Bar Mills "Earl's Oil Co." Laser Cut Kit: Done!

This is a description of the Bar Mills (Scale Model Works) Laser Cut Kit of Earl’s Oil Company. There are actually several items making up this kit: the main building, three oil tanks, a fence, billboard, some white metal castings and a booklet of instructions. No footprint is provided but with the items available you can arrange them pretty much how you wish and to suit a variety of spaces! (FYI: the base of the shed and storage area measures 1 15/16 inch by 13/16 inch).Here is a link to Mike Fifer’s page for this kit: Fifer Hobby

The kit comes in a smallish plastic jewel box and contains a number of different items in addition to those mentioned above. Namely, a sheet of peel ‘n stick signs, a sheet of acetate for windows, a "Guide to Better Structure Building" (for any and all structures) pamphlet, a ”How to Approach to Painting Castings”, a small bundle of sticks (for the roof supports), a couple of solid wood blocks representing storage boxes, a sheet of printed roofing and a piece of sponge rubber to prevent the contents shaking around too much.

The instructions are made up of a cover sheet with color photographs (specifically identifying it as an N scale kit), six pages of text instructions with quite a few photographs and a parts identification sheet. An initial read-through indicates they are pretty detailed and complete but time will tell for sure! One aspect of them I don’t care for is that while they are specific to the N Scale kit they keep referencing the HO version (both in the text and the pictures)! Something that seems quite common with Bar Mills N Scale kits!

The included fence provides about 5 ½ inches worth and is their Insta-Fence which may also be purchased separately. The bill board is identical to the one included with other kits.

As with their other kits I’m not sure that I would recommend this one as a first time laser-cut kit. As before, maybe if you have built other kits, have patience and are prepared to handle the quite small pieces of trim. There are no tabs and slots to help with alignment and the detail parts/trim are of the self adhesive variety; i.e. peel 'n stick.

Unless you want to do it anyway, painting can be kept as a minimum (natural wood appearance) but some is probably appropriate, mostly for the siding and trim. Of course, some overall weathering would also be appropriate!

The three resin tanks come with molded supports (running just about the entire length) while the kit also contains individual supports for each of them. If used, they might require trimming some of the molded supports off! I’ll make that determination when I get there!

This blog entry will be updated once I have finished building the kit or if I come across something that negates any of the comments I have made above.

Updated September 17, 2008

The kit is now essentially completed and a picture (click to view full size) is included. As with other kits of this type it is reasonably straight forward to build but requires care and patience working with the small, detailed pieces! I also used the Micro-Mark Magnetic Gluing Jig for the first time and it worked very well.

I didn’t use the one dimensional printed wood roofing. Instead I used some shingles that I had left over from an earlier purchase. I think it looks a lot better!

The instructions are reasonable but still use the HO version for photos and examples while emphasizing they are for the N scale version! They also make reference to color pictures at the end. Of course, no such pictures exist! There are, however, color pictures of the N scale version on both front and back of the cover sheet.

The billboard has also been completed (even though it is not included in the picture). The items left are the fence (which uses the bundle of sticks, referred to above) for supports and the cast metal pieces (crates, fire extinguishers, oil cans, etc.) which simply need painting and weathering (where appropriate).

The finished kit does seem to take up more space than I expected and I may have to make some adjustments to the plans for the area. I was planning a loading ramp by the adjacent spur but I may have to either remove it or the single oil tank. I’ll wait until the ramp has been built and see how it all fits! I can also “excavate” some plaster from a slope behind the shed in order to gain a little extra space. This would be a natural for the fence as well!

I’ll be updating my web site a little later with more details and pictures!

BryanC  Alligator Lines