A night at the Red Apron

A couple of weeks ago Debra received an invitation to the Red Apron's customer appreciation night on 4 November. Of course she signed-up - we couldn't pass up some excellent food and wine! One thing lead to another and Debra asked if we could bring the model for Jo-Ann and Jennifer to sign. They kindly agreed. 

[It was a packed house on customer appreciation night]

I had planned to re-start the Grizzly Flats depot, but with the event only a week away I embarked on a crash course to detail and light the model so it was presentable.

I added an LED light strip to the ceiling and soldered on a 9 volt battery clip for power. That's a length of styrene glued 90-degrees to the lights to form a valance to prevent a hot-spot from appearing in the windows. The inside surface of the valance was painted flat aluminum to help reflect the light down. The insides were 'detailed' with interior photos of the Red Apron sourced from the internet, scaled down to approximately HO size, and then stood up and glued inside. 

[Base about halfway though painting]

A base was cut and painted from 0.040 inch sheet styrene to simulate the sidewalk, and a variety of figures were added to provide some action. The chairs are Faller items, and the flowers and pots are from Busch (part # HO 1209 - they're excellent, but I needed extra steady hands and my extra strength magnifier to assemble them). I also added a model of Debra's car parked on the side driveway. It'll be the subject of a future post. When finished, the entire diorama was set inside a clear acrylic box designed for use with 1/24 scale model cars for easy handling and protection during the event.

[Ghost Cupcakes]

While in a model building frenzy to get this project done, Debra bought some Red Apron Ghost Cupcakes - it was Halloween - to soothe my nerves. It worked.

The model seemed to show well on the big night. Although to me, the excellent food and wine was the main attraction. Debra was great as the designated driver and model explainer. 

Jennifer and Jo-Ann were excellent hosts, put on a great event, and were sports enough to sign the roof. I'm not a shill or anything, but if you're in Ottawa, you can't go wrong to go down to the Red Apron and get some great food. 

[7 Nov. update: The model got a nice mention at the Red Apron blog.]