Waterfront Project | Part 12
After redoing the Pier Warehouse Kit this past week, I wanted to take it easy and build a nice, simple kit this time out. I chose the MTL Trading Warehouse Kit (MTL Part 799 90 946). I like the look of this kit as it’s a nice, basic looking kit that will blend in well with the other more complex waterfront kits.
Buildings like this are vital to a scene because let’s face it… not all buildings in real life are architecturally complex. Buildings like this can add just as much interest for what they don’t have as the bigger buildings add for what they do have.
This kit went together very quickly; tab and slot design for the main 4 walls as well as for the 2 second story walls / cross pieces. For assembly I used a touch of gel superglue and a toothpick to tack the pieces together, then with a thin brush I “paint” all the interior corners of the structure with yellow wood glue.
In an effort to add some color variety but still keep the colors subtle, I went with a variation of white paint named “vanilla”. After painting, I realized the variation was probably too subtle as the finished walls looked like plain, old white paint! Not a problem but something to keep in mind for the next kit.
The window frames come black so to add a little color I painted them dark green. I used a lighter shade of this green to paint the doors. The windows on this kit are simple frames and panes, similar to those found on the Hotel Kit we built earlier in this series. Rather than go with a blinds or shades as we did on that kit, I thought I’d just dirty the windows up a bit to add to the grimy feel of the finish I had planned.
This kit comes with a green patterned printed roof that would have worked well, but since the kit went together so quickly, I thought I’d spend a little more time on my roof. I went with weathered, individual corrugated metal roof panels. The panels were cut to approximately 3’ x 10’, fairly close to the real things. Separately applied roof caps sit on the top of the main roof and the loading cupola roof.
Since this corrugated material comes in nice, shiny strips, I had to weather them up a bit. I started with a spray of Dullcote to knock the shine down and to add a bit of tooth to the surface. Next was a misting of alcohol over the Dullcote to give me a random staining effect. The alcohol reacts in interesting ways to Dullcote. Once dry I lightly dusted on some weathering powder from about a foot above the sheets. This insures I get fine bits of powder on the metal. Next, I misted on another coat of alcohol to get the powders to run just a bit, then a final spray of Dullcote to seal it all up. It’s a quick way to add some age to metal.
After the corrugated sheets were applied, I used my X-acto knife to scrape off some of the paint on my walls and window frames to give a weathered effect, simple but effective.
This is a small structure at roughly 1.5” x 1.5” but as you can see in the last photo on this page, it works nicely as a complimentary piece to the larger Pier Warehouse kit.
Category: Z Scale Basics
