Continuing Saga …

I hear you. My wife and I never bought a used car. My dad ONLY bought used cars and some of them were not so hot. Her dad always had new cars and luxury ones at that. We decided as young marrieds that we would buy new when we could. As a result we had plenty of car debt most of our marriage until now. As a retiree with a true fixed income, the adding of car payments has been something we've been avoiding.

I'm not happy. I love cars! And I've had my Acura TL Type S for almost 13 years. It's a perfect car. Runs like a top. Nothing ever goes wrong. It's very fast. Just sprung for the timing belt change so it's good for another 13 years. It's only had one set of brakes and needs them probably in 10,000 miles.

But I'm bored. Cars don't wear out anymore. You just get bored. Folks of my generation (Boomers) grew up in the 50s when car designs changed radically every year and cars lasted 3 years if you were lucky. There was a SERVICE station on every corner because cars needed constant service, just about every 10,000 miles for something. I remember when even front wheel bearings needed repacking every time you had the tires rotated. Tires rotated??? Bias ply tires didn't last long enough to worry about rotating. Every system… name one… was shot by 50,000 miles. Now you don't even need spark plugs in 100,000 and even then they're probably okay. With direct ignition, where every plug has its own coil driven by a computer, nothing wears out. Distributors were mechanical contraptions that had all kinds of parts that wore out. Now… nada!

And with the advent of total electric vehicles even less wears out. Tesla doesn't even have an identifiable service network. Imagine the cost savings for an auto manufacturer when you don't need to support a vast dealer/service network. In the Tesla, nothing wears out. The traction motors are probably good for 1,000,000 miles. All the controls are digital. The batteries are bullet proof and can probably be changed quickly. Brakes don't wear out since the regenerative braking is so effective you don't need to actually apply the brake pedal until you actually stopped and don't want to accidentally roll into an intersection. No fluids, no radiator, no transmission, no belts, nothing. It's so compelling that as soon as the charging network is as comprehensive as Biden says it should be, internal combustion cars will go the way of cars with crank starters.

Forgive me for writing editorials every so often. I find it fun.

You are allowed to write editorials.  Yes there were some great styles.  Now everyone’s cars look the same.  That Escape looks almost just like all other small SUVs of that vintage.  I like the style of the ‘04 Sonata.  I’ll be sad to give it up when the time comes.  It was 5 years old when I got it, and now I’ve had it 12 years, longer than any other car.

Hi Trainman2001,

I too grew up working on cars. Living in a suburb of Detroit it was just the way things were. Working summer jobs at both Ford and GM paid for my college degree. My dad and I built some wooden ramps to facilitate doing oil changes, starter R&R, exhaust system work, etc.  Once the word got around I was busy.  I worked on all of my friends cars as well as half the neighbors. I got so good I could do a tuneup (points, plugs, and condenser) on my 66 Plymouth in about 30 minutes. It was great because you had to do one every 6 months!  In the winter, I’d drive the car for about 20 minutes so the heat coming off the engine block would allow me to work without gloves.

I’m really enjoying your build article. You have way more patience than I do with all the details. I’m not planning any multi-story mansions but I was hoping to scratch build a mining structure. Have you ever built anything like that?  I would be interested in seeing how that came out.

John

Spent some time further refining the drawing I made upon which this project is based. As I've messed with interior details, partitiion placement, etc., some stuf got out of kilter and I needed to put it back. Mainly the problems were concerned with the turret walls and windows. I also added a TV antenna.

SketchUp has many different drawing styles that you can use. This one simulates a watercolor. It's fitting since this house was based on a piece of artwork. I'm using blue on the model. I had green trim on the Nighthawks Cafe and this would be right next door.

And here's one more version using the Podium rendering engine that I have attached to SketchUp. This softens up the textures and gives it a more refined look. If you closely, I actually have chain holding up the porch swing. You can't tell, but it's actually a fully rendered link chain. The model is getting hugely complex for my computer. When I change views the model first renders with some of the complicated parts as skeletal line drawings and then they render to full view objects.

There's still a large amount of work to do. The table with all the parts is overwhelming.

Myles,

I like the trim as shown in these renderings.  It is more subdued and helps show off the complicated roof lines and levels.   It is interesting how the watercolor simulation and other renders change the values of the colors.  In all three, the blue seems a tad bright but still quite nice.  As a fan or your work AND Hopper's I've been quietly enjoying your build.  Thanks as always for taking the time to post the photos and details, and for your wonderful gift for experimentation.

Tomlinson Run Railroad

Thank you TRRR. I never really know how many folks are actually following along on all this. I have my few regular responders who feel like part of the family since they've been interacting for so many years, but every so often someone like yourself tells me you've been following along and leads me to believe that the number could be significant.

I jumped around today and got some various things done. The clock is done and came out nicely. I'm glad I went with the face with the hands.

T

Sitting along side is the Henkel-Harris oval coffee table that graces our living room. The photo was a slightly different contour than the actual top, and the photo paper is relatively thick in this scale. When I painted the white edges so of the paint wicked into the photo paper. I'm being really anal here. You'll barely see it through the windows.

I still have to put the table top image on the dining table and the decals on all the dining chairs. I had them staged today to do, but didn't get to it.

Working with Ed Tackett at U of L's Additive Manufacturing Institute we came up with a successful solution to printing the picture frames. He was having the same slicer abberations that I was getting so he tried printing them without the back material and this produced a successful print. Based on this finding, I re-drew them without any backing, just the frame perimeter. This worked. I got four successful frames out of 6 which gives me five wall hangings since I already had one from the previous attempts.

Instead of gluing on a flat piece of styrene for the back, I'm just going to use the photo paper perimeter to the glue the image to the frame. Here's a frame placed on a John Singer Sergeant masterpiece. Actually, not trying to cut the picture to fit inside the frame results in a much flatter image. If the cut picture is just slightly oversized the edges would curl up and distort the reflectivity of the image. Silver lining… The crown molding profile worked well for a picture frame.

I'm using the Testor's Gold Paint Pen for these frames. I find that the felt tip is too broad and crude for detail painting so I placed some drops on a piece of Press-n'seal and thinning it with a few drops of low-odor mineral spirits so it brush painted smoothly. It's a great metallic paint with lots of luster.

I decided this morning when waking that I needed to add some lighting to the attic. I had originally thought not to do that, but there's that nice stair rail surrounding the stair well in the attic that would be a shame to not be seen. I used copper foil with two SMLEDs and a driver. Again, I used the plain white photo paper as a ceiling cover.

Not as much production as I would have wanted today (Friday... no work on the weekend), but I took time out of the day to re-drew all those picture frames. I had to clean the printer twice due to the failed frames. Nothing was on the vat bottom so it was effort without a reason. I'm using the EPAX non-FEP film which is very forgiving. I also had painted the balcony balustrade upside down. I mistook the bottom for the top and vice versa. The wide part is the top rail. It was a beautiful day so I stuck them all on a piece of cardboard and painted the top rail with the Rust-oleum white one-coat rattle can.

I'm reaching the point where I need to delineate a check list to keep track of all the details needed to be done for completion. The table with all the parts is such a mess that  it's really easy to get lost in the weeds. Besides, thinking about the sequence to finish is helpful in deciding what to do and how to do it.

Myles:

Your modeling is exquisite! I don't do many typed responses, more "Likes".

The clock looks fantastic!!  As does the table and framed picture.  Lots of great masterpieces for a masterful house!!  Have a great weekend!!

Love the clock. The framed artwork is a great touch. In a building interior that I did, I cut out picture frame adds from a craft store add and glued them on the walls as family photos.  Your way is much superior.

I did it that way too, but with the printer I wanted to try some more aggressive ways to approach it. I'd give it a C+/B-. The prints were difficult and not 100% successful. The results weren't worth the effort. In the Woodbourne gallery I have a whole art gallery with 2D picture frames and it looks fine.

Happy Monday. For about 1/2 my readers I can assume that it's VERY HAPPY Monday. For the other 1/2 I hope they can find peace. There was no fraud. It was one of the cleanest electrions we've had AND it was done in the midst of a raging epidemic with all kinds of obstacles and yet, the highest vote percentage since 1900 before women got the vote. Go America!

Spent most of the day painting furniture, making wall art and fixing that misplaced wall. First thing I did was apply the photo to the dining table top and trimming the edges. I learned in doing the coffee table to be more careful with the trim painting and it worked. I glued it on with dots of med CA instead of the pressure sensitive stuff. It was easier to control in this situation.

\

The top is very (intentionally) glossy. There's a couple of schools of thought about fine furniture finishes. Henkel-Harris and Kittinger used a hand rubbed satin finish. Kindel and Baker used high gloss. I went with the latter. Applying the photo worked exactly as I thought it would.

I applied some Tamiya gloss to the occassional table tops and called them done. I then mixed up some custom colors and painted the upholstered seating. I was able to attach the artwork to the frames directly using some strategic med CA.

What's missing are knick-knacks and other items on the tables. I may 3D print some stuff. I also need some table lamps, but I'm not planning on lighting them. It's possible, but not easy in this scale.

I got the decals applied to the dining room chairs. So that room is complete. Again, nothing on the bare table and server. In this picture you can see the moved back wall. Took a bit of surgery to do that. I had to recover the back room floor since there was a big slice out of it where the wall previously was attached to the sub-floor. I'm going to make that small space into a kitchen. I'll print some stuff for it. I already have appliances that used to populate Loopie Louie's Appliance Emporium. Once you have the files, it's very easy to make more of something.

When you think about it, the fireplace location is ridiculous. It probably should have been in the midwall and possible two-sided. Oh well...

Here's a view through the kitchen window showing how the new placement just slides by the fireplace and hits the rough opening. There won't be room for any molding on that wall.

I did put together a rough project plan today. working steadily, the project will complete sometime in early January. That's assuming that we make no family trips and until the vaccines are readily available, travel is still a no-no. There's a ton of work to do and I'm glad I memorialized it because it's real easy to find yourself painted into a corner (literally and figuratively).

The PDF below is the project plan.

Lots still to do...But, at least now I have a road map. One of the programs I really miss with my MAC was MS Visio. I suppose I can run it on my Windows emulation. It had a very easy Gantt Chart facility that I used all the time. It was also terrific for flow charting. I became expert at flow-chart with business groups in real time. We'd project the program and I would build it with the group. No flipcharts and no transcription. Visio was a drawing program for idiots. I'm going to look into it. I tried to get a Gantt program for OS, but wasn't happy since most wanted monthly rentals. I don't do enough of this to justify the monthly rental of darn near anything.

I could just sit right down in either of those rooms!  They look great!  Mentioning double sided fireplaces, my grandma's house had that, one in the living room and the other in the dining room.  They were sealed off for as long as I can remember; probably when Grandma got the monstrous electric furnace that filled up a quarter of the basement.

Very impressive project plan!!  When I did projects at work, I just used the old 'check-off sheet' or Chekov Sheet for the guy who flew with Captain Kirk, not the writer.  No I am not a Trekkie, by any means.  For hobbies, I'll get it done when I get it done. 

Bravo, Myles. Your modeling is exquisite!!!!!!

nice  from the happy half!

Nice work, Myles. I like the table tops. When I was working I was pretty good at MS Project. A lot of people used a spreadsheet by filling in the cells.

Since you indicated that you're from the "Happy Half" I suppose I should admit that I am too. Hope that doesn't put off too many "unhappy" readers. I'm getting a little upset that we have half the government behaving in a way to placate a person who's throwing a temper tantrum. I didn't raise my kids that way. A postal employee in Philly just admitted that he lied about mail-in irregularities. I'm afraid that's going to be repeated elsewhere. I want it over and back to normal.

I found MS Project way too complex for the kinds of things that I did. I got very fast with Visio and miss it. I found that I can get a download copy for about $70. I'll spring for that, but not right now. My need has subsided.

Exercise day and some drawing time. I decided that there should be a small kitchen in that back room. It didn't take me long to find a small Japanese style kitchen on the Podium Browser. The Browser is a part of the package you get when you purchase the Podium rendering package. It has tons of 3D drawings that are fully textured that you can drop into a drawing. I then added one of the refrigerators I created for the Appliance Store. Didn't take long to prepare it all for 3D printing. It's on the Machine now and will be done at 9:00 if it all works okay.

Here's the kitchen and how it fits on the wall.

And here's kind of what it will look like through the windows.

I decided to brush paint the cupola exterior trim. I first tried some Tamiya Gloss White, but its coverage was very poor. I thought about spraying gray or white primer, but then I thought to decant the Rust-oleum White Primer/Top Coat. I was able to brush it on and in 3 coats covered pretty well. The paint is high solids so it partially filled the strand lines on the FDM-printed part. I may put one more coat on tomorrow to finish it off. I also put a single coat on the shingle area to give more for the self-adhesive shingles to hold onto.

I also finished assembling all the cupola windows and making sure they all fit before painting.

I finished up the one exterior wall I started last week and started working on the living room front wall. Once I decided to do these, I got right to it. It's also the first item on the completion check list. The cupola was not, but since I already started that last week I decided to get it off the bench as a finished sub-assembly. These interior walls will go faster now that I have a scheme that works. I put those packing pieces right next to the actual window so the windows slides into a precise opening.

See y'all tomorrow.

The little kitchen printed nicely and it's ready for paint and installation. I was happy that the slender faucet printed well. I watched it grow on the slicer and it looked like it was going to work. I had to add a slice of styrene on the front of the range hood. I thought this surface was suspect and I was right, but it didn't jeopardize the job.

I put another coat of white on the cupola window frames, this time using the Tamiya Gloss White. It's pretty good and I don't think it needs another coat.

I designed and printed some bricabrac (spelling?) including plates on placemats, vases and some table lamps. This was a marginal success. Some stuff is just too unsubstantial to print. Here's the drawing used for the place settings.

The cup and wine glass didn't work at all and left little tiny bump on the Vat Film. With the EPAX film I'm using, you can pop off this debris and just go back to printing again. It's very forgiving. The flatware shows up but it's so insignificant as to be not really there. With very careful work with the Molotow Chrome Pen I may be able to make the flatware visible. But the plates did work.

I found some various vases and a table lamp on the SU 3D Warehouse and attempted to fix the drawings and then print. The thin walls of the vases had to be filled up. I should have done that with the coffee cup and wine glass, but didn't. Those walls in 1:48 would have been in the few thousandths of inches in thickness and I don't care how good the printer is, it ain't going to resolve that because the resin simply doesn't have the wall strenght to pull off the FEP.

I put those diagonal supports from the lamp base to the shade so the shade would start printing. I also doubled the thickness of the lamp stem. Even with that 2 or the 4 lampshades broke off when cleaning them up. That crazy faceted vase had another problem; a lot of the interior was hollow so some failed, again, due to the thin walls. You can't 3D thin things like a piece of paper. Resin in its semi-cured state is just too weak to keep itself intact. I knew that faceted vase was hollow, but due to the way the original artist created it, simply closing the open end did not turn it into a solid. The other vases did close and become solid when I closed their ends. To print the wine glass and cup I probably would have had to close them up also. Actually, the wine glass should be printed with transparent clear resin. I don't have any.

You can see how one of the side walls of that vase broke loose. But I do have some successes.

And I got two lamps complete and the other two will be fixed with a piece of brass rod holding the shade. I had to make the shade solid. I suppose a piece of paper in a cicular tube could be used to make a "real" shade, but you're not going to be able to look down on these. You'll only see them from their side, so the solid shades will work.

I spent more time decorating the exterior walls. I got the fireplace right side done and started on its left side. I ran out of wide baseboard and crown molding so I printed some more late this afternoon. I'm definitely suffering from AMS on this project (Advanced Modelers Syndrome). I mean, seriously, mitering crown molding on a 1:48 model railroad structure. This is similar to the work that Lex Parker does on his narrow guage layout. He's Canadian so maybe that's why.

Here's another view of that crown corner. This is when I ran out of stock. Again... run out? Print some more. Just save the files. I've kept these trim files on the thumb drives since I suspected that I might have to re-run them. By printing on the plate, the moldings take all of 25 minutes to do a run.

I have to paint the fireplace fronts. Still thinking of what I want to do with that. By packing out around the windows gives a real nice scale thickness to the building's walls.

I had four to five days to finish these interior walls and I'm sticking with that estimate. It's painstackingly slow work.

The details bring the extra wow to the interiors. Being able to 3D print them is great. I used an assortment of beads to represent bottles and hard on my interiors.

Yes Pat!  My interiors consist of flat paper cutouts!  This 3D printing as really something!

I suppose 3D printing all this crap is a good thing… It also could be an exercise in futility,  a folly. Time will tell. With the printing of the place settings I think I'm reaching the lower limit in resolution that can be had from an LCD printer.

Had 2.5 hrs in the shop today, but don't have too much to show for it. I spent a lot of time preparing the new crown and baseboard moldings for paint, painting the kitchen and getting a reasonably successful print of the dining room stuff.

To make it a bit better I went back to the drawing board and redesigned the wine glass, coffee cut and flatware. I also scaled it a tad bigger. The scale factor for 1:48 is 0.021. I used 0.024. As it was, even with my changes, the flatware failed to really materialize, the wine glass had a 70% failure rate which I corrected a bit by gluing them back on with Bondic. The coffee cups were more successful with some actually forming the finger loop. I made the insides of the cup and glass solids. I also attempted to raise the silverware off the surface and put support structure underneath, but it was just too small to form separate resin layers. I printed at 30 microns. You can just catch the shadow of the silverware. I think I'm finding the downward limit of detals that can be successfully reproduced by a LCD resin printer. The printer will print it, but you can't do anything with it since just dropping it in the ultrasonic cleaner breaks off the details.

Here's the placemats on the table.

By upsacleing, the placemats took up more table space so I sanded the placemat down a bit, and of course, knocked off a couple more wine glasses in the process. The above image shows these sanded placemats.

I painted the placemats in prep for painting the rest. I also painted (poorly) the kitchen unit. It was the end of the day and I was rushing. When I'm rushing I usually make a mess of things. You'll also notince four table lamps. I did put a piece of 0.032" brass rod to re-attch the shade to the base. That will give me lamps for each of the four night tables in the bedrooms.

I got more work done on the next room and with the newly printed molding got back to adding crown and baseboard.

I also finished painting the beds. So there's that. Tomorrow won't be full session day either. I'm now tasked with picking up grandson #2 at high school on Fridays. I'm making a stop at the hobby shop to drop off more decals I made for the plastics department manager.

Visited the hobby shop today and picked up some of what's needed to finish this project. Then went to Michael's Crafts to get the rest. I needed more heavyweight Bristol Board, and some more 1/8" foam core. My building bases are a laminate of 1/8" Masonite and 1/8" foam core. This builds the base up to be one curb height over the green foam board that makes up the village streets. The Masonite's on top to give a more robust work surface for decoration, ground cover, etc. It also provides a stronge surface into which to implant utility poles, signage and fence posts.

Here are the finished beds ready to go into the bedrooms.

I got the place settings painted and attached to the dining table. My wife cracks me up. Her only comment was, "You're serving coffee and wine at the same time?" I explained that the setting that I downloaded looked like that. I know... lame...

Rather than fret about the missing silverware, I just took the Molotow pen and drew them in. You're not going to see it since you're viewing the table from the side. The wine glasses are white since I don't have transparent resin from which to print them.

Here's the stuff onto the dining table. Two views.

I conveys what I wanted it to convey.

I cleaned up the paint job on the kitchen and put a backsplash on the wall with PSA. Nothing's glued in yet.

I put the casing around the window I started yesterday and started brush painting the fireplaces. I toyed with airbrushing them, but it would have created alot of masking. This was with two coats of gloss white. On Monday, I'll give it two more. I also touched up the trim. This image was taken with the 2nd floor in place so you can see lots of reflections off that glossy white ceiling. When the lights are on, it will look totally different. I can't wait.

I did reprint more wall paper for the fireplace fronts. It's why I started painting them now so I didn't have to worry about getting paint on the new paper. I painted those 1/4" square blocks in the corners to make them look like some kind of architectural detail. I does look better than raw wood.

Everyone have a nice, socially distant, weekend.

Leave it to the ladies to notice something we don't pay attention to or don't care about.  When I was a teenager, I got a Kodak Instamatic camera for Christmas.  After getting enough money to buy a roll of film and then get it developed, my dad would always say, "Those are great shots from that little box camera."  Mum would always find something obscure and negative to point out.  She never was one for giving a compliment.  Now she is 90, and her short term memory is shot.

I think the details are looking great!

👍👍👍

Yes! She keeps me honest and has a very effective "Malarky meter".

Short time yesterday, but work continued on the interior side walls. Got the Living Room first floor side completed. And I did put some artwork over the fireplace. Just noticed that the trim is short on that far right window casing. Oh well... I may have to reprint the smaller casing and I can redo that... or not. Since it's so far over it may not be visible.

Got a good start on completing side two (dining and kitchen).

For the second floor windows I may go less elegantly. I'm thinking that those windows should be obscured by drapes and/or shades so very little will be seen. I may put the wall paper directly on the outer surface and not spend the time to pack it all out so the window casing overlap the window frames like I'm doing on the first floor.

Based on a suggestion on the Elegoo Mars Facebook Group I downloaded and tried using the PrusaSlicer, a free product that is more comprehensive than ChiTuBox which is included with the Mars and must be used to feed the Machine. While PrusaSlicer may be more elegant, I was dubious about the support array in the auto setting. It looked insubstantial for such a massive object. BTW: I redrew the kitchen unit to solve some of the problems with the previous print (warpage, detail obliterataion).

The processs to use the PrusaSlicer with the Mars is two-step. First, you import the STL file into PrusaSlicer and let it set up the supports. Second, you export this supported part as another STL file into the ChiTuBox to slice for the Mars. Here's how the imported STL looked sitting on the Mars slicer.

Like I said, this scheme seeme a little light. And it most certainly was. This is what greeted me this morning.

Total BUST! And will require a significant clean up to remove the cured blob that most certainly is stuck to the FEP. That EPAX film is getting a bit tired anyway so it will give me an excuse to replace it. Since I already printed this part successfully using the ChiTuBox support setting, I know the part is printable, so I'm now concerned about PrusaSlicer. Like ChiTuBox, Prusa has a lot of customization (even more) so I could have added more supports. Next time, I'll use my intuition and my 1.5 years of printing experience. If it looks skimpy, it probably is. Considering how long the supports are, the part may have broken free later in the print when more mass was hanging on the supports.

Myles, you are creating a little doll's house, no doubt about it. is your wife having a chuckle? It looks like you are having a great time. It is almost a shame to seal up all those interiors behind walls. Enjoying the progress (and from the happy side)

I've often said that these structures we build are "doll houses for dudes". It's a blast. My daughter agrees with you about somehow making it able to be opened up. The main problem is how far from the table edge it may end up.

With another shortened work session (haircut day), I finished up the dining/kitchen wall, and mounted the kitchen units into the first floor. I put the convex mirror over the fireplace, but noticed it's slightly off center. Hard to tell when the walls are in place, but I see it.

Then I noticed something bad. The 2nd floor ledge on the back wall was 1/8" below the ledge on the left side wall. I then made a bad decision... kindof like those kids in the Geico commercial when they decided to hide behind the chain saws. I thought I had glued on this ledge on the wrong side of the line I drew to denote the floor line. And then I went at hacking it off which then caused the side wall to split. This is entirely due to PVA glued joints often being stronger than the substrate to which they're glued.

Here's where that line is.

And here's the split side.

The only problem with all this and why my decision was so premature is the floor ledge in error was NOT that back wall. It was the left wall that I had just completed. I glued that ledge on the wrong side of the datum line. After checking the other two sides they concurred with the rear wall. Now I have to remove all that molding, the wall coverings and attempt to reposition that ledge... UGH. And then I see this.

The dining partition wall is horribly out of square. Part of this will be corrected when the ceiling height is reduced when I fix the floor ledge, but the wall is still terrible. Light will leak badly. Right now I have no additional lighting in the kitchen. I may have to add that since the kitchen is now a decorated space.

This was definitely a two-steps forward and one back kind of day. Those floor ledges were installed way back in the beginning of the project and now I'm paying for a simple error, forgetting which side of the line was the correct side. I was wondering why the open wall below those 2nd floor windows was so narrow. Now I know.

It will all work out in the end. The split wall is an easy fix. Clapboard is weak because the wall thickness is greatly reduced at the bottom of the board milling. It's just annoying. And I didn't start pulling the printer apart to replace the FEP. That can wait since I've nothing to print right now.

Myles, I greatly enjoy seeing what and how you are building.  I also appreciate that you share your mistakes as they are a lesson for me to lighten up on myself.  I have not yet started on building a layout, but rather have taken up woodworking.  Shop class was 40 years ago and I do so hate wasting lumber.  Not knowing how to accomplish what I see in my head is tolerable but when a big mistake comes from a brain bubble I have had to walk away until I could later see a way to correct or cover up my screwup.  if only I can learn how not to see my mistakes that no one else sees.  Unlike This Old House, thanks for showing the good and bad!

Bruce

As much as the mistakes bug the crap out of me, I'm noted in my large following that my recovery from screwups is noteworthy. I've always said, "It's not if you screw up, it's how you recover." I don't get to down on myself and I never break stuff. I too will procrastinate if I'm in a corner and let my subconscious cogitate a bit and usually a good solution presents itself. Working through issues like this one are typical of complex scratch-built projects. When you're building something for the first time, there are always unforeseen interactions that crop up. At least that's what I tell myself when I keep screwing up.

Woke up this morning thinking about attacking this problem. You can tell I'm living in a low stress environment when the only thing I worry about when arising is how to fix an error in my House project. I decided to go right at it.

I was more judicious in using my Xacto so I didn't damage the exterior wall. I was able to cut the wall paper, Bristol Board, styrene strips and then removed the 1/8" square ledger board. I removed the 1/8" and lowered the board so if conicided with the other three walls. The project was looking a rehab on "This Old House", in the "demo stage".

Actually, it was sort of fortuitous that this error happened since putting all the crown molding on this wall as I had done, was not correct. It would have been interrupted by the dining room partition wall. When I repositioned the crown molding I correctly mitered it at the corner intersecting with this partition. Then I examined the partition-side wall intersection and found that I hadn't provided correctly for that either. The partition was not nesting against the side wall since it was being pushed off by the wall packing and covering, plus the crown moldings weren't shaped correctly. I needed to do more surgery to get it all correct. This image shows how the wall (buried deep in the image) now connects to the side wall. Without fixing this, it would have pushed the exterior wall out of plumb and would have created joint problems at the top of the wall.

Then there was that out-of-square partitiion itself. Instead of ripping it out and making it again, I just shimmed and sanded a filler to close the gap. Here was the gap that needed attention.

The fix require stripping the paper and crown molding from the dining room side and the crown molding from the kitchen side. The fix worked. The good thing about using the MicroMark Pressure Sensitve Adhesive is that it's strippable. I was able to peel the paper off without too much hassle and it's still sticky enough to attach the new paper.

I got all this back together and then... finally... got back to putting on the rest of the window wall paneling. The middle space will not have any real observable space and is where the wiring harness from the upper floors will pass through. The right side is the back living room wall. The four windows are been in position to hold the wall evenly off the work surface since one window is needed to be in place to position the spacers.

The last thing I did was add another LED for the kitchen. And of course this got a little more complicated. When I added the 4th LED in the same series circuit, the lights were way too dim. I needed to add a third parallel circuit with its own CL2 driver. Again, the PSA allowed me to peel the entire white ceiling covering add all the circuitry and stick it all back on with a little help from med CA in edges.

The kitchen is now lit... and brightly so.

Tomorrow is a full shop day. Since I promised my wife that I would work out on the recumbent bike and elliptical every other day instead of every three, it does cut into modeling time a bit, but I'm able to do both. The 65 minutes on the equipment is helpful.

I'm really itching to get the new iPhone 12 Pro especially for the cameras. I'm taking well over 1,000 pictures a year with all the project documentation I'm doing. I average around 400 images per project and usually get about 3 done per year. In reviewing the camera capbility of the 12 Pro I think it could help me a lot. I like that it can do good night and low light photography since some of the best images of the model railroad are when the room lights are out, but the iPhone 7 doesn't do well in low light.

If any one has any opinions on the subject, I open to suggestions.

I've done about as much of the interior as I want to do. I've skimped on the bedrooms since I'm going to use window treatments to restrict the view. My addition of all this trim has made the original scheme—inserting the 2nd Floor from the top after the walls are all joined—not so doable. The various baseboards form locking grooves that need to have the floor inserted from the side, not from the top. So the floors will be glued into one set of sides and the other brought into alignment with it.

I finished putting the wall covering on the upstairs and did some final fitting of the 2nd floor to all sides. There was some minor trimming of some of the wall panels to permit the edges to mate properly mate. I didn't proceed with the mating at this time. It's too big of a step to rush into and I want to make sure I've got the process down pat. There's the question of when and how to install all the furnishing. It would be best to do it when the floors are not attached. I was going to put another coat of white on the fireplaces, but the slightly mottled look almost simulates marble which is what I would have wanted anyway.

No window molding is on the 2nd floor and I ran out of the window casing and didn't want to print another batch. I do have a lazy streak… No crown molding either. You'd have a hard time to see it.

Instead of charging ahead, I started to build the foundation. It's essential that the foundation and the main building work together so now was the time to do it. I'm using 3/16" X 1" balsa for the frame, with Chooch flexible cut stone wall on top. I'm going to repaint all the stones since I've already used there basic color scheme on the Appliance store.

They've modified their process for attaching this product. Instead of self-adhesive being on the back of the stone, they've included a sheet of transfer adhesive which has backing paper on both sides. You peel off the first backing and stick it to the substrate, then you peel off the other backing leaving the adhesive attached to the surface ready for the stone. I had to splice stones together since the stone sheet wasn't quite big enough to do all four sides. The stones are random, but I found enough facing one another to notch them and make the splice inconspicuous. I will do some crafting at the corners to make the stones appear more realistic.

I have a picture frame clamps that was my dad's and must be 70 years old which is helpful in gluing things like this. I used Aleen's and then thin CA to cure it quickly and let's me keep moving while the Aleen's slowly dries.

The last thing I did was create a paper pipe to carry the upper stories to the basement. I didn't have any existing tubing of sufficient size to do the job so I rolled up some HP photo paper glued together with med CA. It took a couple of tries to get it of the right diameter right. It's not glued in, but will be when the floors are installed in the building. This back room will not be visible. The windows in the back door are simply too small to provide a view, plus there will no lighting.

@Trainman2001 posted:

I didn't proceed with the mating at this time. It's too big of a step to rush into and I want to make sure I've got the process down pat.

I agree, the mating is a big step and one should never rush into it. Practice the process, for sure

Now that that is addressed, it will be exciting to see the house finally assembled, I'm sure most exciting for you. You are making Hopper proud.

@Trainman2001

Myles:

Your building is coming together well and showing spectacular results of many hours work. your foundation is GREAT. Thank you for the details as to what materials you use to get your results  Bravo!

On a digression, I found out today that my Typhoon Model is featured in the "Reader's Gallery" in FSM's Jan 2021 issue. I found out from Brian Bunger (proprietor of Scale Reproductions Inc. - one of the finest hobby shops in the USA) via Facebook. We're members of the Military Modelers Club of Louisville which Brian was a co-founder 40 odd years ago.

Before completing the foundation I wanted to make sure the porch worked with it. I made a field change that caused me some hours of rework. In the original design I had the porch so scale feet below the front door, as shown in the orginal plan. The arrows show the offset.

But when I put the porch blank next to the wall, it lined up perfectly ON TOP of the stone wall ledge and was flush with the front door sill and I liked how it looked. I was able to make some spacer blocks exactly the same 1" height of the foundation and glued them on to the bottom.

As usual with my "field changes" they had some unintended consequences. The steps needed some shimming so they would mate with the band boards under the porch. Since the steps were so warped I sanded the bottom of the first step and the back of the top step so they would mate with their respective surfaces. I used the big 4" belt sander to do this. I then added .120" of shim to bring the steps up to the right height.

And the columns were now too darn long.

They were really long! I had two choices: cut the columns or re-draw and re-print them. The original prints didn't come out so good. They warped badly, had supports in strategic spots that made for a ragged cleanup. Cutting and splicing the columns looked doable. I held the building together with a big rubber band capturing the first floor plate and then clamped the balcony to its position snug up against the turret first floor and measured the distance. It came out to 2.63". The columns measured an average of 3.10". I did the simple subtraction and of course got it wrong. Instead of .47" I used .57" and wondered why they were so short.

At the cuts I drilled for 1/32" phos-bronze wire. The wire let me pull out the column to get it too fit properly.

In the above I started filling the gap with Bondic. After a couple of these, I realized my stupid math error and removed the correct amount of stock on the remainder. As it is, Bondic and resin printed parts are a marriage made in heaven. Since it's the same compound, it not only serves as a good filler, it's also one heck of a glue. When I finished all the splices, the columns are solid. Furthermore, I was able to correct some of the more eggregious warps, by reconnecting them in a more straight orientation, adding more Bondic around the perimeter and then removing the excess with the belt sander.

After belt sanding I used my round object sander (don't have a better name for it) to finish them off.

In this case, the column snapped when I tried to rebend the warp. I took the .47" out of the middle where the warp was the worse. It will look acceptable after painting.

After all the mods were complete I tried them all out in their positions. This approach took some more time than reprinting would, but maybe not so much since I would have to modify the drawings, re-slice them, print them and then clean them up and paint. If they weren't resin, the Bondic solution would not have been so elegant.

I needed to scribe the porch to simulate some wood planking. I toyed with planking with real wood slats, but it would have raised the height above the door sill. Since I had already glued all the blocks underneath, removing the 1/32" of height so I could plank it would have been a pain. Instead, I'm scribing the planks. Porch will be painted so I just need the hint of planks underneath.

I measured off the planks about 10 scale inches. I used my Starrett machinist dividers. they hold their size setting very well. I used a machinist square and marked the lines with pencil.

I then used a razor saw and the square to actually cut the groove. Scribing Masonite doesn't work so well since the surface is friable and leaves a messy groove. Actually cutting the grooves works better.

I'll finish this up on Monday. As I've said time and time again, my weeks go by so fast that I'm shocked when it's Friday again. I wish they would have past so quickly when I was working.

I reckon it's becuase of this. First, I no longer get up at 6:15, commute anyhwere between 45 minutes to over an hour to get to an office, and not leave the office until 6 p.m. and have another massive commute. Regardless of where I worked in my career, my commutes were never easy.

Now I get up when I want, usually between 8 and 9, have breakfast, read all the crap on the laptop, take care of business and get to the shop between 1 and 2 depending on whether it's an exercise day. And then I quit by house rules at no later than 5 p.m. So instead of a tiring 12 hour work day, I'm spending an enjoyable 2 to 4 hour day in the shop building cool stuff. And that's why time is going so fast.

Have a great weekend and don't do anything stupid.

That was a lot of work on the columns, but I agree the one pictured should look great when painted.  This sure beats working long days and commuting!!!!

Congratulations on the publishing of the model plane. What does a '' round object sander'' look like? Looks like you have a great retirement routine. That's what retirement is supposed to be like. Sorry, I can't promise I won't do anything stupid.

Thank you! Here's the "Round Object Sander". I just checked and they're called, "Flex-i-File". Here's the link to the page on their website.

https://www.flex-i-file.com/flex-i-file.php

It comes in a set of three frames and three different grit sanding bands. MicroMark sells them. They conform around the shape so you don't sand any flats into the surface. They're great for sanding joints on aircraft models, especially ordinance. The grit fills up pretty quickly so I use them wet by occasionally dipping it into a vat of water.

It's one of those tools that you buy not sure if you're going to use it, but then find that it comes in real handy for special things. I've got a raft of these kind of gadgets.

Thank you for posting that sander.  It is simple but effective!

Thanks, Myles. That looks like a handy tool. I'll keep it in mind for future projects.

Well folks, here's a rare Saturday progress report. It was a nasty, cold and rainy day, and my darling wife asked, "would I like to play in the basement?" Of course the answer was a resounding "YES". And play I did.

The day was a "painting day". It started out noticing that the Chooch transfer adhesive was not holding the rubber stone sheeting. I ended up going around and using judicious applications of med CA to secure it all around. The adhesive was holding to the balsa well, but was not holding the stone. That surprised me. You'd think that the adhesive included with the flexible stone would at least work with that product.

I cut, trimmed the corners and filled any gaps with Bondic and then airbrushed medium gray for the stone base coat. On Monday, I'll go back and do some more work on the stones drybrushing highlight colors and doing more with the mortar lines.

Before installing the windows in the turret it had to be painted. Before painting I added some 1/16" square bass wood around the upper perimeter of the intermediate roof to act as the rain gutter stop. I then painted the clapboard with craft paint "Vanilla" a nice off-white color. I then painted the actual roof area Tamiya Nato Black, and finally the trim with a medium blue from Vallejo. So for this little structure I used three different kinds of paint. The blue is very close to the color I selected within SketchUp. I debated whether or not to paint the corner trim blue or wall color. Blue won. Again, it's the way I've displayed it in SU and I'm familiar with it.

Last thing I did was paint the chimneys. I thought that the gray base color would work for the mortar so I just dry-brushed the brick color (Vallejo Dark Flesh). Didn't quite work as I planned and the color filled in some of the mortar lines. I did paint the upper parts with concrete color for the cap base, a lightened brick color (yellow added) for the terra-cotta flue stack, flat black inside the flue and then added black powder for the soot.

I also put the base coat on the porch. This time I used tube medium gray artist's acrylic paint, so that makes four types of paint. After it fully cures, I'll see what else I should do, maybe some panel line accenting, or not. I also may sand the paint to expose base Masonite to show some strategic wear. The saw-cut scoring worked for the planks.

So like I said "it was a painting Saturday". I like working on occasional Saturdays. Have a nice Sunday!

The painting looks great!  I think that blue looks perfect after our discussion a few weeks ago about the shade of blue!    I would have thought Chooch's adhesive would have worked on their product also! 

Looking good,Myles.

Thanks guys, it's really good how close that Vallejo blue matches the color I chose on SketchUp. I had a computer problem. I upgraded to MAC OS Big Sur and then my VM Fusion Windows emulator was no longer functional. I had to  buy an upgrade to VM Fusion 12.0 that is now coded for the latest MAC OS. My browser kept hanging up when I went to move my purchase request to the shopping cart. I thought their website was down. Then today in working with something completely different the same thing happened. The little red line advanced around 1/4 the way to completion and then froze. So I shut everything down and restarted and, of course, it now worked. So I went back to VM Fusion's site and was able to process my purchase so my Windows 10 is now working again on my MAC, and, more importantly, CorelDraw is running again. I need CorelDraw!

Happy Monday! Lots of images today...

Started the day getting the chimneys fitted. After marking where they would locate on the very fragile balsa Mansard skin, I used the #11 blade (new and sharp) to open up the skin. I knew I would have this complication since you can see the former looking down on the Mansard wall. That former is ply so using the Xacto was not the best way to remove it.

But before cutting out the scrap, I had to reinforce the edges of the Mansard since the balsa would be unsupported for the entire span between the windows and that would NOT BE GOOD. I traced the profile on some thin aircraft plywood, hand-sketched a parallel line to the traced line to account for the thickness and then cut it out with the #11. I used all kinds of CA to hold these pieces in. Before I did this I did almost destroyed the skin on the opposite side and had to glue pieces back together.

This view shows the new formers installed to reinforce the skin next to the window openings. This is important because the act of attaching the self-stick shingles puts stress on the skin as I burnish it down. If the skin wasn't supported it would simply blow through and be a wreck.

I even used a piece of MDF for one of these formers to even make it stronger. Remember, I had specified the wrong material for the formers in the first place. They should have been much thicker. And I should have designed the laser cutting to have former at each side of the window openings.

I used the Dremel Flexi-shaft with the 1/16" carbide router to forcibly remove the former.

The upper part of the Mansard needed a little bit of relief to so the chimneys sat plumb. While fussing with all this cutting and fitting I broke out another of those thin sections over the window openings. I decided to get radical by reinforcing all the week ones with some of the balsa I used for the foundation walls. This greatly strengthened this very thin and fragile area. It was necessary.

This is a top view of the new reinforcements.

With both chimneys able to sit correctly, I had to relieve the upper roof. I marked it out and cut the notches on the scroll saw. Had to be careful because there is an electronic chip on the underside that's feeding the lighting which also is complete.

I stopped work on the Mansard and got back to finishing up the turret. I painted it last week and wanted to get it fully complete and that meant shingles. Like I did with my last two Victorian projects, I'm using actual copper for the roof flashing. I'm pre-treating the copper tape (same as I'm using for the lighting circuits) using JAX copper aging chemicals. I used both the Dark Brown and Patina liquids starting with the brown and then patina. I treated the tape with the backing on the tape. I first I thought I made a mess when the backing paper started falling apart due to all the liquids. But I persisted and the backing did come off correctly. It's not as green as I would like, but the chemicals tend to have a delayed reaction.

Here was the flashing applied to the turrett.

I used the Victorian mix from Rail Scale Models which is a mixture of straight and fishscale shingles. You start the process with the starter row strip that is a separate part number you purchase. The starter row provides a strong purchase for the 1st row shingle tabs and prevents them from drooping or bending.

The patten is the same as I've used before and is traditional Victorian of three straight alternating with three fishscale shingles. The distances are very short and in couple of places required some CA to get it to stick. The filament pattern created by the FDM printing was a two-edged sword. It makes for less surface area impacting the self-adhesive shingles' adhesion,but because they were so parallel, it made it easy to ensure the shingles were horizontal.

I got two full sides complete including trying out the newly designed peak capping shingles (included with the starting row set).

I will have this part done tomorrow and then install built the little peaked roof and install the windows. I'll finish the Mansard completely this week as well.