Andrew's Resurrected 1/72 MiniArt Town House

[adt70hk]

Evening all

So after the Huey Hog crossed the finish line in record time, I've pulled another partly completed building out of the cupboard of shame.

This isn't quite as old as the Armourfast Farm House (link), as I only started it just over three years ago!

This came courtesy of one of the members at our model club just before Christmas 2018. He was having a clear out and knowing I dabble in 1/72 brought it in to see if I was interested.

All he wanted was what he paid for it. He'd clearly bought it second hand at a show because the price on the back was £1.50. I gave him £2 for it just because I felt guilty for getting it at such a bargain price - they go for approaching £20.

Now I have heard a number of you comment on MiniArt's penchant for using 10 parts when one will do the job - this is no exception.

According to one review it has just over 150 parts; the Armourfast Farm House has c. 35. What's more, once fully assembled the Armourfast offering is finished and ready to use once you've added floor. This one, IMHO, is not finished once fully assembled. I can only assume it's intended as a display piece because the inside really does look very rough when fully assembled. That said the quality and detailing is far superior the Armourfast's offering but then it should be at twice the price.

Anyway the obligatory box shot is below.....sprue and instructions to follow later.

ATB

Andrew

 

[Jim R]

Hi Andrew
These MiniArt buildings can look quite good with a bit of work. It will be interesting to see what you can do with this.
Jim

 

[adt70hk]

Hi Andrew
These MiniArt buildings can look quite good with a bit of work. It will be interesting to see what you can do with this.
Jim

Thanks Jim. I'll try not to disappoint!

 

[adt70hk]

Morning all

So sprue and instruction shots below.....was planning to post this last night but ran out of steam. The cold I have is still lingering and still making me feel very tired....I slept for nearly 10 hours last night, most unlike me.

Anyway enough waffle...

All of the wall sections had been taken off the sprue when I got it. One thing I noticed is that all of the wall sections were affected by what looked like stress lines, all in a similar sort of pattern. I wonder if that was a result of bad storage or over exuberant removal, or maybe even mould extraction issues.

The actual moulding ispretty good with almost no flash. The walls thoughare made of smaller sections - 14 each for the front and rear walls and 8 each for the side walls; 44 pieces in total - the Armourfast farm house had the walls moulded in one piece.....so 4 in total......

ATB.

Andrew

**I'll try and post some more shots of the build process later today but I'm taking Junioress out at lunchtime.

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Walls











The base







The roof - very disappointing





Guttering





Windows and decorative brickwork






Destructions

 

[The Smythe Meister]

Interesting Andrew,
I shall tag along if I may
Andy

 

[adt70hk]

Ok, so the initial build shots.....

On the whole the build went pretty well. Not having large flat panels meant there was no warping but at the same time it was absolutely necessary to make sure it was assembled carefully and on a perfectly flat service to ensure that there were no unintentional curves. Even then some did creep in but I manged to carefully bend them out.

Although the walls went to together fine, you can see there are some nasty joins visible on the end walls but I've addressed those. The base was ok but getting it square was quite tricky and it wasn't very robust to begin with.

As you'll see though, the main issue is that it looks very unfinished on the inside because of the way the pieces joined....but more about my plan for that later!

ATB

Andrew

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[adt70hk]

Interesting Andrew,
I shall tag along if I may
Andy

I think we have room....although you may recognise it from the other site!

 

[The Smythe Meister]

What, with MY memory ?!!
Can't remember what sites I worked on a week ago half the time!!

 

[Jim R]

Hi Andrew
Nice start. You're right to ensure everything is as square as possible at the beginning. I think the lines you mentioned are just stress lines from manufacturing.
Jim

 

[Tim Marlow]

Interesting stuff Andrew. I must admit the parts count is ridiculous though. Getting the walls flat and square must be quite hard, and you are left with some horrible joins to eliminate. The roof does look poor, and it will be very hard to get the joints looking good because it’s so visible. I think I’d be tempted to replace it with one of the Wills moulded tile sheets (Injection moulded sort, not basic plastic card. That stuff does have enough texture). Strange really, it isn’t as if the parts are even that big….
Still be good to see what you do with it though. Nice start so far…..

 

[adt70hk]

Hi Andrew
Nice start. You're right to ensure everything is as square as possible at the beginning. I think the lines you mentioned are just stress lines from manufacturing.
Jim

Thanks Jim..... More pictures to follow shortly!

Interesting stuff Andrew. I must admit the parts count is ridiculous though. Getting the walls flat and square must be quite hard, and you are left with some horrible joins to eliminate. The roof does look poor, and it will be very hard to get the joints looking good because it’s so visible. I think I’d be tempted to replace it with one of the Wills moulded tile sheets (Injection moulded sort, not basic plastic card. That stuff does have enough texture). Strange really, it isn’t as if the parts are even that big….
Still be good to see what you do with it though. Nice start so far…..

Thanks Tim. As you say the parts count is ridiculous and I really was worried about the walls being flat and those joins likes are yukky!!

As you say the roof does look very poor indeed, especially when you consider the detail on the rest of the kit. I must admit I hadn't considered tile sheets and I'm pretty sure I have an injection moulded sheet of unknown lineage in the stash somewhere - so thanks for jogging the old grey matter!!!


Thanks again gents!

ATB

Andrew

 

[adt70hk]

Hi all

So thanks for the support.

So next up was to sort out the interior, which was done with large sheets of plasticard glued to the inside. I obviously had to trim it to make sure the building would go together well and then cut out holes for the windows and door. I also added supports for the first floor.

Also below you'll see a shot of it all in once piece....the windows, ledges and brickwork are held on by PVA as I was interested in what it would look like.

ACW as usual.

Andrew

 

[Tim Marlow]

Wow, that changes the appearance somewhat. It also disguises the worst of the joints…..perhaps there is method in the parts count madness after all……

 

[adt70hk]

Me again....

Sorry so many posts but it is easier to do it chunks - next up are the base, the model's excuse for a roof and the first floor......

The base was improved by plasticard sheet top and bottom, with some bracing under the top layer. I'm going to have a go at doing a flagstone floor and did it this way....

I first scrubbed the base with 40 grit sand paper to roughen the surface up. I then thought I'd try a trick I saw our plasterer do when he skimmed over the artex on the walls (yes I did say walls!!) of our house when we moved in six years ago. He prepped them by 'painting' them with PVA, so I did the same with the floor and it definitely made a difference in terms of "grippiness". I then created a 'frame' from plasticard strips and filled it in with heavy duty polyfilla (I still need to score the flagstone outlines though).

As for the 'roof'.....lots of warping that some 3mm square styrene rods cured. Plus the fixing markers don't even line up with the holes, so I had to add some 2mm styrene to correct that issue. As I intend to be able to remove the roof for our battles, the supports underneath are a tad over engineered but at least it guarantees no movement at all. The gaps for the roof tiles are for some chimneys I'm gong to add - believe it or not the kit doesn't come with any and they'll also help reduce the likelihood of any movement at the ends. I'll have a look at using an alternative roofing solution as Tim suggested.

As for the the first floor, I went slightly mad; plasticard base with wooden floor boards on top.....

.....but rather than do the sensible thing and use coffee stirrer sticks au naturel for an out of scale but ok looking floor, as per my Armourfast farm house....I decided to do them to 'scale'....

...approx. 6" wide and either 3' or 6' long - about 140 in all. They're not quite as regular as I would have liked due the surprisingly inconsistent nature of the coffee stirrer sticks but they will do for us. Unfortunately though the floor has to be a bit too small to make it easy to lift out during battles, hence it not fitting properly.

ACW

Andrew

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The base....












The roof.....








The first floor.....

 

[adt70hk]

Wow, that changes the appearance somewhat. It also disguises the worst of the joints…..perhaps there is method in the parts count madness after all……

Thanks Tim, it did improve it somewhat didn't it! That said, for a kit now costing £15-£20 It really shouldn't be necessary IMHO.....

 

[adt70hk]

Hi all

So the final set of 'as was' shots before some showing the work I have done on it this past week.

October 2019 it got a coat of Halfords rattle can grey primer for the building and black for the first floor.....and that's where it stayed for the next two and a half years.....

ATB.

Andrew

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[Tim Marlow]

Thanks Tim, it did improve it somewhat didn't it! That said, for a kit now costing £15-£20 It really shouldn't be necessary IMHO.....

Agreed Andrew, however, buildings are not cheap it seems. The armourfast one you built is an exception. I suppose the sales are pretty low compared to tank and aircraft kits. The Airfix church builds up really well for its age, but is closer to 1/87 than 1/76 so looks a little small on the table. I’ve got their garage to build one day as well, thought it might look good as Normandy terrain.

 

[adt70hk]

Hi all

So the final post for today......

The insides got a coat of paint this week.

I went for a light-ish green (Vallejo IDF/RAF Green 71.126) for no particular reason and then gave it a light mottling with Vallejo Sky Type S 71.302 to break it up a bit and try to create false darker corners and ceiling/roof join areas. I wasn't though going to spend a huge amount of time on it given what it's for. They're actually a bit greener in real life.....

The window frames, stone window surrounds, window ledges and decorative stones got a coat of Vallejo Insignia White 71.279.

As I was giving them the first initial thin coats, I could see the mid-grey primer acting as a sort of preshade on the joins. I therefore went very carefully and lightly so as not to lose the effect.

In doing this I realised that if I was careful, I could allow the grey primer to show through slightly and create a slightly weathered look, rather than have a bright white surround that would then need weathering. I actually think it's worked out pretty well....it is though whiter in real life.

And yes there are injector marks on all the window frames that I missed after the primer coat but they're on the inside so won't be seen much. Plus, as they're consistently in the same place, I can claim that they're a design feature!

All comments welcome as usual.

Andrew

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[adt70hk]

Agreed Andrew, however, buildings are not cheap it seems. The armourfast one you built is an exception. I suppose the sales are pretty low compared to tank and aircraft kits. The Airfix church builds up really well for its age, but is closer to 1/87 than 1/76 so looks a little small on the table. I’ve got their garage to build one day as well, thought it might look good as Normandy terrain.

True - at least for injection moulded kits.

IMHO laser cut MDF kits are a good alternative though and much cheaper for their size given they don't have to worry about creating moulds. Sarissa Precision do a very good range from sub £5 up to £200 for the Alamo kit. I've got their bombed out house for the same price as the Armourfast kit now costs and it's till sub £10.....

https://sarissa-precision.com/collections/20mm/products/bombedouthouse-20mm

 

[Tim Marlow]

I did their 20mm Farmhouse a while back. I have other MDF stuff, but I can’t remember who by…..a stone barn and a small shop. Got a cafe to build one day as well……only thing I find about MDF buildings is that they can be a little “flat” so need texture adding. The roofs are pretty much throw away as well. I have used mine as a substructure only, replacing the surface with either injection moulded roofing or separate slates made from thin card. If you can find one the old Airfix Waterloo farmhouse has a lot of potential, but only if you can get it cheap enough….. UK outline stuff is easy to source, but continental outline at 20mm is a lot harder….