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N Scale Trains

HOW TO : Build A Downtown Deco Randy’s Burgers
  Article By Bryan Catley and his Alligator Lines Copyright ©                                                     
                                                                                             

 Downtown Deco's "Randy's Burgers"

Originally I had only planned on using the "Whstlestop Junction" and Saulena's Tavern in this area of the layout but discovered there would actually be room for a third, albeit small, structure. I chose Downtown Deco's Randy's Burgers for several reasons. It was small, it seemed appropriate for the area and because it was a Hydrocal kit! I have never constructed one of these kits and I plan on using several of them for the upcoming town area. This seemed a good way to get a little experience.

Note: If you not aware, Hydrocal is a cast plaster and can display a surprising amount of detail.

The published footprint for this model is 1 ¾ x 1 5/8 inches but this is just for the structure. The base, if you plan on using it, is 2 3/16 x 1 1/2 inches which means it is a little narrower than the structure itself.

A mix of CA glue and a glue stick were used during construction.

The kit comes in a sturdy cardboard box and contains the four cast walls (well protected by bubble wrap), two sheets of signs, some roof covering, a sealed plastic package of details parts and the instructions. The detail parts include precut pieces of styrene for the roof, base and signs, a wood laser cut doorway, a single strip of styrene for the sign supports, two cast chimneys and two cast garbage pails.

The instructions are printed on one side of nine 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper They are for all scales and start with an introduction to the kit on the first side and continue with specific instructions for this kit (including a couple of pictures) over the next two pages. The remaining pages cover tips on working with Hydrocal in general. They appear reasonably complete although I don't recall seeing anything about the base or the chimneys.

Here is a link to the FifersHobby page for this kit: (where I obtained mine) and here is the Downtown Deco page.

As with most plaster cast kits there is a little flashing that will need to be trimmed and the wall ends may require some sanding to ensure a flush fit. The instructions imply you may have to trim the roof and you definitely will have to cut the sign supports by yourself but a template is provided.

Another thing you will need to do is provide some support for the roof on the inside of the walls. Of course, painting is must with kits of this type and some care will be required.

Once construction started the first thing was to clean any remaining flashing off the walls. The next thing was to sand the wall edges and bottoms to ensure smooth edges. As I learned, this is actually more important than it might seem initially. This step will impact the appearance of the finished structure so do it carefully!

Note: When sanding you need to ensure you keep things square! Being plaster it is very easy to sand too much and end up with the edge not being square. Dry fit the corners and double check the bottom of the walls to ensure as good a fit as possible.

The instructions suggest gluing the four walls together at this point but I decided to actually paint and complete the walls as much as I could before doing this (much like is done with the laser kits). I find this gives me much greater control over things!

I decided on a gray color overall with a darker shade for the trim. The upper highlights on the front piece received some red and the tiles at the bottom received a lighter gray.

There are two doors in the structure (but no windows). The front door which has a laser cut wood door which fits into the indentation and the back door which is just the indentation. The backdoor indentation was painted red and front door was painted black to simulate the opening.

The wood door comes in two pieces, the actual door and the framing. The framing is very thin and overlays the door but needs to be glued into place since it not peel 'n stick! I figured that no matter how careful I was I would end up with glue everywhere so I decided to try using paint to hold the frame in place! The door was painted and while the paint was still wet the frame was positioned. It took a couple of tries but it worked and ended up looking pretty good! Some paint on the edges finished the job!

The door has three windows through which you can see the black paint of the door indentation. The kit does not come with any acetate for "glass" but I did have some from earlier, so a piece was cut to cover the windows and glued into place on the back of the door. The whole door was then glued into position.

The wall signs were next. They were given a very light sanding (to simulate age), carefully cut out and applied with glue. The glue used here was from a glue stick that was rubbed over the back of the signs.

Before the walls could be glued together it was necessary to glue some roof supports to the back of the walls. Only the two side walls were used and two strips of scrap from another kit were glued into place using a measured pencil line as a guide. Measure a suitable height and draw a line!

Now the walls could be glued together and this turned into the trickiest part of the whole process! This, I believe, was because I didn't ensure the walls were perfectly square back at the beginning!

The two side walls are glued to the back of the front wall and the rear wall is glued into position between the rear of the two side walls. This is also the sequence the instructions say to do it in. They also say to be sure everything is perfectly square since the plaster has no flexibility and if not careful the rear wall may not fit!

Of course I had to try something different! To avoid the potential trouble alluded to I decided to glue one side wall to the front, then the back wall to the rear of the side wall. I reasoned this would provide a lot more flexibility for getting the last wall (the other side) to fit correctly.

Using a gluing jig the first two walls went together beautifully. The third wall was a little trickier while the final wall ended up causing all kinds of problems! The issue was not so much getting a reasonable fit but getting them glued together. In hindsight, I probably should have followed the instructions sequence but kept the rear wall in position while the two side walls were glued to the front. This would have ensured a good fit for the rear wall.

Note: I also used CA glue for this task and I am thinking that next time I will try yellow glue. It will take longer to dry but should provide a lot more flexibility.

As it turned out I did end up with some gaps at the joints. Not bad ones but gaps nonetheless! This was corrected with small amounts of joint compound carefully applied with a toothpick. Once dry, touchup paint was applied as necessary as well as to the inside of the walls down to the roof line.

This left the roof itself. The supplied roof almost fit, it just needed a very small amount of trimming. I suspect that if I had connected the walls as well as I should have it would have fit as it was! Before gluing it into position it was used it as a template for cutting the supplied black roof covering. The roof was glued into position followed by the roof covering. Once again CA glue was used.

The sign was the major piece left. There are two signs that go on the styrene supports that are supplied. First everything was painted including the styrene strip that would support the sign but that would need to be cut. The two signs were carefully cut and glued to their respective support pieces using the same glue stick that was used earlier. The two backing pieces needed to be trimmed lengthwise a little but the width was fine.

The sign now needed to be constructed. The instructions include templates for the sign in all scales; the N scale one is obviously the smallest!

The instructions do not recommend a way of constructing the sign so I covered the page with a piece of wax paper and then cut the styrene strip into three pieces based on the template. The provided strip was just long enough! These three strips were positioned over the template and held in place with a small amount of magic tape. The two actual signs were then glued into position, again using the template as a guide.

Once dry, the completed sign was removed from the wax paper and glued into position against the inside top of the front wall. It fit perfectly!

All that was left was a chimney. The instructions never mention this piece but two are supplied as part of the kit. One was painted and glued into position towards the back of the roof. The second was not used and will be kept for possible future use elsewhere.

A small amount of black wash was also applied to the entire structure at this time.

The kit also provides two garbage containers which the instructions do mention. At this point they have not been used; however, one or both may very well be used at installation time.

There also is, what I assume to be, a styrene base for the structure that is just a very small amount narrower than the structure but fine from a length perspective. I am not sure whether this will actually be used or not. It will depend on how things look at installation time!

As indicated earlier this is the first kit of this type that I have constructed. I am glad I chose this one as it has provided great experience for the future, more complicated, ones I will be constructing as part of the next scenic area

Overall, not my best effort, but quite acceptable and I think it will fit in just fine.