Ramsey's Garage alias the Star Journal Building

Here at 30Squares Labs we continue to experiment with the compound N₂HO^c. For the laymen out there, N₂HO^c refers to structures resulting from converting N scale kits to casualized HO scale models. You may remember the previous project that successfully synthesized the 30Squares HQ (aka the Eldon Building) from Walthers' N scale Backshop kit.

Ok, ok, enough with the nonsense.

Back in March I bought this kit at a local swap meet. Since then its been sitting on the floor near my drafting table. While I was cleaning up after finishing Cal's Lumberyard I opened the box and wandered through the parts.

After a few minutes of handling I had a sense this little building would make an interesting HO scale garage. Well, it would be a casualized HO scale garage since, strictly speaking, this kit had nothing to do with HO scale.

The kit is an N scale version of the HO scale Ramsey Journal Building kit, which is based on E. L. Moore's project of the same name that appeared in the December 1967 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The HO scale plastic kit of his project was first released by AHM (kit #5819) in the late 1960s. Over the years it was repackaged and re-released by a number of companies. I don't know when the N scale version was released, or if Model Power was the first to release it - I suspect not, but there's some research to be done on the history of this little model.

The kit was likely first released in the mid 70s or early 80s by the look of the parts. Even though the box wasn't sealed it appeared that all the parts were present. 

To build a credible version of the Ramsey Journal Building - or the 'Star Journal Building' as this thing is called, likely to avoid a copyright infringement legal entanglement - you'd have to apply generous amounts of TLC during construction.

The parts are rather crude by today's standards, not to mention their garish colours.

To make matters a bit worse, the walls have serious sink holes near the chimneys that need to be filled and re-scribed. For my garage I cut off the chimneys as they'd be out of scale, but I still had to fill those dimples.

The walls' inside surfaces are clean, but because I was going to open up the building I had to grind off all the mold release pins and assembly numbers.

I'm not going to walk you through a step-by-step build of this project. It's dead simple to make, and no doubt you'll know how to do it by simply studying the photos.

What I am going to do is focus on its design so if you're interested in doing your own N to HO conversions, you'll get a sense of the trade-offs required, and the properties of kits that might be suitable for such modifications.

First off, I should note I have my biases when tackling these sort of projects. I like a building that lets in lots of light, and that affords unobstructed views into and through it. Those were the primary drivers on the modified Cal's Lumberyard project, Cal's Cabbage Co., the McGregor Park Library, the Insectary, and what attracted me to Walthers Backshop kit. I applied that bias to this project. The kit has lots of windows that can let in a lot of light, a façade that can accommodate a big open door, and a flat roof for a big skylight, so it seemed to have the right characteristics for the kind of building I like.

One question that is often raised is, doesn't the size of the bricks give away the game? N scale bricks are far too small on an HO scale model. Yes, that's true, but there appears to be variation in brick sizes across kits, especially old ones.

The photo on the left compares the bricks on our garage to those on the Walthers Backshop kit. Both are allegedly N scale. Given that in HO a standard brick measures about 0.7mm high by 2.3mm long, the Model Power ones on the right of the photo are quite close to true HO, and the Walthers bricks in the centre of the photo are close to true N scale. Those bricks to the far left in the picture are sheet styrene panels I added to close up some openings in the Backshop. To confuse matters, the sticker on the sheet said they were "1:100 scale, HO scale". Well, they are close to 1:87.1, true HO scale. 

Since the bricks on the Backshop are too small for HO I chose not to detail them with mortar and weathering. To me the important feature of the building is its huge windows, and not its brickwork, so I chose not to call out the bricks and spoil the illusion. However, on the garage, given the bricks were about normal size for HO, and the exterior of the building was quite plain without either the clock tower or stock façade, I detailed the brickwork to provide more visual interest. It's all a choice about what you want the model to say.

Here's another comparison: Ramsey's Garage on the right and the Park Square building on the left. Park Square was built using the HO scale Ramsey Journal Building as its shell.

The Park Square's bricks are huge and seem more like blocks than bricks. In other words, the bricks on the HO scale Ramsey Journal Building kit are very oversize for HO scale.

One last comparison: our garage on the right and Moore's Balsa Products on the left, which is just my renamed build of the E. L. Moore designed HO scale AHM Machine Shop kit.

The bricks on the machine shop are much more HO-like than those on the Ramsey Journal Building. 

The message here is, don't be too swayed by the claims to HO or N scale as far as brickwork is concerned. Size it up for yourself.

And then there're windows.

Each window is a bit small for HO, but they're passable. Which is a good thing, because there were two other problems that had to be dealt with.

The first issue was each window had to be cut from the strips they were molded into so I could create individual frames. This isn't a problem for a box stock build because no one can see inside. Once de-stripped, I cut each window down from 8 panes to 4 by removing mullions with an X-acto knife. Ok, well, actually I removed the mullions first, and then removed the frames from the strips. The extra mullions had to go because in the 8 pane window, each pane seemed too small. With just 4 each, the windows seemed more in line with HO scale.

The second problem was the tops of the ground floor windows weren't high enough above grade. This is very apparent when they're compared to the back door I added - the door's a Tichy Train Group item.

What I should have done was add a styrene foundation wall about 18" to 24" tall to boost the structure. Galen recommended that for the Park Square building and it proved to be a significant improvement in the overall design.

Speaking of windows, the largest are part of the skylight.

The kit comes with a rather small skylight, and simply opening up the roof so it would let light inside wasn't going to produce the effect I wanted. I scratchbuilt a larger one from 0.020" thick sheet styrene and some styrene strips. It's that white, triangular structure shown in the photo on the left. Below it is the kit's stock skylight.

Skylights are pretty common on the E. L. Moore plastic kits. On the left is the Park Square build and that's its skylight. It's an HO scale item, but if I was opening up that model for more natural light I'd say it's too small to do much good.

The machine shop - Moore's Balsa Products in this picture - is better skylight-wise. Although If I were to do another I'd replace the kit's roof with a flat one and add some slightly bigger skylights.

The garage's new skylight uses considerably more rooftop real estate, but it still only just peeks above the walls, and it's not too noticeable from the street.

The only other new cosmetic detail was the addition of a pair of trifold doors out front made from slices of 0.020" styrene sheet. They didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped, so let's move on.

On the structural side, I had to add three internal joists made from styrene strips. The walls bowed inward, and since I had discarded the kit's base, I added the joists to get rid of the bow. They did the trick, and although they're merely sketches of actual joists, they make all the right suggestions when viewed from the outside.

Did any of these modifications for light and views work? Well, here's the view inside:

I can see the sign on the back wall of the post office through the garage's backdoor window, and there are some interesting shadows on the garage floor, so I'm happy with these effects, modest as they are.

Since I've been thinking recently about my father's old '49 Mercury I pulled my HO version from storage and used it in the glamour shots. It's an Oxford item.

Hey, if your friends don't hurry up they'll have to walk to school.

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.

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.