Kit # 5978

Hey kids! Collect 'em all: #5973, Moore's Balsa Products; #5975, Speedy Andrew's Surf Shop; and #5977, Cal's Coastal Cafe.

Ramsey's Park Square: Finished!

In the previous instalment I had finished the base layer painting. That layer didn't look too bad, so I thought, why not do a little concentrated work and finish the thing. So I did :-)

The biggest job seemed to be adding mortar lines to the brickwork. I haven't settled on a preferred technique and have used a wide variety over the years. I think the oddest was rubbing on toothpaste, although it did produce pretty convincing results along with adding a minty fresh smell to the project! This time I rubbed in some white, fine modelling paste from Liquitex. The procedure was simple enough: rub a dab into some mortar joints, then rub off the excess that got on the brick surface. I must have had dirty fingers when I applied the paste as the bricks came out with an aged tone. Maybe I need to market my finger oils as a high quality weathering compound :-)

The window frames were sprayed with a leftover can of Krylon green paint. It turns out none of the window frames fit properly in the wall openings. I didn't have the patience to file and fiddle with each frame and opening to get a perfect fit, but just pressed and squeezed each until it wedged in its opening and then applied glue. 

The draperies are printed paper items leftover from the Kibri apartment project.

Eventually I'm going to add a staircase below the door on the back wall. I admit I've copped out on this detail, but what I'm interested in with this model is the front facade that'll be seen from the street. In the meantime, for safety's sake, maybe I better add a danger sign to the door as that first step is a lulu :-)

Why are those windows bricked up? Won't the apartments be dungeon-like on that side? Well, yes, but maybe they just need the right tenant :-) Ok, well, this wall came from a Grusom Casket Co. kit, and not from its ancestor, the Ramsey Journal Building, so there's the reason. I was just making due with the parts I had on hand, and I didn't have either a complete Ramsey Journal or Grusom Casket kit in my stash. 

The roof is quite simple. The skylight is from the kit, and the air conditioner is from a collection of Walthers rooftop detail accessories. Other than adding some pigeons, and maybe some droppings, to the upper ledge of the facade, that is that. It's not the most detailed of models, but I like the concept, and I think it'll add a little unique character to the layout.

Ramsey's Park Square: Base painting

Over the last few day's I've been applying base colours to the shell. I started on the easy part and painted the interior a flat black to make the walls a little more opaque and to reduce interior reflections.

The bricks are painted with a loose mix of Revell Aqua Color #36137 Reddish brown, and #36162, Mossy Green. The green is maybe no more than 25% of the mix. It's added to partially grey and deepen the reddish brown. Keeping the mixture loose helps create tonal variation along the walls.

The facade was painted from one of my last remaining bottles of Model Master Aged Concrete. I've figured out how to mimic the colour with paints from the Revell Aqua Color line, but I'm sentimentally attached to my Model Master stash and will continue to use it until the hardened, crusty end :-)

Now it's on to adding mortar lines to the brickwork and detail painting to the facade.

Ramsey's Park Square: Facade and Building Shell

I see several fit and finish issues to fix up.

I recently finished the facade, and, making use of a great idea suggested by Galen, went ahead and installed it in the building shell.

He suggested only cutting out the kit's lower level window and door on the front wall for the facade instead of removing the entire wall from below the sills of the second floor windows as I was originally going to do. This meant adding a foundation wall around the lower perimeter, but with the obvious basement window on the facade, this addition made visual sense for the model.

Also, this arrangement makes the building look less dumpy and squat. The overall proportions are now much more pleasing.

I did a test placement of the shell on the layout. I feel that it fits in quite well.

For reference, this is the facade's other side. The facade is simply a box with a 10mm depth, made up from scraps of 0.040", 0.020", and 0.010" sheet styrene. 

The foundation walls are cut from 0.060" sheet and square section styrene.

To make this model I've had to scrounge from all three Ramsey Journal and Gruesom Casket kits I have. I bought these things mainly for the boxes, so I haven't inventoried them until recently. It turned out each was missing some key part - and as an extra bonus, two included components from some other unidentified kits - but together there're enough components to get me through this project. These three are now officially donors. Maybe the future holds some more Ramsey-Gruesom kitmingles.

Ramsey's Park Square: A Start

 I've had my eye on building a model of Ottawa's Park Square apartments for awhile, but I've been reluctant to dive into such a large project. I think it's because although I greatly admire its Art Deco entrance, I didn't want to tackle making the rest of the building.

What to do? What to do? Well, after staring at my prototype photos for a long time it looked like I could build the entrance and use a Ramsey Journal Building kit for the rest of the structure. I don't know if this project classifies as a kitbash since only one kit is being used. Maybe 'kitmod', for 'modified kit', is better.

Sourced from Google Street Views

Here's the prototype. It was built in 1936, and opened in 1937 with 13 apartments. It would be too large for my layout, and since all I'm interested in is the entrance, I thought it would be easier to make up a story about why a classy Art Deco entrance was attached to a dumpy little building than building the full prototype. No doubt Cousin Cal was involved somehow :-) 

Right now the facade is only about half built. The lower part of the front wall of the Ramsey Journal Building will be cut out and the Park Square facade will be inserted in the opening. I'm not sure how I'll proceed once the new facade is installed, but figuring that out is part of the fun of these sorts of projects.