Standing up the building on the left

The order I placed for the rightmost building in this complex also included the styrene channels I needed to complete the side facade on the leftmost tower. They were painted up to match those on the front and stuck on with transfer tape.

The moment of truth had arrived. All was ready for assembling the tower.

The first thing I had to do was figure out the dimensions for the other side wall, the back wall, the floors, and the roof. All this activity needed was a sharp pencil, ruler, and my trusty calculator. All of those pieces were cut from 3/16" black foam board. The street level store will have a styrene floor, but that will be added later.

First up was cutting out the floors. That notch is to allow wires for lights to be snaked down the back wall to the base and into a hole in the layout to connect up to a power pack. I'm thinking that interior detail will be setup on styrene sheets that can be slipped in and out of the floors.

Transfer tape was stuck to all edges of each floor piece except for the back where the notch is.

In this photo the foam core side wall, and all the individual floors, have been stuck in place. All that needs to be done now is to attach the last side.

The back wall isn't glued in place. You may remember that in the Thomson building project I built a back wall that slides into place. On this tower the model is too small for a slide, so I cut the back wall to friction fit to the sides. It seems to hold ok, but time will tell if I need to make a more secure attachment.

Gluing on the other sidewall was a tricky juggling act involving superglue, Weld Bond, cursing, and many clamps.

After the action had ceased, it was left to completely dry overnight.

The foam core that forms the back wall has a piece of 0.020" sheet styrene stuck on. It was cut wide enough to overlap the end walls to make things look neat.

To the sheet I attached a piece of channel to one corner as well as some Micro Mark self-adhesive concrete block paper and a strip of their brick paper. These were lightly painted with the same colour as was used on the facade's verticals, and then were washed with thinned flat black. Some of the colours and textures from the papers are still visible after painting which gives a rather nice effect. 

I'm thinking the tower has a little problem with squareness. Yeah, it doesn't look too bad over there compared to the square, but I think its base might need a little grinding or shimming once I begin to attach the other buildings in the complex. Any oddities that result along the base I should be able to mask a bit when I put on the ground floor storefront overlays.

That's the finished back wall and the side wall that will attach to the centre building. Only half of the side has been papered and painted as the lower black part will be  unseen.

On its own, this tower seems a little small for HO, but it could be just fine for N once suitable adjustments had been made on the ground level storefront. But, when I place the tower near the two other facades that will make up the complex, it looks about right. It's always fascinating to me how context changes perception.

The other thing I noticed about the model was that once it was standing I had a feeling of recognition. I've walked by the prototype many times, and on seeing the model I strongly felt it looked right, which suggested even with its faults its likely heading in the right direction.

Well, that's that for now. The next step will be to stand up the centre building.