# Scary build!



## Steve25

Hi all!

On my layout I have a bit of land on a hill overlooking the main town that I was always thinking about being the area where the Affluent lived.

As such I had some ideas to have some gated Victorian type houses up there with there beautiful gardens and trimmed Bushes lining the walkways, looking glasses and such!

For the start of this affluent area I had 2 kits on hand that can commonly be had and fit the Victorian theam, but for the main house that will be seen the most I wanted something different, but that night after pulling my Beard for a while I came up with nothing.

The next day however I had a very very scary thought!

I recalled seing on line a year before a kit in HO that would fit my plan to the Tee,so I bought one .

As seen on TV in the 60s this house was a scary eye sore to say the least, but I will build it pristine . 

I think this is as different as I could get in HO scale, and yes the street these homes will be on will be 1313 Mockingbird Ln, Lol!


----------



## MichaelE

Cleaned up, that should be a magnificent Victorian mansion.


----------



## teledoc

Excellent idea, and would like to see the finished product, even though I am not into H.O.. it’s fun to see different ideas built into layouts. :appl::appl:


----------



## Steve25

I will post up some in progress info & pictures, yes!


----------



## Stumpy

Gotta have it! 

Thanks for the post.


----------



## flyboy2610

Munster's Trivia: Yvonne De Carlo (Lily Munster) played Zipporah, the wife of Moses, in Cecil B. DeMille's classic "The Ten Commandments" opposite Charlton Heston.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.


----------



## Andreash

Love it....it would be a conversation starter.

A few years ago I came across the Bates house (psycho) in 1/87. I am still kicking myself for not buying it.....


----------



## Steve25

I have 2 of those Bate's kits and man am I happy I had a few less dinners that Month to pay for buying 2 of them while they where around !
That Bates kit sitting on my kit shelf was the number 1 pick for my use in this project until I recalled seing these 1313 Mockingbird Lane kits.

Thanks for the film trivia, boy did that jar my mind in a good way at this time of the morning!


----------



## Steve25

Hi all!
Here's some pictures of the start of the build / rework of the kit for you.

The roof shingles are rendered poorly so I will grind them off to apply far better looking ones.

If they had looked atleast as good as the ones on the ever popular Atlas Station kit roof or there gate tower kit I may have kept them as is, but as you can see in the photo there pretty bad!

The left hand roof section in the photo has been ground flat .

The next thing I want to improve on are the far too wide Window Muilions.
I will see what I can about getting atleast all the ones remade on the Windows that will be seen at the property site.

I have not put much though yet into colors to pain the house in, but luckily there are many gorgeous Victorian homes in my area that I will take some photo's of to get a feel of what can work best for the build.


----------



## gimme30

That's awesome!

I'm on a similar mission in N scale so will definitely be following your progress. What a great find!
Now you need a Munster's coach to park out front!


----------



## Steve25

Lol! I built and painted that Revell kit of there custom car really nice when I was a kit , and then when I got a BB gun I shot it full of holes just like a dumb kid would on a boring Summer day.

I which I still had most of those kits I built , especially the Sunmarine Seaview if you recall that one from that late 60s TV show?


----------



## Steve25

Hi all!

So here's where I am starting of.

On the front of the house only I will replace a fair amount of the window Mullions with ones cut from my stock of these Grandt line Windows, and others I will just need to cut from strip stock that I still need to get.

The kits good looking Chimney unfortunately has no Brick detain it so that needs to relocate to the circular file Can as does the TV antenna.

I also want to change the sad face in the roof stand off above the front door ( what is that called on these and other houses?). to a smile and I think I have figured a way to get the done, fingers crossed here on that!


----------



## Steve25

Well Summer is cooling down so it's back to modeling!

Here's some shots where I have started to get the windows to look better and boy it ain't easy getting those cut out sections of better scaled windows glued back in !

I had to use more super glue then I thought I would so now I have to file out the excess from each 90 degree Conor before I prime the walls with the light gray that I have used on the foundation bricks.

I have spent a fair amount of time driving around and looking at Victorian homes in the area and many have there porch floors painted a green so that my color pick for that area of the kit build.

I have not settled on any other colors yet but for the light gray primer I have been spraying on to be the main base color for everything.


----------



## Spence

That's going to be one fantastic looking house when it's done.


----------



## Steve25

Thanks, I will give it my best shot for all of you!


----------



## Chaostrain

I'm curious as to why you are using super glue instead of plastic model glue. It is looking very nice.


----------



## Steve25

I only had Testirs plastic glue in the bottle on hand and I could not in 4 attempts get a bond to happen as strange as it sounds so it switched to the super glue.

I have some Tenx on order that I hope works better, if not it must be something with the make up of the plastic in this China made kit I would guess and I will have to roll with the super glue and the added work that it makes!


----------



## Steve25

So I think I have settled on using these 3 main colors plus White in places .

Light tan , Purple and Sky Blue.

The Purple and Blue are a gloss enamel so the whole structure will need a top coat of flat clear which I may have a issue with if it covers too much detail as the enamel is kinda thick all on its own!

I guess I will try it on some scrap plastic that I scratch some lines in and if it does not pass the test I will reluctantly mix my own flat of those two colors.


----------



## Chaostrain

Steve25 said:


> I only had Testirs plastic glue in the bottle on hand and I could not in 4 attempts get a bond to happen as strange as it sounds so it switched to the super glue.
> 
> I have some Tenx on order that I hope works better, if not it must be something with the make up of the plastic in this China made kit I would guess and I will have to roll with the super glue and the added work that it makes!


Oh, ok! Thank you!


----------



## flyboy2610

I have found that for the Testors cement in the bottles to work properly the joint needs to be pretty tight before gluing. For less than perfect joints I prefer the Testors tube type cement. Just be sure to apply it sparingly as it doesn't take much.


----------



## Steve25

Yes, I have found the same thing , it's just that it's setting time is so slow even when used sparingly that I get impatient.

When I do have the time to sit down and build I most times need to go fast, so at that point it's super glue and accellerent time for me!

I wish there could be such a thing to speed up the curing of the Testors in the tube, but I have never heard of such.


----------



## Steve25

Getting back to it again here over the weekend.

Moving along with the front side window rework which is time consuming as it seems to take me some 35 minutes each to get them done and looking acceptable!

I also need to get better White paint that covers in only 2 coats as it's taking me 3 coats to get the windows looking good which is more time then I would like to spend on doing that, oh where oh where has Floquil gone?

Until I get all the windows painted I can't apply my main wall color which will be a middle tone Gray.

The arrow points to the modified upper windows compared to the ones in the wall on the left.

On my next post I should have some subassembly done I hope.


----------



## cole226

you're extra efforts are really going to payoff. That's going to be a real attention getter. :smilie_daumenpos::smilie_daumenpos:


----------



## Steve25

Thanks for the kind words Cole!

I started to use my Testors flat enamel white on the windows last night and it covers atleast a little better, but is a bit thicker then the folk art brand paint I was using and nothing Tee's me off more then when paint starts to cover up details!

In hind site I should have just spray primed near everything White and not the tan that I did.
Lesson learned....again!


----------



## Steve25

Hi there folks , how are ya all?

Here's a update on the build here.

Just for this photo I taped together some of the front wall sections that I have near to being all done.

They all still need some touch up's in terms of painting and the entrance wall under the front porch is not even painted at all yet due to the rework of the upper peak I am doing and the foundation brick work is not painted and weathered yet.

That peak ( whatever it's really called on these types of houses ) with the sad face in it as cast in the kit could not say in my build ( it has to be a happy face) and I really like the looks of how the real one was not only resessed, but notched back around its inside perimeter and that's the way I am reworking mine as you can see from the missing face if you reference my previous photo's.

I need to get more roofing material later in the week and the house should go together fast at that point.


----------



## Steve25

I have made a but more progress on the kit to report to you folks on.

The foundation of the kit had some pretty good gaps between section so I have filled those in with Durhams water putty and then sanded and carved back in the needed brick detail and next comes the repaint of the brick and the upper foundation line.

The very upper roof sections that I am re-doing in Fishscale shingles is coming along but slowly.

One big thing I still need to do is to figure out what chimney's I will use and where they will go such that the make sense to the function of the house without killing its looks.

On big strange thing I do not like about the kit is that it has no rear or side door.
I think what I will do is build out a small covered porch in front of one of the rear windows that is on a narrow wall section by means of a false wall that will have a big double door of mostly glass in it as if it was coming off the kitchen .
Off of this porch I will add a patio when I get around to placing it on the layout.

The broken window on the front lower left will become a repair job for a HO scale work crew once the house is inplace.

As a side note I found that if your very carefull with Testors dull coat even though it's a Laquer paint you can spray it over a Enamel if you build up serveral light coats at a time with enough drying time inbewteen coats.


----------



## NorfolkSouthernguy

Andreash said:


> Love it....it would be a conversation starter.
> 
> A few years ago I came across the Bates house (psycho) in 1/87. I am still kicking myself for not buying it.....
> View attachment 505680



Just FYI you can still get the Bates house in HO 1/87. I run across them quite often on eBay when browsing. There is one on Etsy right now already built for $29.00 free shipping. 👍


----------



## NorfolkSouthernguy

Steve25 said:


> I have made a but more progress on the kit to report to you folks on.
> 
> The foundation of the kit had some pretty good gaps between section so I have filled those in with Durhams water putty and then sanded and carved back in the needed brick detail and next comes the repaint of the brick and the upper foundation line.
> 
> The very upper roof sections that I am re-doing in Fishscale shingles is coming along but slowly.
> 
> One big thing I still need to do is to figure out what chimney's I will use and where they will go such that the make sense to the function of the house without killing its looks.
> 
> On big strange thing I do not like about the kit is that it has no rear or side door.
> I think what I will do is build out a small covered porch in front of one of the rear windows that is on a narrow wall section by means of a false wall that will have a big double door of mostly glass in it as if it was coming off the kitchen .
> Off of this porch I will add a patio when I get around to placing it on the layout.
> 
> The broken window on the front lower left will become a repair job for a HO scale work crew once the house is inplace.
> 
> As a side note I found that if your very carefull with Testors dull coat even though it's a Laquer paint you can spray it over a Enamel if you build up serveral light coats at a time with enough drying time inbewteen coats.


Speaking of scary this very house already built is for sale at $358.00 on Etsy! 😮👻


----------



## Steve25

Hi there Mark and thanks for the info !
As it happens I already have 2 of the Polar lights Bates kits sitting on my shelf now for 3 years waiting for the construction crew to show up so to speak, lol!


----------



## NorfolkSouthernguy

Steve25 said:


> Hi there Mark and thanks for the info !
> As it happens I already have 2 of the Polar lights Bates kits sitting on my shelf now for 3 years waiting for the construction crew to show up so to speak, lol!


Hey Steve, I was actually replying to Andreash about the kit of the bates house he wish he had bought some time back. &#55357;&#56841;

I was giving him a heads up that the model is still around here and there. Your progress looks great! You may just inspire me to get a kit. I thought about it a few times as I have seen them here and there.


----------



## Steve25

For any of you who may purchase and build this kit please make note that the Tower walls parts 14 and 15 have there numbers molded in them reversed, i.e. Part 14 is part 15.

Sorry I ment to post this info weeks ago but keep forgetting, and who knows maybe it was not more then 1 production run of kits that when out the door this way and is now corrected , but you will know if it's wrong when you get to that build point for sure!


----------



## Steve25

Hi all!
Another thing I have been meaning to post about what took place with this build is with the painting of it.

Here's a warning, and a word to the wise!

I was not thinking when I was paint shopping and for a base coat color / primer I used a Testors spray can of a color that as it turns out they do not offer in one of there small bottles, and this made doing touch up's a pain in Butt!
It took me near 1.5 hours to mix up a touch up color that matched good enough to use.

Keep this in mind folks!


----------



## Steve25

Ok, so for the most part the kit is done but for some weathering to the roof after finally settling on what chimney's I will use and where they will go along with some details on the front porch and a weather vain on the high roof's peak.
After that the landscaper's pull up and dig in!


----------



## Magic

What a beautiful build. Very nice indeed.
Great workmanship there. 
Thanks for posting.

Magic


----------



## Steve25

Thanks for your kind words!
I learned and relearned I few things along the way with this kit in regards to the paint that I posted about and then this, read the instructions!

I had a good part of the model glued to its base and then in the assembly process needed to get the long right side of the mid roof in place that runs front to rear on the kit.
I could not get it inplace without cutting loose most of one of the walls from the base and then also notching 2 of the locating tabs on that long roof section.

Of course after I found this problem and referenced the instructions it stated very clearly what the assembly procedure should be.

Yes, it was slap the forehead time for me, lol!


----------

