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June 22, 2013 Removable Section IV

In this post I'm still working on the basic scenery remodel.  The first picture shows the module with the houses in place for checking the flocking. The Grandt Line No Problem Joe's or my Old Miners house has been replaced with a Campbell Models Farm House, I added his garage and kept the plastic Grandt Line Outhouse.
 
The house on the far right is a Laser-Art LaSalle Catalog Home Kit.  The house in the center front is a scratch built Sears 1916 Catalog Home and the house on it's left is a Scratch Built 1900s Home from a 1982 Mainline Modelers Magazine.  I have redone the flocking around the houses and put a new layer of gravel on the road widening it to make it consistent with the adjoining road.


The picture above is a closeup of the Campbell Kit house (my Retired Miner's house), the garage is scratch built from scrap material. The added rock formation behind the house came out very nice and matches the rest of the rocks. The ground flocking is finished and later I will add bushes and shrubbery.



Here I have finished the ground cover with Woodland Scenics Flocking material. There will be several small Pines in the yard of this 1926 LaSalle Catalog Home.  I glued the Woodland Scenics tree bases to the Paper Mache and covered them with flocking to hid them.
 
The lower level flocking, road, driveways and rocks are finished,  There will be a total of 12 small Pine trees on the lower level and 55 tall Pines on the upper level. All the trees on my layout are now using a base that the tree trunks plug into for easy removal.  As I have stated several times on my blog that I error-ed badly by not using the Woodland Scenics tree bases when I originally installed them. Now everything is removable for easy maintenance. The module will look very nice when I'm finished with it.
 
Had I known that I could turn out scratch built houses this nice earlier on I wouldn't have bought kits. The house above is a scratch built Sears 1916 Catalog Home #264B110, later called The Silverdale.
 
All of my scratch built catalog houses turned out much better than I ever expected.  Building them was actually easier than assembling a Craftsman Kit.  I did learn several construction tricks from Campbell Models that really helped.  One being Campbell Corner Posts, they make the wall construction simple and very strong as well as more realistic.

This is a Campbell Models #381 Farm House Kit or now my Retired Miner's House with the Miner sitting in his Captains Chair.  You can see the electric meter on the rear corner of the house, if you look close you can see two .015" holes in the top of the rear corner post.  The steel .010" Music Wire power drop to the house will plug into the two holes.  The actual power for the lighting enters the house through the floor on .030" brass rods. 
 
This is the Miner's garage, it is built from scrap material leftover from my Catalog Homes.
 
The house above is a Blair Line Laser-Art LaSalle Kit #629.  I didn't use the shingles that came in the kit because I wanted the shingles to match the rest of my houses.  I use Campbell shingles on all my shingled buildings.
   
More as my project continues.
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