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HOW TO : Build A Northeastern Scale Models Angelo’s Place
   Article By Bryan Catley and his Alligator Lines  Copyright ©                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                                         

Angelo's Place was my second laser cut kit. This is a great looking little restaurant that will fit in many a small space! Don't overlook it when trying to decide what to place in a small area!

The kit is complete and requires no scratch building skills with everything you will need to complete it being laser cut, except for the roof shingles. It is, however, a step above the Laser Kit , company houses , from a skill level perspective. Basically, the pieces just need to be cut from the container sheets with a very sharp knife and then assembled.

The Laser Kit ,company houses ,  employed a tab and slot construction to help ensure you got everything right and make sure things remained at the correct angle while drying. Further, trim was of the peel 'n stick variety. Nothing quite like that here. You are on your own but the pieces fit together perfectly (as you would expect).

Please study the instructions before doing any work! Then, and as with all kits of this type, prime and paint the pieces while they are still in their container sheets before doing anything else! (Make sure you prime on both sides - I used a sanding sealer).

The first thing to do is to construct the base. This is a simple and straight forward task; just use a minimal amount of glue!

Next, attach the four end posts on the end (side) walls. I used white glue applied with a toothpick. They were laid flat on a piece of paper and the pressed together with my fingers. To avoid them becoming attached to the paper they were then shifted around a bit while the glue was still wet. This did the trick and there was never an issue with them sticking to the paper. Once dry you will need to paint the edge of the end posts that never got painted before!

Now it's time to insert the windows, glazing, door and frames. As you would expect, everything is cut perfectly and once removed it can be placed into position with a little glue (applied with a toothpick). As mentioned, there is no peel 'n stick with this kit!

It is now time to start attaching the walls to the base. Start with the back wall. To do the job properly you need to ensure everything is at right angles and aligned perfectly. I used two pieces of scrap 4 x 1 wood at right angles to accomplish this!

Leave the front wall (with the door) until last. At this point the other three walls are in place and are (or should be) square. Now you can position the front wall between the side walls and over the stoop without a problem!

The cover for the stoop is next. This actually appears a little more complex than it really is. Do the two sides first (use a similar technique to that used for the end posts on the side walls) and glue them into place. The front of the stoop over hang should now fit perfectly into place!

Now it's time for the formers (roof supports). There are many of these very small items to place across the back, down the sides and over the stoop. At this point I made an executive decision and decided to omit these altogether! They are very small and would probably never be seen unless the viewer bent down and looked up. I haven't regretted this decision so far but this doesn't mean you have to do the same!

Roof time! And this is no doubt the weakest part of the kit! The roof is in two parts; the main roof and the roof over the stoop. Each part has a base that is laser cut (with a score down the center to help in bending) and then you have a sheet of shingles that is not laser cut.

Unfortunately, the instructions on how to complete the roof are almost non-existent! Now, if I had a little more experience working with sheets of shingles it might have gone better. But as it was, it caused a bit of head scratching!

Basically, the instructions say to glue the shingles to the roof bases, trim the shingles, bend to the correct angle and glue to the structure. Further, one is not to worry about the gap at the peaks because when the roof is dry you can cut some roof strips and glue them over the peaks. I'm not sure what "roof strips" they were talking about but there were none in the kit!

They also didn't mention that when gluing the shingles on the roof to make sure the shingles were facing down on each side! Maybe that should be obvious but it is still worth mentioning since this means you have to do each roof area in two pieces (reversing the shingles for each side).

Note: When trimming the shingles, make sure your knife has a new (very sharp) blade! They cut easily enough but the cut shingles fly everywhere and if the blade isn't really sharp you end up with a ragged edge!

Once the two roof pieces were glued in place I had two pretty big gaps across the peaks and no roof stripping (that I knew of) to cover them! I suppose I could have cut some paper strips and used that approach but I ended up filling the gaps along the roof tops with a small amount of spackling. A toothpick was used to apply it in very small amounts and my finger was then used to smooth it in place.

A little gray paint on the spackling, the addition of the signs and a little weathering finished everything off! Overall it came out pretty well, at least I think so!

Here is a link to the North Eastern Scale Models site for further information.