Intentio 7mm SR Concrete Provender Store

[Pencarrow]

A while back Phil @BrushType4 from Intentio contacted me and asked if I would build and finish one of his new kits, and document the build for others. I said yes. Phil's kits have a great reputation and the kit in question, the SR Provender Store, looked very interesting.

Just in case folk don't know what one looks like, here's a couple of photos provided by @BrushType4 of his build:





So, somewhat later than intended, due to major works in the house, here's a thread covering the build. Here's the envelope that I opened this morning...



And inside were a fair few sheets of laser cut parts...



Just to add a little challenge, jeopardy and excitement, there were no instructions. I do however like puzzles and Phil was also available on the phone. Thankfully I also have the very useful Southern Nouveau book that contains drawings and photos.

 

[simond]

there were no instructions

Been there, done that, I think it’s Phil’s sense of humour…

 

[Pencarrow]

Been there, done that, I think it’s Phil’s sense of humour…

Yes, the added complication was that the package contained more parts than I actually needed. Took me a while and a few dry runs to work out what went where and what didn't.

These are the parts I didn't need...


Which I think means the following are superfluous and I guess won't be included in production kits:

 

[simond]

the package contained more parts than I actually needed

Funny you should say that…

 

[Pencarrow]

I've had mixed experiences of laser cut kits previously.

A signal box kit for my 00 cameo layout Polsarrett was probably the worst. In the end just about all that kit was replaced by scratch built plasticard parts, and the quality of the MDF was truly awful - no better than toilet paper.

On the other hand the cut and fit of this kit is absolutely superb, definitely top notch. The MDF sheets used are also top quality. This is a trial build of a new kit and Phil has asked for feedback, which I'm happy to provide.

So no instructions... That means I'm free to start anywhere, and the dry build indicated that the floor would be a good point.

There's 8 MDF beams to fit under the floor. Two long ones with tabs, four shorter ones with tabs and two shorter ones with no tabs. It's obvious that the long ones go in the middle and support the platform but there's two points to check in terms of orientation. 1. One of the beams has two narrow vertical notches at one end. These are for the steps down from the platform and obviously need to go at the platform end. 2. One side of the beams have additional lasered grooved representing joints in the concrete beam. These need to go on the outer face of the pairs of beams.


The step notches and joints can be seen in the above photo.

The remaining tabbed beams go in to the respective positions, again checking that the side with the extra lasered joint goes on the outside of each pair. The remaining two untabbed beams are the ones that fit on the outside edges of the floor. One of them has no lasered joint and this should be put on the edge under the side door as it will be covered by a vehicle buffing timber.

There are 14 legs that attach to the base and have a pin that fits between the pairs of beams. To make 100% sure that the gap between the beams was right, and to help ensure the beams were vertical, I inserted temporary spacers whilst the glue was drying. It was important to check there were no glue blobs where the leg pins would later go.



Once set, the temporary spacers were removed.



The base turned over.



And the tabbed slots filled.

 

[Pencarrow]

Whilst that little lot was setting I turned my attention to the legs. There's 14 of these and the parts are shown below.



The legs are made by stacking octagonal discs on top of each other. To aid accurate alignment Phil has thoughtfully cut a square hole in the centre and provided a square peg to fit down the middle. The third element is a wider circular disk that sits on top of the pile for the floor beams to sit on.

There are two thicknesses of the octagonal discs, one double the thickness of the other, and a few spares. There being no instructions for this build, it took me a while to work out how to arrange the discs and how many I needed on each peg. The answer is three thick ones, or six thin ones, or any combination that takes your fancy.

I had a look in Southern Nouveau to see if the legs were a single or multi-section casting and found they should be a single section. This means that any joints between the MDF discs need to be visibly removed on the model. That will involve some sanding, meaning what combination of discs you use is immaterial.

I decided to make up as many legs as possible using three thick discs and to use these around the visible periphery of the building and to use legs made up from more thinner discs in the middle. Fewer joints are easier to hide.



The above photo shows the process of making up the legs. Blob of glue on the tip of the peg. Insert into the first disc. This leaves some glue around the peg, enough to push the second disc on and fix it. The third disc needed a few extra blobs of glue on the peg before pushing home. The whole lot was squished and excess glue wiped off.



Repeat 13 more times! I deliberately didn't fix the circular capping disc at this stage. It would just get in the way and make sanding the discs down more difficult.



I used a flat file to clean up the joints.



The circular discs were then glued to the top and the legs placed (not glued) in the ground template that Phil has thoughtfully supplied to aid their correct location.



I then offered up the floor and beam assembly in a dry run, which I found to be quite fiddly to get everything in place. But more on that later...

Having thought over night about these legs, I do now wonder if a 3d printed octagonal section part would be an improvement? This would give a better, no joint, finish to the legs. No idea if a mixed media kit is a possibility or what that would do to the kit cost though.

 

[Pencarrow]

Speaking of the ground template... Don't throw away the 14 thin octagonal discs that are circled. You need them for the legs...

 

[Pencarrow]

I'm now turning to the sides and in particular the panels. There a five types of these included in the kit and I've identified these below.



Some differences are more obvious that others.

A, B and C all have a short tab at the top and are intended for use of the side walls. D and E have tall tabs and must not be used on the side walls as the tall tabs clash with the tabs on the base of the triangular gable end sections. Although B with the window has a short top tab, you can also use this on a front or rear wall, it just means the slot isn't fully filled by the tab, but that's not an issue.

Being sectional, you can decide where the windows go and where to leave a gap for the road vehicle door. The latter was normally central in either side or the rear.

I must admit I had a change of mind in terms of where I was going to put the third window, so some of the photos in later posts show it in different locations.

What I actually built though used the following sections (all as viewed from outside the building)...

#Front, rail side: D, B, double gap for door, E and D.
#Left side (left viewed from front): A, B, double gap for door, C, A. Note the side of A with no tabs goes to the building corner.
#Right side: A, C, C, C, C and A
#Rear: D, D, D, D, B and D

 

[Pencarrow]

If you've ever used the Ratio SR concrete sectional fencing kit in 4mm or 7mm, the construction of the walls is very similar. Each wall panel fits between two posts and you just progress building the wall by alternate gluing posts and panels.

I started with the rear wall first, which I originally decided would have no window but later changed my mind.

I'm going to jump ahead in the build sequence now to show the structure in a later stage. This is to show that the front and rear walls incorporate in their build L shaped posts which form the roof. So don't get carried away gluing short posts between every panel!


Going back in time, I decided it was best to start making up the rear wall in pairs of panels, leaving the L shaped posts to fit later.


Pairs of panels with single short posts arranged.


Spot of glue on the tabs.


Add the post, with a little glue squishing out around the joint.


Add a little more glue to the tabs on the second panel.


Press all together, clean up any surplus glue and, to ensure the assembly sets straight, place as a dry fit (no glue) in the floor section. Do the same with the remaining pairs.


I did the same with the two pairs of panels for the front wall.

No idea if this is the approach Phil intended but it's worked for me.

 

[Pencarrow]

Once the panel pairs were set I then decided to add the eight L shaped posts.



Here a dry fit of the parts onto the floor identified a minor issue with the design of the base of the L shaped posts. The notch cutout wasn't deep enough for the posts and panels to sit fully home on the floor. I discussed this with Phil and he's made a modification to the CADs to fix it. My fix involved a few minutes with a sharp knife and file to make the notch deeper. Production kits shouldn't have this issue.

Anyway, the L shaped posts were glued to each corner section and the assembly dry fitted to the floor to check the alignment.


I then had a play to see how the square hoop that goes around the top of all the panels fitted. I left this in place whilst the glue set to ensure everything aligned and had a cup of tea...


I then came back and fitted the remaining four L shaped posts and rear central panels. Again all placed dry into the floor whilst setting.


It would be possible to place all the wall and post pieces in place on the floor in one hit, and then go around with some glue afterwards on the inside to fix all in place. I did think about that approach but decided I wanted the four walls making up as separate assemblies so that I could spray prime the interior more easily. I could see the roof beams getting in the way if spraying was left until after assembly.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

So no instructions... That means I'm free to start anywhere, and the dry build indicated that the floor would be a good point.

Little or no instructions is indicative of how well Phil has thought out the kits making them relatively easy to build. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle without the picture.

When building my Intentio kits I always had dry runs - you can practically build them in 5 minutes without glue!

Speaking of the ground template... Don't throw away the 14 thin octagonal discs that are circled. You need them for the legs...

I would be inclined to seal the dics in plase on the ground template and use this as ground base for the building and it would also prevent the steps and/or legs accidentally being knocked off during handling. It also makes it easier to place and fix on a layout - four small countersunk wood screws in the corners which can be discguised by scenery.

Paint and lightly weather the legs and fix them in place then scenic and weather the ground base. As far as the concrete colour is concerned as long as you have a note of the rough paint colour ratio/mix it wouldn't matter if it isn't quite the same shade as the main building as the legs would have been more protected from the elements.

 

[timbowales]

Chris, following this with interest. You haven't indicated what scale it is intended for?

 

[Pencarrow]

Turning now to the side walls...

The right hand side wall is just six plain panels and five short posts. Note all the short tabs at the top and no tabs on the left and right edges. This was built up in pairs as before, dry fitted to the floor and left to set before joining the pairs together later .


The left hand wall was two pairs and a gap for the road vehicle door. The left pair included a window.


Around this time I decided that the floor needed the concrete planks scribing into it as it looked a bit featureless through the door openings. I've suggested to Phil that these lines are added to production kits.


With the floor and wall assemblies now complete, it was a trip outside, and dodging the July rain, to prime up the interior faces.

 

[Pencarrow]

Chris, following this with interest. You haven't indicated what scale it is intended for?

The kit is 7mm. @BrushType4 will be able to advise if it's available in other scales.

I've added a tag and scale to the opening post.

 

[BrushType4]

Chris, following this with interest. You haven't indicated what scale it is intended for?

Hi Tim, this is indeed 7mm scale but it wouldn’t be a huge problem to make to any scale with a few compromises related to thickness of the MDF.

 

[Pencarrow]

Hi Tim, this is indeed 7mm scale but it wouldn’t be a huge problem to make to any scale with a few compromises related to thickness of the MDF.

There is the 4mm plastic kit produced by Ratio. It's a pig to build and is only 4x6 panels in size rather than the 6x6 of your kit, so it wouldn't be exact duplication. I've much preferred the build of the Intentio kit so far.





The benefit of the laser cut kit though is that it could be reconfigured to produce different sizes of store. You can obviously buy a kit bash the Ratio kit, but that would be quite tedious work (says he who individually applies 1000s of individual tiles to roofs).

 

[Pencarrow]

Little or no instructions is indicative of how well Phil has thought out the kits making them relatively easy to build. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle without the picture.

When building my Intentio kits I always had dry runs - you can practically build them in 5 minutes without glue!




I would be inclined to seal the dics in plase on the ground template and use this as ground base for the building and it would also prevent the steps and/or legs accidentally being knocked off during handling. It also makes it easier to place and fix on a layout - four small countersunk wood screws in the corners which can be discguised by scenery.

Paint and lightly weather the legs and fix them in place then scenic and weather the ground base. As far as the concrete colour is concerned as long as you have a note of the rough paint colour ratio/mix it wouldn't matter if it isn't quite the same shade as the main building as the legs would have been more protected from the elements.

I've only previously built one of Phil's smaller PW but kits which was very quick and easy to build. So far I've been very impressed with the design and fit of this bigger and more complex kit.

Regarding the base plate, I intend using this and scenicing it up. It would be a pig to build and paint the model with it in place though. I suspect it will be temporarily taped on from underneath though during the detailing stage to avoid damaging the legs.

 

[Pencarrow]

So, where were we? Floor made, wall sections made. Interior primed.

Back to the legs. I first placed them all out in the ground plate hoping it would be a simple case of just dropping the floor on but... Trying to get 14 pegs to fit between tightly spaced beams whilst not really being able to see what's going on didn't really work.


So instead, I blobbed glue on the leg pegs and top plates and fitted them one at a time to the inverted floor plan in approximately the right locations. Whilst still upside down I then persuaded the ground plate onto the legs to finalise the positions and then pressed hard on the ground plate to firmly push everything home. I did leave off the front two legs on the basis that they could easily be fitted later. The floor was left inverted and the ground plate weighted whilst the glue set.


Once set it was all turned the right way up.


I then glued the front and rear walls into position in the sockets in the floor.


Quickly adding each of the end walls




Just like the walls, the gable ends are made of panels sandwiched between posts. These posts have a rebate in one side. This going at the top and on the inside faces.


The rebates can be seen better in the photo below. At this stage the gable end assemblies were dry fitted to the square ring so that they set straight.


At this point I didn't glue the vertical corners, but went straight to blobbing glue around the top tabs...


...before adding the top square ring that holds all the walls in place. This is quite a tight fit, particularly easing the sides of the ring over the outer L shaped posts. Care and a delicate touch required, with a bit of haste yo do it all before the glue sets...


The two gable end sub, assemblies were then glued to the square ring. Thankfully I didn't glue the outer L shaped posts to the gable ends. We'll see later that a decision of mine to deviate from the kit would have been difficult had I glued these together.


The three posts in the above photo are for fitting into the outer vertical corners of the walls. The fourth has already been fitted to the corner nearest the camera. It's better seen in the photo below. This was also the stage that I decided to fit the two remaining legs.


Once the legs were in place, the frontage to the loading platform was fitted. You'll also see in the last two photos that the tab notches in the door openings had a spot of filler added for later sanding off.

 

[Pencarrow]

The activities in the above post only took 30mins, and it would have been quicker had I not had to take photos. It all came together rather nicely with everything fitting very precisely.

I then had a play and temporarily fitted the roof formers. This showed that I'd have to fully finish painting and detailing the interior prior to fitting the roof. Access would be very difficult after the roof was glued on. Not an issue though if you have all the doors closed.


I then decided it was time to shove a coat of primer on the outside walls and under the floor, including the legs. Phil uses really good quality MDF but I still like to seal the MDF on all faces with paint. Prior to this I had a flick through the prototype photos in Southern Nouveau again and noted that the sides of the square ring were chamfered. I added this detail using a file, this would have been much easier prior to fitting the gable ends. DOH!


It all then got a spray of grey, and the photos below are where I got up to yesterday evening.

 

[Pencarrow]

So that was the end of day 1. All in all I probably spent about 5 hours on the kit and a good proportion of those were related to working out what all the bits were, which ones I didn't need and how to build the kit.

Having spent Sunday morning writing up the build so far, I came back to the issue that had been bothering me. It's a personal one and is in no way a reflection on the kit. I wanted to be able to get inside to paint and detail the interior.

With one roof panel on it was going to be tricky...


With both roof panels on, all most impossible...


It would of course be very easy if you painted and detailed the interior before all the wall sections are glued to the floor and the openings masked off to stop external over spray spoiling the finish. But... I also wanted to be able to show off the interior and perhaps add lighting at a later point. I've enabled this on my own scratch built stores by making the roofs removable.

At this point those of a nervous disposition, and those that never stray from the kit manufacturer's instruction, should look away. In my defence, I should say I have a bad reputation for using kits (even those as good as this) as a starting point for adding variation and detail to "make it my own" as those reality TV shows say.

A fine toothed razor saw was deployed and the L shaped posts cut at about 8mm from the elbow. This was why I was glad I hadn't glued them to


As each roof beam was severed I glued it to the appropriate matching location on the roof panel. All four were completed and a quick play confirmed that the roof still had a positive fit on the shell.


The task then continued on the other roof panel.


I then put some sellotape on the inside apex of the gable ends to prevent any errant glue sticking the roof to the walls. Put some glue on the ends of the roof beams and placed both roof panels on the building.


Four tiny glue points were not going to be sufficient for a nice strong roof and therefore I also glued on the provided length of wooden dowel to the to of the roof panels, taped it down and left to fully set.


Once set, I removed the roof, ran another beed of glue on the underside of the ridge line and applied some card across the joint.

As I said, this was purely a personal choice and preference. The kit can be built as intended. Those not wishing to deviate from the manufacturer's intentions can of course just glue the roof panels to the roof beams and the gable ends.

With that done, we suddenly have no large bits left, other the the cosmetic corrugated roof panels. More about them and another slight deviation in the next post...