Two cities layout.

[Random]

I've made progress on several fronts.  Lets start with breakfast...er...the Honey Bee Diner.


The shed has been attached to the side of the main structure.  I placed the shed loosely on its base to set the alignment.  The car body floats on its base a bit as I removed the mounting lugs from the floor.  They were a bit obtrusive but in hindsight it may have been better to leave them in place and simple mask them with detail castings.  Live and learn...




I roofed the shed with some rolled roofing left over from the Y shed on the passenger platform.  This is the painted pastel paper strips.  The diner roof will need some pastel chalks to bring the color more in line with the shed.




I've also worked with more signage.  A added a large advertising sign to the back wall of the green building.  I used the same method that I used on the Hotel and Grill signs. 

The sign was printed on matte photo paper and then the layers were split.  I used a medium grid emery board to remove any paper pills from the back and thin the sign just a bit more. 

Then I coated the back with thinned canopy glue, positioned it on the building, added more thinned canopy glue to the front of the sign until it was fully saturated and started tapping it into the brink with a half inch stiff brush.

The small advertising posters at the bottom of the wall are not worked into the brick (with the exception of the old circus poster) so that they better represent pasted up posters.  I just gave them a light tapping with the brush to settle them into place.




Working the sign too much with the brush will eventually start to remove ink from the surface as you can see in the large blue lettering.  A certain amount of this helps to make the sign look old but too much and you'll have a nice white patch on the building.  I focussed extra attention to the white space between the lettering and graphics.  The brick texture clearly shows though the sign and with some areas showing the green of the wall though the sign it definitely looks painted on.




HOT TIP:  Hobby suppliers sell sanding boards for far too much money.  I buy mine at the grocery store.  The foam cored emery boards come in several levels of grit and are much cheeper.  They can easily be cut into what ever shape you need.


Now it was time to address the sidewalks.  The green building has a lip molded into the front and right side so that it overlaps the sidewalk.  I wanted a nice flat base to accommodate this so I carved these sidewalks from a sheet of 3/32" thick basswood.  I make two cuts with the blade and then run the back side of the blade though the groove to widen it without cutting deeper. 




I stopped the new sidewalk at the end of the building.   




I chose to continue the individual stone style sidewalks to the corner.  I had to make a new batch of stones to fill this space.  They are also made from 3/32" basswood and are about 3/4" square.  I use an emery board to nock off the corners and round the upper edges.




I painted all of the new sidewalks with my concrete bass color and then lightened them with some pastel chalks to lighten the color and blend with the old sidewalks.  For some reason the camera really pulls yellow into the image.  In person the color is much closer to the old stone section.




Rather than watch the paint dry on the sidewalks, I installed another large sign to the end of the green building.  An overly aggressive swipe of the emery board added a touch of extra weathering to the upper left corner.




Once dry the sidewalks were glued in place with just a few weights to hold them flat.




I added strip wood curb stones and with that the sidewalks are done for the street side of the building.




A few more advertising signs in the front windows and I will be ready to permanently plant the building.





Cheers!

[GPdemayo]

Great progress Roger.....

[Janbouli]

The signs are fantastic Roger , coming together fine.

[Random]

Its time for more updates from the last few weeks.

The express building has been finished.  I added vents to the roof. The small one at the left is a bit of copper tubing.  The two capped vents are FSM castings from Jimmy's new offerings.




I added express signs to the right and over the freight door.   The red and yellow wall cabinets are from the Atlas telephone pole set. 

The vent in the central window was made from a square of styrene, a bit of left over sprue, and a circle of styrene cut with a small hole punch to make the cap.




With that the express building is wrapped up.




Next I finished painting the gray stone and brick building that will stand behind the station.  This was all done with artist acrylics picked up and mixed and blended from my pallet.







I've already added the glazing behind the windows.   Mullions need to be added next.

[Random]

I also finished the diner.

The shed doors were painted red and door pulls were added using some very small strip wood.  I rounded the corners once they were in place and painted them to match.




I added vents to the roof.  The capped vent at the left is another FSM casting from Jimmy, the three in the middle are brass tubing. The vent on the shed is a brass casting. I don't recall its maker.




I made steps for the shed from laser cut stringers from Rusty Stumps and stripwood for the treads.  The step for the diner door is from square stripwood.




I painted the shed steps to look like weathered wood and the diner steps to look more like old concrete.  The diner roof got a brushing of acrylics to bring its color more in line with the shed's roof.






I printed a couple of diner signs and glued one directly on a piece of wood and the other on a piece that was painted white.  I chose the one on the left for the final sign and trimmed the wood down to the size of the sign.




I painted stripwood to match the diner trim and then attached it to two sides of the sign.




After that dried I repeated the process with the other two sides.




With the frame in place I touched up the red trim and painted the back of the sign white.




Here is the completed sign.




I positioned the sign and braced it with more stripwood.  I used a machinist's square to hold it in place while it dried.




The diner is complete and ready for details in the shed and final placement.









Cheers!

[Opa George]

Roger, I continue to be much impressed by your attention to detail and overall gorgeous work. Thanks for the continued inspiration.
--Opa George

[jerryrbeach]

Roger,


I'm really looking forward to seeing all these structures come together into the final scene. 

[Random]

Hello all,

I just have a quick update today.

I've completed painting and preparing the gray stone building that will sit behind the station.  The shades were much easier to do before assembling the structure (lesson learned).  I was looking at photos of George's model and noticed the little bits of color in the windows.  I decided to try that adding them to this structure to see the impact. They do seem to add a nice hint of life.

The cat is a bit hard to see against the black background.  I'll need to do something to make it stand out.






Here's a preview of the next small structure.  The mockup is made from index card.



Cheers!

[Random]

Planting the stone building behind the station required that it exactly match the angle of the street corner so I started final assembly in place on the layout.  The sidewalk to the left is unpainted.  Waxed paper is placed under the corner to prevent glue from attaching the corner to the sidewalks.




Inside, the front wall was held in place with a large machinist square protected by more waxed paper.




Clamps were used in the windows to hold the joint together while the gel superglue set.






Once that corner set I built up a foundation to support the other walls.  The back wall was held in place with clamps and weights.






And finally, the side wall was installed.  Clamps at the front corner and a large rubber band for the back corner held everything in place while the glue set.




During the entire process the street facing walls were held securely in place against the sidewalks.

Cheers!

[Random]

Here is a view of the foundation for the inner walls.  They are built up from strips of the same wood used for the sidewalks.  The sidewalk facing walls have a small lip that extends below the sidewalk so I left gaps between the foundation walls and the sidewalks.




My scene has a wider alley way between the station and this building than on George's original.  I intend to pave this area with an aged brick casting.




Viewed from the front of the scene, the new building fits in nicely.




I put baffles made from black pastel paper inside.  The front baffle sits flat to close off the large storefront windows.  The other two are curved to allow a little light to bound around inside.  This will make the cat more visible.




I built up my standard roof with a piece of thick card and some stripwood stiffeners.




The rearrangement of the walls leaves this corner with an unfinished edge.  I've mocked up a retrofitted elevator shaft similar to George's to cover the unfinished casting edge.




Nine narrow strips of siding, some cardstock reinforcement strips, and stripwood corners will make up the shaft.




I attached the corner strips to the siding using straight edges to keep everything square.




Once that dried I added the reinforcing strips to the back being sure to leave room for internal blocking.




With all of that drying on the bench I need to turn my attention to that mystery structure later today.

Cheers!

[Random]

Yesterday's progress was all related to elevators.

I painted the wooden elevator shaft for the gray stone building.  For some reason my camera has started washing out some of the lighter colors.  The siding is not as splotchy looking in person as the photo would indicate. 

I painted this with mixed on the fly acrylics last night.  I went over it with a dry brushing of a lighter mix this morning to give it a faded look.




The mystery structure is the freight elevator for the station platform.  I made this from left over brick wall sections from the green tool and die company building.  My supply of brick was limited so the lower section is made of more small sections.




Here are the assembled sections with a priming coat of brink red.  The tall section will be the elevator shaft under the platform.  The back side will be against the retaining wall so it is made with a wood filler strip.  The wider section is the upper elevator building with an extended "lobby" and two sets of doors to allow moving freight directly to the express building or onto the platform.  Its back wall will be obscured by bushes so it is made from styrene to save my limited brick wall supply.

Only one wall edge was molded with brick detail so I carved a simple brick texture onto the ends using a razor saw for horizontal grooves and the end of a pointed file for vertical grooves.



Cheers.

[Random]

The wooden elevator shaft decided it wanted to be a banana so its spent a day drying under weights placed at each end. 




I made 3 sets of doors for the station freight elevator.




I decided to model the elevator open on the street level.  This will create a lighted mini-scene below the deck.  I built an elevator car from thin sheet wood.




The elevator has two exit doors on the upper level so the car has movable gates on two sides.  The gates are made from the woven screen material I used for the Zephyr Diner security gate.




I added a thin foundation sanded to form a ramp to the front of the elevator shaft.  This allows the floor of the elevator car to sit level with the lip of the entry.




This should look pretty convincing once its loaded with a cart or two and some crates.

Cheers!

[Dave K.]

Your patience and attention to detail really pays off...the cornices are beautiful and I love the stacked newspapers in the newsstand. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[S&S RR]

Roger


Fantastic work! Like many of the others have said great attention to the details.  It's all about the details. Thank you for sharing your work with us. Great thread.

[vinceg]

I love that screen material. Very flexible for a lot of applications.