The lights go on at the Repair Shop

I decided to spend some time finishing off the Repair Shop. All I had left to do was the roof and lights. I was getting all wrapped around the axle about what sort of business it would house, and what the interior should look like, and that was blocking me from actually finishing the thing. 

I made the roof removable by gluing to the kit's roof panels some rafters cut from 0.020" thick styrene. I also added a channel for an LED strip.

Roof with new, flexible LED wires.
Note the inside roof surface is painted white to reflect light.

I found when it came to placing the roof on the walls the LED wires weren't flexible enough, and their stiffness kept the roof from sitting properly. So, I rummaged around my odds-and-ends boxes for some smaller diameter, more flexible wire, peeled off the LED strip, removed the old wires, and soldered on the new ones. They did the trick, and the roof now can be made to sit easily on the walls.

To the exterior roof surface a ridge cap cut from 0.010" thick styrene was added, as were two ventilators (they're Walthers rooftop accessory products).

 That guy up there in silhouette is the same guy standing beside this side door:

Out front, him and the building look about the right size for each other, but as I noted in a previous post, he's too tall for the side door. I measured that door, and long story short, based on standard door heights, the model is probably somewhere in the 1:110 to 1:120 scale range, where 1:120 is TT-scale. On the Way Out Layout, the side doors will be out of sight, blocked from easy comparison views by neighbouring buildings. The new door that addresses the street though is HO, and doesn't look out of place on this structure. 

One last thing before coffee: kit history.

Left: Pola 'Quick' B 623 | Right: Pola 11623

I took another deep dive to see if I could find out anything about this kit. It turns out it was a Pola kit that was marketed in the US and Canada by AHM. It was first released by Pola in the late 60s or early 70s in their Quick range as kit # B623. Interestingly Pola also released an N-scale version as Pola 240. An internet search suggested that the kit isn't based on a specific prototype, but don't quote me on that as I can't find a solid reference for that assertion.

Walls Up at the Repair Shop

I finally got around to finishing the inserts for the large end openings and 'glassing' the windows with clear plastic.

I used thin strips of 3M Transfer Tape to attach all the second storey windows to the frames, and the frames of the street level doors to the clear plastic windows. This went well, but some of exposed tape edges have attracted dust and grit that I'll need to carefully scrape out. All the other windows were attached to their frames with Weld Bond glue.

As I've said many times before: the digital camera is a harsh mistress and I see many areas that need touch-up before the building takes up residence on the Way Out Layout.

I've made the end door inserts so the entrance doors line up with each other, implying that the inserts are mirror images of each other. So, it's possible to walk straight through the building.

Up there is the base supplied with the kit. As you can see, a pair of plastic rails run right through the building, and they are HO gauge. I checked :-) But, they're plastic, so can't be powered. They just contribute to the odd overall design of this structure. I've done some cursory investigating into the origin story and possible prototype for this model, but have found nothing yet. I'm sure there's something out there.

Anyway, I replaced the base with a suitably dimensioned and painted piece of 0.060" styrene sheet. 

Next up is constructing a removable roof from the kit's roof and adding lighting. 

I'm still not sure what business will live here, or what will be inside. Interiors are a weak point with me as I have many buildings with clean, serviceable, well lit interiors, but are empty. Clearly some soul searching is required. Maybe AWB can help me out:

Lurking in the Background: AHM's kit #5815, 'Repair Shop'

I've wanted to get my hands on the old AHM kit called the Repair Shop (kit #5815) for many years. It has such an intriguing look, what with that entire second storey completely panelled with windows. Back in January I finally came across a reasonably priced one on eBay from a seller in New Brunswick.

I'm not sure what sort of repairs were imagined to be going on in this building. The base has what looks like a track running through it from one door to the other, but those doors are too small to get anything other than a rather flat, flat car inside. Actually, all the doors seem too small to me. Maybe this building is actually in TT or N scale and not HO as implied on the box. 

The parts were all present, nicely detailed, square, and cleanly molded.

Regardless, my plan was to repurpose the building to be part of the main drag on the Way Out Layout. It'll be some sort of gentrified restaurant, art gallery, coffee shop, or some such thing. 

I've been working on this project on and off all this year since it showed up on my doorstep in the dead of winter. I've started on it again and thought I'd make a post about it to try and get myself back into a more serious blogging groove. 

The side doors seemed too rural and industrial for the setting I have in mind, so I decided to fill in the openings with some sheet styrene with a molded on block pattern. I could have used brick sheet, but I didn't want the final result to appear as a failed attempt to match the kit's bricks. 

Jumping a head a little you can see I just painted the blocked up door openings with a loose grey mixture. I'll do some weathering a little later during construction.

Those big door openings on the end walls will be filled with typical steel-framed doors and windows you'd encounter on stores in many urban areas. I cut some clear plastic inserts (those are the blue rectangles in the above photo - the blue is the anti-scratch film) for 'glass'. From 0.010" thick styrene sheet I cut frames for both sides of the 'glass'.

I recently started working on this again after parking it back in June. Up there is where the project currently stands: I'm attaching the window and door frames to the clear plastic with 3M Transfer Tape and getting the finished units ready for installing in the walls. Once the other windows have 'glass' installed I'll move onto working on the interior. My plans are for a removable roof and some inside lights.