The other day I purchased two more Clever Models kits, Juke's Boat Rentals and Greezy Gus' Burgers. They're both small buildings, a little more than 3x3 inches in O scale, so they're good size buildings for the Frazier Borate, but that's not why I bought them.
I had been looking for a rocking chair or maybe a bench for the front porch of the trading post. I found some laser cut kits but they are pricy relative to the price of the building itself -- in the $10 range, not including shipping. Same for 3D prints. There are some plastic pieces but most of them are not very good looking and/or come in sets with a lot of stuff I don't need.
Looking for ideas for my cafe, I looked at Greezy Gus', which I had passed over before because it seemed a bit too modern for my late-20s era and too urban for the tiny mining town of Amargosa. This time I noticed the bench; the product description says this is a fairly easy building but but notes that the bench is challenging.
The bench is beautifully detailed, much nicer than anything I've seen in other materials. And even if I don't use anything else from the kit, $7.95, with no shipping charge and immediate delivery, is a good price just for the bench.
As a bonus, there's a pretty nice interior with wall and floor textures, a counter and even a flattop range. It's maybe more modern than the 20s, but I might well still use it inside a different building.
That said, this is a neat little building. It actually does look like a small building you might see in a more substantial mining town like Jerome or Virginia City. Maybe a cafe, or if you remove the rooftop ducting, perhaps a bar, a small store, or other business. Removing the window AC units and replacing the large plate glass front window with a multi-pane window or a pair of casement windows would help to backdate it. If nothing else, I could use an H.O. version on my planned Bakersfield & Ventura Port Hueneme shelf layout.
I can see possibilities with redoing the sign, with "Louella's Cafe" in place of the burger.
In a similar vein, I've had my eye on Juke's Boat Rental for a while, just for the picnic table and the sliding door. I'll put a table or two near the cafe if there's room, and maybe one by the Engine House for the crews to hang out on their breaks. A couple of sawhorses, with some lumber or pipe laying across them, will be nearby when they're ready to go back to work.
The sliding door comes in two versions, wood and corrugated, one of which might end up on the back of the brewery.
There's no water on the Amargosa layout other than a little creek, and in real life the nearest place to float a boat would be Lake of the Woods, seven or eight miles away. But maybe there will be on old rowboat randomly decaying in the weeds somewhere.
The building itself could be any of a number of things. A small tool shed, or with a personnel door instead of the slider, a little cabin, or maybe a business like a barber shop or laundry.
That's a lot to work with, for under 20 bucks.
Update, April 19: I did a quick, basic build of Guss' just to get a sense of how it fits in Amargosa.
Like several other Clever Models buildings, the doors seem oversize to me, so when I do the "real" build, I plan to print it about 8 percent reduced, which will bring the door down to about 80 scale inches. That will also make the building about a scale foot smaller in width and depth.
4/23: The picnic table from the Juke's Boat Rental kit. Like the doors on some of the kits I've built, this one was oversize, scaling out at 3 feet high. I printed it at 80 percent, which makes it close to a more normal 30 inch tabletop height. If I build it again I'll narrow the table top a little.
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| That's one ugly little man. But the table looks good. |
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| I think our small friend is annoyed because his burger hasn't been served. Little does he know, the kitchen hasn't been built yet! |
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