So, here we go with catching you up with the various projects that I’ve been working on. I believe that they should be pretty much in the order that I worked on them, not that it matters.

I started first with the kits from Scientific Models that I had received for Christmas in 2020. As I had mentioned before, they were the Protestant Church #89545 and The Parson’s House #89546. I had built a couple of smaller kits from them, a corn crib and bleachers for the ball park and enjoyed them enough to try some of their larger kits.

Starting with the church. The fit was very good except for two things, will touch on those in a moment. Since I was trying to recreate a childhood memory, I was hoping for a church with the steeple centered on the front of the church. The steeple in the kit is offset to the left of the church. Thought that maybe I could modify the kit once I had it, but not so. The left side wall (looking at it from the front) is shorter because of the steeple and I would have had to track down matching siding and make a whole new wall. So I went with the kit as is.

As they always say in reviews, the fit was excellent and the order of construction is logical. The problem I ran into is the steeple. In particular the roof. The roof frame is two pieces that slide together to gives you a base for the for the roof panels to glue on to. At the bottom is a tab that fits into a slot on the top of the steeple base. That slot is the first problem. It should run on the diagonal from corner to corner. It does not, but is offset. Which then means the roof section is not square with the base. I had to enlarge the slot to get the roof to set right.

My first thought was that this was a “one off” problem. But thinking about it, since this is a laser cut structure, the CAD drawings had to be wrong. And since they had one assembled for the artwork, they would have caught the problem and corrected it for production. At least that’s the way it works in my world. The second problem was the actual laser cut roof panels for the steeple. There is a gap on all four sides. Looking back, I should have taken a bar sander and created beveled sides and then the panels would have sat better. Despite the gaps, this should be easy to cover with shingles.

Other than that everything fit well. If you look at the picture of the top of the steeple, you can see everything fits well and tight.

The church assembled and painted.

With everything painted it is ready for final assembly and shingles. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to go about making stained glass windows.

I was also working on the Parson’s Home kit at the same time. I could work on one while the glue dried on the other.

It was full steam ahead on the Parson’s Home when I quickly realized a minor problem and stopped.

The house is built around a core structure, with all the outer walls glued to it. What I realized was if I had taken it to the point of the church, I would not be able to add lights to it when done.

There are basically four rooms with an additional two with the front and back extensions. I stopped because I want to figure out the rooms and add lights accordingly.

The house as it is and a preview (of sorts) of what it will look like.

You can see from the photos that the porch and porch roof structures a quite heavily framed. The upside is I should easily be able to hide a light in the roof structure to act a a front porch light.

And that’s where I stand with these two structures. I have researched the stained glass windows. I found an Etsy site that has a downloadable Jpeg for them. Probably the way to go.  Haven’t moved forward as I have been refocusing on finishing the lower level (mostly) and these are for the upper.

As I said, love the kits. The kits from Micro-Mark’s Scientific line of structures are of very good quality and fit. And there is a great selection of railroad themed structures.

Till next time, stay safe and happy modeling…