FOS The Terminal

[ACL1504]

George,

I agree, love the walls.

Tom

[vinceg]

Looking good, George

[Bruce Oberleitner]

Looking good Opa George!  Nice start on the kit.

[Opa George]

Thanks much, Curt, Tom, Vince & Bruce.
Today I installed most of the windows, a few of the large signs, and began glazing the windows. On this building, the topmost walls of the cupola use laser cut windows instead of plastic castings, and although the instructions don't identify the part numbers, only one set of laser windows appeared to be the correct size, so those are the ones I used.  As long as they fit it shouldn't really matter. Below is a progress shot of several walls with signs, window castings and glazing. Lots more to do in this department, though--big building with lots of windows.
--

My preference is to use clear plastic for window glazing. I keep my eye out for large clear plastic "panels" as a supply--usually from packaging. Some are not compatible with the liquid plastic cement, but most work well. I used super glue to cement the glazing to the laser cut windows and doors.

By the way, I picked up a tip from a radio science show about using super glue. I did not know that it sets by reacting with water molecules in the air. The scientist researcher said you can simply breath on a part before touching it to a surface with super glue and it will set almost immediately. So I tried it here and it worked.
--George

[PRR Modeler]

Great looking windows and signage.

[Janbouli]

Great looking walls and signs, and thanks for the breathing tip.

[Dave K.]

Great start, George.👍🏻  Funny...I just posted that same NuGrape sign yesterday for the HO Scale Customs guys on Facebook. Love that one. Doug's got good taste in vintage signs. Enjoying the thread!👍🏻

[MAP]

Been following along on this one.  Great work on the walls so far.  Keep those progress pics coming.

[jerryrbeach]

George,


Love the walls, great start.  Once again I'll be looking over your shoulder.

[Opa George]

Thanks again, Curt. Welcome and thank you for the support, Jan and Jerry. Mark, here is another picture with the latest progress on the walls.  Dave, I'm a patron of Todd and Brett at HO Scale Customs--I really enjoy their weekly podcasts and stories.

Below is a picture of all the walls for Caswell Manufacturing, the corner industry in The Terminal kit. Window glazing, shades and most signs are installed. Looking at this pic, I realize I forgot to put on the flag hanging from the center loft door.  That's a signature image of this structure and I will be adding it.


Note so far: It has all come together to this point very well. It is certainly not a beginner's kit--as I knew going in--and Doug assumes you know your basic wall preparation steps. You also need to take your time, look at every picture, plan and drawing, fit parts together in advance and puzzle out for yourself a few steps that are glossed over. But I like that. It makes me feel heavily invested in the building process.

One step I took in advance of starting was to download every single picture of the kit from the FOS Scale Models site, as well as those posted on their Facebook page, into a digital reference file.  Even at this early stage I have studied those images intensely to figure out a few assembly steps.

The image above shows two cardboard ("chipboard" in the instructions) walls that are basically unfinished. That is by design and per the instructions. We'll get to those in a few more steps.

Now I get to start putting walls together. More later.
--George

[rpdylan]

wow, looks great!!! looking forward to the photos of your walls going together!

[PRR Modeler]

George looks great. That's a great idea about downloading the pictures. I have been going to the website to look at the pictures. That tends to be a pain in the rump at times.

[Opa George]

Thank you, Bob. Here are some first pics.  Curt, I believe as long as I am not distributing them anywhere it is ok. It sure saves time when all I want is a quick look for reference.  And I can blow them up--most are very high resolution.

So getting the walls together is pretty straightforward until you get to the long angled wall, which Doug refers to as the "squad" wall. Per instructions I sanded a bit, tested the fit, sanded some more, tested, etc.  I began to see a spot in the center of that long wall where, despite my best efforts, it was not going to fit perfectly.  I decided to glue and clamp both ends and deal with the center after the ends had set.
Below is the front corner clamped and drying. This area fit very well.


Here is my problem joint. You can see the gap at the center where the long wall is supposed to join smoothly with the upper floating wall.  I tried forcing the fit--seldom a good idea but occasionally you can get away with it--but it introduced a noticeable bow in the wall and threw the back angle out of alignment. That would be trouble later when joining the next structure, the garage, onto this structure.


From close reference with the pilot model on the FOS website, I noted that joint has lots of interesting details, including an eccentric vent pipe, so I decided to build out the side wall to meet the angled wall. It only took a length of scale 2x6 to close the gap. I will probably run a downspout here anyway, so hopefully it will look like a minor "jog" in the building where an addition was added. Here is the building shell with the basic walls together.


And the other side. We're moving along!


Oh by the way, my wonderful wife gave me this to open on my birthday a few day ago:


--George

[PRR Modeler]

Great birthday present.

[postalkarl]

Hey George:

Looks great so far. Will be following along