FOS Radio Station WKLO

[Dave K.]

Enjoying the thread from Central America...looking great! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 📻📻📻

[GPdemayo]

Looking good Bob.....

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looking good, Bob.

the slight changes in elevation add a bit of extra drama.  Nice fix.

Cheers, Mark.

[ReadingBob]

Thanks to all for the comments.  Very much appreciated.  Even though Donato did force me to use Google to translate his.   

Welcome to the forum Blazeman (just in case I didn't welcome you somewhere else).  I'm glad to have you following along.   

I'm not so sure my fix was so much a fix as it was simply figuring out how the kit was actually intended to go together without relying to much on the template which had a few issues.   

[ReadingBob]

I'm back.....  (it's been a while for this one  ).

Next up I'm going to cover building one of the billboard/rooftop signs.  I first cut out the sign using a steel ruler and sharp #11 X-Acto knife.  Notice that the ruler is positioned over the sign.  If the blade wanders away from the ruler a little bit it isn't cutting into the sign.


I tone down the sign a little bit by lightly going over it, from top to bottom not sideways, with some fine steel wool.  How much you do this depends on how much you want to tone down the sign.  It's scraping the ink off and exposing the white paper underneath giving it a faded appearance.  A little goes a long way.


Next I hit the back of the sign with a light A&I wash.  It'll soak through the paper and darken the front of the sign a little bit.  I prefer to do the back, rather than the front, to give me a little more control over the effect.


The sign will get mounted on a piece of board material included in the kit.  I stuck that piece on some 3M Transfer Tape and trimmed the tape to fit.


Peeling off the backing for the 3M Transfer Tape exposes the sticky side of the board.


Next it's a matter of positioning the sign over the board exactly where it needs to go and then pressing it down into the sticky surface to adhere it to the board.


More in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

Sorry about the size of the photo's.  I used a new 'resizing' program and can see I need to play with the settings a bit to make the pictures smaller.  But, I've already uploaded the rest of the photo's for this thread so we'll have to suffer with some slightly larger then I had planned photos.   


The sign I'm building is the rooftop sign that goes over the front roof of the record store.  I used the template as a guide to cut the pieces that make up the supports to the correct length.



I glued the pieces together directly over the template and scrapped off the little bit of glue that oozed out after the picture was taken.  In this case I didn't glue the pieces to the template.  I just used it as a guide and held them in place until the glue set.



There's one little cross piece that completes the supports.  Just a couple of little drops of glue on the supports.



And then positioning the cross piece in place.  I had to assemble three of these for this sign.



After I glued the supports to the back of the sign I figured out where I wanted to position the sign on the roof and glued it in place using 'pitch' (white glue and grimy black paint mixed together).  To keep it from falling forward I used one of the telephone poles to support it until the glue set.



The big WKLO sign was built over the template as well.  In this case I did glue some of the parts directly to to the template using the tiniest drop of white glue at each end.  Barely enough to hold them in place.  Then the cross pieces are glued in place and the letters added.



More in a moment...

[Dave K.]

Nice work, Bob. I'm guessing you added your own details on the end wall (meter, conduit)? 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[ReadingBob]

I need a few LED's for the outdoor lights so I had to solder leads to a bunch of teeny tiny LED's.  I did a batch that will give me enough for this build plus a few more.  I always have trouble digging them out of the drawer I store them in and remembering how many I have left before I run out.  So I decided to store them on top of my light instead.   


I needed to make up three lamps for the big WKLO sign.  Only I wanted mine to light up.     Instead of using the brass wire included in the kit I cut three pieced of .018 OD tubing (purchased from your friendly neighborhood light merchant Slim Jerkins at Microlumia).  I use razor blade and a rolling motion to cut through them and then an emery board to clean up the end.  You don't want to pinch the end shut when you cut them!


I have my lampshades (Tichy parts included in the kit), tubing and LED's with leads soldered to them.  Now comes the fun part.


I feed the leads through the lampshade first and then through the tubing.  Yes, I need to use a 10X Optivisor for this.   


I've already tinned the ends of the leads.  If there is even the slightest bit of a solder build up on the ends they aren't going to fit into the tubing.


I don't have one of dem fancy little bending thingamabobs so I have to bend mine around the end of a paint brush using my fingers.  If I'm not really careful I'll end up with a 90 degree bend and a kink in the tubing rather than a graceful gooseneck.


More in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

Nice work, Bob. I'm guessing you added your own details on the end wall (meter, conduit)? 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Thanks Dave!  The meters, conduit (brass wire) and insulators came with the kit.  The (slightly over sized) straps holding the conduit in place are just paper I cut up and painted. 

[ReadingBob]

I glued the three completed lamps to the back of the large WKLO sign and then wired them in series.  I'll spare you the pictures of me trimming the wires to size, soldering them together and muttering to myself as I did so.  In the end I had one Positive and one Negative lead that I had to run down on post and into the interior of the building where I had a connections (with a current limiter in place) all ready for them.

When I positioned the sign on the roof for a test fit one post (the on on the left) was just a tad short.  So I removed it, cut one slightly longer and glued the new one in place.  Resting on three different roofs like this sign does means I can't really make my roofs removable which is something I prefer to do, when possible, so the lighting can be accessed if need be.  I lightly glued the roofs in place and hope that "if need be" never comes.   


And that pretty much wraps it up except for one small thing.  Here are the finished photos.


I didn't do this as a diorama so I couldn't plant the 2nd telephone pole and string lines between it and the first pole and it and the building.  It's destined for ACL1504's layout.   






There's the one small detail remaining to be completed.  The 'bonus' small window opening sans window.  I have to prep and paint a window for it.  I have one.  I'll do it when I prep and paint the parts for my build challenge which I can now get started on! 


More in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

These might be a bit shaky.  I can't use the flash if I want to capture the lighting effects so the exposures are longer.








And I finally found a use for some of the red LED's I have!



Thanks for following!

[vinceg]

Tremendous effort, Bob. Looks great. The light effects add a lot. I need to give that more thought as I do things in the future.

Thanks for sharing.

Vince

[PRR Modeler]

Beautiful job Bob. Top notch as always.

[GPdemayo]

Beautiful work Bob.....

[jimmillho]

Awesome, fur shur.

Jim