Something I've been messing around with

[Chuck Most]

Quite a while back, I was able to snap up an old Life-Like Buildems bank for the princely sum of five bucks. It is an HO scale building kit, and appears to be from the early '70's. The kit was open, but complete. I thought "why not?"

I don't know what kind of plastic it is, but many parts were warped from age. The plastic used is, oddly, somehow both soft and brittle at the same time. But after a few minutes and relatively few curse words, I had the four walls up.

Here it is shown with a couple of the HO scale vehicles I have in my stash. Yes... I do have a small collection of HO scale vehicles. What of it?

I didn't want to build it as a bank. The building bears a very strong resemblance to an old equipment repair building near my home- 100 years ago the building was a shop with living quarters on the second floor. It was a tractor dealer for many years, and after the tractor line they sold went belly-up they switched over to used sales and repair. The shop is now only open whenever the semi-retired owner feels like being open, or by appointment. I wanted to do something like that. So...

A sign was made using Woodland Scenics dry transfer lettering and graphics. The Oliver tractor in the pic is actually 1:64 scale (yes, I have quite a few 1:64 tractors as well), but I may end up using that scale for the "inventory" because I've never really seen a good-looking HO scale tractor.

I plan to omit the kit-supplied base (which is molded to look like a sidewalk), and make a small enclosed "lean to" on one side of the building.

[charlie8575]

Nice job, Chuck. That sign looks great.

Charlie Larkin

[AzTom]

Good start Chuck. Athearn makes some nice JD and Ertl made some very nice Farmall 806? back around 2001. They also made some nice old semi trucks, mirrors, hand rails .. very detailed. I have them if you want photos.

[DRIPTROIT 71]

Nice!! I like old tractors myself and even have a few, but no Olivers though. I do have a fake Moline though.

[chunkypeanutbutter]

There's some company I can't remember that makes white-metal kits in HO scale. It's not Jordan, but it's something else...

We have one of their Farmall M kits, but haven't built it yet because we don't have the tiny little needle files for to remove all the flash with.