1700 N Wolfe St. A Baltimore Corner Store in HO Scale

[restocarp]

Hey all,

I am working on another scratchbuilt Baltimore building. This time it is a corner store that has fallen on hard times. I will post my progress here.


Lousy screengrab. See below link for zoomable images

Google view of Prototype

Matt

[deemery]

That store would go really well with the CMR Baltimore row house kits....   I'm looking forward to seeing how you'll do this.

dave

[restocarp]

I started with the turret. It is scratchbuilt from styrene. I prefer to build from wood, but I thought that the ability of styrene to form curves would be more beneficial for this. I am generally happy, but I have now adjusted the paint job to eliminate the lighter rust color (the prototype is galvanized with peeling red paint) and I don't like the "pressed metal" decorative detail. I don't have a solution for that yet.



Matt

[restocarp]

Dave,

My "scale" tends to be a bit bigger than the CMR rowhouses. But not to worry, I really like scratchbuilding the rowhouses too.

This model will only have the first rowhouse, as the entire block would make an already big model even bigger. And I need to maximize my Monster Modelworks brick sheet!

Thanks for checking in!

Matt

[restocarp]

I have also built a bay window with missing siding. It largely matches the prototype, except that I added an electrical outlet. The google map allows me to travel through time and see the property at different dates. The deterioration progresses from 2007 to 2020. I am adding and subtracting details to add more interest, regardless of whether they actually coexisted in that state in the real world. So I may add some siding and shingles back onto this bay to create some more interesting texture.



Matt

[restocarp]

This past weekend I built the first storefront....the hard way. Framed and clad. To avoid seeing into an open void I covered the glass with old newsprint. The prototype has plywood, but that would not be seen as much in my era of the 1950s. I think that I will add some old metal cladding onto these storefront bays as well, but I need to add layers slowly as I go.





Matt

[deemery]

How did you do the round turret/bay?  The shape and coloring/finish look great!

dave

[restocarp]

Dave,
I started by cutting four styrene discs with a Olfa circle cutter.I then notched the discs to receive four 1/8" square styrene rods that were laid out to create the window opening widths.I clamped the discs together and filed the cutouts to make sure they were aligned. I then glued the rods into the notches, one at the top and one at the bottom with the other two at about ceiling height and just below the windows. This created a framed cylinder.  The cylinder was wrapped with layers of thin styrene and styrene shapes to create the skin. The gap where the wood sheathing shows is just small pieces of styrene strip glued to the edges of the discs and the lath is even smaller strips glued to the insides of the 1/8" rod. The sheathing hides the gaps. Tichy window castings were installed and some styrene trim to clean them up.

It was primed with a rattle can and the hit with Ammo Night Blue Grey. The peeling red paint is Ammo Old Rust. I painted over my Ammo Dark Rust later with the Old Rust and added a bit of AK Hull Red for variety.

The wood is primed and then painted with AK Wood Base and then a wash of Vallejo Burnt Umber applied as well as some black to the bottom edges.

Matt

[Vietnam Seabee]

Looking good Matt...looking forward to following along on this one
Terry

[ReadingBob]

Amazing!  Simply amazing!

[Janbouli]

Fantastic .  The rest of the street looks really well kept , why wouldn't anyone in all those years have bought it to make a nice house or appartement building with it? In the Netherlands this would have to either be renovated by the owner or would he would have to sell it to someone that would renovate it , not allowed to just let it rot away.

[deemery]

Matt, thanks for the construction notes!

dave

[Zephyrus52246]

Wow.  Your finishes are amazing.  I love the newspapers in the window effect. 

Jeff

[Mark Dalrymple]

Really nice workmanship, Matt.

The turret has come out extremely well.  Was the wood modelled in wood or styrene? The paper has come out very realistic.  It really does look like news print.  Any tricks?  By the way - what scale are we in?

Looking forward to seeing more of your fine work.

Cheers, Mark.

[restocarp]

Thank you all.

Janbouli-
There are many reasons that this building and the neighborhood are the way they are, none of which can be discussed without getting into conversations that the moderators would rather we didn't. Suffice it to say that this store is in a depressed neighborhood with plenty of abandoned buildings interspersed with occupied homes. Johns Hopkins Hospital is nearby and there is development in the area. I haven't been by this building in person recently, but the storefront was removed completely in 2020 and there may be some movement to save the building, but I don't know.

Mark-
The entire turret is made of styrene, including the weathered wood. The storefront and the bay window are made from wood. I usually work in wood(I am a carpenter by day) and do prefer it, but styrene was a better choice for the turret, given the curve. I decided that it was better to continue the use of styrene for the exposed wood sheathing and lath so that I got a good glue bond. I like the way that the paint came out on them, perhaps not enough to switch everything completely to styrene , but enough to give me confidence to use the method again if needed.

The newspapers are just the same papers that I use for detailing rubbish on my dioramas. I used Kathy Millatt's method of downloading images of actual newspapers from Baltimore, 1952 into MS Word and then scaling them down. I then generated an entire sheet of them and printed out multiple copies. I usually just cut them out and place them on sidewalks, etc, but for this I gave parts of the printout sheets a wash of an ugly yellow/brown. Once that dried I cut out the individual newspapers and glued them to the face of a piece of acetate. I then glued any signage that I want visible on the window on top of them. I applied a bit of weathering powders here and there. Not a lot. That decorated acetate was then glued to the back of the clear acetate that is installed into the window so that the newspapers and signs are captured between the two pieces.  I think that it turned out to be very effective.

I am working in HO scale.

Thanks again to everyone for watching.
Matt