Waterfront Project | Part 13
This session of the Waterfront Project brings us another relatively simple build, the Boardwalk Bait Shop (MTL Part 799 90 948), part of the series-within-the-series of the Waterfront Project. These Boardwalk structures are designed to sit on the Micro-Trains Line Retail Boardwalk Kit (MTL Part 799 90 944). We’ll get to the actual boardwalk soon, but I’d like to finish our buildings first.
This kit is similar to the last build in that it’s a very simple kit to put together. With a finished size of just about an inch square, it’s not going to be the big dog in our scene but as with the previous kit, it’s a necessary kit to include to flesh out the scene.
On this kit, I wanted to get away from a stark white color so here I used a color called “wet cement” for my walls and dark gray for the trim. As with all our Waterfront Project kits, I used inexpensive acrylic craft paints, thinned, strained and airbrushed.
Two minor changes I made to our bait shop are corner trim on the building and a new covering for the roof. First the corners, most laser kits come with a tab-and-slot design for the walls. This makes the walls go together quickly and square, but there’s always the question of what to do about the visible seams and tabs. Sometimes I actually highlight them with weathering powder to give them a more industrial look… strange, but it can work!
Another way to hide the tab-and-slot design is to use corner trim, either wood or styrene. This works too, but I always like to play around and try new things. Since this was an easy kit to build, I thought I’d take a little time and do something different on our corner trim.
Once the walls were painted and assembled, I masked off each of the four corners with a little blue painter’s tape and sprayed them with the same dark gray paint I used for the window and door trim. Once the tape was removed I then ran the building down the side of a file to take off a little of the just applied paint to give the piece a slightly weathered, battered look.
The other change I made to the kit was the roof. This kit comes with a pre-printed roof that is applied directly to the peel-and-stick roofing substructure. Instead of using this included roof covering, I put the roof substructure peel-and-stick side down, leaving me with a plain wood surface to work with. I thinned some wood glue down with water then lightly brushed it on the roof. I then sprinkled some ground up and sifted ballast on to the glue, let dry and brushed off the excess. A final touch was some gray weathering powder applied to the roof to give it a bit of age.
This kit also comes with bait shop decals but since I’m going for an old Florida look here, I’ve decided to create some period signage that I’ll create once these kits are finished.
For a 1” x 1” kit, it’s amazing how many little details you can play with in Z scale!
Category: Z Scale Basics
