have it sitting outside waiting for winter. It could come down to how much time I have.

I have the road name on but have to come up with the other MOW markings.

That’s it for now, Till next time…