If you have dabbled with the idea of trying such a kit but were afraid you might mess it up, put your fears aside. Uncle Russ is here with the few simple tips and techniques it takes to create a masterpiece.

CRAFTSMAN KITS ARE FOR ANYONE

Hartford Products is one of a handful of top-quality kit manufacturers offering virtually anyone the opportunity to create a museum quality model for about the same price as a ready-to-run plastic model. We have also included a list of other makers of what the hobby now calls "craftsman kits". But don't let the designation intimidate you. The hobby industry uses it only to differentiate wood, plastic, and metal kits from mostly injection molded plastic "snap together" kits. Anyone - anyone - is capable of very good results on his or her first attempt at a craftsman kit. Why? Because most of today's manufacturers have anticipated the problems you could encounter and even your inexperience; they've designed their products to help avoid frustration and many have made every attempt to offer clear, comprehensive instructions.

The biggest difference between snap-together kits and mostly wood kits is the shock you'll get when you open the box. An LGB or USA Trains reefer, for example, looks virtually complete when you see it through the cellophane window in the box. All you have to do is press or glue on the grab irons, brake wheel, and ice hatch hardware. And, of course, the paint jobs are terrific. When you open the box of a typical craftsman kit you'll see a bundle of sticks and a bag of miniature hardware with no resemblance at all to a freight car.

But craftsman kits also have something the "shake the box" kits lack: Plans. And if you unfold them, everything will start to make sense.

STUDY THE PLANS

Think of the plans as a picture. It shows you how the car will look when you finish it and it's usually full-size. Plans will usually have a side view, an end view, a top or bottom view (sometimes both), often some detail views, and occasionally what draftsmen call an "isometric view". The isometric view is very helpful because it shows all three dimensions so you can really get your bearings. Simple kits, such as flatcars, generally need no isometric drawings. But a more complicated kit, such as an ore car, may have parts a side or end view is unable to show. The Hartford Products' Lenora & Mount Sicker Ore Car in the photos comes with an isometric view to help you better visualize the completed car and locate various assemblies.

Most manufacturers cut the major pieces of wood to exact size; you only have to glue them together. Some pre-cut every piece. And virtually all include a parts list with some kind of identifying code. If you have to trim some sizes to fit, the manufacturer will identify each piece with a special color on the end. Hartford cuts all pieces to exact size and asks you to measure them for identification.

Then it's a good idea to locate most of the pieces over the plans to see how they'll go together. You'll begin to develop a picture of how the finished car will look.

Since many builders find it extremely helpful to assemble a model directly on the plans, cover the plans with a piece of waxed paper. That will protect them from glue.

COLOR THE PARTS FIRST

Real freight car builders bolt and nail them together, then brush on the paint at the end of the project. We modelers paint first because we glue our models together. Glue prevents wood from absorbing stains and it creates a hard, smooth surface under paint, refracting light differently than wood. So we can do a much neater and more realistic job if we pre-color our models.

A few tricks:
If you actually paint, use a spray can or an airbrush. Brush painting often tends to look blotchy. Spray from ten or twelve inches away in a broad sweeping motion, going beyond the ends of the model on each pass. And paint in a very well ventilated area; many paints, especially lacquer-based model paints and aerosol sprays such as Krylon and Rust-oleum, contain extremely dangerous chemicals.

You may find staining offers more pleasing results than painting. I colored the Hartford ore car with nothing but stain to achieve the effect of unpainted, weathered wood and metal. Yes, you can also "stain" most metal parts. Hobby Black and Blacken-It are the two most common chemicals for darkening metal. They etch the surface and deposit a dark oxidation ranging from blue-black to dark gray to brownish-black depending on the formula and the metal. For wood, the least toxic stain consists of nothing more than three or four drops of India ink in an ounce of rubbing alcohol. You could also use denatured alcohol (shellac thinner) instead of rubbing alcohol or a mixture of Floquil Grimy Black paint and Floquil Diosol thinner. Shellac thinner and Floquil paints contain harmful chemicals but virtually no water. As a result, they have far less tendency to warp wood. I used rubbing alcohol and India ink on the Hartford ore car's wood parts and Hobby Black Number One on the metal parts. The Lenora & Mt. Sicker apparently never painted its cars, so the model required no paint.

Keep one thing in mind: Add stain gradually. It is always possible to put on more; it's very difficult to remove too much.

Another trick some modelers use is distressing wood with a razor saw. That simply means dragging the teeth of the saw along the the wood to accentuate the grain. Afterwards, when you stain the wood, a small amount of color settles in the grooves giving the appearance of raised grain and greater texture.

A final finishing technique creates the effect of peeling paint. Dry brush stained wood with rubber cement. Then airbrush the wood with the finish color. When the paint dries, remove the rubber cement with a piece of tape. The paint on the rubber cement will come off at the same time, leaving small areas of unpainted, weathered wood.

WHAT KIND OF GLUE?

The traditional combination is white wood glue (such as Elmer's) or yellow carpenter's glue (aliphatic resin, also available from Elmer's) for the wood-to-wood joints and CA (super glue) for the wood-to-metal or wood-to-plastic joints. Bob Hartford recommends yellow carpenter's glue for its much greater strength and because, once it dries, it is no longer water soluble. For joints where you might need extreme strength, 5-minute epoxy works well. The Hartford kit I assembled required no epoxy. It's also unnecessary for most other craftsman kits.

No matter how careful you are, virtually all glues will seep out of a joint. All four glues I listed above share one potential drawback: They dry hard and shiny, so any visible excess will detract from the realistic finish you have tried to create with stains and paints.

My solution? Rubber-based adhesives such as Walther's Goo or Goodyear Pliobond. They are an extra-strong kind of rubber cement and they share the same advantages and disadvantages of any rubber cement. On the one hand, they tend to be stringy and they take longer to become rigid than CA or epoxy. On the other, they give you some latitude in positioning parts, the slight flexibility they retain tends to make models a little more resilient because they're less brittle, and (the point of this paragraph) you may pick up any excess with a toothpick so every glue joint will be perfectly clean. What's more, they work just as well on wood-to-metal and wood-to-plastic joints as they do on wood-to-wood. I have had very good results with Goo both cosmetically and mechanically. I used Goo for almost every joint on the ore car; it's quite strong, rigid, and absolutely free of any trace of glue.

OTHER TRICKS

The most important thing to remember is read the instructions first. They often provide the answer to that seemingly insoluble problem or will help you avoid a potential disastrous error.

Next most important? Take your time. Most craftsman kits are far more time consuming than difficult. Mistakes occur when we rush.

Also, use a machinist's or modeler's square for right-angle joints. Even a draftsman's triangle will do. Few of us are able to estimate right-angles as accurately as a tool.

One slightly time consuming but necessary trick involves sanding or filing nearly every piece whether wood, metal, or plastic. Plastic and metal parts often have tiny burrs or bits of flash. At the very least they will detract from your model's appearance; at worst they'll prevent a part from fitting. A flat bastard file works well for larger areas. Jeweler's files, such as those from X-acto, are good for small pieces and tight corners. The metal parts on Hartford's ore car had almost no flash at all, but I did cut a few pieces of brass rod and had to file the ends flat.

The wood parts were similarly clean and sharp, but almost all wood retains a little fuzz. 400 or 600 grit wet or dry finishing sandpaper helps to augment that clean appearance. It also tends to give a more subtle appearance to the pre-stained and distressed wood parts.

The ore car requires you to bevel four pieces of wood to match the angle of the interior flooring. I find beveling a big pain you-know-where. Since I occasionally experience lapses in manual dexterity, I tend to take a cautious (and time consuming) approach to such steps. The wooden parts were reasonably large, so I gingerly and gradually ground them to approximate shape with a Dremel motor tool, then spent several minutes with the big file until each piece matched the plans.

Bob Hartford laughed when I told him what I did. The easy way, he says, is to test the wood with a sharp hobby knife or a single edge razor blade. If you go with the grain in one direction the blade will slip through very easily but you'll lose control and you may slice off too much wood. Cutting in the opposite direction will be a little harder but more precise. Bob says his way is much faster than mine and requires far less touch up with the file. He does warn it first requires some practice on a scrap piece.

Now the final tip: Start with a simple kit. Hartford Products' log car, low side gondola, and flatcar have relatively few pieces, require only the most basic tools, and are very easy to visualize and assemble. Even if you work very slowly you'll probably complete the entire project in only a few hours, including painting and weathering. At the same time you'll learn the names of the various parts of a freight car; after all, you'll be building one almost board by board. In fact, Hartford now includes a glossary with each kit. Once you understand the basics of wooden car construction it will be much easier to move on to more complicated projects.

IS THAT ALL?

For the most part, assembling craftsman kits involves nothing more than gluing one piece to another in the right order. It's hardly more difficult than adding those grab irons to the plastic reefer except you have to drill your own holes and make sure the pieces of wood line up squarely. Staining takes most of the guesswork out of coloring cars and structures. The rest is just a matter of spending time, exercising patience, and wanting a model realistic enough to deserve a prominent place on the mantel.