South River Model Works O.V. Hooker and Son

By Don Janes

     With COVID still in full swing and no place to go I have pretty well worked through most of the major structure kits that I have accumulated over the years. My current project is a South River Model Works kit called O.V. Hooker and Son. It is based on a building in St.Johnsbury, Vt..  It includes all the things you expect from a SRMW kit including resin brick and stone walls, laser cut wood walls and parts, a box full of metal castings along with other wood strips, roofing material, template sheets and miscellaneous bits and pieces. These kits are quite involved and not really a beginners kit but for those who want to dive into one, an awesome instruction book and two pages of good colour photos are included to help you work through it.  The instruction book contains all kinds of information besides the regular assembly steps. It covers colouring, construction tips and layout placement ideas.

      This kit follows the same basic techniques as other SRMW kits but this building has a very complex roof with several dormers.  When I was looking at the instructions I found the roof looked a little daunting but once I started on it things went together really well.  Everything fit perfectly.  Shingling the roof was the most time consuming job of the whole kit.  

     This structure is meant to be placed against the side of a hill and the lower rear level is below grade ( the reason no doors or windows were added to the lower level), with three stories above ground while the front of the building is a lower grade making it four stories high.  The two upper floors at the rear have porches connected with outside stairways, which make it visually interesting.   

 

These two photos are the front or street side of the building.

This view shows some of the dormers in the roof. There are six altogether.

Here we see the porches and posts added with the stairways connecting them. Note the sun room extending from the end. The ground floor will be below grade when finished.

These two views show the neat looking porch with the fancy pillars and railings.

     Once I had the main structure done I added the wooden extension on the side of the structure.  It consists of two wooden sheds joined together.  The overall footprint of the structure is quite large and requires a fair amount of space to fit it in the layout.

     I added exterior lights above each rear porch doors, over the main porch entrance door and over the loading dock, lower office door and on the side of the shed.  I did add an interior light to the shed with the open doors but not to the interior of the main building as the structure is set back on the layout and interior will not be visible.

     

The photos above show the street side of the building with the extension added, loading dock and canopy installed and some signs added to the walls. The photo below is the rear of the building that will be against the hill.

              With the main structure finished, I am now working on fitting it onto a small diorama that I will install on the layout once it is done.  The rear will face a small hill built against the backdrop.  I will post a few more photos once that is done.

     This kit also included a small wooden building that is supposed to be a roofing company.  I built this structure some time ago and added a side office to it.  It will be a small business in my town of Wells River.  

The three photos above are of the smaller structure included in the SRMW kit and is situated in Wells River.  It still needs to be completed with extra details, signage and exterior lighting.