ABOUT GRANVILLEBUILDINGS AND THE
MATERIALS THAT WE USE.
On this page you will find all about Granvillebuildings and
the materials that we use. Granvillebuildings have been in
business since 2001. We have done 1 year of trail runs on
our materials, paints and glues. There are web-sites out on
the web saying bad things about resin. This is not the cause
for the type of Resin that we use. We will go over all of this
below. First, lets talk about Granvillebuildings.
HOW DID WE GET INTO THE HOBBY
OF O SCALE:
Back into 2001, Joe, the Owner of Granvillebuildings
and a buddy went to a train show in York Pa. Joe had
been in HO Scale for 35 years and his bubby was in
O Scale. Joe's buddy bought a O Scale kit for $ 150.00.
Joe opened the kit up on the way home and noticed
that there was not that much plastic in that kit, or
anything else for that matter. Joe can buy the same
kit in HO for $ 25.00. Joe told this buddy that he was
going to build his buildings for him. 8 years later, here
he is.
HOW WE MAKE OUR KITS AND WHAT
WE DO BEFORE THEY GO INTO THE KITS.
First, we design our patterns out of wood. We try to design
and make all of our products from Original buildings and
our own design. After we are happy with the look of our
patterns, they go into a rubber mold. Each of our patterns
gets 2 or more molds each by the time we finish. Each
mold, we can get around 500 to 700 pours. After 24
hours, it is time to pour the Resin. Our Resin is a 2 part
pour that we have to mix and then pour into the mold.
We use a mold release that will help the Resin come
out easier. We demold our molds every 3 minutes.
After demolding the part, each part sits on a flat
surface for 30 minutes. Then it gets shipped to our
sanding room. We have 2 1946 sanding machines
that we use. We sand each piece. Then it goes to
our washing room. Each piece gets a wash to get
the mold release off. Then it is air dried. Then the
piece goes to the area where the kit is put together.
The packaging area packs up all items, paperwork
and installs the labels. After the labels are installed
then it goes to our warehouse where it is ready to
be shipped out to our distributors, dealers or
customers. Granvillebuildings warehouse carries
around $ 25000.00 to $ 40000.00 in stock any
given time.
Resin kits have been know to be Craftmen Type
Kits. Most of them will need a little more work
done to them then a injection type kit. Our kits
here at Granvillebuildings, we try to make it as
simple and easy as possible to build our kits.
We have a fully detail instructions that are 5 or
more pages long with details of building,
drawings and also pictures.
ABOUT OUR BUILT-UPS:
Granvillebuildings web-site is the only place that we sell
Built-ups. When a built-up is ordered through our web-
site, we pour the pieces that we need. We go through
all of the areas that we do on building a kit, except for
the packaging. We start gluing the sides together using
Super Glue ( more about Super Glue later ). Once we
have the building together, we then seal the inside
joints with Resin. This makes it one whole building
that will not come apart. We then start our painting,
gluing and weathering the model. We built the built-
up the same way that our first model looks. It takes
anywhere between 3 days to 10 days to build a
built-up. Sorry, we do this part-time. This way they
do not sit on the shelf hoping that someone will buy
it. Each built-up is a Limited Numbered Edition,
that is numbered and signed by Granvillebuildings.
Once the limited numbered is reached, we will not
build them no more, but we will still have the kits.
ABOUT THE RESIN THAT WE USE AND A
LITTLE ABOUT THE PAINT AND GLUES:
Our Resin that we use comes white in color. We can die the
resin, but if we do, the price of our kits will be 25% more,
because of the cost of the dies and the time it takes to mix
them to get the right color that we need. ( Most of the time,
customers paint the model / pieces the color that they want
it to be and there is no way to get a weathering affect with
dies. If you take a good look at the precolored kits, the
pieces in it look fake. )
The pieces will turn yellow over time within the kit. There
is nothing that you will have to worry about this. Glues and
paints still stick to it. It does not hurt the piece at all. The
type of Resin that we use, you can easily cut / trim it with
a hobby knife or you can use wet sand paper, regular sand-
paper or Dremel tool. You can mill it and even drill it.
Resin does warp from time to time. There are acouple of
ways you can take care of this. You can run it under
hot water and then lay it on the flat surface so that it can
dry back to it's flat shape. You can use a hair dryer,
setting on hot and then carefully bend it back to shape.
After each of these, after it has it's shape back, run it
under cold water and then let it air dry.
Once the kit has been glued together, it will not WARP!
Air Bubbles. Resin does get air bubbles in it. Granville-
buildings do not let air bubbles on the face of the pieces
unless it adds to the surface. ( ex. a old looking building
may have some air bubbles on the face so that after
it is painted, it will look like some wood is missing.)
Air bubbles on the back side ( shiny ) will not hurt
the piece at all and after you build the kit, no one
will know.
Gluing on the Shiny side. If you need to glue or
paint on the shiny side, you will need to sand
it first so that the glue or / and paint will hold.
Gluing. We tried all different types of glues and
we have not found no type that will not work
with this type of Resin. We have not heard
from our customers that they tried any type
and that it didn't work. Granvillebuildings uses
Super Glue to get the kits together. As said
before, we use Resin to seal our kits. Super
Glue will only hold around 9 months and then
lets go. We also use Weldbond, ( go to our
webring to buy this type ) and also we use
Elmer's white glue.
Painting. We have painted our kits with about
every type of paint that we could find. We have
used Oil paint, Acrylic Paint, Stains, Wood
stains, House paint, Spray paint and also some
off the wall paint like, paint for metal and also
Lacquer paint. It all stuck. No problems with
none of them. We use Acrylic paint and also
Dr. Bens stains.