"Dead Mans Hand Buildings" Topic

I am thinking of buying some of the pre-painted scenery, particularly the gallows set, prison wagon and stagecoach set.

Are they as good as they look on the website and is there much involved in putting them together?

Any comments from those with first-hand experience of these models would be appreciated.

Alan

They are every bit as good as seen on their website. My only piece of advice is to follow the plans closely and double check every step.

On a couple of my buildings the walls are on the wrong side, which put doors in the wrong place to line up with stairs. I only noticed after they dried so had to rejig the layout a little to get it too work.

I have them on sale at 20 percent off now too…

ScaleCreep.com

KK, thanks for the endorsement.

Mark, sadly, the wrong side of the Pond!

I can't speak for the ones you had mentioned but putting together 4 of the actual buildings I have found that you need to review the instructions before attempting and make sure what they are showing you in the picture is the way the building should look when it is actually completed because I have found that they mixed and matched things which should have not been done.

I think 4Ground have some of the best MDF kits out there. And they definitely look better first hand and with a little extra work you can really take the kits to the next level. Here's a link to my blog where I've upgraded almost the entire line of Dead Man's Hand buildings.

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The best advice I could give is to take your time and dry fit every piece before gluing. As mentioned, there have been issues with the instructions and parts being labled incorrectly, but nothing that has deterred me from making more purchases. Good luck!

You mentioned the Stagecoach set. That set while beautiful took a lot of fiddling and jiggering and sanding for me to get it to come together correctly. I am not saying this to dissuade you, but to prepare you. It's a worthy kit to assemble.

Also, be REALLY careful with the bottom of the coach! You have to flex and curve the bottom piece into slots, and it doesn't flex very well. When I built mine, it actually cracked, so it isn't a smooth curve on the bottom.

But all said, I absolutely love 4Ground kits and snap up every new one that they do.

I would certainly recommend their kits, although I have not acquired the stagecoach yet. I do have some reviews on my blog on the buildings themselves:
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Many thanks for the replies: what sort of glue is best suited and how essential are clamps?

Alan

For myself, I go against the majority and customary use of PVA/white glue and use super glue (Gorilla super glue) – as I'm much too impatient to wait around for the PVA to dry and it obviously doesn't require clamps :) I have made mistakes with the super glue, and it's certainly not for the faint of heart (always dry fit twice!), because if you do glue something incorrectly you could be in big trouble, but I've caught my mistakes before any irreplaceable damage was done.

Probably do your first build with PVA to get an idea of how the kits build. Good luck!

I use Gorilla super glue also.

Thanks for the tips.

I may well go for the gallows set first to see how hard it all is, before trying to tackle the stagecoach and prison wagon.

Perhaps another question I should have posed: how do the mdf coaches compare to the white metal offering from Dixon in terms of the quality of the model and ease of construction?

I have the Dixon stagecoach although I have not assembled it. It is smaller than the Sarissa stagecoach that I do have, its likely to be smaller than the 4Ground Stagecoach as well. I think you will be happier with either the Sarissa or the 4Ground stagecoach in the long run.

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If you need reference pictures of a real Wells Fargo Stagecoach you can find those here:
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