GRANVILLEBUILDINGS O SCALE BUILDING KITS

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.

 

 

Granvillebuildings hope this was helpful. If you have any

questions about Resin or any of our kits or built-ups,

just e-mail us and we will get back with you.

Thanks for looking.