I took my tackle box down from the shelf and filled the empty space with the blog, along with my virtual pens, pencils, and typewriter. If there's any breaking news I'll certainly post about it, but other than that, I'll be exploring lost lakes and looking for the elusive Space Hopper :-) Regular programming will resume in the fall.
I got back to work recently on the black walnut armatures and added quite a number of finer branches. They were twisted up from 30 gauge aluminum wire and then wrapped onto the branches here and there to fill out the shapes.
At this stage I've established the basic form of each tree, and have brushed on a coat of white glue to firm them up.
Applying the bark should be the next step. Would this be called 'barking'? British readers out there might be inclined to say yes :-)
I was getting caught up on some serious reading and was quite surprised to find this railroad cartoon shoehorned amongst Chilly Willy, Sugar Foot, and all the gang. I guess in 1957 when that cartoon was first published, tossing in a story about narrow gauge railroading to fill space didn't seem unusual as it does today.
Now, excuse me as I get back to finding out what Space Mouse is up to.
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| Sound & light device by Gil Mellé; RMC Mar '62 |
It appears that Gil Mellé was starting to experiment with electronic music in 1959 and 1960. I wondered if there was any spillover into his model railroading work. All I could find was an article called Easy to Build Sound Light Unit in the March 1962 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.
As the article's title says, the device creates sound and lighting effects, and can be inserted in just about any HO scale industrial model to give it an extra dose of realism. The article notes it generates sawing or grinding noises, erratic hammering noises, the sounds of motors, regular interior lighting, sparks of light as if coming from welding or grinding equipment, and diffuse light. Interestingly it isn't an electronic device, but an electro-mechanical one, in the spirit of those that can be found in Adolph Frank's Animated Scale Models Handbook.
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| Top: Tie Plant, RMC Apr '65; Bottom: Arch Bridge, RMC June '65 |
This model was built of styrene, requiring somewhat different techniques from the wood construction I normally employ ... Styrene is an interesting and different medium for the modeler. It works easily, is far superior to cardboard and has a surface, when desired, that gives the closest appearance to steel possible. It can be bent, cut, sanded, scribed, and scored with ease; and assembles with styrene cement. If you haven't worked with styrene, Kemtron's handbook by Alan Armitage is must reading.
So states Gil Mellé in what appears to be his first published scratchbuilding project that makes use of styrene, Build a Tie Treating Creosote Plant, in the April 1965 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The project consists of a simple structure and a complicated piece of rolling stock. It's an interesting coincidence that E. L. Moore's first and only foray into using styrene also involved building rolling stock. In his article, Easy Narrow Gauge Coach that appeared in the March '69 issue of RMC Moore uses styrene to convert an N-scale AHM mine car to an HO-2-1/2 coach that ended up looking a lot like the Spumoni Club Coach.
Mellé carries on with another styrene project in the article Scratchbuild a Styrene Arch Bridge that appeared in the June 1965 issue of RMC. As well as restating his position on styrene he made in his previous styrene-based project, he adds a little more about how Al Armitage fits into the styrene story:
Much of the exploratory work in styrene scratchbuilding was done by Al Armitage, recently appointed as director of design research at Kemtron Corporation. Al knows model building well, since he was formally with Northeastern Scale Models, Revell, and Kadee. Al also authored Kemtron's book on styrene which I must strongly recommend to anyone who has not yet done any work with this material.
1959 has been noted by many as one of the greatest years in jazz history, maybe the greatest.
I’d like to say that 1959 was also a blockbuster year in model railroading. It doesn’t appear to be, but there were a few important articles published in Model Railroader that showcased important directions in the hobby for scratchbuilders, especially for those interested in structures and scenery like Mellé:
The Strathmore Story, William J. Clouser, Feb ’59
Laminated Styrofoam Scenery, William E. Eckhardt, Sept ’59
The case for styrene (Part 1), Alan B. Armitage, Nov ’59
The case for styrene (Part 2 - Conclusion), Alan B. Armitage, Dec ’59
So what was Gil Mellé doing in 1959?
In Aaron Steinberg’s interesting 2002 JazzTimes interview with Gil Mellé there’s this intriguing paragraph that appears in a discussion of where Mellé’s music and painting careers were going in the mid to late 1950s:
At the same time he was starting to have success with his visual art, his increasingly idiosyncratic music was confusing and shrinking his audience. “Nobody knew what the hell I was doing,” Mellé says. Record sales continued to lag with each recording. Then Mellé did something that made things much, much worse. “That’s the point at which I got into electronic music. Then [my audience] really didn’t understand me. Electronic music in ’59? That wasn’t music.”
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| Elektar, 1960; Source: JazzTimes |
We also know from ads in 1958 and 1959 issues of Model Railroader that Mellé was running his model structures company, Industrial Model Works, at the same time he was experimenting with electronic music. Then later in 1960 his first articles in Railroad Model Craftsman were published. So, it looks like it was a very creative period for Mellé. Maybe he was at work on his paintings too? Now, maybe Mellé’s apparent musical sabbatical in New Jersey is not as well known as Sonny Rollins 1959 to 1961 one where he famously practiced his saxophone out on New York’s Williamsburg Bridge everyday, but like Rollins, there was something developing.
You’ve got to take the above with a grain-of-salt. I do. I’ve corroborated nothing. So far it’s just a string of interesting factoids, with the emphasis on interesting, and lots of questions about their factualness. In other words, the search continues.
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| Snipped from larger image here. |
As you’ve gathered if you’ve studied some of my previous articles, I’m a nut on mines and feel that mining and railroads go together much like ham ’n eggs, Stravinski [sic] and Bernstein, or Thalonius [sic] Monk and way out jazz.
The first sentence from the first part of Gil Mellé’s January 1964 RMC article, Mountain Flotation Plant.
Yes, that's the flotation plant with Gil Mellé in the photo.
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| Mellé's drawing of cleaning equipment in SP's Taylor Engine Terminal, RMC Dec'65 |
In 1965 Gil Mellé had 3 articles published in RMC about building various types of structures he observed on trip(s) to rail equipment servicing facilities and yards in the Los Angeles area. The articles are:
Los Angeles Junction Diesel Shed, May ’65
Diesel Fuel Tank, July ’65
SP Parts Servicing Depot, December ’65
I particularly like the opening to the Dec ’65 article:
For anyone who has been a rail fan for a long time as I have, nothing could be more rewarding than the five mile trip I recently took through the Los Angeles yard area of the SP. Perched atop a flat car I was immediately made aware of the space age changes that were present everywhere. I saw freight cars of mammothian proportions and unfamiliar design! Mentally I tried to see them negotiate a tight radius and (in error I’m sure) I doubted that they could. In some cases the weird designs were dictated by the very nature of what they must transport. There was an interlocking tower that more closely resembled a home for alien life than a yardmaster and his assistants. I’d like to do an article on that concrete beauty in the near future but for now shall describe how you can duplicate an operation on the SP that was installed a few years ago.
Various online biographies seem a bit vague on when Mellé relocated from New Jersey to Los Angeles and re-entered the music business. Based on my experience with E. L. Moore's articles, it appears that RMC would publish articles within a few months after their receipt, so I speculate that maybe Mellé relocated as early as 1964 and appears to have been there in 1965. I guess these articles could have been merely the result of a visit to Los Angeles, but hopefully I can find some corroborating evidence in the future. For whatever reason, he seems to have had his feet in LA in either '64 or '65.
The Dec ’65 article appears to be his last; however, that opening paragraph teases the reader with the spectre of a future article on the interlocking tower. I’m going to take another look and see if that article did materialize, and if there are others I might have overlooked.
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| Top:Centre wall; Bottom: Standard gauge shed wall |
I must now reveal an embarrassing secret: I've bought more styrene stock than I've used up from my stash :-(
When I started this project I chose styrene because I thought I had plenty in my scrapbox, and could use up what I had on hand. It turns out I didn't have enough stock and had to buy more, lots more, to achieve the level of detailing I was after. I suspect when this project ends I'll have more in my stash than when I started.
Ok, so enough of true confessions. I should note I changed the design of the centre wall. E. L. Moore's extended all the way up to the roof peak, and incorporated some massive cross-bracing for strength. Maybe the prototype looked like that, I don't know. I made it a little more conventional - well, what I think is conventional. The roof on my version with have a lot of trusses. Also, in my design in order to accommodate box cars, not just flat cars, the wood loft doesn't extend over the narrow gauge track.
The side wall between the main building and the standard gauge shed is all conjecture on my part. And, as I've stated before, the framing details on this wall, like all the others, is impressionistic. I think the centre openings for unloading cars are likely too wide at 16' across to be realistic, but hopefully they'll make for interesting and more easily viewable scenes.
I'm just about ready to glue some of main building together, which I'm quite looking forward to.
Black spray: A technique for unifying the overall hue of a layout by over spraying with a mist of flat black spray paint.
Usage: Hal decided to black spray his layout a few days before the magazine photographer arrived.
Source: Gil Mellé appears to be the original source of this technique, and described it in his September 1963 Railroad Model Craftsman article, Scenery to Improve Your Layout. Mellé notes:
Have you ever looked at your entire layout and noticed that some parts of it seem to stand out in an unsatisfactory way. After two years of work every individual component looked satisfactory but when the whole of my layout was viewed it was not [sic] anything but a harmonious integration……Here’s what I did to correct this. It took two minutes, a spray can of flat black and a track cleaner……I covered my entire layout with a mist of the stuff. I aimed above everything so that the minuscule particles of wet paint would fall on everything as soot issued from the fiery stack of an iron horse, is hurled sky high and deposited on everything around. Of course the walls around the pike were protected with newspapers taped in place……It worked!
The technique strikes this editor as a bold and unforgiving one with serious consequences if not properly executed.
from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 2nd ed., 1999.
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| Image modified from this more positive post |
You may recall that back in January 2022 I wrote a post about the efforts to restore Ottawa streetcar #696.
Yesterday I was dismayed to learn that the work may come to an unceremonious conclusion by the end of this month. According to this CBC article, streetcar #696 and the restoration team have been ordered to vacate the shop space loaned to them by OCTranspo by the end of this month.
Money for projects such as this one is hard to come by, and I can only imagine the scramble that's on to find money to comply with this order and a place to relocate, not to mention organize a move of the unfinished streetcar and all the associated tools and materials.
I'm going to try and find out what's going on.
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| Top: Mellé's lumber yard; Bottom: Curren's |
I'm now rereading Gil Mellé's 1963 Railroad Model Craftsman articles. In the April issue I stumbled across the kitbashed project shown in the top half of the photo on the left, his so-called Split Level Lumber Yard. I immediately felt some deja vu. It was Art Curren's Artz Lumber Co. in his 1988 book, Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures, I was remembering.
Mellé's project made use of Atlas' then relatively new #750 Lumber Yard and Office kit and #704 Signal Tower kit, with the #801 Street Light kit thrown in for some extra detail. Curren's used 3 of the #750s and an AHM #15303 American farmhouse kit.
Art Curren preferred to call what he did kit-mingling instead of the more commonly used term kitbashing, which the publisher of his book used in the title. I think kit-mingling is more accurate, and I prefer it, but the market is what the market is.
Interestingly Mellé doesn't use any special terms to refer to what he's doing other than noting the resulting model is a hybrid and a customization:
This month I shall proceed to show a new plastic kit trick. In previous articles I’ve shown you how to customize many of the plastic buildings currently available. This time, if you want to try your hand we’ll not only do that but we’ll also throw another kit into the batch and really come up with a hybrid.
But, just look at the picture up there. The model is clearly a species that much later would be referred to as kit-mingled. Did Gil Mellé invent kit-mingling? Maybe not. I'd have to read back more into the late 1950s and early 1960s to know for certain. However, he clearly was one of its early practitioners.
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| Mellé's painting guide for Revel's Sandhouse Pumphouse |
I've been rereading Gil Mellé's Railroad Model Craftsman articles from 1961 and 1962. I'm looking for something, but I don't know what I'm looking for. A clue of some sort.
Mellé has a very get-down-to-business writing style that's quite different from E. L. Moore's. The only part that has so far seemed to stray into the land of background information was this brief sentence from Customize Those Plastic Buildings in the April 1961 issue of RMC:
It is my habit to buy virtually every new kit that comes out on the market be it plastic or otherwise, and there are few available that I have not built.
It was no doubt still possible in the early 1960s to buy and build every new kit on the market. Although, when he says this I think he's referring to kits of buildings as many of his articles deal with improving and superdetailing structure kits. This is in stark contrast to E. L. Moore who hated "like poison to put a kit together." let alone write an article on how to superdetail one. The early 1960s was the era of quite decent plastic kits of buildings finally hitting the market, so I guess it isn't too surprising RMC was interested in articles about improving those kits.
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| Walls temporarily taped together |
There are a lot of side walls on this structure. Four if I can still count: 1 adjacent to the office, 1 internal to the main building, 1 adjacent to the standard gauge car shed, and 1 exterior to the standard gauge car shed.
It looks like E. L. Moore handled the detailing on each one rather simply. I'm trying to give an impression of structure so when anyone peeks inside it looks more-or-less normal in there. I'm surprised at how much work it takes to make that happen. I'm sure that if I were to step up to a fully accurate interior, it would be a time consuming project indeed. Certainly not Mr. Moore's classic "2 weeks of evenings".
The primary horizontal and vertical pieces are 0.080" x 0.156" styrene strips. The thin vertical studs are 0.020" x 0.080" styrene. Those horizontal louvers are also 0.020" x 0.080" styrene.
