October 19, 2018 Revisiting my first scratch build

After being in the hobby for 60 years I finally took on or attempted scratch building a house for my layout.  I had built many Craftsman Kits over the years but I never thought I could build anything even close to a nice Craftsman Kit.

I has just finished building a Laser Cut Craftsman Kit and I noticed that all the pieces fit perfect and I decided to try to make my own plans of the kit on my computer.  The plans came out perfect so again off the the Internet looking for floor plans.  I found a great site with hundreds of 1900 to 1950s house floor plans.  http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Plans/

I found out it was easier than I thought.  My 30 years of CAD experience made it very easy.

After doing a little homework I discovered that several manufacturers made bulk scratch building materials.  I ordered some basswood siding and because I was familiar with Campbell's shingles from building several of their kits I ordered a couple of rolls of their 850 Shingles.  Next came the Grandt windows and doors.

Before I knew it my first scratch built home was under construction.  This is a link to the post of the construction of that home. https://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-first-scratch-built-building.html

After many years I discovered the Arduino Micro Processors.  They are capable of doing all kinds of animation.  I ran across an article on a Arduino Random Lighting Controller and I was hooked.  I have several houses on my layout using the Random Lighting Controllers and the houses look lived in with the lights randomly going on and off.  I decided to redo my first scratch built house to accommodate a random lighting controller.

Taking the roof off was not an easy task, because it was my first I didn't use the glue sparingly, my glue was glued to everything.

I finally got the roof off using a #11 blade and only screwed up a couple of walls, all were easily fixed using sandpaper, I lucked out on that.

I didn't take any pictures of what the house looked like after removing the roof but here's what it looks like after cleanup with a few light partitions added.