Continuing Saga …

Well… let's see how well the illusion is playing out.

First I put the third coat of green on the railings and then let it set up. Then I filled the humongous injector pin holes on the backs of the characters. Since their backs are readily visible, this had to be fixed. I also filled the shoulder joints and any other things that didn't look right. Other Guy wasn't sitting squarely on his stool and I thought it was how I sliced him in half, but after closer inspection I found that his butt was out of square, so I filed/sanded his bottom until it was square with his shoulders. He's now sitting without looking like he's going to keel over.

I mixed up some flesh using Vallejo Shadow Flesh and Vallejo White. Shadow flesh is also the color I used for the bricks. It's a very good brown/red mix. I painted their clothing. For Hopper I used a dark gray and some of the same color with a little white to highlight it. For the Other Guy, I used Tamiya Field Blue and again some lighter shade for highlights. For the Mrs. Hopper I made a darker shade of the flesh mix, but it was too brown so I added some Vallejo Insignia Red and it came out reasonably well. For the Counter Guy I painted his suit Tamiya Flat White. For the hats, I first painted a black blotch around the hat which would be the black hat band.

I then went back with a Tamiya Sky Gray and painted the top and rim leaving the black stripe exposed.

Here's all the people painted. I did Hopper's shirt in a Tamiya Blue/Green mix and painted his tie Tamiya Flat Blue. For the other guy, I painted his shirt white, painted his tie Vallejo Red and then stripes with Tamiya Blue. The stripes could be better, but they'll never be seen since his back is to the window and there's no way to view him from the front.

Ms. Hopper's hair is a mixture of Vallejo Red, Yellow and a little Shadow Flesh. Her shoes are red with bare legs. The guys have Flat Black socks and Brown shoes on Mr. Hopper and Gloss Black on Other Guy, all being Tamiya.

And here they are again, posed at the counter. I'm thinking I may cut the Counter Man at the waist and have hime leaning forward like in the Hopper picture… or… maybe not.

I think these people will work just fine and I'm ready to finish up installing the interior. I've contacted the laser cutter who did the stools to order more of them, but haven't received any confirmation.

The last thing I did today was add another coat (4th) on the railings and touch up the concrete. I want to shoot them with some Dullcoat tomorrow since the thin CA on the stones is glossy as well as the green paint and needs to be toned down a bit. I should have used some new green paint. That bottle of Model Flex BN Green has almost kicked. I revived it by added Testor's Acrylic Thinner, but I don't think the paint was fully functional so it covered poorly…especially over pure white styrene.

Even though today was an exercise day, I got such an early start that I was also able to do a full shop day. Tomorrow should be a good day also.

 

The people look great!  I agree with cutting the counter man to bend him over, and you will have a winner!!  The stoops and steps look great!

fantastic job on the people. It's starting to really look like the painting.

Thanks… as always! Today was a punch list day. I took care of a bunch of the little things that I was hoping to not overlook. I started with the plumbing vent. I was a 3/32" piece of brass tubing treated with the chemicals to darken it. I installed it in the roof sort of over where the rest rooms lie.

I wanted to start gluing in walls and furnishings inside and started by gluing in the partition wall using medium CA. I then was going to glue the counter in using clear silicone caulk/sealant. I put the stuff on the bottom and then realized I wanted to put on the brass foot rails. So I wiped off the sealant and got to work on the rails.

Again, I'm using 3/32" tubing, although it should probably be smaller. I cut the pieces, polished them with steel wool and then filed flats where the connecting pins would be soldered. I drilled with an 0.032" carbide drill, and then soldered in brass wire of the same size. I used the RSU since it is always ready and does a job like this with no fuss.

After soldering I used my narrow nose Xuron pliers to space out where the 90° bend should go. 

After doing this on all three rails, I drilled corresponding holes in the lowest board of the counter sides and CA'd the rails into place. Once all were in I trimmed excess brass sticking through and sprayed the entire assembly with Testor's Wet-look Clear Lacquer to keep the brass from oxidizing and give the counter more sheen.

I found out from Mini-etchers that they will cut additional stools for me using ply instead of solid maple. That should really help reduce the breakage problem I was having. So I will have to wait until I have them all before buttoning up the building entirely. But that didn't stop me from moving along.

The front window needed mullions as per Hopper's painting. I had some Chartpak graphic tape of an appropriate size in black. All it needed was some painting to make it BN Green. I did this by sticking the tape on a piece of plexi, and hand painting the green. It took four coats with force drying in between. For the last coat I let it completely air dry. It would have been an airbrush candidate, but it wasn't worth the clean up time it required.

I wanted to add a TV antenna to hang on the chimney. Again, I used both 0.032" brass wire and some 0.021" phosphor bronze wire. For each joint, again done with the RSU, I filed a small notch on the wire where it joined its neighbor to give a little more surface area to the joint. I used my MicroMark soldering block to hold the mast when soldering the first cross pieces.

And here's the completed, unpainted antenna.

To mount the antenna I used some photo-etched brass fret. I believe in this case it was actually stainless steel from some architectural models that my grandsons built. I bent the brass strip around the mast and then formed it around the chimney. I couldn't solder the ends together since the chimney is styrene and wouldn't handle the heat so I CA'd the ends. I sprayed the antenna with Tamiya Gray Primer and then Bare Metal. I touched up the mast where it was mangled from all the bending and handling with Molotow Chrome Pen. There should be a wire leading from the antenna to the inside of the building, but this is the side that faces the rear, small alley and won't be visible from just about anywhere on the layout, so I'm not going to work on it.

I did glue the counter in place with the silicone and then starting adding some details including the urns, and the sugar and napkin holders.

Lastly, I laid out the lines for the mullions using the digital calipers and added them to the window. The window had some glue on very visible spots so I used my Revell polishing kit which has 3200 grit to 12000 grit wet-or-dry abrasive cloth plus polishing compound and soft polishing cloth. It did a terrific job of restoring the window. Notice the interesting distortion from that curved glass… Again the window is not glued, just placed. Need to get the people inside before I install the glass permanently since accessing just from above without the front being open too.

So… happy weekend and I see y'all on Monday.

Myles - It looks great, but as i recall from sitting at the bar in the old Yates Hotel in Syracuse in um undergraduate days, the foot rails had end caps.  I double checked (brain has lost some of its edge due to too much juice of the corn from your neighbor, Buffalo Trace) on the internet and saw most bar foot rails have end caps. Consider this a new opportunity to show your modeling skills. My thought would be to take a piece of brass tubing the diam. of the rail, grind to a sharp edge making a die, stamp circular end caps out of thin styrene and paint them brass color. However i'm sure you'll have a better idea.

 

Looks great, Myles.

Thank you! While you are technically correct that the ends should/could be plugged, and I probably can make them, I'm thinking that it may not be worth the effort since from the viewing distance, no one will know. That being said, the way I would do it would be to turn some actual plugs using some 3/32" brass rod and turning down a portion to slip into the tubing. I would have to superglue it in since the counter is already glued into the building and soldering is out of the question. I would only need four of them to plug the ends that are visible from the front.

Yesterday I produced some scale-sized images of the masterpiece (3/4" wide) that will be framed and hang on the wall. I always make multiple copies of these kinds of graphics since it just gives me more confidence that I'll be able to get one good one. You can't simply resize the image in a photo editor since it ends up being a pixelated mess. Instead, I import the image into Corel Draw and size it there. It shrinks the pixel size keeping the image the same size so the resolution stays high. It's only limited by the display and printer's resolution to see ridiculous detail. I coated it with fixative and it will be ready to mount on tomorrow's work session. Since I'm running Corel Draw in a simulated Windows environment (VM Fusion), the printing function doesn't work well. So I export the Corel Image as a JPG and print it out in the Mac Preview App. It's just something I have to live with running a Windows program in a Mac OS system.

I've sent some images and story synopsis to RMC mag to see if there's any interest in an article on this project. I have no expectations and if it's accepted as a concept I will be very pleased. If not, nothing ventured, nothing gained. You're never to old to do this sort of stuff. A very dear friend (the one who just suffered the stroke) wrote a novel which is slated for publication at age 72. It's his first. I have a book in my head also, non fiction, about what I learned in developing people over a 40+ year career. It's been banging around in my head for years. I suppose I ought to get cracking and put something down on the computer.

Trainman2001 posted:

Since I'm running Corel Draw in a simulated Windows environment (VM Fusion), the printing function doesn't work well. So I export the Corel Image as a JPG and print it out in the Mac Preview App. 

 

Not that you need my advice on anything, but if possible, you should use TIFF, not JPG for this purpose. Otherwise you risk noticeable compression artifacts in such a tiny image.

Trainman2001 posted:

Well… let's see how well the illusion is playing out.

First I put the third coat of green on the railings and then let it set up. Then I filled the humongous injector pin holes on the backs of the characters. Since their backs are readily visible, this had to be fixed. I also filled the shoulder joints and any other things that didn't look right. Other Guy wasn't sitting squarely on his stool and I thought it was how I sliced him in half, but after closer inspection I found that his butt was out of square, so I filed/sanded his bottom until it was square with his shoulders. He's now sitting without looking like he's going to keel over.

I mixed up some flesh using Vallejo Shadow Flesh and Vallejo White. Shadow flesh is also the color I used for the bricks. It's a very good brown/red mix. I painted their clothing. For Hopper I used a dark gray and some of the same color with a little white to highlight it. For the Other Guy, I used Tamiya Field Blue and again some lighter shade for highlights. For the Mrs. Hopper I made a darker shade of the flesh mix, but it was too brown so I added some Vallejo Insignia Red and it came out reasonably well. For the Counter Guy I painted his suit Tamiya Flat White. For the hats, I first painted a black blotch around the hat which would be the black hat band.

I then went back with a Tamiya Sky Gray and painted the top and rim leaving the black stripe exposed.

Here's all the people painted. I did Hopper's shirt in a Tamiya Blue/Green mix and painted his tie Tamiya Flat Blue. For the other guy, I painted his shirt white, painted his tie Vallejo Red and then stripes with Tamiya Blue. The stripes could be better, but they'll never be seen since his back is to the window and there's no way to view him from the front.

Ms. Hopper's hair is a mixture of Vallejo Red, Yellow and a little Shadow Flesh. Her shoes are red with bare legs. The guys have Flat Black socks and Brown shoes on Mr. Hopper and Gloss Black on Other Guy, all being Tamiya.

And here they are again, posed at the counter. I'm thinking I may cut the Counter Man at the waist and have hime leaning forward like in the Hopper picture… or… maybe not.

I think these people will work just fine and I'm ready to finish up installing the interior. I've contacted the laser cutter who did the stools to order more of them, but haven't received any confirmation.

The last thing I did today was add another coat (4th) on the railings and touch up the concrete. I want to shoot them with some Dullcoat tomorrow since the thin CA on the stones is glossy as well as the green paint and needs to be toned down a bit. I should have used some new green paint. That bottle of Model Flex BN Green has almost kicked. I revived it by added Testor's Acrylic Thinner, but I don't think the paint was fully functional so it covered poorly…especially over pure white styrene.

Even though today was an exercise day, I got such an early start that I was also able to do a full shop day. Tomorrow should be a good day also.

 

Myles

Looking great. I knew you would turn those figures into something  that would compliment your model.

Gerry

Thanks guys! Yup…tiff is less lossy, but when you see how little of that painting can actually be seen in today's images, you'll realize that it's a difference without a distinction. In the future, I'll do that.

More punch list items. First, I cut the legs and one arm off the counter man, filed the leg ends to an angle, and cleaned up the shoulder to re-accept the arm in an extended position. After gluing them in place (a couple of times I might add) I re-painted the white. While he was drying, I cut out the mini-Nighthawks painting for the wall, and built a picture frame. I started by using MicroMark PSA on the back of the image and sticking it to a piece of 0.010" styrene sheet, which I then trimmed about 1/32" oversize to give a small gluing surface for the frame. The frame is constructed from 0.020" X 0.080" styrene. I started with the end frames and sanded a slight angle on its long side so the frame would sit off the picture at an angle, but left the ends square. I then did the long pieces and coped their ends to fit into the end pieces. I painted the frame Tamiya Gold and stuck it to the wall next to the pass through using med. CA.

I started putting people and stools into the building starting with the lady. I dipped each stool leg end into a puddle of med. CA and stuck it to the floor at a distance that would let her sit properly at the counter. I glued her to the seat with the same adhesive. I then did Mr. Hopper, and ended with the Other Guy. I then glued the Counter Man in place. He does look more like the painting…almost.

With the people in place, I could finally install the ceiling with the surface mount LEDs and was able to take pictures under the model's lighting for first time. To get the lighting's wires to the basement, I installed the green lally column (which theoretically holds up the corner of the building in Hopper's painting) and threaded the wires down the hollow tube.

The ceiling fits very snuggly and needed no glue making it actually removable if something should break loose in the cafe. I wanted to make blackout baffles for the second floor so you can't look through from one side to the other. The  upper floors are not illuminated. I made a nice, totally invisible bedroom in the 2nd floor bedroom in Saulena's Tavern, and unless you are looking with your eye stuck to the building…which you can't…you can't see a thing. The black out was created with two pieces of cross-lapped 1/8" foam core, covered with PVA'd black construction paper. It too is not glued since it's not going anywhere.

A while ago, I bought some cute little detail kits which have rural mailboxes and electric service hookups including conduit, electric meter, switch box, weather head and building tie-on clevises and I'm going to jazz up this building with this detail, although it's probably going to end up on the chimney side which are the least visible side of the building. If I enter this is any contests, they'll see it. I also made my first LED light fixture using the magnet wire method which I will explain here.

First of all, since I wasn't going to be soldering these tiny parts onto copper tape, but instead was soldering wires directly on top of them, I needed to hold them. For this I used some double-sided Scotch Tape on my soldering pad. 

You have to scrape the enamel off the magnet wire which I did with a #11 blade. I pre-tinned the small solder pads on the LED with my Weller iron. The negative terminal is the big one. There is very little area to which to solder. I also pre-tinned the magnet wire ends to help it all along. Getting the wires to stick is not easy since it's all so small. I am reluctant to use the resistance iron since the LED are sensitive to overheating and the RSU heats so darn fast. 

The magnet wire lets you put both leads (Red is position, green is negative) through a 1/16" aluminum tubing (or actually smaller if I had any). There's lots of room in there.

I have some cast white metal lampshades which I no longer remember from whom I got it, that I drilled out to accept the tubing. I threaded the wires through all of this and then soldered the leads to the LED. I put a small piece of electrical tape to insulate the circuitry from the metallic shade. I pulled everything up tight and the secured it all with med CA which further insulates the wire ends from the shade. With power, it was very bright.

I then hand-bent the gooseneck on the fixture which will go into the building wall over the main entrance door. I'm going to turn a small ferrule out of aluminum or brass to serve as a more proper mounting than just sticking it through a hole in the wall. Any other LED you use with type of shade sticks pretty far out. The surface mounts fit within the confines of the shade.

I'll tie these leads into the same LED driver circuit that's running the other four ceiling lights. I believe I'm using a 12 volt power supply and that would mean less than 3 volts per LED if I were to tie into the circuit after the LED driver. That in itself isn't bad since they are really bright and lower voltage simply would make them a bit dimmer. I could go  "old school" and use a 470 ohm resistor and tie in before the power gets to the LED drive so I'd have a parallel circuit with 4 LEDs on one leg and one on the other. I thought about making spot lights that would shine up to the the banner boards, but Hopper's picture has these in the dark and I'll leave it that way. They're also very glossy and would reflect a lot of specular reflections back to the viewer. I should probably make a "Nighthawks Cafe" sign that would hang somewhere, although that would be a little obvious. I'd rather have the viewer figure out that it's symbolic of Hopper's Masterpiece.

 

 

Any viewer who has ever seen Hooper's painting will know in a second what it is!  The interior and the window looks great!  The model captures the distinctive points and the mood of the painting!  

Myles, the model looks spectacular. I love the idea of a model of a painting and the painting hanging in the model.

Okay! I'm convinced. Hopper fans will figure it out. Today was the time to start site preparation. I'm mounting this on the same piece of foam core that the Newtown Chocolate Shoppe occupies. This presented me with a challenge. I had to add a bit more concrete color around the building. That "concrete" color was laid down over 10 years ago, and it's an old gray/green color. 

First I had to remove the building base from the layout. Another reason TO NEVER, EVER GLUE YOUR BUILDINGS DOWN TO THE LAYOUT! Just removed two wires from the DC buss under the layout and it was free to lift off. The base material is actually some German form core that I obtained from some graphic panels that were no longer used. I also wanted to include my first telephone pole in this vignette since I'm adding electrical service connections on this building and probably on the chocolate shop too. I made my poles based on suggestion from Ashe Rawls. He sleeves his poles with brass tubing so they are stable, but—like the buildings—removable. The sleeve is 5/16" thin-wall brass tubing, and the 1/4" dowel pole is line with aluminum tubing so it's not wood-on-brass. I had to cut these pieces to the same thickness as the foam core.

Here's my first telephone pole installed. Hard to believe that these poles were created in June of 2014. I've been waiting patiently to install them. 

I first attempted to match the concrete by starting with my latest batch and doctoring it. I used a lot of different paints and didn't get it right. Then it hit me…"I think that Tamiya Sky is a grey/green shade that might be what I used 10 years ago…" It wasn't an exact match, but after adding a touch of grey, white, black and playing around a little, I got a very close match. The final color is the bucket at the top right of my "mixing palette" (plastic egg crates). Notice the highly organized work space...

I also needed to add storm water inlets. These too are nice resin castings from Westport Model Works. I painted the asphalt drive on the left side and added "concrete" to the right.

I had to redraw the concrete expansion seams using a pencil and then sprayed it with Dullcoat. I cut the hole for the light leads to pass underneath. Here's the building sitting where it's going to sit. It's a lot easier detailing the site off the layout instead of on.

With all the site work out of the way, I got back to making the electrical hookup. I assembled the meter, the conduit and the switch box below. I used Bondic to glue the clear meter since it's a great way to adhere clear parts since it a) stays completely clear and doesn't foul the clear parts, and b) can still cure by UV light since the clear part transmits the light to the resin. Bondic is UV curing glue that comes in a kit with the resin and a small LED UV light source. It cures rock hard in 5 seconds. It's the same stuff dentists now use to fill your teeth. It's not cheap, but can do some impossible things.

On the top end of the conduit goes the weather head. This is a potted structure where you service lines are brought down from the transformer to the meter. It's a water tight unit that has the leads sort of facing downwards so rainwater is not conducted inside. The kit includes some very fine copper magnet wire which is supposed to connect to the weather head. I needed to drill some really small holes and used my smallest drill; a #86 drill (0.010") which is so fine and delicate that I just broke my last one of ten and have to buy more. You break them just by looking at them the wrong way. I attempted to get the wires into the small holes, but wasn't having much luck. It was time to quit, and I did break that last drill trying to clean out one of the holes from some med CA that I was using to hold the wire in place. I'd really like to know how they grind drills that ridiculously small.

That black thing on the end of the brass rod is the weather head. Needless to say, getting three holes in one side wasn't easy. Getting the wire into those tiny holes less so. Tomorrow, I'll get the service connection on and the stools are shipped so they may get here too.

 

Myles, the Nighthawks model looks fantastic but the details will put it over the top. Lots of fun following along with this project.

Well hang in there Pat. We're not finished yet, but we're get'n close.

I gave up trying to drill three tiny holes for three tiny wires in the electric service's weather head, since it really didn't matter. So I drilled on large hole and installed all three wires in the same hole and held them in there with a drop of CA. After installing the wires, I masked the clear meter glass and sprayed a quick coat of Tamiya Bare Metal.

The three lead wires tie into the lugs that mount on the building wall, and these, in turn, have steel cables that come from the power pole which supports the three-phase 220v wires that go to the meter. I measured these little cast metal lugs and came up with 0.032" so I drill the building for this size, but it was a bit undersized, so I opened it up to 0.039". I was able to get the lugs attached and held them with some thin CA.

Then the new stools arrived from Mini-etch, and I got started on them immediately. Unfortunately, they cut these out the same homogeneous 1/32" maple with the same fragility as the first batch. But this time, I tried something different. I lightly soaked the upper spreader bar with thin CA to harden the maple. Since the stools that I designed are too tall, I cut off the leg from just above the bottom spreader bar so the bottom bar didn't need hardening. This greatly strengthened the upper one and, while I did break quite a few of them, I did get a bunch of usable stools and made the whole deal work out.

I also made other adjustments which both sped up the building and produced a better build. First, the little square notches on the seat base were not equal size and some were definitely too small. This would have the effect of pushing one of the legs out of position which made assembly more difficult. I also changed the sequence. Instead of attempting to glue the leg to the seat base AND glue the spreaders to the adjacent leg at the same time, I glued all four legs to the base and then carefully held each spreader in contact with the adjacent leg. A small application of thin CA to this junction tied it all together.

I got 9 perfect stools built and a few more with one spreader missing that broke after assembly.

I don't need this many to populate the cafe. This will give me a bit of a cushion since I'm sure I'll break at least one more before this is all over. To stain them I just dipped the entire stool into a can of Minwax Red Mahogany Stain and absorbed the excess on a paper towel. Here're the lot of them waiting to dry for tomorrow's session.

I'll put the electrical service in place tomorrow and install the stools. With them in place, I'll get the window in and the steps. Then I'll turn my attention back to the outdoor light and finish that up. We're just about done folks.

 

The fine work you do can be tedious, but the results are commendable!  Great idea about the CA stiffening the fine parts of the stools.  You will have to tell Hopper, Red, and Other Guy to be careful with them!  LOL

Thanks Fellows!

Did some errands today (LHS, Train Store, Hardware Store) so got to work around 2 something. My old friend from Michigan has a small layout with mostly traditional Lionel equipment. But, he has one big special engine, an MTH SP AC-6 with PS-1. The grandkids got a little over-zealous with it and it sustained some valve gear damage. He had taken it to a store in Troy, MI many months ago, but didn't pick it up due to an intervening illness. When I was there a couple of weeks ago, we went to the store. They were unable to fix it, and furthermore, didn't seem to have the tender that goes with the engine. I took the engine home with me and took to my train store. Without the tender, they couldn't test it, and to make matters worse, MTH doesn't have a parts list for that engine or any of the re-issues of the same engine. The eccentric crank is broken. I'm going to try and fix it with brass pins and J-B Weld. Nothing to lose at this point.

I did get a lot of stuff done on Nighthawks and am on downspout from total completion. I glued in all the new stools and had plenty without resorting to the ones that have a single stringer missing. I then closed it all up. The window assembly almost didn't fit, but I coaxed it and got it done. It's held with CA. I then touched up the brickwork with that color match, touched up the brown and green, and then glued on the outside steps. 

I glued on the electrical service threading the three-phase leads through the standoffs. I made a little simulated conduit clamp out of some wine bottle foil.

I machined a little brass ferrule with a 1/16" hole through the center and slipped it onto the outdoor light's pole. I then fit it into a like-size hole in the wall centered over the entrance door. I made the hole penetrate above the 2nd floor so I could easily get to the wiring and tie it into the building's wiring. 

At first I thought about using the same LED driver as the interior lighting circuit, but since I bent that terminal lead so it would pass through the Masonite ceiling piece and soldered it to the foil, there wasn't enough sticking up to enable me to attach the two fine magnet wires to the leads. I did a test to see if the amperage was correct at the points I was contemplating and the light lit correctly, but there was simply no way for me to solder to it. I went back to old school and hooked a 470 own resistor and tied this into the primary wiring before they go to the LED driver.

I primed the fixture with Tamiya primer and did a quick rattle can spray job of Tamiya Bare Metal Silver.

So here's a lighting test with all the lights, windows, etc. in their final position.

That back light is really bright! You could grow plants under it. I chose to light the cafe entrance, but left the kitchen entrance unlit to differentiate these two doors.

Last thing to do is the downspouts. I got one formed and chemically blackened. I made a loop of 0.032" brass wire with a tail on it and soldered this in the mid position. This will secure the spout to the wall right next to the electrical service on one side and on the opposite corner will go the other one which I'll make on Monday. The blacken surface should give more tooth to the Rub-n-buff patina cream that I'll use before putting it on the building. I used a small drill to start the hole in the styrene gutter, and then opened out to the 1/8" tubing size. That will secure the upper end.

Just as a reminder, this was the article in the 1957 Model Railroader Mag that caught my interest as a 12 year-old so I saved the article to build "some day when I have my big railroad." It's not every day that you get to live out ideas you had as a pre-teen. The building was really "Old School" out of illustration board, Bristol Board and Strathmore paper. Turret roof was carved balsa. I took this to the next generation. It took some re-design to remove the front door and install that large curved facade. The plans didn't really give much detail about the rain gutter or where the downspouts would connect. My building scales a bit smaller at 24 feet per side instead of 25'.

On Monday, I'll get the downspouts installed and mount the building onto the base. I have one more storm drain inlet to install at the corner and will attach the telephone pole leads to the building. And then it will go back onto the layout.

Trainman2001 posted:

Just as a reminder, this was the article in the 1957 Model Railroader Mag that caught my interest as a 12 year-old so I saved the article to build "some day when I have my big railroad." It's not every day that you get to live out ideas you had as a pre-teen. 

I totally disagree. 

I have spent most of my adult life checking off items on a mental list I formulated in my pre-teen years. The pages in my 1958 copy of the Lionel "Model Railroading" book definitely show the wear. I wish they had used acid-free paper.

I don't always feel like I have a lot in common with other O-gauge folks. But in this regard, I think we are all the same. 

Trainman2001 posted:

Thanks Fellows!

Did some errands today (LHS, Train Store, Hardware Store) so got to work around 2 something. My old friend from Michigan has a small layout with mostly traditional Lionel equipment. But, he has one big special engine, an MTH SP AC-6 with PS-1. The grandkids got a little over-zealous with it and it sustained some valve gear damage. He had taken it to a store in Troy, MI many months ago, but didn't pick it up due to an intervening illness. When I was there a couple of weeks ago, we went to the store. They were unable to fix it, and furthermore, didn't seem to have the tender that goes with the engine. I took the engine home with me and took to my train store. Without the tender, they couldn't test it, and to make matters worse, MTH doesn't have a parts list for that engine or any of the re-issues of the same engine. The eccentric crank is broken. I'm going to try and fix it with brass pins and J-B Weld. Nothing to lose at this point.

I did get a lot of stuff done on Nighthawks and am on downspout from total completion. I glued in all the new stools and had plenty without resorting to the ones that have a single stringer missing. I then closed it all up. The window assembly almost didn't fit, but I coaxed it and got it done. It's held with CA. I then touched up the brickwork with that color match, touched up the brown and green, and then glued on the outside steps. 

I glued on the electrical service threading the three-phase leads through the standoffs. I made a little simulated conduit clamp out of some wine bottle foil.

I machined a little brass ferrule with a 1/16" hole through the center and slipped it onto the outdoor light's pole. I then fit it into a like-size hole in the wall centered over the entrance door. I made the hole penetrate above the 2nd floor so I could easily get to the wiring and tie it into the building's wiring. 

At first I thought about using the same LED driver as the interior lighting circuit, but since I bent that terminal lead so it would pass through the Masonite ceiling piece and soldered it to the foil, there wasn't enough sticking up to enable me to attach the two fine magnet wires to the leads. I did a test to see if the amperage was correct at the points I was contemplating and the light lit correctly, but there was simply no way for me to solder to it. I went back to old school and hooked a 470 own resistor and tied this into the primary wiring before they go to the LED driver.

I primed the fixture with Tamiya primer and did a quick rattle can spray job of Tamiya Bare Metal Silver.

So here's a lighting test with all the lights, windows, etc. in their final position.

That back light is really bright! You could grow plants under it. I chose to light the cafe entrance, but left the kitchen entrance unlit to differentiate these two doors.

Last thing to do is the downspouts. I got one formed and chemically blackened. I made a loop of 0.032" brass wire with a tail on it and soldered this in the mid position. This will secure the spout to the wall right next to the electrical service on one side and on the opposite corner will go the other one which I'll make on Monday. The blacken surface should give more tooth to the Rub-n-buff patina cream that I'll use before putting it on the building. I used a small drill to start the hole in the styrene gutter, and then opened out to the 1/8" tubing size. That will secure the upper end.

Just as a reminder, this was the article in the 1957 Model Railroader Mag that caught my interest as a 12 year-old so I saved the article to build "some day when I have my big railroad." It's not every day that you get to live out ideas you had as a pre-teen. The building was really "Old School" out of illustration board, Bristol Board and Strathmore paper. Turret roof was carved balsa. I took this to the next generation. It took some re-design to remove the front door and install that large curved facade. The plans didn't really give much detail about the rain gutter or where the downspouts would connect. My building scales a bit smaller at 24 feet per side instead of 25'.

On Monday, I'll get the downspouts installed and mount the building onto the base. I have one more storm drain inlet to install at the corner and will attach the telephone pole leads to the building. And then it will go back onto the layout.

Myles

Another impressive model to add to your collection. Fabulous job on interior.

Gerry

Mighty fine work for sure!!  I would know that window and interior anywhere!!

Thank you! I agree Mark. I showed the pictures to one of the fellows that works at Scale Reproductions and he instantly recognized the reference and also holds Hopper as one of his favorite American artists. I guess us model guys like him due to his a) mostly realistic renderings and b) he likes to include railroad topics.

And my copy of Railroad Model Craftsman arrived today (along with my 10 complimentary author's copies) so I suspect it will be in all of your local hobby shops too. Part 1 starts on page 36 and runs for 10 pages. I'll be doing to final proof reading of Part 2 this week. I did see a few points that if I were to write that article today I would have made some corrections especially about using SketchUps layers function. Maybe, I include that in the Part 2 review.

I'll be looking for RMC for sure!!!  Congratulations again!!

I just ran across the tube cap delema while catching up. If you didn't do something yet, a rivet is all you need. A tube is nearly always capped for continuing structural integrity right to the ends, which are far more prone to collapse.

Myles,

your details are just superb. Everything you have done on this layout has been spectacular.

Awesome looking building. Great job capturing the feel for the painting. I thought the brewery couldn't be topped but you proved me wrong. Congratulations, Myles.

THANK YOU everyone for faithfully following along to another long project. Today, the Nighthawks project is officially complete. The building got a certificate of occupancy...

I finished it by doing some more adjustments to the base plate, re-lining the concrete expansion strips, and adding some weathering. I made the 2nd downspout using a 1/8" thicker walled tubing and chemically treated it. I then mounted them to the building.

Finally, I used silicone caulk to glue the building to the base plate. It's base plate is actually a separate piece from the one under the chocolate shoppe and is just kind of taped together so I can remove it if I were to sell it separately, eventually. And then I took some final beauty shots with the Canon and Zerene Stacker focus stacking software to give very deep depth of field without high powered photo lighting. Here are the finished shots with some Corel PhotoPaint work on the backdrop paper. I'm not going to wire the pole to the building until other poles are nearby to run the wires across.

While I was thinking about an article in RMC about this building project, I may have shot myself in the foot. I didn't save any of the original-sized pictures. In other projects, I keep a file of the full-size images just in case I need them for publication. Magazines like to work with big images. Instead, since I post this thread on another forum (World Affairs Board) and they have a 2 mb limit on included pictures, I shrink all my iPhone WIP shots down about 60%. I actually started writing the article yesterday when it hit me that I don't have the full-size images any longer.

So… what did I learn with this project? I learned how to:

1. make a curved window out of heated Plexiglass
2. make a home-made stair railing
3. make O'scale bar stools by having them laser cut
4. design and construct a believable Mansard roof
5. Cobble together Edward Hopper, his wife and the Other Guy from a selection of human parts, a la Dr. Frankenstein
6. make a nice looking old school TV antenna out of soldered brass
7. and take a 60 year-old Model Railroad project, modernize the methods and add a classic America masterpiece inside.

And now for something completely different.

I went to Roundhouse Trains he in Da Ville to give them a copy of the RMC mag with the article (they don't sell RMC at their store, but they should… they do have OGRR), and of course spent time looking all around at cool stuff and then I saw this: a 3 year-old, Sunset 3rd Rail, N&W Y6-b. Stunning! Perfect condition! List price in their current catalog, $1,799.00. I lifted up the tender to see the price tag, since I'm in no way able at this time to buy a nearly $2,000 model engine, and what do I see? $600.00. I inquire as to the veracity of this tag. "It can't be right, can it?"

$600.00! That is the asking price. I wasn't planning on spending my writing commission on a locomotive since there's still so much stuff I have to do on the layout and other buildings to finance. But… how the heck can I pass this up? 3rd Rail engines run like Swiss watches. My favorite engine is my H8 Allegheny and I run it all the time. The owner of the shop tested it and it runs perfectly.

My practical wife asked if I really want to get and engine with all the other stuff, and actually, when all three articles are added up, I will have enough new funds to cover this engine and the building projects. It's a late 3rd Rail product having details like a simulated rope to the bell and needles on the steam gauges in the cab.

I have a nice Winston Link poster that shows this exact engine running down the middle of a small town street at night. It would be very neat to have this engine on my railroad. I have the curves for it. Apparently, it's previous owner was running O-72 and O-60. I, on the other hand, run O-88 on the inner loop and yard track (one spot where there is O-80) and the outer loop is O-96. If the allegheny and my Q2 negotiate curves so should this one. Besides, all my switches are all Ross and either O-96, #4, 6 8 and 11.

The shop is holding the engine for me without a deposit until Thursday. So folks… you've got to talk me off the ledge here. I'm going to York in 3 weeks and would like to get stuff there too. In fact, my tickets arrived today. What would you do? All I have is big steam. I love big steam. I sold my Pennsy E6-B last year since I no longer ran it. It too was 3rd Rail.

 

First, All I can say is, another masterpiece completed!!  It really looks great!

Second, That's too bad about the photograph size.  I would submit an article anyway.  You have so many more 'learning points' than you listed which could be articles in and of themselves.  You could fill several magazine issues with just this project alone!  And we get it with an OGR Login!  Can't beat that with a stick!!

Third, Based on all you said about the 3rd Rail; how could you pass it up for $600!!!!!!!  Especially with your well deserved hobby earnings.  My two trips to York, I didn't spend that much anyway.  Of course, I was just overwhelmed at the whole affair, that I didn't need to buy a thing to make the trip worthwhile.  Besides, I want to see a video of it running on your layout!!

That reminds me; I still have the GunRunnerJohn Will of Hennings Trains LED boards and LEDs that John fixed me up with at the April York for my passenger cars, that I haven't even taken out of the bag.  That was my big purchase.  

Mark, you're always the first with the nicest comments. You never disappoint.

So… what are you wait'n for?! Put those lights in.

I really shouldn't talk. I had to throw out two full containers of epoxy products since the resin turned into a solid in the container before I even used it. I just bought some more. And I think I bought a Rusty Stump's laser cut stairway set that I was "going to use someday" and can't find it anywhere.

I am actually out of models to build at the moment. I had a my eye on some very cool plastic kits to build. I like switching back and forth from structures for the layout and good old big complicated plastic kits. But buying the loco would put off some of that. 

The next buildings in the queue would be the Victorian Bronx structure (laser cut) and I have a decent cutting estimate for it. Then there's the Under-construction Rick House for the distillery complex, and a colossal engine house. I also have plans for building both our last house and the current one we're living in which could be normal scratch-built affairs. 

I have one more model that I've had for probably 15 years. It's a cutaway section of the HMS Victory by Mamoli. It's a sweet little classic plank-on-frame model with just one mast to rig so it wouldn't take too long (famous last words) to complete. I could do that while waiting for the rest of the publication money to show up.

Actually, my hobby spending is almost in negative numbers this year since I sold some trains and funneled those funds back into my hobby budget. So I actually have spent very little of what I normally would be spending out of the household budget. That sounds like a pretty good rationalization, don't you think?

Myles,

Congratulations on your completion of this beautiful piece of work. You've got me thinking about doing the same thing. As someone with an unnecessarily large train collection, I'm not the one to talk you off the ledge about the Y6b. The RMC article is great. Looking forward to Part 2.

MELGAR

Myles,

Fantastic!!!!!

Eclectic, outre, and captivating

Trainman2001 posted:

 

Myles, You are right, and I have several projects to work on besides starting layout construction.  Actually, there is method to waiting on the passenger car lighting.  I need to buy more passengers for those cars, so I can do it all at once.  I know, do one car at a time.  

I'm glad you have some neat projects waiting in the wings too!

Great job, Myles. Congratulations. Sounds like you are taking yourself into buying that engine. 

Sounds like a no brainer to me, Pat!!  :-)

A fantastic build sir! And while $600 is not an amount I'd just throw in the air, for that piece it is not leaping off the ledge, rather skipping a step and jumping off the last one.

Nice feedback from all y'all.

Since I'm really thinking about buying that Y6-B, I decided to clean up the shop and then get one of my other 3rd Rail monsters running after a long hiatus. I bought their Pennsy S-1 6-4-4-6 colossal Art Deco contrivance while we were living in Germany, which makes it about 18 years old already. I had three problems with it. 

• I still had a rechargeable battery and need a BCR
• I couldn't stay coupled with a heavy passenger train when cresting my 2% grade
• It had nickel silver, soldered trim separated from the right side of the pilot many years ago when the pilot contacted an aluminum passenger car on the outside of a two-track curve. I had the two pieces — which were very springy — held with some twisted black iron wire.

Since this engine hadn't been on the tracks for years, I never ran it with the crossing signals in place. Very soon I found that the enormous length of the engine swung the cab to the right coming around the left front curve and it was colliding forcibly with the signal. I had to move it out almost a 1/2" to ensure it had clearance. I'm glad I hadn't finished all the landscaping around that signal...

I replaced the rechargeable with my last BCR, put it on the track to get it working and nothing. Nada! Bubkis! Took the tender back to the shop and took it apart to check all the wiring. All was in order. Put it back on the track without the shell, still nothing. Tried another engine of known performance. Nothing! Ah ha! Looked over to the the control panel to see the indicator light showing whether or not the gate interlock is closed and it was red. Then I looked down at the gate and saw the latch was not seated. Problem solved! I fixed the coupler problem with some Tamiya masking tape wrapped around the tender coupler. Easy peasy. Engine fixed and ran it for quite a while and took this video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_SzUR4-wF4

I noticed that the drivers, even on this monster heavy engine, were slipping when the full train of heavy Lionel hi-scale passenger cars (and one MTH super-dome) was fully on the 2% grade AND was on an O-96 curve coming out of the tunnel. The video clearly shows the drivers spinning faster than the train speed would indicate until the engine gets over the crest.

Now we get to the awful part.

I wanted to check the S-1's box to see if 3rd Rail included another driver axle which was fitted with traction tires to solve the spinning problem. That box was in a pile that was behind the blue cardboard backdrop that I used to shoot the distillery picture which now served as a nice vision block for my storage shelves. I was attempting to move the backdrop to the right, sliding it behind the layout on the left-most end, AND was doing this while the trains were running. I had just pulled out the S-1's box which was on the bottom of the pile, and didn't realize until it was much to late that the blue backdrop paper has separated from the cardboard backing. It was now draped over the tracks just before it enters the bridge curve and the train was highballing right into the paper! I tried in vain to pull the paper back, but the engine collided with it, derailed and promptly left the table along with the tender. Both nose-dived to the concrete right next to the ravine and ended up on the floor underneath the ravine. The next car in the train, a baggage car, ended up wedged between the back of the layout and the wall and was trapped from falling to the floor by the back L-girder.

The engine was a little banged up, but not critical, but the tender took a beating with the bulkhead that supports the drawbar, completed separated from the tender shell, and one axle freed up from the front 4-axle truck. I've success with using epoxy to put 3rd Rail structures back together after catastrophes and did the same here. In this case I used J-B Weld to hold it all together. It could be re-soldered, but that would destroy the exterior paint. J-B Weld is quite strong and should work okay. I replaced the loose axle and pressed the truck side frames closer together since they were spread from the collision which released the axle.

That leads to the nickel silver trim. Since I had to straighten the engine pilot a bit, I decided with my new-found soldering chops that I should actually re-solder those trim pieces and fix it right. I tried with my RSU, but my unit doesn't have the wattage to heat large assemblies. I then tried the Weller, turned up to 5 with the biggest tip I had, but it too did not have sufficient power. That left using a mini-torch powered by butane. That did the trick. I had used a burr to grind off the old epoxy that I had attempted to use years ago, and the old solder exposing some new brass, and then tinned the surface with new solder. Using a needle nose to hold the springy trim tight, I heated the shell from behind until the solder melted. It worked. I then clamped the now-soldered one with a hemostat so it would de-solder and did the second one. I filed off the excess and used some Tamiya filler to close those holes I drilled for that twisted wire.

After the filler dried I mixed some Tamiya dark green and black and nailed a perfect Pennsy Brunswick Green, but the alcohol-based Tamiya acrylic reacted badly with the surface and was forming clumps. I was brush painting it. So I hand brushed some Tamiya lacquer-based primer and after it dried used the same mixture. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. The front trim lip is part of a brass pilot casting is not nickel silver, it's silver paint and was a bit banged up, so I touched it up with the Molotow Chrome Pen. The engine is now waiting on the track for the tender fix to fully cure. The S-1 was one of the largest steam engines ever built, and was the epitome of Art Deco streamlining. Pennsy only built one, but it served as the proof-of-concept for the rigid frame, duplex divided drive that was exemplified by the subsequent development and fielding of the Q1, Q2 and T1. Both the Q2 and T1 never reached their ultimate development due to the conquest of diesel.

So what could have been an absolute disaster, with the wreckage of a very pretty, big brass engine, actually got me fixing that trim which needed doing for years, and it's now another engine that will get off the shelf and pull some trains. I feel much better about buying that new engine knowing that I've put an oldie, but goodie back in service. 

The other point to remember is this. Brass engines, when they have big booboos, are repairable. Die cast big engines not so much. When die cast engines break, you can't solder them, and when deformed, they will probably break when you try and straighten them.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, this is not the first time I've successfully repaired a brass engine. 12 years ago, my then 2-year-old who was in my arms, reached out and grabbed my J1-a as it went roaring by. The 11 pound engine left the tracks and did another nose dive to the concrete, stopping first to hit my lower leg. The shell was separated from the frame below the cab. The Pennsy, top-mounted headlight and supporting bracket was destroyed, and the pilot and left-side ladder were deformed. I epoxied the cab support, got a new PSC investment cast headlight and straightened all the bent things. That engine still runs and looks great. And the tender coupler bracket on this S-1 is also held on by epoxy for years.

And… I should never have been messing around getting that box out of a place where trains were running nearby… unattended. I should have known better.

My next project will be very mundane and not in the least glamorous. I'm going to partially rip up the streets and "repave" them to repair the water damage. I've already pulled off the base plate for Nighthawks and Chocolate Shoppe, so I'll remove Gravely, the Fire house, Saulenas and the Sinclair Gas Station tomorrow so I can easily access the street.

Myles, Thank you for the description of how the mishap came to take place and how you fixed it!  You did a great job!  I agree, that is a big plus for the brass engines!

I am glad your public works department is going to do some repaving!  Winter is coming, and that defective aslphalt will start crumbling once it freezes and thaws a couple times!!!

Yup! And then my railroad would start looking like the roads in Detroit or Philly...

I'm hoping to be able to peel up the old surface and use it to trace the new one. I may go back to using the strathmore paper, only this time use the 3M 99 high strength adhesive instead of the 3m 77 that let go.

Trainman2001-

Those buildings are amazing. 

I just purchased a copy of the RMC with your article at the same Giant Eagle grocery store where I first found O Gauge Railroading back in the spring of 2012.  Just glancing at the article, it looks like a winner!!  Congratulations once again!