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HOW TO : Build A Blair Line Gerald Depot Kit           
  Article By Bryan Catley and his Alligator Lines Copyright ©
                                                                                                       
Blair Line's Gerald Depot

The Blair Line Gerald Depot is the seventh laser cut kit for the layout. As before, the glue used was standard white glue applied using a toothpick.

The kit is complete and requires no scratch building skills with everything you will need to complete it being laser cut. It is a reasonably simple and straight forward kit to put together although the trim does have some long and thin pieces! The window frames are also very thin. These require care in both removing them from the container sheet and in handling.

It was a pleasure to find a laser cut kit with such complete instructions, although one item turned out to be missing! I also adjusted the sequence of a number of steps. For me, it made the construction a little easier. The missing area is how to fix the windows and doors into the walls!

This kit, while maybe not ideal, could be your first time laser cut kit. If you have built kits of other types before so much the better. Just remember to read the instructions thoroughly and exercise care and patience during the construction process.

Basically the kit is of the tab and slot variety. As with other laser cut kits you need to prepare and paint it before any construction. Use a sealer before painting and you will go a long way towards avoiding any warping. Especially if you use water based paints. In this case I decided to use the Rock Island colors of buff and a dark red.

Once the walls and trim have been painted remove them from their container sheets as needed. The doors and windows come first. These items (along with the trim) are peel 'n stick so after removing the windows, very carefully, remove the backing and stick the glazing to the frame.

Notes:
I found the pieces of this kit to be a little more securely attached to their container sheets than some of the other kits I have worked with. A little more pressure is needed to cut the attachment points and, often, a light sanding is necessary to smooth the edge (but don't do this with the trim!) Removing the backing from a peel 'n stick piece can often be a challenge. Nails sometime work but not always. An easier method is to use your hobby knife! Hold the piece between thumb and finger, close to a corner and then insert the blade of the knife to remove the backing. Once the peel has started you just pull the rest off! Works very well and after doing it two or three times you will find it becomes second nature.

With the exception of the bay, the wood for the windows is half the thickness of the walls so lay the wall face down and insert the top half of a window (every window is in two pieces, top and bottom) from the back and using a toothpick with a minute amount of glue place a drop of glue on the upper corners. Maybe even do all the top halves before starting on the bottom pieces.

When the glue is dry start on the bottom halves. Once again insert them from the back but this time make them flush with the back of the wall in either a closed or partially open position as you wish. A little dab of glue in all four corners fixes them in place. Doors are placed in a similar fashion. The bay is not constructed at this time.

Note: The doors are also peel 'n stick but they have nothing to stick to so leave the backing in place.

The floor is next! This is a two level floor; a one piece base and a three piece sub-floor. The base is inscribed with guidelines for the sub-floor pieces and positioning is critical since, besides holding the exterior walls in position they also hold the two interior walls in place as well.

     

The instructions say to glue all three pieces of sub-floor in place before doing anything with the walls. Since positioning is so critical, I did it a little different. I glued one end piece into place and then I glued the interior wall piece next to it place making sure it remained vertical. When that was dry I glued the center piece in place with the second interior wall. Finally the third piece of sub-floor was glued in place.

The two front walls are next; they are glued into position. I used the upper brace between the two interior walls (which also forms the top of the bay) to ensure the interior walls were correctly positioned. The rear wall comes next followed by the end walls. The tabs and slots help the positioning and this is a pretty straight forward step.

The upper brace (which provides the upper form for the bay) is then glued into place. I found that to ensure it was positioned correctly, the structure could be turned upside down and a finger inserted through the bay to ensure the brace was perfectly flat!

Now comes the bay. The walls are made from the same wood as the trim so they are half the thickness of the other walls. This means it is more difficult to have the windows "open" since there is no support for the raised lower window. I simply placed both halves in the closed position. The openings seemed to be just a hair width too short and just a hair width too wide. I had to play a little bit!

The instructions do not say what sequence to glue the three bay pieces in so I just guessed and did the side pieces first and then the front piece (which has wider sides). It seemed to work just fine!

Other than the trim, the basic shell is now complete. On to the roof which is built separately and not attached until it is finished! The roof consists of a ceiling, roof supports and sub-roofing panels. There are nine roof supports; three across the width, two lengthwise at the ends and four angular supports also at the ends. There are slots in the ceiling for the tabs on the bottom of the supports.

The instructions say to attach the three cross pieces first but if you don't get them perfectly vertical you will have a hard time with the two end pieces so I did the two end pieces and the two associated cross pieces first. The middle cross piece came next followed by the four angular pieces. The eight sub-roof pieces are next using the provided tabs and slots; I followed the suggested sequence here.

It is suggested to attach the four eave trim boards (peel 'n stick) next but once again I deviated and decided to add these after the roof was finished.

The roof is completed by adding 32 separate paper roofing strips (referred to as shingles in the instructions) which must overlap by just a hair! However, this is not difficult because the sub roofing has lines inscribed to guide you. All you need to do is take your time and exercise a little patience!

The strips are laser cut pieces of peel 'n stick white paper. The most difficult part was getting the backing off! The hobby knife method referred to above came to the rescue and after a couple of pieces it became quite easy.

Notes:The glue on the back of the roofing strips does not adhere to the wood sub-roof as well as you might want. Make sure you press the strips into place firmly! If you wish, you may paint the strips before application but only with water based paint! It seems that solvent based paint will damage the glue! I decided not to paint until the end!

Next are the four ridge caps and the top ridge cap. These concerned me a little bit. First, they are quite narrow and, as mentioned, the glue is not the best. Second, there was a larger gap between the four roof sides than I would have liked and I was not sure if there was enough "roof" to give the caps "sticking" room! I ended up resorting to a trick I used with the Angelo's Place kit! Using a toothpick I carefully filled these gaps with joint compound! After smoothing with a finger no sanding was required when it dried! Now there was a surface for the ridge caps to stick to. Unfortunately, it only partially worked and I still had to use a little white glue to hold a couple of edges down!

The top ridge cap completely covers the opening for the chimney so it needs to be cut out once everything is in place. The chimney was given a little paint, inserted and glued into place with CA glue. Once the chimney is glued into place the flashing is placed around it.

Note: The instructions specifically warn you about not letting the chimney fall through the hole before the glue has dried. I second this warning! If it falls through it is gone, gone, gone!

Other than painting (in my case) the roof is now pretty much complete although it still needs the eave trim boards around the edges.

Once again the instructions and I differ! They suggest you glue the roof to the building frame and then attach the trim to the walls. I say, do it the other way around! Attach the trim (so much easier when not having to deal with the roof overhang) and then attached a "finished" roof!

The trim has a lot of thin pieces and some of them are quite long. Care is required again but the "stick" works well, even giving you a little time to adjust positioning id necessary.

I also added the signs at this time. They are also peel 'n stick and, using my hobby knife I cut them out from the sheet free hand! The two signs that were not attached directly to the walls I mounted on some scrap wood and then glued them in place with a dab of CA.

The roof ended up being painted before anything else was done with it. I used a water based paint that ended up being a high gloss! The last thing I wanted! After about four coats, a couple of coats of Dull Cote were applied and it looked OK! Finally the eave trim boards were applied and the roof was attached to the walls!

A couple of pictures later a few spots were revealed that could use some touching up. After doing this, a little weathering was applied to the building. A light black wash was applied to the walls and roof. The depot was now finished!