Posting No. 46 - Time for a Trim

After viewing Posting No. 45 on the stairs my good friend and model railroader Scott Perry emailed me saying "Not a critique...just an observation...the stair step boards are too long for the stringers.  Looks funny on the house."  I looked at the stairs again and he is correct!  I measured the front stairs and they are OK with a 3" HO scale overhang; however, the rear stairs have a foot of overhang!

The stairs are attached with the self-adhesive coating so it wasn't a problem to carefully pry them off the stringers.  Now how to trim these sticky devils without them sticking to everything?  My handy-dandy Northwest Short Line "The Chopper" to the rescue!  If you don't have one of these tools I strongly suggest that you purchase one.  I set up the stop for a 3" overhang and shop the stair steps (treads) to length.

It was an easy matter to re-attach the steps by simply aligning them and pressing down.  Here is the result which is much better!  Thank you, Scott!

Scott also noted that most houses this style have "box style" steps.  It looks like the makers of this kit took a little short cut by supplying "open" style steps; however, they will work in this case since we're not trying to be historically accurate.

What's next?  I'm working on a quick diorama for some photos.