Boreal Scale Models has recently come out with laser cut billboard and telephone booth kits. Both are fairly easy to assemble, each taking an evening to assemble, with painting taking the  longest time.

Both kits come with all the parts in zip-lock bags. The billboard comes with 3 signs and instructions. The telephone booth was so easy, instructions are rather redundant.

I'll first go through the assembly of the billboard:

The framework parts are all in the basswood 'sheets' they are laser cut from. Only small frets of wood hold them there. I first sprayed all the parts,  including the large sign board, in grey primer before they were removed from the sheets . Then I brush painted the parts in a medium green.

Since my home layout is set in the late fities, I decided that the supplied signs were too modern. I dug an old Pepsi advert out of my collection, resized it on my computer and used it instead. I glued it on the sign board using a glue stick.

The uprights are assembled next using the clever little jig included in the kit. As you can see, the short and tall vertical posts fit into slots. Then a diagonal support is glued on each side. 

The only other parts are 4 horozontal frame pieces that are glued to the back of the sign. These are easy to locate using the laser engraving on the back of the sign board. After everything was glued I touched up any glue marks and then lightly sanded the backside of the signboard in the drection of the braces. This takes some of the paint off, down to the grey primer, making the green paint look peeled.

I took the front and divided it into 6 equal sections, scribing lines vertically to make the sign look like it had been assembled from separate parts, just like the real thing. I didn't weather the front of the sign since that would have been kept clean for the advertiser. However another idea would be two different signs, one on top of the other with the top layer peeling to reveal the former advertisment below.

After that all there is to do is glue the 4 uprights to the back of the sign and you're done. I glued the two outside ones first, let the glue dry and then glued the two inside supoorts to make sure everything turned out even.

The next project was the telephone booth, which was even easier.

As you can see, there are only 6 parts plus a sheet of clear acetate for the windows. The sheet has B, L, R, F marked for Back, Left, Right, and Front for the wall panels and T (Top) and F (Floor) for the two small squares. I painted all the parts in antique white and assembled the walls and floor. I then very carefully used thinned black to run down the door lines engraved in the front. Then I painted the top black.  I cut the acetate for the windows and glued it in. I deviated slightly from the kit here, substituting a piece of styrene for the roof since it seemed to look a bit better in my opinion. It too was painted black. When fiinished it looks right at home on the streetcorner of my layout.

Both of these models were enjoyable to put together with no real problems. They are both good laser cut kits for the beginner.

Glen Haasdyk, July 4, 2009