Bethel Cottages - Painting and Wall & Roof Assembly (pt.3)

Getting back to building the "Bethel Camp Cottages" (click here for part 1, and here for part 2), it's a matter of preference when you do your painting. Some folks paint everything and then assemble. I've always thought that a bit more difficult since it requires you to plan WAY ahead in choosing your colors - and you may mess things up a bit with glue while you're assembling. But if you assemble everything first and then paint, it's tougher to paint windows/trim/etc.

So it's usually best to consider the order project-by-project and do what will be easiest and most effective for that particular project. In this case, I thought it best to paint early in the process.

Of course, that meant I had to figure out what colors I wanted to use . . .

I started by noting (on the post-it) what colors I wanted generally, then I went looking for those colors - or at least close to them - in my stash of craft paints. You can see in the pic above what I chose.

I brush painted the walls, trim, and porch floors, and that worked fine with multiple coats (thankfully, the paint dries quickly - especially when helped with a hair dryer :^) but I kept getting lousy coverage on the windows, doors, and porch posts.

So I decided to airbrush those. While I could have made my craft paints "airbrushable" (per an old RMC article discussed here), I decided instead to find some "close enough" colors in my stash of Tamiya paints.

Once all the parts are painted, the real fun starts - putting the parts together so they start looking less like parts and more like a building!

At many points throughout the process of building these former Grandt Line kits, I realized how much more advanced they are than the "typical" plastic structure kit. Case in point: I couldn't get away with just one piece of clear styrene on the windows. As you can see in the pic above, the window castings are actually offset - just like the prototype. So of course I needed two separate "window panes", using calipers for precise measurement so the panes would fit inside the recesses. For what it's worth, I used my go-to adhesive for windows: Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue - dries just like it says - clear.

Once the details (windows, doors) were added to the walls, I used 1-2-3 blocks to help me assemble the walls and keep them square.

Once the main structures were done, I next needed to build the roofs.

Thankfully, a 90-degree block made that pretty easy.

And lastly - the coup de grace - I added the beautiful gable trim included in the kits that really makes these little cottages stand out!

Most folks would probably consider these structures just about done - and I almost did. Then it occurred to me that it'd be nice to provide a nice place to look out over the river . . . So be sure to check in next time to see how that turned out...