Welcome
Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the first part of our blog series titled "Designing a Craftsman Kit." Throughout this series, you will be immersed in the process of how we at Laser Modeling 3 create a craftsman kit from start to finish. Specifically, this series will be focused on "The Boonville Mill," an HO scale craftsman structure kit that we are currently in the process of developing. The Boonville Mill will be the 10th craftsman kit that we have designed and released for sale to the public. We are anticipating to have this kit ready for sale by early November, 2014.... With that said, let's begin Pt. 1 of this series.... What to Build? Deciding what kit to build can take time. During that decision making process, we like to have two criteria have be met; the kit needs to not only be interesting, but most importantly based off of a prototypical structure. The Boonville Mill was chosen because it met that criteria, and we believe that because of this it will be rich in historical value, very realistic, and helped to support the rail industry in real life. History The Boonville Mill is located in, Boonville, NY. The mill itself is still standing and operating. The mills origins date back to 1796, when it was originally built as a Gristmill. From its origins, it traded hands between different families, while also transforming its business from a Gristmill that produced and sold flour and oatmeal, to a Feed mill that processes bulk quantities of bran, corn, soy, and oats for animal feed. To this day, a large majority of the grain still arrives by an adjacent railroad siding. Research Research and planning are always the first steps we take when creating a craftsman kit. We feel that the more knowledge we can obtain about the structure, the more intrinsic value the craftsman kit will posses, ultimately enhancing the customers experience. Because of this, we take this process very seriously, and do our best to leave no stone unturned. This process starts by contacting the owners of the building. In this case there was no problem getting in contact with the Mill, as it is still in operation. Once an appointment was scheduled, we were on our way to Boonville. Once we arrived in Boonville with a pen and pad in hand, and a camera around our neck, we visited the mill and took meticulous measurements and numerous photographs of the different parts of the complex. Throughout the day we sketched out the complex and filled in the important areas of the sketches with the appropriate measurements. The photos that we took will not only be added to our instruction and photo manuals, but will also help us out if we missed a measurement by accident. Once we were comfortable with our measurements, and felt that we had enough data to start the next phase, we jumped in the car and headed back to our shop in Geneseo, NY.