Kitbashing the Airfix / Dapol Country Inn

[plasticbasher]

I've acquired a couple of Dapol Country Inns and am determined to do something with them.

 

I have decided they will become a (..erm...) country inn; this is freestyle and inspired by seeing a thread on the "Airfix Tribute Forum" (the thread "Airfix 2015 Railway Group Build; MrT's Country Inn").  I have no particular prototype I am modelling, although I do recall once visiting a much larger old inn with the same fundamental layout as I am trying to achieve, albeit on a less impressive scale.

 

The Dapol (formerly Airfix) kit is quite attractive and picture postcard "cutesy", but has a few issues in my mind:

• It is very small for an inn, being perhaps the size of a modern 1970's three bed semi-detached house.
• The kit is literally a shell (external walls, roof, chimneys and doors); with no internal detail whatsoever.
• There are windows everywhere, which seems pretty unrealistic for a older building and makes a usable floor plan difficult

 

The plan is to make both kits more or less as designed, but with the following changes:

• Add very perfunctory floors and and walls to represent bedrooms upstairs and maybe a bar and basic kitchen downstairs.
• Fuse two kits into a single building with a "archway" between the two halves for (in my mind) an original purpose of walking tired stagecoach horses through to stables at the back.
• Blank off some windows, especially at the ends and downstairs, to make my floorplan believable.

 

Step one - make both basic shells as designed (no roof yet), but with a first floor:

• Run a strip of 1mm x 1mm plastic strip horizontally 30mm up each wall on the inside (ie. immediately above each window recess) to support the floor and keep it level as the glue sets
• Cut a rectangle of 1mm thick plasticard measuring 111mm x 60.5mm and cut notches at the corners for the "internal buttressing" of the kit's walls.
• Assemble everything.

 

You should end up with two structures looking like this:

 

 

[plasticbasher]

I'm not happy with the quality of some of these photos...apologies!

 

Next add some (believable) first floor rooms.  I settled on rooms dictated by the size of the windows at the rear of the building, with one of the end rooms made smaller to allow for a staircase (hole not cut yet) from the ground floor.  There is a corridor running across the front of the first floor and outlines of doors to each room will be added in due course.

Edited July 17, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

To reduce the excessive number of first floor windows I am blocking in all end wall windows, except one (which is halved in size):

1. Snip or slice the window-ledge flush with the wall.

2. Slice the window-ledge down so it matches the external framing.

3. Cut a small rectangle of 1mm plasticard to fit the opening.

4. Glue in slightly recessed, so it would be flush with the wall rather than the external framing.

5. Add strips of very thin plastic strip to replicate any additional external framing required.

6. Consider adding an internal wall (for strength) if you have filled in a lot of windows...you can make that out on the left in the photo in the previous post).

 

At one end the first-floor end window will not be visible, so I just filled the opening with plasticard (ie. I didn't bother removing the window-ledge); I did do the ground floor window "properly" though...

Edited July 19, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

Finally for today, here is a mock-up of what I intend the complete building to look like, but with a continuous first floor and a walkway for horses on the ground floor.  I feel the need to add a "porch" to one side as it is too symmetrical for my imagining of an old fashioned building.

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

A bit more progress today.  Completed filling in all the windows that I wanted to "delete":

 

1. Remove window ledge.

2. Cut piece of 1mm thick plasticard to fit aperture.

3. Glue in place (with solvent) slightly recessed to match adjacent wall sections.

4. Make up timber framing to match rest of building (0.25mm x 1.5mm plastic strip).

 

Where I have replaced windows, to prevent the replacement sections of "wall" falling out I have reinforced somewhat excessively by adding inner walls from more 1mm thick plasticard.  This is mostly at the ends.

 

I have also made first floor interior walls in the second structure (a mirror image of what I did in the first structure above).

Edited July 19, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

This will become the left-hand half of the new larger building (note the single small window at the "outer" end).  The bar will be in the rear lefthand corner of the building as you look at it, hence all windows in that corner have been filled in:

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

And this will become the right-hand building (note the single medium size window on the first floor, again at what will become the outer end).  Was thinking the ground floor could be a carvery / restaurant rather than a bar.

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

Interior view of both structures (notice the crude outlines of doors...simply rectangles of very thin plasticard, but that is all you will need once the windows are in place):

 

[plasticbasher]

Finally views of the interior ground floor walls:

[plasticbasher]

Won't be much more progress for a little while, as I have run out of plastic solvent!

 

Current plan is:

• A third roof is coming in the post (actually, it's an entire kit).
• When that and the solvent arrives, I will start working on the "arch", middle section of the first floor and joining the three roof sections into one unit.
• I need to cut holes in both first floors for the staircases.
• I will make a base with an accurately cut floor glued to it for each structure to slip over.  A bar, rudimentary tables and a stair case will attach to the floor.  The floor should stop the inward bowing of the ground floor walls.
• I want to do a porch of some kind around one of the front doors and maybe a lean-to structure somewhere else to break up the uniformity of the building (what were toilets typically like on 200+ year old pubs in the 1930's?).
• Also I guess I should make up some old stables, as it is a country inn somewhere rural and bucolic - again what might they have looked like by the 1930's?
• Then I will spray the lot with Halfords black primer (to prevent light bleed, just in case I ever fit interior lighting in the future before adding any further details and finishing it.

Edited July 19, 2023 by plasticbasher

[BernardTPM]

The old Airfix Waterloo farmhouse building contained stables and other outbuildings. By the 1930s they could be repurposed for motor vehicles or storage. As to the toilets, I guess that would depend on when they were added, perhaps when mains sewers arrived.

[TangoOscarMike]

I like all this, and I'm looking forward to seeing the structure connecting the two halves.

 

Would it benefit from more diagonal bracing timbers?

Is your passageway wide enough for the suitably-sized carriages (also, is it tall enough)?

I suggest you think of more ways to break the symmetry. Could you introduce a small angle between the two buildings, and maybe move one slightly forwards or backwards?

[plasticbasher]

Thanks for the comments and feedback.

 

The Airfix Waterloo farmhouse: obviously a bit collectable now!  So a bit beyond my self-imposed cost limit.  However I bought a job lot of broken, partially assembled and incomplete buildings on eBay last week for about £15 all in.  At first glance you might tell me I was robbed, but I'm quite happy with it; there is 80% of an part-built Airfix / Dapol engine shed in there, the key components of several buildings which I think are fairly sizeable Continental (ie. Faller, Pola etc) N Gauge warehouse buildings, loads of railings from Hornby elevated track sections, some plastistrip and plastic-rod sections.  On topic, there is what I suspect is some kind of wooden building from something like a Wild West play-set.  The building may have been more toy than model and probably something like 1-50th scale, but the wood effect planked walls are nicely done and already finding a new life as a random shed and lean to outside toilet (see photo's).  I will try and use them to come up with something similar in general outline to the Airfix Farmhouse stables...so @BernardTPM: thanks for the "lead"..! 

 

@TangoOscarMike: I'm getting there! 

 

• Diagonal bracing...hmm...I shall Google some Tudor building pictures...
• Yes...erm...width and height...erm...short answer is no!!!!  Without greater modification, the base buildings are simply too small for such ostentatious luxuries..!  I am starting with the roof, where I will use dimensions for the  middle section of the first floor to fill the gap I create between the two halves.     I've decided this is more of your fictional  "budget" Country Inn, where the horses got stabled, but the Stagecoaches had to be left out the front.  So the passageway is definitely too small for a wagon but I believe large enough to lead a (1:76 scale) horse through comfortably.
• Symmetry - having mocked up again tonight for the photo's, I fear your right.  But I've already cut, trimmed and glued the roof together and am loathe to try again.  I'll see what I can do with the remnants of the third kit I bought for it's roof...

To start - here are the little buildings made from the walls of what I assume was a toy structure of some kind.  One is a nondescript shed and the other is a lean-to outside toilet.  I plan to use the rest of the "wooden" wall pieces to create a wooden stable block.  Back wall of the shed and the doors are offcuts of plain plasticard engraved with planks using a (Tamiya branded) Olfa scribing knife.  My first use...what a great tool..!

Edited July 27, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

And the roof:

• I used a total of three roof mouldings.
• The idea is to cut both end panels off one moulding (which will be used in the centre) and one end off the other two (careful to leave ridge tiles on one side of the joints and not the other).
• Then a bit of right angle section (cut short enough to fit inside the building's walls was used to brace the joins (see the third photo below). 

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by plasticbasher

[plasticbasher]

Next is the stable building and the first floor section above the passageway.

Edited July 27, 2023 by plasticbasher

[PeterStiles]

9 hours ago, plasticbasher said:

The Airfix Waterloo farmhouse: obviously a bit collectable now! 

Erm, they re-run the Waterloo pack (Inc farmhouse) a handful of years back, some 200th anniversary of something or other. So there should be some kicking around under twn years old. There's one in my To-Do pile, for instance.