Street light installation continues

I'm installing street lights at the far end of Ocean Boulevard. So far I've placed the lights and drilled the holes in the layout board for the wires. A few of the new lights are visible in the above photo: the parking lot beside the brick town houses gets one, Ma's Place 2 on the left gets a double light (to match the other double at the other end of Ocean Boulevard where it intersects with Sinatra Avenue), and the yet unnamed cross street at this end is getting a few (that battery in the lower left corner is propping up one beside the streetcar stop). The Oceanview Hotel is getting two gigantic lights of its own outside its main entrance (hopefully some signage will soon follow).

A night at the Red Apron

A couple of weeks ago Debra received an invitation to the Red Apron's customer appreciation night on 4 November. Of course she signed-up - we couldn't pass up some excellent food and wine! One thing lead to another and Debra asked if we could bring the model for Jo-Ann and Jennifer to sign. They kindly agreed. 

[It was a packed house on customer appreciation night]

I had planned to re-start the Grizzly Flats depot, but with the event only a week away I embarked on a crash course to detail and light the model so it was presentable.

I added an LED light strip to the ceiling and soldered on a 9 volt battery clip for power. That's a length of styrene glued 90-degrees to the lights to form a valance to prevent a hot-spot from appearing in the windows. The inside surface of the valance was painted flat aluminum to help reflect the light down. The insides were 'detailed' with interior photos of the Red Apron sourced from the internet, scaled down to approximately HO size, and then stood up and glued inside. 

[Base about halfway though painting]

A base was cut and painted from 0.040 inch sheet styrene to simulate the sidewalk, and a variety of figures were added to provide some action. The chairs are Faller items, and the flowers and pots are from Busch (part # HO 1209 - they're excellent, but I needed extra steady hands and my extra strength magnifier to assemble them). I also added a model of Debra's car parked on the side driveway. It'll be the subject of a future post. When finished, the entire diorama was set inside a clear acrylic box designed for use with 1/24 scale model cars for easy handling and protection during the event.

[Ghost Cupcakes]

While in a model building frenzy to get this project done, Debra bought some Red Apron Ghost Cupcakes - it was Halloween - to soothe my nerves. It worked.

The model seemed to show well on the big night. Although to me, the excellent food and wine was the main attraction. Debra was great as the designated driver and model explainer. 

Jennifer and Jo-Ann were excellent hosts, put on a great event, and were sports enough to sign the roof. I'm not a shill or anything, but if you're in Ottawa, you can't go wrong to go down to the Red Apron and get some great food. 

[7 Nov. update: The model got a nice mention at the Red Apron blog.]

Roof lights for Mels

I finally got around to installing the roof-top perimeter light as well as the light in the peak. The perimeter light is a length of 3mm diameter, side-illuminating optical fibre I purchased from The Fiber Optic Store. It's lit up with one of their blue LED illuminators. The peak light is simply a plain old clear LED.

Now, a 3mm diameter perimeter light isn't too prototypical since that translates to around 10 or 11 inches in HO scale. The kit's box top shows what looks like two, smaller diameter tubes wrapping around the dining room roof; however, I thought that was beyond my skill level to replicate, so I chose an optical fibre whose diameter was close to the roof's edge thickness.

The roof was base coated with a spray of Krylon aluminum paint. Once dry, it was then lightly dusted with Krylon gold. Then, after curing for around a week, it was washed with some highly thinned flat black to tone things down a bit and highlight some of the panel lines on the Enterprise's contribution.

Before painting, I glued to the perimeter a number of styrene pieces cut from a tube with an inner diameter of 3mm. They were first attached with tube glue since it allows some time for getting the alignment right before hardening. Once the little pieces were all in place, I then went back and carefully dabbed on some liquid styrene glue to get a very solid joint for each mini-tube.

Some of the ribbing on the roof's flip-side had to be ground out to create passageways for the wires from the interior lighting.

Before installing the roof, a 3mm hole has to be drilled in the wall with the 'Mels' sign for the optical fibre to pass into the main building. 

Likewise, a hole had to be drilled near the building's inside corner for the wires from the peak light.

At this point I went on a little diversion. I just wasn't happy with the height extension I built into the walls - the more I looked at it, the more it seemed way too tall. I got out the hot-knife and cut it down to size. Caution is the word here.

After a half-hour of nerve wracking work, it didn't look to bad and no major goof-ups were made! The above picture is a test to see how the roof might look. After some more humming-and-hawing, I decided it won't have that extreme overhang so the sign isn't overly blocked from view. 

Here's what it looks like from above. The lights are still turned on in this picture.

The blue LED in the fibre illuminator is connected to the fibre by a piece of heat-shrink tubing. The wiring is a complete mess, and I need to get this sorted out before installing the main sign fibres.

I was rather happy with the fibre installation. All the little edge tubes and holes were lined up quite well, and the fibre easily slipped into place.

Post-script

I plan to take a break from posting on 30 Squares for awhile as I’m feeling a bit burnt out posting-wise. I’m not sure if I’ll just cut back on frequency, or completely stop for awhile. When I was making the two balsa buildings for the second installment in the E. L. Moore series I found it to be more fun than I first expected, and realized that posting was turning into a bit of a job and might be cutting into my enjoyment of the hobby, so I thought I’d park posting for awhile so I don’t completely sour on it. Thanks to everyone who has dropped by over the years! I appreciate your readership and comments!

Lighting for Mels dining room

It took me a long time to figure out what to do for lighting this thing. For some buyers, the kit box might be a little misleading because it shows an extravagantly lit building, and it might be interpreted as a message that the box contains all the parts necessary to produce that sort of lighting. To get to the box top state requires some creativity from the builder. My stab at it is hardly perfect, but hopefully it’ll cheer the place up a bit because I think the kit would look a little dark and dreary without some lights. Maybe if there is a second edition of this kit, a photo of the actual painted and assembled building on the bottom of the box would be good so the buyer knows what they’re getting.

[Inner ceiling is the top piece, and the outer roof is the lower. The ceiling piece was spray painted white.]

For the dining room I settled on two small strips of micro-LEDs. This is the first time I’ve used these types of lights. I bought them for $1.50 each (this is probably high priced from a bulk purchase point of view, but it’s an economical way to buy these things if you just want a couple to play around with) from Caboose Coffee Hobbies at the Victoria model railway show. Basically, all one needs to do is connect a 9v battery to the terminals. No figuring out what resistors are required, and they’ve got an adhesive strip on the back, so attaching them to a structure is clean and easy.

[Here the leads have been soldered to the terminals on the LED strips, snaked through holes I drilled in the ceiling, and are ready for inserting through corresponding holes I then drilled in the building's walls.]

[A shot of the interior before installing the ceiling. A couple more figures were added after this picture was taken. As well, a number of advertising posters - which are supplied in the kit - were glued to the windows at this stage.]

The trickiest part was getting the ceiling attached to the dining room’s circular wall. There are 37 holes in the ceiling and they have to be carefully lined up with the corresponding poles and posts that make up the wall. In preparation, I  raised the building up with some books so I didn’t have to contort myself while fiddling with the pieces, and then shone a bright light over the ceiling so that light came though any of the holes that weren’t secured into the wall frame. I then started at one end and carefully used a pair of tweezers to move each post and pole into its corresponding ceiling hole, gently pushing down on the ceiling to secure each as it was set in place. The kit is well engineered, so everything does line up in the end, but it takes a little patience to get it all together.

[The power and wiring is in need of some organization so I can get everything neatly into the main building. I'm using battery power so I can move the building around and not be dependent on an external power supply.]

The box states Mels is a level 3 kit and I agree. It doesn’t have a lot of parts or complex assemblies, but the dining room’s circular wall is a tricky structure to get right, but as I mentioned earlier, the kit is well engineered and the parts fit together well unlike the AMTronic, whose manufacturer also rates it a level 3, which I think is because it seems that every single part requires special filing and fitting – so much so that I’ve lost my patience with it for the time being and it’s gathering dust on my workbench.

‘Fluorescent’ lighting for the Elgin

[The roof fit needs a little tuning]

I’ve been fiddling with the Elgin build this week while I’ve been waiting for the new drill bits and fibre optics for the Mel’s Drive-in project to arrive in the mail. Also, it’s been gosh darn hot – well, hot for here – with daytime temperatures in the low 30s and humidex in the low 40s, some evening model building in the cool of the basement goes down rather well these days.

[Compared to the WSMoftheWBB the Elgin is pretty small]

When I started the project I didn’t plan to put lights in, just clean it up a bit, but while rummaging through my left over optical fibres trying to figure out what I’d need for Mel’s, it dawned on me that some simulated fluorescent lighting by way of side illuminating optical fibre might look alright in this little building. It looked like it was going to be relatively easy to install, and I had enough parts left over from other projects so I didn’t have to buy anything new; I decided to give it a go. 

The lights are made from 3mm diameter side illuminating optical fibre. The 'fixture' part of the light is simply a U-section styrene tube.

Surprisingly, it isn't easy to find a glue that will bond the optical fibre to the styrene fixture. Eventually, I found that this Hercules double-sided tape did the trick. 

Here's an end view of the fibre. I painted the end that dead-ends against the glass wall frame with silver coloured paint.

Here's the lights after installation. What got me started thinking about this sort of lighting were some recesses in the short glass wall. The assembled lights fit neatly into them.

I bought a couple of these LED closet lights at the dollar store down at the mall when I was trying to figure out how to light up the fibres in the WSMoftheWBB build. They didn't get used on that project, but one of them was useful on this one. Note to self, even though it's called a 'dollar' store, these things cost $2.

This is what it looks like after the cover and reflectors were pried off. The optical fibres aren't too flexible, so I cut those yellow power wires from the batteries and soldered in some longer pieces so I could get the LEDs close to the fibres without too much undue fibre bending. I also cut out the on-off switch from the circuit board to replace it with a slide switch that could be more conveniently placed in the structure.

Here's the light after the re-wiring. As you can see I also cut off the outer housing to allow the unit to fit into the building better.

A piece of sheet styrene was glued to the bottom of the light unit so I could insert it securely between the walls of the secondary structure. 

A hole had to be cut in the sheet in order to replace the batteries at some future date.

So, here's the lighting unit installed in the secondary structure. The on-off switch was taped to the floor in a convenient location.

The optical fibres were trimmed and attached to the LEDs with heat shrink tubes. A hair dryer was used to shrink the tubes.

There was an interior garage door between the main showroom and the secondary structure. I cut it out and replaced it with a photo of a room printed on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper. The third LED, and the residual light from the optical fibres, backlights the paper and helps reinforce the illusion of a detailed room in the secondary structure.

I still need to add some signs and details, but I'm going to park this one for awhile and work on Mel's.

How I installed optical fibres in the WSMoftheWBB* sign

I’ve been putting off writing about the ins and outs of the optical fibre installation job on the WSMoftheWBB* project until I was satisfied with how it turned out. Well, it works, and there’s light, but the whole thing was a big learning experience. I installed a lot of messiness inside the building’s shell before I got the hang of things, so I’m not completely satisfied with the internals, but, as I said, it does work. Here are a few pictures I shot as the job progressed.

Here’s a $2 LED light unit stripped of its outer shell. It’s a rather clean design. I wanted the building to be battery powered so I could place it wherever I wanted and not be dependent upon an external power source, so these things I left as battery powered – they need 3 AAAs. There are 4 inside the building.

I found some styrene tube in my scrapbox that fits snuggly over the LEDs and cut it into lengths that are about 15 mm taller than the LEDs. These were then slipped over the LEDs and glued in place with sparing amounts of super-glue.  These tubes are to hold the fibre ends in place over the LEDs. More on this later.

I added some more internal structure to both add stiffness to the shell and provide a base to mount the LED units. The inside surfaces were painted flat black to help prevent light from bleeding through the walls. The inside surface of the sign is also painted black.

This is a test placement of the LED units. I had to make sure that I could replace the batteries from the bottom and nothing was blocking. Once I was satisfied with the placement, I glued them in with superglue.

Before gluing the sign in place, I added a number of styrene blocks cut from square-section styrene tube to the inside lower edge of the sign so there was something to securely attach the bottom of the sign to the top of the front brick wall.

The front wall was painted with Krylon red spray paint, and when completely dry after a few days, was washed with a loose mixture of flat black and Tamyia Smoke to tone it down and bring definition to the bricks. The service door entries and street level vents were given a little extra black wash to deepen their shadows. When I'm walking over the to real WBB from Yonge St., this is the view that I see, so it was the one that 'clicked' in my mind that I was close to capturing a likeness of the building. Seeing the entire model head on with all the lights lit is a little odd, because one can never actually see that sort of view from street-level.

Here's the back wall while the paint was drying. I have no idea what the real one looks like, so this is completely freelanced. The brick stripe is the same Krylon red as the front wall, but the main surface is loosely brush painted with Poly-Scale aged concrete, flat black, and Poly-Scale L & N gray. It dries to a nice grimy, flat finish.

These are - I think - all the tools I used to install the fibres. I used plain old sprue cutters to cut the fibres.

I had a 50 ft roll of 1mm diameter optical fibre on hand, and bought two more 100 foot rolls so I'd have enough to finish this job and extra for future projects. I estimate that I used around 130 feet for this project - that includes waste and test pieces. The roll on the left is a complete 100 foot roll, and the one on the right is the remnants of a second 100 footer after the job was done. The original 50 footer was used up.

It's a little hard to see, but that is the business end of a 1 mm diameter fibre. 

I used my old - they're probably 10 years old - sprue cutters for cutting the fibre, and along the way I broke its return spring. They still cut, but they're now a little awkward to use.

Over each of the styrene tubes I slid onto the LEDs, I then slipped a piece of shrink tube. The shrink tube was about 15 mm taller than the inner styrene tube. I had this idea that I'd fill each styrene tube up with fibre ends and then heat up the shrink tube with a hair dryer to collapse the shrink tube tightly around the fibres, and presto, they would all be held firmly in place. It didn't quite work out that way - more on this later.

Here's what I did to install each fibre.

1. Make sure the hole into which the fibre will be inserted is completely clear of plastic debris from drilling and any residual glue. I re-drilled many of the holes, and widened some with an exacto knife to make sure they were clear.

2. I unspooled some fibre from the roll and clipped the end to a point with the sprue cutters. This makes it easer to thread the fibre into the hole.

3. Once the fibre is through the hole and a decent length is pulled into the building, use the sprue cutters to cut the free end square. 

4. Pull enough fibre through to insert the free end into one of the styrene / shrink tube / LED tubes. Don't make the mistake I did and be too stingy with the fibre. Make sure it goes into the tube parallel with the side walls and doesn't lean against the sides and tilt them - this puts the fibre and the tube in tension, and I found the fibres had an annoying tendency to pop out.

5. I tried to evenly - and somewhat randomly - spread the fibres out amongst the tubes so if an LED fails it wouldn't take out an entire section of the sign, but spread the unlit lights over the whole sign. One drawback of this approach is that the inside of the building becomes a rat's nest of fibres.

6. Once the free end of the fibre is in the LED tube, cut the other end with the sprue cutters. I left 0.5 mm to 1 mm of fibre sticking out from the sign. They could be left flush with the sign, but the light isn't as bright. Friction will hold the fibre in place while you proceed to install more. I'd install 20 or 30 at a time before taking a break.

7. I used a dab of Micro Krystal Klear to hold each fibre against the inside surface of the sign. I stupidly used superglue on the first batch of fibres I installed. I installed maybe 10 or so, put a dab of superglue on each, and turned on the LEDs to check things. I was very happy with the result and went away for an hour to do something else. Upon returning, the LED ends and superglue were just blobs of free-hanging goo! Aargh! I took them out, cleaned things up, re-drilled the holes, and re-threaded the fibres. This time I used Krystal Klear to hold them thinking that it was just a high-quality white glue that isn't reactive. It worked fine.

8. The bottom and side fibres were installed first. The top row was done last.

9. I found that it was useful to temporarily hold some fibres in place with tape. When an LED tube only has a few fibres in it, the fibres can pop out as you work inside the shell if they get brushed up against during the installation of other nearby fibres. Once a tube has 6 to 8 fibres inserted, their mutual friction seems to hold them in place. 

Here's the first fibre I installed. I was very happy!

The lights that are inserted in front brick wall that illuminate part of the sidewalk, and the light  over one of the back entry doors, were also made from optical fibre. I could have used small LEDs, but I was determined to use optical fibre wherever I could :-) Basically, I cut 5, short U-channel pieces from a square section styrene tube, glued 12, 12 inch lengths of 0.5 mm fibre into each piece for each light. The idea was that the dozen fibres at the free end would be inserted into an LED tube. Again I used Krystal Klear to glue the fibres into the U-channel.

That is a 0.5 mm fibre. Very small, and the fibre is very flexible. Each of those U-channels was painted flat black before installation. All 5 of these lights were installed before the top row of sign lights were.

Here's what the back delivery entrance light looks like.

This is one of the front 4 lights. Unfortunately, I didn't get that one installed too squarely, but it lights up fine.

And finally, here's the what it looks like inside from one end to the other.

Not my finest effort, but it does work. 

To secure the fibre ends in the LED tubes I resorted to dabbing a blob of Krystal Klear into each tube, and after it hardened, used a blow dryer to chinch down any remaining flexibility in the shrink tubes. This doesn't completely seal off the LED ends, and some light does still come out. To me this isn't a big deal, since that'll help create a soft light in the main entrance area. Although, light leaks from other parts of the shell may need to be dealt with.

Turns out the fibres move a little as the glue settles and dries. I panicked at first because some fibre ends got spotted with white glue - reducing the light intensity at the sign - others moved slightly out of contact with the LED, also reducing light output. But, after things completely dried - meaning the glue's milky whiteness was all clear - I liked the result better than the super-nova light intensity of the unglued fibres. The sign illumination is dimmed a little and it now has a rather pleasant unevenness from one bulb to the next - the lights have different intensities which I think is more realistic in that real outside bulbs probably age, get dirty, get loose, and maybe even burn out with the result that not all the bulbs burn with the same intensity.

One last thing: the LEDs are switched on and off with a long wooden skewer. 
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*World's Smallest Model of the World's Biggest Bookstore