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.

The HQ's exterior is done!

I figured I'd get the lead out and at least finish the HQ's exterior before jumping into some new projects.

And it didn't need much, just some steps and a sign.

I didn't have a grand plan for the sign. I just decided to rummage around the scrapbox and see what I could make from what I had. 

I had bought some self-stick foam letters a long time ago and thought they might look good on this project. I picked out the ones I needed and stuck them to some styrene strip as a base. The base was then stuck to a styrene I-beam for attaching the whole thing to the facade. 

The letters are painted with Tamyia copper paint left over from the roof of last year's Weekly Herald project.

I'm thinking of going over the brickwork with some toothpaste to liven up the mortar work. Interior details still need to be added, but for now I'm going to declare this exercise in N to HO scale kitbashing done and move on.

The HQ gets a removable roof

I think roofs are odd things in HO scale buildings. In real life down here at ground level we often don't see much of roofs, and when we do they usually aren't the main attraction.

On a layout we observe our little HO world like giants. We're confronted with acres and acres of roofs in all their glorious detail. The sight of all those roofs should make it clear that we need to configure our layouts so they stand near eye level.

Ok, that's my pre-coffee rant, and my my way of saying why I don't like to spend much time on roofs.

Now that's out of my system, with coffee in hand, let's look at the HQ's roof.

The roof trusses were glued to the underside of the roof. This takes a bit of careful alignment because the kit's roof is non-removable, and is installed by first gluing the trusses to steel columns inside the building and placing the roof panels on top.

The trusses need to be spaced so that they will go around the outside of the elevator shaft. 

You can see that I had to notch the roof's corners so the assembly wouldn't interfere with the building's corner pilasters. I think I the notches are a little too big, but they're not visible.

Along the ridge I glued on a strip of 0.010" styrene, and off to the side is a Walther's air conditioning unit from their roof-top accessories kit. The a/c is placed so it's directly above the elevator shaft.

I often add air conditioners so I have something to hold onto when I'm removing a roof, and that's why I added one to this project. The a/c is attached to the roof panel with plastic solvent, so when dry it's solidly held in place and can resist handling.

Lighting is from two LED strips that have been stuck in channels built up from 0.020" styrene sheet. The short strip is located at the front, and in retrospect I should have made it as long as the one at the back. The wire leads snake down the elevator shaft and out through a hole in the building's floor.

To finish off this side the roof panels were brush painted with some gloppy white acrylic to improve the interior's reflectivity.

The roof's outer surface was first base coated with Revell's Aqua Color Tar Black, and when dry, several layers of thin washes of Tamiya's XF-1 Flat Black, XF-80 Royal Light Gray, and XF-49 Khaki were applied. The chimney, also from Walther's roof-top accessories kit, and a/c were based coated with flat aluminum before applying washes. 

I make no claim to this looking realistic, and I tend to let the paint move and settle as it wants to. I'm more concerned with achieving an interesting pattern more than anything else.

The lighting isn't too bad and one can see inside fairly clearly. 

Argh, I see I haven't set the roof's front edge properly. That'll need a little touch-up painting along the edge and some adjustment.

Not much more to go to finish this. There're a few interior detail parts I need to order, but I think I'll finish off some inside wall detailing on the upper floor while I wait for delivery.

Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy...

... especially if they're in your head*.

I keep thinking about the various details I should add to the ground floor. Support columns here, shelves there, a workbench in the corner, and on and on. 

But I realized the project has gone on a little too long and decided to just glue up the walls and elevator-floor insert and get on with original plan: creating a removable roof and detailing the second floor.

After a little more trimming and fitting on the interior insert, I glued up the whole shebang.

That upside-down tobacco can is an item from my father's workshop filled with nuts and bolts just as he left it. Makes for a fine weight for holding stubborn parts while glue sets. In this case it's sitting on top of the elevator shaft to hold it square to the floor and walls.

Elastic bands hold the corners together.

The model was left this way for a day to allow the glue to fully set.

Once dry I had a good look at the foundation and realized the brick pilasters didn't have concrete bases, so I added some made from 0.030" thick styrene strips. 

Afterwards, the concrete caps were glued to the tops of the walls, and a lot of touch-up painting was done to the foundation, wall caps, walls, and window sills.

The next step will be to install the removable roof.

Take it easy and stay tuned.

*with apologies to the Eagles :-)

Checking

I thought I'd put the HQ on the layout and see how it sized up against the others on the street. I should have done this at the start of the project, but for some reason it never occurred to me.

For something that started off as an N-scale kit it seems to fit into the overall scheme of things all right. Although, I'm not going to squeeze the finished model cheek-to-jowl between some other buildings or the point of those big windows will be defeated.

I see a few painting problems that I'll need to clean up. And it looks like it'll need some sort of stairs up to the street level doors - there'll be a serious tripping hazard without them :-)

Ground floor detailing

Once I wasn't feeling as fatigued from the vaccine I went back to working on the HQ's ground floor detailing. When all the walls are in place it will be hard to access the ground floor, so I needed to do as much as I could before the other two walls are glued in place.

I added some joist-like strips of styrene to bottom of the second floor to give it some three dimensionality. The strips, which are 3mm wide and 0.030" thick, give the illusion that the floor has some strength, and they do give the model a little more stiffness. 

The light is an LED strip with a couple of leads soldered on.

I drilled a pair of holes in the elevator shaft for feeding the wires out through a hole in the floor.

Every lobby needs some sort of weird abstract art to signal sophistication to those who enter - or maybe just do a favour to a wayward nephew who needs to unload some art school projects from his storage unit :-)

Either way, a old watercolour cast-off was cut up for these pieces, glued to some scraps of 1/8" artist board so the art would stand-off from the wall, and then finally glued to the wall with some Weld Bond.

On the other side I added some vintage workplace safety posters I found on the internet. A notice board, as well as washroom and exit signs, were also printed out and glued to the walls.

I printed the safety posters slightly oversize and mounted them a little higher than normal so they could be seen through the windows.

I'd have to say that this interior is something of a caricature. It's less detailed and not as grimy as a real equivalent would be, but hopefully I've added enough elements to make it pop as 'real' once everything is in place.

To the floor in the truck unloading area I added some rudimentary safety markings, oil leaks, and dirtied the floor a bit. You can also see that some exit signs were added above the lobby doors.

That's about it for the main ground floor elements. I'm going to add some shelves and tables before attaching the other two walls. And I'm debating installing some support columns for the second floor as the open span seems unrealistic, although they'll block views.

 

Completed the elevator and utilities block

After setting aside the Jimmy project I felt the urge to go back to the 30 Squares HQ conversion. The job I had been putting off was finishing the elevator and utilities block. I was getting all wrapped around the axle about dimensions and fit and was avoiding this step over fears of screwing it all up. This was a clear violation of principles 1 and 3 :-)

The first thing was to build the wall that separates the first floor lobby from the truck unloading area in the back.

The two wall pieces are built up from 3 pieces of 0.020" sheet styrene. The middle layer is the door layer, and each door has a window opening so one can see if you're going to crash into someone when you open the door. 

I must admit this is a dumb way to build this wall. I should have cut the entire upside-down-T shape of the separating wall from a single piece of styrene. And if you're considering this project, it's something to keep in mind. I did what I did because I couldn't decide how many tenants the building should service, or what the ground floor plan should logically be. I just made up the design as I went along as my thoughts on the design changed. I will say this though, using styrene is forgiving if this is one's design approach.

Once the layers were dry, the two walls were glued to each side of the elevator column. I know I should use one of those weight and jig sets for setting this up, but I find some improvisation works just fine.

Although, you'll see some nasty gaps between the wall edges and the elevator because my laminates weren't that square. I later filled those with putty. The important thing at this stage is to make sure the bottom of the walls rest completely on the ground surface.

On the flip side I've added rooms to either end of the elevator block. Let's say they're for washrooms and HVAC equipment. Prototype-wise, they are much smaller than the real things would be, so consider them simply as expressions of things that need to be there.

The room walls are cut from single pieces of 0.040" styrene, and the trim is 0.020" x 0.040" strip stock. When I built up the rooms and glued them to the elevator block, I reinforced the inside corners with strips of 0.060" x 0.060" styrene.

Once all the parts were built up I did a significant amount of test fitting inside the building.

I had to do a few adjustments to make sure everything fit properly and the second floor remained level. I don't have photos of all that fiddly work - although you can see some gaps where the elevator block meets the second floor that had to be trimmed out. I'll just note that if I had designed this properly from the get-go I likely wouldn't have needed to spend so much time on this step.

Once all the adjustments were made it was on to painting and final detailing.

The doorknobs and elevator controls are just painted on.

The clock on the lobby-facing side is an item from Heljan's kit #B120, the same kit that donated the crown decorations for the Art Metropole.

The windows in the lobby doors are smears of Weld Bond glue. It dries clear. 

Well, that's that for now. 

The next step is to install this thing, along with the lighting, second floor, railings, and wall details.

And no, there won't be any motivational posters on the walls :-)

Updating the back wall

In the last instalment I ended the post by mentioning that I wasn't that happy with the door arrangement on the back wall. 

I eventually realized I wasn't going to be happy with this project if I didn't go back and try to fix what was irritating me. So that's what I did.

I had glued the back wall into place and had to see if I could pry it off. After some careful work, I did eventually separate it without damage.

The plan was then to remove those door inserts on either end and replace them with brick inserts. And then when that was done, replace the brick insert in the middle with a door.

It turns out none of those three inserts could be pried loose. They were permanently stuck in place.

So, on to plan B. 

First, I cut out most of the centre brick insert with an Xacto knife. This leaves a small ridge on the side edges, but still leaves a plenty big opening for a door.

Second, some pieces of styrene brick sheet were cut to fit over the side doors and then glued in place.

The sticker on this brick sheet says it is HO scale, but also notes that the bricks are 1:100 scale, somewhat smaller than HO. Either way they are bigger than the N scale bricks moulded into the kit's walls. I can live with that. These are on the back wall, and having different bricks inserted into panels on renovated old buildings isn't unusual. Once painted, they fit into the overall look of the building.

Before moving on to finishing and detailing I thought I'd check the fit of the centre door and make sure a pickup could enter. You can see it's a tight squeeze, and if you're not careful you could lose a side-mirror.

Look, if I hadn't glued a brick panel in that opening, and then had to cut it out - leaving some edge material behind - the fit of the kit's opening would be plenty wide to accommodate a vehicle as wide as a typical pickup. 

Using some styrene tubing and thin sheet I cobbled together something that resembles an overhead door for the truck entrance. It would be great if it could open and close, but I modelled it as permanently open. 

The elevator block is built up from 0.040" styrene sheet for the main structure and doors. The corners are reinforced with 0.060" x 0.060" strip styrene.

Some 0.020" x 0.040" styrene strip is used to trim the door openings. 

You can see where the idea for the centre truck entrance came from: with it one can back a truck almost up to the lower elevator door for easy unloading. 

And there it is. Bumper strips have been added to the sides of the truck entrance and the new brick inserts have been painted.

The elevator block hasn't been glued in place, but in this test placement you can see how the elevator and truck entrance doors line up - ok, they're a little off in this photo, but I think the idea is clear.

Hmm, I also see a lot of dust on the windows :-(

With this door annoyance resolved, I can go back to working on the interior.

Walls and Windows and CURRENtoons

In the last instalment of the 30Squares HQ build I stopped at the point where I needed to think a bit about how to proceed with the interior.

I thought and thought and thought.

Eventually I settled on a two floor arrangement with an elevator between stories. 

Picking up where I left off, the next step was to glue a styrene ledge on the walls to support the second floor. For this I used 2mm x 4mm Evergreen styrene strip.

The ledge was set 2 scale feet below the second floor window sills. I think this makes the windows a little too close to the floor, but there isn't much room as some space needs to be left for gluing the first floor window frames to the walls. 

Once the ledges were installed, 0.125" square styrene verticals were glued to the inside of the wall pilasters to give some dimensionality to the wall surfaces. Verticals will also be installed on the second floor after the second floor is glued in place. 

One thing to note about the vertical pieces is that the surface that abuts the wall needs to be slightly notched so the vertical will fit into the base when the wall is glued to the ground floor.

The second floor is cut from a sheet of 0.040" styrene. 

The square grid I've penciled on the piece is a projection of the grid formed by the wall pilasters. I used them to help me think about where to place the elevator shaft, which will be a square section column placed in the opening. 

The elevator shaft will only fill the back half of the opening, and will leave a square opening in the floor so that persons on the second floor can see down to the ground floor - and vice versa of course :-) I'll need to add a second floor railing for safety's sake.

At this point I decided to move on to painting the walls.

The insides were painted with Tamiya XF-76, Gray Green.

The floors were painted with Tamiya XF-80, Royal Light Gray.

The outer wall surfaces were painted using a procedure similar to the one I used last summer on the Weekly Herald project.

Although, I did make a couple of modifications to the process. 

First, on the Weekly Herald I primed the walls with a spray of Tamiya's white surface primer, but I didn't do that here. This kit's walls are a light brown colour instead of an acid yellow, so I thought it was ok to work directly on the pieces (recall that I had washed them in the last instalment in order to remove any traces of mould release). 

Second, I mixed the brick colour using Revell Aqua Colour instead of Model Master acrylics. As you may know, I'm trying out new acrylics since Model Master paints have been discontinued.

The brick colour mix I used was Revell's 36137, Reddish brown, and 36162, Mossy green. The green is to dull the brown to a more weathered bricky colour. I mix the paint on my palette to keep the colour loose, and the ratio is about 3 reddish brown to 1 green. Once the base brick layer colour was painted on, some thin washes of gray, reddish brown, and flat black were applied for further weathering. The result isn't superdetailed bricks, but something more impressionistic. 

I haven't trashed my remaining Model Master paints. I used their Aged Concrete Flat for the window sills. I use this paint a lot in my practice and bought what my local hobby store had left. I'm sorry to see it go, but I think I can mix a substitute from Revell's 36189, Beige. Who knows, it might be even better than what I've been using!

Finally, the window frames were sprayed with Krylon Colormaster Hunter Green Satin. I don't know if that product is still available. I had a can on the shelf, and when a 10C day presented itself, I gave the window frames a spray. The thought of brush painting them all seemed a little too masochistic. 

Speaking of windows, the kit comes with clear pieces that have moulded on window mullions. These are good pieces, but I thought the mullions were a little too closely spaced for an HO-scale model, and once painted, they would obscure the views inside, which sort of defeats one of the main features of this project. 

I decided to replace the kit's windows with ones cut from some clear plastic sheet I had on hand. I don't recall the plastic's specifications other than its from a huge sheet I bought in 2019 at an art supply in Syracuse, New York, when John, Gail, Debra, and I went to the city's train show that year. Little did we know it would be the last train show for who knows how long. At the time I thought the giant sheet would last the rest of my life. I've used more than half of it, so either the reaper is nearby, or I need to get more - I think it's the later :-)

To each piece of 'glass' I inked in a border with a Sharpie pen. The border helps to neaten the interior, and hide the bond to the window frame. They were glued to the frames with Weld Bond.

The individual window panes seem a little too big for HO-scale, but they afford good views to the inside.

After painting, and then gluing in all the window components, I really wanted to see how this thing looked. So I decided it was time to get hammered!

No, not that, this: I glued the entrance wall to a side wall, and then glued that assembly to the ground floor, using strategically applied hammers to hold the thing while the glue dried. 

Once dry, it was time to glue on the back wall. 

I don't use these old ball-peen hammers for hammering much these days. They're relics from my father and grandfather, but they come in handy at times. Although I wouldn't recommend this technique if animals or small children are running around, as these are precariously balanced.

Left: A stack of '70s CARtoons; Right: A few of today's CARtoons

While glue was drying I popped out to a hobby store I hadn't visited since well before the pandemic began. Restrictions had eased back a bit, and I wanted to get out. I found an AMT '72 GMC Jimmy kit that looked like a full sized restoration of a GMC pickup a friend has underway, but the biggest surprise was seeing the new incarnation of CARtoons on the magazine shelf. 

For awhile in the '70s I bought it and its sister publication, Hotrod Cartoons, almost as frequently as Model Railroader. CARtoons has been modernized - in a good way - but it still strikes a chord. Looking back, I think it's because a lot of its stories have to do with people building cool custom cars from junk and seemingly odd combinations of stuff. I was a plastic car modeller, influenced by CARtoons and Car Model magazines, well before model train stuff grabbed me, so I think that the 'kit-mingling' and 'make stuff from odd components' vibes, which were themes of those publications, followed me into model railroading. Maybe there needs to a CURRENtoons magazine to honour the master of kit-mingling, Art Curren :-)

Anyway, once the glued had dried on the walls and ground floor, I slipped in the second floor to see how it looked. I didn't glue it in place just yet. 

The fit is pretty good. 

I then carefully press fit the fourth wall onto the base. No glue was applied, I just wanted to test the fit and see how things looked. 

I was happy that it fit quite well. The kit is precise and well moulded, so maybe this shouldn't be a surprise. 

Ok, the roof isn't on, the place is filled with light, but the views inside are quite good. There'll be lights installed, so even when the roof's on, you should be able to see inside rather easily.

Although, one thing I realized I could have done better was the arrangement of doors on the back wall.

For awhile I thought the building would house two tenants, so I'd have two delivery doors, one on each side. But, when I changed it to one tenant, I should have placed a single delivery door in the centre, with brick inserts on the sides. And I should have left the door open, or at least made a moveable one. That way a pickup could drive inside and back up right to the elevator in the centre of the building. That would have added the potential for some interesting scenes. Oh well, maybe on the next one :-)

You can see the doors and associated openings are big enough to drive in automobiles or pickups, so there's potential for a variety of businesses to be supported by other minglings of this kit. 

That's it for now.

Next up: detailing the interior.