Eldon moves in

The 30Squares Media Empire let the lease expire on the HQ, and a new tenant is getting ready to move in.

Looks like they'll have their work cut out for them as it appears the foundation has shifted.

Blogging on hold for a little while

We've been caught up in the storm that hit Ontario on Saturday, and I will be pausing blogging for a little while. We're fine, but there're things to attend to. More later once my modelling and blogging mojo return.

First attempts at birch tree armatures

1st, Weird | 2nd, Getting better | 3rd, Better still

I'm working on birch tree armatures, and I'm finding the biggest hurdle is overcoming my preconceptions about what birch tree trunks look like.

The 1st one I made is not typically birch-like, although I have seen a few in the wild like it. It doesn't have a 'broken ladder' like progression of branches up the trunk, and its foliage looks like a square hat has been placed on top (I temporarily added some poly fibre to get a sense of what it would look like). The bark is made by wrapping the armature with thin strips of duct tape.

The 2nd armature has a few more lower branches in order to take a stab at a broken ladder progression of branches, but it could use even more.

The 3rd one is getting closer to what I'm looking for. I made this trunk by wrapping a bundle of 26 gauge floral wire (the green wire) with some 30 gauge (the steel coloured wire). As I wound the 30 gauge up the trunk I introduced loops, which were later cut open and shaped to make fine branches. This gives a better simulation of the scraggly nature of the branch structure found on many of these trees in the wild, and should give the overall foliage shape a more raggedy, vertically stretched ellipsoid look.

Experimenting continues.

Ramsey's Park Square: Base painting

Over the last few day's I've been applying base colours to the shell. I started on the easy part and painted the interior a flat black to make the walls a little more opaque and to reduce interior reflections.

The bricks are painted with a loose mix of Revell Aqua Color #36137 Reddish brown, and #36162, Mossy Green. The green is maybe no more than 25% of the mix. It's added to partially grey and deepen the reddish brown. Keeping the mixture loose helps create tonal variation along the walls.

The facade was painted from one of my last remaining bottles of Model Master Aged Concrete. I've figured out how to mimic the colour with paints from the Revell Aqua Color line, but I'm sentimentally attached to my Model Master stash and will continue to use it until the hardened, crusty end :-)

Now it's on to adding mortar lines to the brickwork and detail painting to the facade.

1983 Plymouth Turismo: A kitbash?

Our discussion on the 'correct' definition of kitbashing continues. I put forward for your consideration my 1983 Plymouth Turismo, a model of which I built from these two kits:

I don't know if this is a classic kitbash as the two kits used are simply variations on a single car sold by Chrysler. Regardless, I needed parts from both for this project.

This is another model I built sometime around 2005 or 2006 or so. I do recall I built it soon after the Custom Dodge Rampage.

This is the only construction photo I took during the project. The right image in the composite photo is from the car's brochure. Mine had a grey interior, hence my colour choices. The bowling ball carrying case and the hockey stick in the trunk are items from my scrap box. The retracted tonneau cover was scratchbuilt from some styrene.

Whatever Guest of the Crown stamped out that licence plate didn't get the letters and numbers lined up quite right and ...

... decided to go-for-broke on the plate's sibling. I like the fidelity to the prototype I achieved: the left taillight is cracked just like the real thing after a few years on the road.

Is this a kitbash? A kit-mingle? A kit-lance? I'd go with kit-mingle as the goal was to create as accurate a model of a prototype as I could manage, and that meant carefully combining 2 kits to achieve the 1 I wanted.

A wild advertising flyer inserted in the MPC Dodge Omni 024 donor kit

1978 El Camino Estrella

I was chatting with Steve about Lego's new Mountain View Observatory and it got me thinking again about the Mt. Lowe Observatory and the very fictional El Camino Estrella. Although I used the Estrella's background story in the Streetcar Noir series, I haven't posted a collection of pictures of it here.

I worked on this project just before getting going on the Custom Dodge Rampage build*. You can see some of the Rampage parts on the workbench as I was test fitting parts for that project during final construction of the El Camino. So, maybe it was built in 2005 or 2006 - I should keep better records.

The base kit is Revell's '78 Chevy El Camino Lowrider 2 'N 1. Many additional parts came from my scrapbox, but I can't remember which ones - again, I should keep better records.

Although, I can say the telescope's body is scratchbuilt from styrene tubes. Also, I think the telescope's support yoke came from an AMT Moonscope kit, and the eyepiece was - believe it or not - a gnarly 1/24 scale carburetor I found in my scrapbox that seemed to look the part.

I don't know why I bothered, but I did a little underside detailing and weathering. It might be authentic and it might not, but it does look dusty under there.

Well, that's that. I'll close the tailgate and be on my way.

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*Being nerds, Vince and I are discussing the definition of kitbash as opposed to its alternatives like kit-mingle and kit-lance. This is kind of a how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussion because even though the popular, mainstream definition of kitbash is firmly entrenched, it's still an interesting theoretical diversion. Ok, cutting to the chase, I think the Rampage project falls into the more formal definition of kitbash as several kits were used to produce a single model. The Estrella is not really a kitbash, but a light customization - more a mingle than a bash? Well, the discussion continues. Maybe I need to consult the non-existent pages of the non-existent Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms.

December May romance

Although I've spent the majority of my time since last fall on the Loonar Module I haven't let the Way Out Layout languish. At the top is the state of the layout on 13 December 2021 just after the foam base had been glued together and the first tentative pieces of track were being pushed into place. On the bottom is the layout as of 6 May 2022. The city portion, which unfortunately is facing the wall in this shot, is scenicked, but the open seashore half merely has its first coats of paint applied. Streetcars run well over the tracks, and hopefully this summer I'll have some time for bringing this part to life.

Moore on the cover

I was interested in seeing which Railroad Model Craftsman covers mentioned E. L. Moore by name. There are many that mention his projects, but far fewer that name him. Here's a list of the covers where Moore's name appears (I think it's complete, but if one is missing, please let me know):

Top row, left to right: Dec '66, Apr '68, May '69, July '70

Bottom row, left to right: Oct '70, June '72, Nov '72, July '74

Looking through the covers from the 1960s and 1970s, it appears unusual for any writer's name to be mentioned, so I'm not sure if eight covers was high or low for an established freelance writer at RMC. Usually cover text focused on succinctly describing the features and projects inside.

November to May

I was going through photos of the Loonar Module and thought the progress was pretty striking. The picture on the left was taken on 3 Nov 2021 just after the track was installed, and the picture on the right was taken on 12 May 2022 just after the fifth and last tall pine tree was planted. I figure there are just two more major tasks to accomplish before this test layout goes into the permanent fiddling stage: the water effects need to be laid down, and the birch trees along the entry road need to be created and installed. I've bought the materials I need for the water effects, and I've started trying my hand at making birches. So, things are moving ahead.

Although I see lots of areas for improvement, this little layout has so far fulfilled its purpose of providing a stage for learning a number of scenery building techniques, not to mention being fun and mentally refreshing.

Ramsey's Park Square: Facade and Building Shell

I see several fit and finish issues to fix up.

I recently finished the facade, and, making use of a great idea suggested by Galen, went ahead and installed it in the building shell.

He suggested only cutting out the kit's lower level window and door on the front wall for the facade instead of removing the entire wall from below the sills of the second floor windows as I was originally going to do. This meant adding a foundation wall around the lower perimeter, but with the obvious basement window on the facade, this addition made visual sense for the model.

Also, this arrangement makes the building look less dumpy and squat. The overall proportions are now much more pleasing.

I did a test placement of the shell on the layout. I feel that it fits in quite well.

For reference, this is the facade's other side. The facade is simply a box with a 10mm depth, made up from scraps of 0.040", 0.020", and 0.010" sheet styrene. 

The foundation walls are cut from 0.060" sheet and square section styrene.

To make this model I've had to scrounge from all three Ramsey Journal and Gruesom Casket kits I have. I bought these things mainly for the boxes, so I haven't inventoried them until recently. It turned out each was missing some key part - and as an extra bonus, two included components from some other unidentified kits - but together there're enough components to get me through this project. These three are now officially donors. Maybe the future holds some more Ramsey-Gruesom kitmingles.

Loco Lettered

Well, maybe decaled is more accurate than lettered, but where's the alliteration in that? Oh, I see, it's in Diesel Decaled :-)

Ramsey's Park Square: A Start

 I've had my eye on building a model of Ottawa's Park Square apartments for awhile, but I've been reluctant to dive into such a large project. I think it's because although I greatly admire its Art Deco entrance, I didn't want to tackle making the rest of the building.

What to do? What to do? Well, after staring at my prototype photos for a long time it looked like I could build the entrance and use a Ramsey Journal Building kit for the rest of the structure. I don't know if this project classifies as a kitbash since only one kit is being used. Maybe 'kitmod', for 'modified kit', is better.

Sourced from Google Street Views

Here's the prototype. It was built in 1936, and opened in 1937 with 13 apartments. It would be too large for my layout, and since all I'm interested in is the entrance, I thought it would be easier to make up a story about why a classy Art Deco entrance was attached to a dumpy little building than building the full prototype. No doubt Cousin Cal was involved somehow :-) 

Right now the facade is only about half built. The lower part of the front wall of the Ramsey Journal Building will be cut out and the Park Square facade will be inserted in the opening. I'm not sure how I'll proceed once the new facade is installed, but figuring that out is part of the fun of these sorts of projects.

Tree drama

So far I've made three tall pines and have two to go - those two armatures over on the left. When installed these pines significantly enhance the drama of the scene, and to me start to drive home that this is wild woodland territory in southern Ontario.

Once the pines are done it'll be on to laying on the acrylics for the water, and trying my hand at making some white birch trees. The birches will be installed over on the right to help balance the scene and add a little lighter colour. Also, white birches are common in this area, so they won't be out of place.

MG 1100-GT hits the road again

I've been scratching my head wondering what to do about the MG for quite awhile. With the back bumper snapped off, a full restoration would not fully restore it without buying another as a parts donor. That was something I didn't want to do, so I decided to just reassemble the parts I had and enjoy the story of its discovery.

Rare photo of DoLF CF-046 as seen from chase plane

While sorting through the archives of the Department of Lands and Forests railway I came across this rare photo of the Horten Go229 flying wing the group obtained in 1946 when DoLF was still part of the Department of Lands, Forests and Skies. This 1965 overhead photo of a low altitude pass was taken from the chase plane escorting the newly refurbished and freshly painted CF-046 back to its home base at Lake Timothy. It's thought the photo was shot somewhere over the area where NASA was training its astronauts in lunar surface operations. Normally all one sees of this rare bird is its distinctive shadow skimming across the landscape.

Another tall pine

Prototype | Tall pine #1 | Another tall pine | Another prototype

Tall pine #2

This is a pine that will appear further back on the layout, and has had its lower branches trimmed a bit to fit amongst the shorter cedars. The trunk has been painted with the stone grey wash, but the subtle light brown tones introduced by the sand on the trunk can't be discerned in the photo. I think the next trees will need a darker grey overlay wash to compensate.

Piece #2 = Cowshed

Left image snipped from MR Jan'66

Many thanks to Paul and his excellent sleuthing skills! He provided the important clues that identified mystery piece #2 as the cowshed that's attached to E. L. Moore's The old red barn project that appeared in the January 1966 issue of Model Railroader. I don't know if the barn still exists somewhere, but it's good to know part of it does.

One further note. You see that cabin in the upper left corner of the black-and-white photo? I think that's the Elizabeth Vally Cabin being reused in the photo shoot.

A tall pine

This is the first of the tall, eastern white pine armatures to be completed. 

The foliage was created using the same method as used on the smaller cedars: teased out poly fibre pieces were laced onto each branch, which were then sprayed with Mod Podge Ultra Matte spray, and lightly sprinkled with 4mm, light green  static grass fibres. I think what results is more a sketch of a pine as opposed to a high-fidelity representation. That is, the shape, colour, and size are there, but in extreme close-up, the approximations can be seen. 

How tall is this tree? In HO it measures around 92 scale feet, which is more-or-less the maximum height for a fully grown example.

Stone grey trunk

I've also been experimenting with trunk colour as my previous mixes have seemed a little too brown and dark. I'm finding that Revell Aqua Color 36175, Stone grey, heavily thinned and painted directly over the sand used to cover the armature is getting closer to the shade I'm after. It might require a very thin overlay wash of a darker grey to accentuate texture, so more experiments are needed.

A Mini Moore Mystery

Piece #1

I've been puzzling over these two stray pieces of E. L. Moore buildings for quite sometime and can't figure out where they might come from. So, dear reader, I'm asking you, do you recognize these pieces?  

Piece #2

I offer no prizes other than glory. If you think you know which models they're a part of, please let me know in the comments.