Let's fly

On and off over the last few weeks I've been having a conversation with Martin about vintage kits posted to eBay with outrageous price tags. I mentioned that I have only one that might be in that category: Frog's DC-7C from 1957.

A few years ago I found this model on the local hobby shop's resale table. At 1/96 scale it was close to HO, and it was a commercial airliner, so I thought it might be interesting somewhere in the little world I was building. Price: $8.95 CDN. I bought it and headed home.

A few days later I decided to look it up on the internet and came across this listing. Yeap, you read it right, the asking price is $750 US, or a cool $1,006 CDN at today's rates. Wow, a gold mine! Ok, ok, well, searching a little more around the internet I see prices ranging from $7.95 US to $119 US with an average around $32 US. That $750 listing has been around at least from when I checked all those years ago, so it's likely something of a fishing trip. 

I decided to inventory the kit again, and it's complete except for the display stand for the inflight configuration. I thought the cockpit window was missing, but found it on this go round, so I'm glad I looked again. One problem you can see is that there's a broken prop, but since the blade hasn't been lost repair should be easy.

The instruction sheet is present, but the model is so simple one could get by without it.

The decal sheets are present too, but they're in terrible shape - they're useless.

I looked around the internet for replacement decals, but all I could find were these out-of-production ones in scales other than 1/96. You can see the BOAC scheme in the sets, but I particularly like the Pan Am ones I've shown above (image snipped from the link). The Pan Am scheme seems most appropriate for this airplane given what Bill Gunston has to say about the DC-7C in his book, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Propeller Airliners,

Because the DC-7B could not fly non-stop westbound against average winds, however, the DC-7C was developed to a Pan Am requirement for an aircraft capable of flying services in either transatlantic direction. Aptly named Seven Seas, the DC-7C was the world's first true long-range commercial transport. 

Seven Seas. What a great name.

I've never tried to make sophisticated decals like these, but I'm curious. I'd kind of like to build this kit. I just need to resolve what to do about decals. While I ponder decals at this crazy hour I'll leave you with Frank.....

Pietenpol Air Camper

Ok, I have a work-around to my problem with uploading photos, so on with the show :-)

Back in the '70s I read a piece in Model Airplane News about a small, wind-up flying model manufactured by Peck Polymers called the Pietenpol Air Camper. I couldn't find the kit locally, and it was too expensive for me to buy back then. It turns out it's still in production, and as an extra bonus many of the parts are now laser cut! Naturally, I bought one. 

I'm taking a little break from streetcar modelling and am building the Air Camper. It's taking me considerably longer than I thought, and I'm realizing I don't have as many skills as I thought :-) I found the fuselage rather tricky to build up and keep square. I'm at the sanding all components stage, and I'm getting ready to cover the parts. I need to pickup the pace or the snow will be flying before this is.

Having problems with new Blogger

No, I haven't disappeared, I'm just having some problems with Blogger now that the 'new-and-improved' Blogger has been released. Hopefully I'll have them resolved soon.

Caboose in the parking lot

The caboose on the left is located just off the Havelock yard's visitor parking area. The caboose on the right was dug out of my HO caboose stash. Yes, a stash of cabooses (cabeese?) :-) At one time I was collecting cheapo cabooses at swap meets, and bought this old Cox product at one. It's more toy than model, and not too accurate, but I was happy to find it stashed away.

Maintenance vehicles?

I drove by the Havelock yard rather early this morning to see what I could see. Way off in the back, near the trees, I saw what looked like a group of maintenance vehicles very similar to the ones I saw in 2009. The station was closed, so I couldn't have a look inside. Maybe next time. Luckily there's a lot of summer left.

Fan trip

Abe drives his old sales route in 1975 in Clyde Fans.

Last week I read Clyde Fans. It's good and I recommend it. Most graphic novels I've read - and I admit it's not many - aren't novels, but merely extra-long comic books. On the cover Seth calls Clyde Fans a picture novel, and I agree with his assessment. I'm not going to dive into a discussion of plot and themes and characters, just note a few random things that struck me as I read.

Clyde Fans is clearly in the Southern Ontario Gothic genre even though many scenes happen north of there. The story takes place in the second half of the 20th century, and is set amongst Ontario's buildings and places that were formed in the early 20th century up until around 1960. I have mixed feelings about that setting. Although I was a boy in the '60s - as was Seth - the home I grew up in wasn't of that era, and neither were my parents. Looking back, our home life and surroundings were more like an amalgam of the '40s and '50s, but with better technology and without the grim reality of war and economic depression. I found the objects and buildings of that era somewhat dreary, and as I got older I developed an attraction for the newer buildings that were appearing as Canada prospered: The Ontario Science Centre, The Motorola Building, The TD Centre, The Toronto Reference Library, The Canadian Museum of Civilization (now the history museum), and Scarborough City Hall to name just a few that come to mind. And there were all the great gaudy illuminated signage of commercial buildings and malls. 

Seth ruminates on Canada in IAGLIYDW

But, on the other hand, now that the dowdy world is almost gone I have a bit of nostalgia for some of it. So, it's mixed feelings all the way down.

Walking, walking, walking. There's a lot of walking in Clyde Fans. And there's driving. And there's some train travel, streetcar riding, and out-of-body astral travel (!). There's a lot of motion in the story, but it seemed to me walking had a favoured place. There's also a lot of walking in It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken. It seemed like the walking made the grey nature of the world worse. Motorized travel allows one to speed through it.

As well as walking, there's a lot of love for those pre-war buildings evidenced by the quantity, detail, inventiveness, and care taken in their drawings. They dominate the book. In Clyde Fans those buildings and towns and cities are a character in their own right. 

Well, that's it for random impressions. No doubt I'll be reading this book a few more times. I think there's much I've overlooked.

Picture organizing

The final Christmas outing of the Lost Ocean Line layout

I've been trolling through my model photos and posting a few on Instagram - no, there won't be any selfie sticks or food involved :-) It's been a topic of discussion with Vince lately, and is part of my attempt to modernize a little. And, I'm looking to see what sort of patterns there might be in looking at my small collection of miniature buildings in little square photos.

A brief visit to the Havelock Visitor Info Centre

Late last month I dropped by the visitor centre at the Havelock yard. It was closed due to the lockdown, but when I drove by this week it was open. And I was also glad to see that they were taking appropriate precautions.

It turns out this little building isn't a restored railway building, but is specially built for its Visitor Info task. Unfortunately there wasn't any railway information available, but I was told that the old station has been fully restored. My next stop will be to see if I can get into the station to have a look.

A nickel for your HO scale thoughts

I mentioned to Martin this old post on using a Canadian nickel as a cheap-and-cheerful approximate scale for an HO-scale human. He quickly pointed out that an English 20 pence coin is about the same size. I went and rooted through my coin box and found one of those coins as well as a US nickel. And presto! A tri-country HO-scale translator :-) I need to find other suitably sized coins from the many countries where HO might be spoken to make this a truly universal translator, but I don't think the fine people at Google Translate have any worries about losing their market :-)

Seth & E. L. Moore: Connected by a Tradition?

I've written about Seth's book It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken, and the miniature buildings that make up his city, Dominion. When I heard about his recent book, Clyde Fans, it sounded quite interesting and I thought I'd give it a try.

Clyde Fans is a pleasure trip, and one thing I've started to think about as I turn the pages are the similarities between Seth's work and E. L. Moore's. Maybe it's all in my mind, and is just another example of A-Man-With-A-Hammer-Thinks-Everything-Needs-Pounding syndrome, but let me play with the idea for a minute.

Both focus on recreating life of an era earlier than the one where their work is being produced. Loving and stylized depiction of the era's buildings is a focus. Both have built large collections of miniatures of those buildings, and both are story driven. However, Seth's primary medium is the graphic novel, and E. L. Moore's is HO miniatures. And, Seth's work is somewhat more clear-eyed and less nostalgic than E. L. Moore's.

There's no direct connection between Seth's and E. L. Moore's work, but in broader terms they both seem to fall into the larger miniature building folk art tradition. Although, Seth has broken much new ground, and has pushed the art well into a popular consumable 21st century form.

No doubt Clyde Fans has surprises in store. Stay tuned.

P.S.: If you've taken a look at Seth's miniature buildings here, you may want to compare the setup and collection with Peter Fritz's here, and the one at the Hollywood Heritage Museum here and here to get a sense of how Seth's collection situates with respect to a couple of other high-profile ones.

And speaking of flat cars ...

Another misplaced photo of freight cars in the Havelock yard from the mid-'70s.

And this one is of flat cars with what looks like containers on top. And looking at this old photo again, it looks like some sort of living space or office was created from a container and placed on a flat car.

Back then I often would purchase HO rolling stock based on what I saw in the Havelock yard. Prototypes didn't always match, and the cars were often more toy-like than model-like, but I was looking for at least some similarity.

Crew car train in the Havelock yard

My photo re-org continues, and along the way I found these 6 pictures of crew cars I shot in the Havelock yard sometime in the mid-70s. Once again, there're no date stamps on these pictures, and I'm relying on my memory of when I was into taking train photos back in the '70s.

I think at the time I shot them with a plan to string them together into a panorama. I should still do that, but in the meantime, I've ordered the pictures here in what looks like the sequence they appeared in the train.

Looks like someone left the screen door open.

On this one you can see what the door looks like closed.

No people-sized door on this one, just the original boxcar sliding doors.

It seems like these cars were made from several different vintages and styles of boxcars. I guess they were built from whatever cars weren't good for revenue service.

And this is the last member of the train I was able to shoot. You can see there's a 7th car peeking out from behind that black hopper on the right. There might have been more cars in this train beyond #7, but that's lost to time.

Havelock flats

I paid a visit to the Havelock yard for a few minutes last week. At the time there were long strings of hoppers and flat cars being pushed around. Although the humble flat car is likely the most boring of freight cars, I find it the most interesting. I think it's because of its potential to carry a wide range of viewable things. 

On the day I was there one of the flat car strings had that special purpose car on the end. I don't know what it's called, but it looks like that square, yellow structure unfurls so things can be driven up on the cars. I need to investigate.

Grusom Labs

Scanned parts from AHM's Grusom Casket kit 

Now a railroad terminal building with tracks underneath and offices above, if I can latch onto a starting idea, I might develop something along that line.

E. L. Moore in a letter to Hal Carstens, dated April 2, 1969.

I lead with that quote in a post called What would E. L. Moore do ? back in July 2017. Here we are 3 years later, and I still can't say what E. L. Moore would do, but maybe Art Curren might do a kitbash of this brief based on Bell Labs' Manhattan building using the parts from AHM's Grusom Casket and Machine Shop kits. My simple parts layout certainly needs some size adjustments so that trains or streetcars could pass through the tall centre structure without incident, but those components from Grusom Casket might just do the trick for this project. However, the cost of all those kits would be crazy expensive!

Infinite E. L. Moore

As I browse the internet looking at old catalogues of plastic kits I still find it surprising the number of times E. L. Moore kits continue to appear. This is a page from Heljan's 1974-75 catalogue I found at the most excellent site, Plastic Kits & Toy Soldiers - Printed Information.

Items B 809 and B 810 are E. L. Moore's Three Store Fronts and a Shop kits that were originally sold by AHM. You may recall I was able to find the second kit at last year's Syracuse train show.

No doubt these two kits will pop-up somewhere else in my catalogue travels.

Mavericks

I haven't given up on the Canadian Press complex, just parked it for awhile. It's in the final stages of detailing, but with summer weather here, my mind isn't aligned with the concentrated work this will require to get the buildings finished.

Although, a few weeks ago I added some detailing and framing to the street-level restaurant on the leftmost building. It's basically built up from construction paper and glued to the acrylic base with Weld Bond. It still needs a little more framing detail and some light weathering.

Cal's Coastal Café

The day started like most other work days. My cousin Cal and I were in my kitchen getting some coffee and shooting the breeze before heading off to the shop.

I was fiddling with the coffee machine on the counter, and Cal was in his usual place in the breakfast nook with his nose buried in the newspaper's classified ads section.

Something caught Cal's attention. He carefully laid the newspaper down on the tabletop and smoothed out some creases in the paper before asking me, "There's an ad here for the old brewery down in Ocean Park. Isn't that the one our great, great, great uncle built?"

"Yeap. There might be another great or two in there 'cause he built it in 1842", I replied.

I finished loading up the coffee machine and started it brewing. I turned to Cal and asked, "I don't think that place has ever been up for sale. And I think its been abandoned for a long time. What're they asking?"

"Don't know. The city's seized it for unpaid taxes and is auctioning it next Wednesday. It's open from 2 to 4 this afternoon for inspection. Do you wanna go have a look?"

"Yeap."

Awhile back I was able to find a 1967 release of AHM's Brewery kit, which was designed by E. L. Moore. I was planning on combining it with a Model Power version I already owned to build Art Curren's Perry Shibbel Fruit & Produce Co-Op. But, after I inspected the AHM's parts, I didn't have the heart to cut them up and repaint them for the kitbash. 

I thought about what I could build, and what I could use on the layout, and after a long time, the outlines of Cal's Coastal Café slowly started to gel. I figured I'd build it from the Model Power kit, and later I'd build the AHM kit box-stock, no painting, no modifications, no nothing. 

I'm not going to explain all the construction steps, just touch on the main changes from the kit's instructions. If you're interested in seeing the kit's parts, you'll find some pictures here, and the instructions can be found here.

As you can see in the lead photo, I didn't use the  little brick addition that is attached to the left of the main building. So, I had to sand off the alignment mouldings and part numbers from the main building's wall. In the photo on the right you can see what they looked like before being removed.










We got to the open house around 3:30. There was nobody else there. Just as well. The old thing didn't look in too bad shape. Cal seemed fascinated by it and was absentmindedly running his hands over the old brickwork as he wandered around the place.

"What's up Cal?"

"I'm buying this for Cathy!"

"For Cathy? Why?"

"She's looking for a place for her café and this is it. Solidly built, great views, tourists, and right beside a streetcar stop."

"Sounds good, but maybe you should ask her first."

"I need to find a phone."

The other bit of minor prep was to open up the front wall of the wooden addition on the right. This part was to be the outdoor dining area, and I wanted the wall to allow free passage to the deck. Sprue cutters, sanding sticks, and the Dremel drum sanding attachment were used for this job.

So, as far as part modifications are concerned, those two minor changes were all that were done prior to painting. Ok, well, all the parts were washed with a mild dish soap to remove any remnants of mould release from the factory. 

I chose the colours from leftover spray cans I had in the workshop. The only guidance in selection was that they had to suggest a seaside restaurant or resort.



Cal found a pay phone at the streetcar stop. By the time he got back the open house was over and they had kicked me out. I was sitting on the steps waiting for him.

"She says ok. And she's going to name it after me!"

"That's great. I'm going to have to put on my thinking cap and figure out how we can turn this old girl into a café."

"She's going to come by the shop after work and we can discuss it with her."

"Sounds good."

I got up from the steps and we took one last look around before heading out to catch our car.

I had a funny feeling come over me as we walked to the stop. I turned to Cal and said, "This place reminds me of something."

I probably should have done the modifications to the brewery's chimney before painting, but, for some reason, I thought it should be done after. I cut 5 cm off the top so that it only extended slightly above the main building's ridge line, and then cut a fireplace opening in the front facing wall. That was done by first opening the hole with a drill, and then finishing with files and small sanding sticks.

This picture gives a better view of the finished fireplace. The mantle was cut from a piece of strip balsa - I needed to include an homage to the kit's designer :-)

Yes, the lighthouse tower is a bit wonky, but it doesn't seem that distressing in person. 












Cal was looking at me funny as we walked across the parking lot to the car stop.

"You've got that look on your face."

"What look?"

"The 'I know a story about this building and one of our ancestor's' look."

"No I don't."

"Spit it out before you burst something."

"I seem to recall that in the '20s those islands off the coast put in prohibition. For awhile one of our uncles - I have to ask Ma which one - performed a delivery service for the owners of this place. His boat had two gas tanks: one for gas and one for hootch. One night a week he'd motor over to the islands and make a delivery. When he got back he'd give them the cash and he'd get a small cut. One night he never came back home. Ma seems to think he decided he wanted all the cash for himself and disappeared."*

"That's it?"

"That's it." 

The light tower is built from a core of 0.040" styrene, faced with styrene brick sheet. 

The light is an N-scale street lamp post that I scavenged from the old layout.

The frame around the light that supports the tower's little roof is built up from 0.040" x 0.060" styrene strips. The roof is just the cupola roof from the kit.

It gives a nice glow when it's lit up. In this photo it's powered by a 9v battery, but I think it's rated for 12v, so it should be a bit brighter when installed on the layout in Ocean Park.

The lighting in the outdoor dining area is by an LED strip.

I have a roll of LED strip lighting I bought a few years ago from a lighting store in Montreal, and all I had to do was cut off a piece and solder on some leads. A hole was drilled in the main building's right wall for the leads, and installation consisted for sticking the strip to the inside surface of the right building's roof.

There's a second Moorian homage on this build. 

I didn't spray enough window frames with turquoise paint, and found myself two windows short during assembly. I pulled two more from the kit and brush painted them a Moore green.

The ladder to the light is some stock I had in my spares box.

You can see a ghost of the alignments for the left building that were ground off. Such ghosting often appears on real buildings for various reasons, so it's not too out-of-place. 

Argh, that tilting tower :-( I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the digital camera is a harsh mistress.

The railing is some stock that I bought a few years back and had in my spares box. For safety reasons, one can't have an elevated deck and walkway without a railing.  

And speaking of tilts, the roof on the outdoor dining area's got a little slant to it too. In my defence I'll note that it fits solidly on its supports and joins the main building cleanly and without gaps. $%&@ digital cameras!


When I started this project I made it a point to build it as fast as I could. Usually I'm dead slow when it comes to my building projects, but on this one throwing caution to the wind was the name of the game. It took 5 days of on-and-off, part-time work. And I decided I couldn't declare the thing done if it didn't have signs and lights, which I usually leave to a 'later' that is often a long time coming. The downside of speed is that the project's got some odd tilts in it. I'd like to blame my camera for them, but in the end they're there because of the throwing caution to the wind thing. Maybe they add a little character :-) But, I'm glad I did this little test, and am happy with the result.

*Based on an apocryphal story in my own family, but it involved a car with two gas tanks.

A kit for summer?

Since the model was built in 2014, I didn't need to crank the time machine up to full power, I merely left it in idle to shift through alternative universes on its own while I sat back with a cold drink.