Alpine Division Hobby Shop
by Jeff Junker
Arghh!!! Where do I begin? I know, the instructions: The instructions for the Alpine Division Hobby Shop spend more time telling you what’s not included in the kit than how to construct the model. And what they do tell you is extremely convoluted.
(But first, the back story. I was asked to build a model of the old “Hub Hobby Shop” building in its after-storm condition – – blown out windows, waterline, damaged roof. The closet kit I could find was the Alpine Division Hobby Shop. With a little alteration, it was the spitting image of our shop as it would have appeared in it’s earlier years.)
The kit is the cardstock and wood stick variety typical of the Suydam kits of the 70s. Oh wait! The manufacturer order code is “700” which WAS Suydam order code. That alone should have tipped me off as to what I was in for.
After sorting through all the parts, I found that most of the wood sizes provided didn’t match up to the instructions. No front door is included – – you have to scratch-build it from the wood sticks. I decided to bypass that step and use a Grandt Line door.
The cardboard for the roof and second floor didn’t fit properly. I overcame that by reversing them. Their second floor is now my roof; their roof is now my second floor. To simulate the membrane roof that was on our old shop, I glued strips of toilet paper to it. Then I painted it with Vallejo mud – some at full strength, the rest at varying degrees of a thinned down solution.
The roof vents look like knobs pulled off a radio. I replaced them with Campbell Cyclone vents
They refer to brick facings on the sides. What their bricks look like are an occasional series of bumps on the board that might look like bricks under a microscope. I spray three of the sides with Testors Model Master Light Ivory. The fourth side was covered with a computer generated corrugated metal skin (printed on a mailing label) from an Evans Design program.
The red bricks under the front display windows were also provided by the Evans Design program. The glass shards were made from Sig plastic.
Photos by Jeff Junker