Mels is done

I started this project back in the summer and finished it yesterday - the day we had the first snowfall of the '13/ '14 winter season. Yikes!

For lighting the sign's fibres, I made a simple illuminator from a $2 stick-on LED closet light fixture I bought at a local dollar store. I broke off the decorative outer cover to expose the 3 LEDs and switch. I glued styrene tubes over the LEDs for holding the fibre ends and then painted them black.

Even though I removed all the battery power gear for the other lights in the building, I kept the the fibre illuminator battery powered. It uses 3 AAAs. Although, if I were to do something like this again, I'd get rid of the batteries from this part too. To finish it off, I glued a styrene square to the bottom to make the whole thing easy to mount in the base of Mel's main building.

Here's the insides before the fibres were installed. All the 9 volt batteries and switches - except the one for the perimeter light because it was too tricky to cut off - were cut out. A terminal strip from my scrap box was set in the bottom and all the wires were connected to it. Two leads come out the bottom for connecting to external power. It's a lot tidier in there, but it could be much better if I had planned it properly in the first place.

And here's what it looks like with the fibres threaded into the sign's letter's. I used 0.5 mm diameter optical fibre. Installation is fairly straightforward, although a little tedious: drill holes into the letters with a drill bit held in a pin-vise, thread fibres through the holes and insert the end in an LED tube, and finish off by gluing the fibres against the inside wall. I used Micro crystal clear glue since it dries very clear and doesn't react with the fibres. No glue is needed to hold the fibres in the tubes. I estimate around 65 feet of fibre was used to thread the entire sign.

It turns out last weekend when I was working on this I was fighting off some sort of cold or flu. I took an antihistamine and my symptoms eased off a bit. I also follow the warning not to drive or use heavy equipment, but there was no prohibition against model building :-) Turns out once it fully kicked in, my coordination took a hit. That blue blob is one undocumented side-effect: I carelessly knocked over a bottle of paint that I was using too close to Mels. The shape doesn't look too bad actually, but it had to go.

I wiped and stained and painted and decaled and it eventually turned into this. Still not so good, but passable. In the right lighting, not too noticeable. So, note to self: next time, I'll just crash on the couch and not tempt the painting fates.

The roof for the rectangular building is built up from styrene pieces. It's more a caricature than a replica of something real, but it's serviceable.

This edge view gives a little better idea of the layering.

I need to go back and add some detail to the roof, for this build I figured I spend most of my time on the lighting.

To me, it looks better with the walls shorter than I had originally planned even though it was a bit stressful cutting them down when the thing was half built. Well, ya gotta take a few chances now-and-then :-) It's time for a burger and fries.

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.

Starship Mels

I haven't done as much work on Mels this summer as I'd originally planned. The weather has improved since I started, and I've been spending as much time as possible outside and away from the basement. But, I've squeezed a little model building activity in here and there.

The roof for the dining room is simply a disc with a chunk removed to fit into the rectangular building - it's the disc on the right in the above picture. I had an idea to enhance things a little by adding a 'hat' - part of the saucer section from the starship Enterprise. I used the lower part of the saucer as is shown on the left.

The donor kit was the old Polar Lights U.S.S Enterprise kit. 

Positioning the hat on the main roof in preparation for cutting was done by eye, and a lot of trial-and-error fitting before any cuts were made. Notice that the centre of the dining room roof is not on the corner of the rectangular cut out, but it offset a little.

Once the placement looked right, I taped down the hat and marked the other side with guidelines for cutting.

Cutting started by using a pair of old sprue cutters to nibble out most of wedge.

After the bulk of the wedge material had been removed, various files and sanding boards were used to open up the wedge to the green line. Again there was lots of trial-and-error to get things smoothed and the fit to work. The fit isn't quite perfect yet and I'll need to do some more fitting and trimming prior to installation.

There's lots of open areas inside for wiring. The hat has little plastic stubs for attaching it to its mate on the Enterprise, in this application they will cause it to stand-off from the main roof a little and hopefully I can get some light to shine through that gap to light up the upper roof surface

Mels gets furniture

I spent some time adding the booths and counter to the circular dining room as well as installing its windows.

The booths and counter are cardboard punch-outs. There's 10 booths, but assembly is straightforward.

They are easily removed from the cardboard carrier, but a sharp knife helps free them with clean edges.

Before I started gluing the booths and counter into their final forms, I hunted up all the clips I could find.

The booth backs are glued up first, following the instructions printed on the card. The clips help hold things in place while the glue dries. That completed booth near the upper left of the picture was put together with double-sided tape. Tape doesn't make for tight bonds, so using white glue as recommended on the instructions is the best approach.

Here's what the booths look like after they're all glued together. Like I mentioned, assembly is easy.

And here's the counter. The seats are printed on the sides.

All the dining room windows are printed on a single die-cut sheet. There's a thin protective film on one side that needs to be removed. It was installing the windows that made me agree with the kit's box that it's a level 3 project. They're a little tricky to install, but they all fit snuggly in the frames. Just follow the instructions and resist rushing. 

Here's the furniture and windows after they're installed. It's not high fidelity furniture, it just gives a suggestion to casual viewing that there's something in the building. 

Walls go up at Mel's

Drill bits and optical fibres arrived in the mail a few days ago, so work resumed on Mel's Drive-in.

After studying the main building walls for awhile I decided to extend them and put a sloped roof on top. I figured that since this Mel's was going to reside in a northern clime, it might be good to have a sloped roof to prevent snow accumulation. The extension would also help hide the fibres I plan to install in the sign. This is a picture of some early plans at figuring out what to do. As you can see, I was focused on having the roof slope towards the circular restaurant, which would give winter diners a big surprise when a snow load cuts loose! 

The new wall pieces are cut from styrene sheet embossed with brick glued to 0.030 inch sheet plain styrene. I completely replaced one kit supplied wall with a new brick one. I didn't want to just put a brick top on the kit's stucco walls as I thought it would just look like a hat on the basic structure. This way it looks more integrated, and goes with the small brick walls that make up the dinning room.

The stucco portion of the walls were sprayed with Krylon Riverstone. This colour is pretty close to the raw colour of the walls, but what the Krylon does is dull down the finish. Once dry, I dusted each wall with Krylon Gold to help emphasize the stucco texture.

The main sign was drilled out with a #74 bit in order to accept 0.5 mm diameter optical fibres. The letters are brushed painted with Tamyia White.

I cut out the floor from the base for easy access to fibre and power. The dinning room floor was sprayed with white and then dusted with gold when dry.

The dinning room doors were brush painted with Tamyia chrome paint. After the paint was dry, a line was scribed between the doors to simulate the gap, otherwise they look like a window frame and not a door.

Here the walls are partially installed. The lower parts of the walls are painted with the same brick colour as the main wall extensions. The floor holes that lock the little walls in place had to be opened up a bit with a knife as the mouldings were a little uneven and not completely clear.