Coles on Yonge: The Shell

Left: Coles on Yonge St. near Edward circa late 60s to early 70s | Right: Its HO shell

I've wanted to make a model of this building for quite a long time. I recently realized I was stalled on modelling this building because I was fixated on the problems associated with making the Coles sign. The building itself is rather easy to make because it's basically just a box much like the one the A&A Records model is based on. So, I decided the way to kickstart myself was to go ahead and make the building's shell and worry about the sign later. I may eventually regret this approach, but I thought it was better to get started than to continue pondering.

My father took me to this store many times in the late 60s and early 70s. I seem to recall it was located on Yonge St. near Edward. I think it closed sometime in the late 70s when the company that owned the Coles bookstore chain opened the World's Biggest Bookstore a stone's throw away on Edward. I admit that the above geographical and chronological memories are on the sketchy side, so if you have more accurate information please leave a comment.

I thought I'd go digital with this project and draw up the facade in Inkscape. However, I got frustrated with all the hoops I had to jump through and graphic designer minutiae I had to master just to draw a simple white rectangle surrounded with a black border that I gave up, apologized to my T-square for abandoning it, and sat myself down at the drafting table and got to work.

I searched the internet and downloaded what images I could find of the Coles facade. I enlarged and printed them so I could measure and draw on them as my understanding of their overall dimensions developed.

To begin the sizing process I assumed the entry doors were the average size for these sort of commercial items: 36" x 80". I used that to figure out dimensions for the rest of the building. It was an iterative process of estimating proportions and sizes until I had laid out the major lines in a drawing.

I arbitrarily decided the building would have a square footprint. I'm only interested in the facade, signs, and some of the interior, so the rest of the model is fabricated straight from my imagination to make the building seem plausible under casual examination.

The walls were drawn on a sheet of scrap 0.060" thick sheet styrene. In the past I've had a bad habit of making my walls too thin. I felt 0.060" was thick enough to be substantial and strong for this relatively small model, but not too thick to cut and shape with my trusty #11 Xacto knife.

One can never be too experienced to make a newbie mistake and that photo proves it!

I was in such a rush to cut out the openings for the lower sign and front windows that I broke the facade at its weakest points. This was no cause for tears. It was glued back together, and since styrene glue actually welds styrene, it's as if the break never occurred. Well, ok, the facade needed to be handled carefully until it was glued up into the complete structure, but in the end it's as if the break never occurred.

The inside corners and top support edge for the removable roof are 0.080" x 0.080" styrene strips. I used Revell Contacta Professional glue on this structure, and use it for all jobs where styrene needs to be glued together. I find it bonds quickly and the resulting joints are very strong

At this stage the structure is quite rigid, but it'll firm up even more once the interior box and braces are added in a future step.

The final task was to glue textured styrene surface panels to the shell.

The top half of the facade and the sides are surfaced with Evergreen Scale Model's product #4529, Metal Siding. This styrene sheet is 0.040" thick, so the model is now rather thick where these panels are glued on.

You'll also notice that the side pillars below either end of lower sign opening have been faced with pieces of 0.020" plain styrene sheet.

The back wall and the lower halves of the side walls are panelled with sheet brick styrene.

That door on the back wall is one of the leftover pieces from the melted Superior Bakery. Stylistically it really doesn't fit in here, but I liked it, and liked having a piece of the Superior Bakery on this model.

If you look inside you'll see that I've built up the frame where the street windows will eventually go. The prototype photos indicate those windows are set back a little from the main plane of the facade.

To finish off, the top and bottom on the model were carefully sanded against a large sheet of sand paper placed on my workbench to even them off. This helps the model to sit squarely on the ground, and gives the upper edge a more even look.

Now I just need to find a source of miniature books :-)