Orange Avenue Mock-ups Round Two

Today I placed the Ensminger Building on the layout to get a better feel for how it will look at the end of the block, so to speak.  Seeing it there made me realize what had been bothering me about the previous arrangement of structures; in short, some didn't quite fit as I'd hoped.  So, my attention turned from the Ensminger Building to its neighbors, and I found two alternatives to the problematic structures.

Let's start at the other end of the block.  The Drug store on the corner was slated for that site long ago and despite its current unfinished status still serves to show its mass and silhouette.  Moving down the street is a new addition, DPM's First National Bank aka the Grand Hotel if you've got the kit in the structure pack for Woodland Scenics' Grand Valley layout.  I'll be using the structure as a hotel, built as it comes.

I've written before about other mock-ups I've made from paper and foam core board but these "new" mock-ups are made using the structure parts held together with hot glue.  The Rosenbaum building however is a paper and cardstock mock-up representing DPM modular wall panels which will be combined with parts from Rail Scale Models to make a large 5 and 10 cent store.  This structure will have a deep awning (not shown) across the entire facade positioned beneath the transom windows but above the large display windows, a common arrangement in the '20s and into the decades beyond.

Lastly, the tan building is a structure I had planned to kitbash and use on this street but in a different form.  "Granny's Cafe'", as it is called in the Grand Valley structure box, aka "The Other Corner Cafe'" normally, was always going to be a smoke shop with a residence above.  It will continue as such, but in a wider two-story form instead of three.  I'll be borrowing the side walls from another DPM kit but using the wide back wall from the original; a true two-kit-mingle.  Those arched windows will have awnings using the vacuum-molded parts provided in the Grand Valley box, a thoughtful inclusion.

Right away I feel MUCH better about this line-up of mock-ups.  The trolley station across the street also seems more at home opposite these facades.  Oh, and I didn't forget the back alley; I like how it looks as well.  There are several good surfaces for painted-on signs and a visually interesting variety of windows and wall depths.

The Ensminger Building still needs signs and some weathering.  I will add some interior details to the photo studio and front display windows, but likely not for some time.  I'm itching to get this structure done enough to move on to other projects.  I've also got one more mock-up to make while the Grand Valley kit collection is out, but that's a topic for another post.  Thanks for reading.

Drug Store Saga, Part V

This is the final Drug Store Saga post for the present until the NMRBO24 diorama has been constructed, and perhaps long after that.  I did recently have to resist the urge to throw the uncompleted structure.  It has become time to set it aside, not only due to the impending diorama construction period (March 1 - July 1) but also for reasons to do with the structure itself.

Even if I had not decided to modify the thing into a different shape I can say with some certainty I'd have still struggled at this point.  The problem lies with the storefront entrance and windows.  I thought I was doing a good thing when I made this jig:

The notch on the corner holds the doorway in position so the windows can be glued to it - glued on a thin sliver of metal at a sharp angle.  I used gel superglue for its gap-filling properties but still the dadgum assemblage managed to break loose twice.  

And once I got it all to hold together, even tenuously, and could offer it up to the building, I realized that the entryway, though at a 45 degree angle, did not match the corner bay window.  Not even close. To add insult to injury, the walls adjacent to the windows weren't long enough, by about 1/8th of an inch.  

I can make new walls; there's plenty of wall texture card.  I can make a new jig and reinforce the weak joint and get the thing to align with the tower.  All of these problems have solutions.  But right now I'm not going to.  I'm stepping away.  As I'm writing this the kit parts have been back in the box for a few days and the structure sits in place on the layout, propped up by a bit of sidewalk because the metal castings on the facade make it tip over without its entry door and windows there to support it.

Sometimes just walking away from a project is the right thing to do.

Drug Store Saga, Part IV

I began adding color to the trim using a palate similar to what I used on the Queen Anne Cottage for the NMRBO22.  In fact, the colors are identical - Black Cherry, Almond and Butter Cream (doesn't that sound delicious) but the placement is not.  Whereas on the Queen Anne the windows were Butter Cream, here the windows are Black Cherry, though they look more like Cranberry.  See, I was going to make them white, so I primed them gray and applied the white paint sprayed from above allowing the gray to make an artificial shadow (aka, the zenithal highlight technique).  Then I changed my mind and decided to airbrush them Black Cherry.

Oh I was so happy with how well my new compressor worked, how I was able to dial in the pressure and thin the paint just right to achieve a smooth even coat.  Yes, craft paint can be airbrushed as long as it is thinned and strained and sprayed using a higher pressure than say, oils or inks, but not so high as to spatter.  The appropriate thinner, in my case I used Liquitex Acrylic Airbrush Medium, will allow the paint to lay down and spread out before drying instead of going on all speckly.  It all looked so good.

The windows have been "washed" but still appear slightly brighter than the other parts.

But then I compared the Black Cherry on the windows to the Black Cherry on the other details, the ones I had only primed gray.  Reds are usually translucent (relatively) and this red was no exception.  Over the white primed windows I had a brilliant sanguine glow and on the gray primed parts, a dull purple.  Ugh.  So to fix this I've been slopping on a thinned mix of Black Cherry, black ink wash and brown ink wash to fill the recesses.  I like the brighter red on the raised areas so I'll keep it while darkening the shadows and filtering the whole paint job overall slightly darker.  On the gray-primed Black Cherry bits I'll simply dry brush highlight with a lighter shade of Black Cherry.  Fingers crossed.

Still needs paint (and roofing material).

I rolled a little snake of Miliput to create a fillet behind the parapet wall castings.  They weren't really deep enough to cover the thickness of the wall itself.  This repair looks realistic, like something masons would do to cap off a wall and tie in the ornate front detail.  I also began painting that detail, opting for a simple Butter Cream background and Black Cherry on the raised bits.  In studying actual Victorian paint schemes, I found that most original schemes were not as ornate as we've painted them since.  What we think of as "Victorian" color schemes today are really quite gaudy and complex compared to what was often done originally.

I also added the quoins to the corners between the upper and lower trim.  Let me tell you...that was the easy part.  Fitting the parapet trim was challenging, but not terrible.  Fitting the lower trim where the bay window section must be made from three pieces took some forethought and engineering.  Fortunately I could follow the example of the upper detail and miter the corners to match.  I think it looks pretty good.

Up next?  Who knows.  This project has been all over the place in terms of any logical sequence or lack thereof.  I've got the floor/base cut to fit.  Maybe LEDs.  We'll see.  Plenty of painting to do and some details still to make.  I'm going to try applying dry transfer letters to clear styrene for the big storefront windows.  Still shooting for a March 1 completion in order to begin work on the NMRBO24 diorama at the starting line.

Drug Store Saga, Part III

Here's the belated but as-promised continuation of the Scale Structures Limited Drug Store project.  Let's start around back:

 
The windows and doors in this image are merely set in place for now to avoid dings while heavier construction continues.  The vertical gaps will be covered by drain pipes with scuppers near the top and the horizontal line will be hidden by a wide sign attached to the wall.  In this way the wall can remain removable to access wiring and details inside the building's second and third floors.  I had thought I might use magnets to hold the wall in place but a simpler solution will be sticky wax or even double sided tape.  Below, the view with wall removed:

Access granted.  You may proceed with detailing.

The above image shows the structure from beneath being braced before the brick had been applied.  I have since broken one joint in order to "straighten" one wall.  Just like real house construction, there's no such thing as a truly straight wall.  Everything must be shimmed and even then it doesn't quite make it true, plumb or square but in the end it looks pretty good.  More on shimming and imperfection in the next post where I discuss the fancy trim. <shudder>.

I'll close this post with an image I shared on Instagram recently.  I'm quite happy with how this little bar turned out.  The actual serving counter is complete as well but isn't shown here.  Still need to make bar stools and a display stand for the middle of the room but otherwise the detailing for the interior is coming along nicely.  Oh and of course it needs paint - that should go without saying but I'll mention it to be clear.  Probably a wood stain, but we'll see.

Stand-ins

The drug store project has led me down a path I hadn't intended to take just yet.  Well, two, actually, but one (LED lighting) is the subject of another post.  I put the under-construction drug store in place on the layout only to find its presence altering the way I perceived the rest of the scene.  That is, I'm really happy with how it looks, where it looks; a tall, ornate gem on a prominent corner where the detail can be appreciated.  But Strickland's Service Station suddenly didn't look right across the street.  The Purina building adjacent to the drug store didn't fit right either.  Hmm.  

Two things were at play.  I had grown accustomed to seeing the Purina building and Strickland's on their diorama.  That setting was more rural and both structures were in different orientations to their respective streets as well as having a bit more room to spread out, so to speak.  On the Pine Branch Park layout the orientation was different and the setting more urban.  Strickland's sat on a corner on the diorama and that suited its odd porch/drive-through design.  The Purina building was on a dirt lot, set back far from the road.  

The white demitasse cup stands-in for the bandstand. Note the trolley on the street.

It was an easy decision to replace Strickland's with a bandstand.  I had already found great photos of Winter Haven, Florida in which a city park, complete with bandstand, is bisected by the Atlantic Coast Line main, complete with station.  A block of storefront businesses stands nearby.  I can put the (Campbell) bandstand at one end and the old horse-car at the other.  Voila, a trolley park located along the Orange Avenue line.

On the left, pool hall, lunch counter, ice factory.  On the right?

But the Purina building...that's harder for me to imagine a replacement.  Both structures could easily find homes on future versions of the Ocali Creek.  But the problem remains; what to do about the current situation?  In order to help me parse out a solution I decided to bring in some old structures I've been storing from previous layouts and, well, lay them out as stand-ins.  That's what's shown in these pictures.  

The tan paper behind the Purina building is the instruction plan for a pipe yard.

Each structure has its own story and some will get dedicated blog posts, no doubt.  But even this hurried-together approach has shown me I want to push the scene into a more urban direction.  Sure, in many towns there was a feed mill right near downtown, so there's good precedent for keeping the Purina building as is.  But even pushed back from the street it just doesn't fit.  What this location needs is a rail served business with a storefront that faces the street(s), right on the sidewalk, preferably two stories tall.

I haven't forgotten my previous post on fitting in the Chero Cola bottling plant somewhere, so maybe this is the spot.  That was back in April of 2021.  My, how things have changed since then.  Things are likely to change again a few times before structures get mounted in place.  Stay tuned.

Drug Store Saga, Part II

Stone paper overlay applied

Work continues on the Drug Store and in fact has progressed far beyond these images.  However this is a good place to make a few notes. This stone and brick paper has been a real challenge to work with.  First, the paint/primer I had sprayed on didn't stick.  After scraping it away I sanded the texture and applied a matte varnish.  So far this second application of paint has stuck, though where the paper has been bent around the bay window the cracks in the surface show the orange color of the paper beneath.  Still not happy with the color of the stone work...oil wash didn't work as expected, and a drybrush helped, but I may play around with it a bit more.  We'll see.

Apartment stoop in place - first castings installed!

This doorway had to be installed before any more work could continue so that I could take measurements and lay out the Drug Store furniture.  The stoop steps and door are metal castings which, like the rest, I had primed with good old rattle-can gray.  However I had forgotten that this particular can is particularly "sticky" when dry, taking at least a week to really cure.  Not sure why, it just is.  Anyway, it means that when I spray one side of a casting, let it "dry" a few hours then flip it to spray the other side, the primer sticks equally as well to the parts tray as it does to the parts, often pulling away.  Ugh.

Mysterious explosion at drug store leaves only cabinets standing.

 
Finally, the layout of the Drug Store interior has been decided.  A mirrored bar will be built along one wall with a counter in front, on which the cash register will sit.  The two large cabinets will be merged into one and will occupy the other wall along with the door to the back room.  A small display case will sit in front of one of the large windows.  This is about all I can fit in and that's fine.  I've cut the mirrored glass from a dollar store handheld mirror using a glass scoring tool, something I'd never done before.  

Up next, the solution to the removable wall, bracing, and more.  Thanks for reading.

Drug Store Saga, Part 1

I'm calling this a Saga right at the get-go because I can already tell it's going to be one of those builds.  The drug store in the title is the Scale Structures Limited Corner Drug Store.  A classic structure, to be sure, but the model is not without its flaws.  Even on its release in 1972 the folks at Model Railroader took note of how the angles of the bay walls don't match the angle of the ornate wall cap casting.  (More on that later.)  However they also noted one of the kit's strengths; the construction allows for easy rearranging of the walls.

Early in the process, before the fitting frustration set in.

In that regard I have taken things one step beyond.  The space intended for this structure in Ocala Springs is located on an intersection and bounded by a spur at the rear and the next building down the block.  I've got leeway down the block as that next building hasn't been decided yet.  But between the street and the spur I can only go so far.  However, the problem was not that the building was too wide, rather it was too narrow.  I envisioned an alley between the building and the spur, but this space was large enough to shoehorn in another structure.

The solution was to lop off some of the long end of the drug store and glom it onto the shorter side.  Now my structure is a bit more squarish.  Careful measuring meant the window openings could be kept evenly spaced without trimming and the surgery was relatively painless.  But I'm making it sound all too easy.  Before I even reached this point I had struggled with the aforementioned angle difficulty, and realized another aspect the folks at MR noted; the need to carefully read the instructions (many times).  

Note the original rectangular "floor" set onto the roof of my reconfigured structure

This freedom and flexibility in construction means the kit doesn't drop together in a simple sequence of tabs and slots.  The stiffeners inside the structure are the floors.  To begin with I cut new ones from thicker card as I couldn't see the thin stuff provided doing a good job for the long haul, even sprayed with sanding sealer.  This allowed me to correct the issue with the bay wall angles.  You are instructed to measure and mark the floor levels.  The plans give you an indication of where the first floor goes, and the roof along one wall, but not the others.  

And you're instructed to build the thing "upside down", aligning walls from the top.  That's fine for the front walls and bay, but not the back walls which are two different heights.  Add to that the challenge of a too-small wall and laying out the floors gets confusing quickly.  This tiny wall is some sort of mistake, a wrong part.  At first I thought it was N scale but a quick examination with my scale rule checked against the plans and no, I have no idea what this shrunken wall is.  I didn't lose sleep over it but, using the plans, I was able to fabricate a new one which is fine since I had planned to move that wall's windows to a different wall.

"Shrinky Dink" wall in the center, replacement on the left, relocated windows on the right. And all this before I decided to reconfigure the walls.

To recap at this point; building the original kit as instructed is already challenging and then I had to go and make it even more so.  But the problem became the solution.  I don't have a set of precast plastic walls that don't fit, I have cardstock.  Cardstock can be easily replaced.  The card in the kit for the die-cut walls appears to be good quality material.  It cuts cleanly and sands well.  No watermarks but I'd suspect a quality similar to Crescent or Strathmore board.  

This post has already gone far too long so I'll save the tribulations of working with the castings and printed wall textures for another part.  Thanks for reading.