From the 'Time Marches On' files

1980, through November 2012, to 2014

October 2016

February 2025

2013 to ?

Landmark Bookmark: The World's Biggest Bookstore

Over at Orange Crate Art Michael posted a link to an interesting new Walrus article, Life in the Stacks: A Love Letter to Browsing. It's an essay on the disappearing joys of browsing record and video shops, bookstores, libraries, and other such places before online browsing more-or-less killed it all. A few of my old Toronto haunts figure prominently, and even the World's Biggest Bookstore makes a cameo appearance. 

Lately I've also been thinking about differences between online and old-school browsing, as well as the World's Biggest Bookstore. I figured I should take some pictures of the layout where the WBB model resides before the layout is disassembled since a section of the layout's main drag was designed for the WBB model: the tree lined brick area was to mimic the street outside the WBB.

I'll write something about browsing sometime this summer as the Walrus article, although good, only touches on some things I've been thinking about. So, with the pen set aside, I pulled out the camera for a picture or two. That's the first one at the top. Needs some work, but I think it captures just how large the building was: it was a converted bowling alley after all :-)

All that remains . . .

. . . of the World's Biggest Bookstore is this vacant lot. Back in the spring of 2014, the World's Biggest Bookstore announced it was closing its doors for good. Last weekend I was in the vicinity and popped over to see what I could see. All that remains is this vacant lot. But, fear not, it lives on in miniature form on the Lost Ocean Line.

World's Biggest Bookstore 1980 - 2014

On Sunday, 30 March 2014, Toronto’s landmark World’s Biggest Bookstore closed its doors for the last time. The end of a 34 year era and the passing of one of the last bastions of mid 20^th century unabashed business exuberance that dotted the downtown. Thanks for the memories! But despair not all ye 1/87 scale seekers of a good read. The lights are still on, the magazines are all new, and book pages are all deckle edged down at the HO location conveniently situated on Ocean Boulevard near car stop #3 of the Lost Ocean Line. See you at the bargain tables by the escalators!

Ocean Boulevard at night

All the city lights were switched on for the first time over the Christmas holiday. Above is a photo of Ocean Boulevard from the beach, and below is some poor soul lost in dejected thought as a night car passes by.

Wall Decals

It was looking like the only way I was going to get crisp, clear lettering on an intensely red background for the WSMoftheWBB was to buy a new higher-end printer that sported a place for a pure red ink cartridge. I didn’t want to spend any more money on this project, so I decided I’d go with what I had and try to blend the wall decaling in with paint. 

The end result was a somewhat run-down look at street level. Toronto being a rather gritty city, this wasn’t too far out of place in the overall scheme of things even though it wasn’t prototypically accurate for this building. I once had a painting teacher who said that a painting has to hold together on its own because the typical viewer has never seen the actual object that you’re painting, so if you need to do something that deviates from the object to make the painting work, that’s fine. I think the same applies to model building. 

I’ve got decaling on my mind these days and since I was at it I decided to try another idea I’d been toying with: the addition of a simple mural to the back wall of Stella’s Used Records. I bought a boxed set of Bill Evan’s Village Vanguard recordings last winter in a remainder bin and I thought the cover image would be a great piece of HO graffiti – well, I’d be impressed if I walked down a street and saw it sprayed on a building :-)

I scanned the image, scaled it to fit the wall, and printed it on a piece of Micro Mark clear decal sheet. The image was fixed with a few sprays of Tester’s Dullcote. The decal was set on the wall with several applications of Micro Sol decal setting solution. 

Seeing red, printing orange

Well, more precisely, printing an orange / red / brown / magenta / tomato mix. 

I’ve been working on creating waterslide decals to model the words that appear on the street-facing facade of the WBB. The plan was to take a photo of a brick section of the front wall on the model, overlay the photo with appropriate white lettering, and then print out the images on white decal paper. Since white cannot be directly printed, any white that appears in decals must be superimposed on some background colour – in this case an intensely red brick.

Long story short, neither our Lexmark nor Canon printers can print what I’d say is a match for the Krylon red used to paint the WSMoftheWBB. After much tweaking and adjusting and cleaning and other associated foofarah, I don’t think the blue / yellow / magenta ‘colour’ cartridges these machines use as their standard equipment are capable of printing the eye-searing fire engine red that is Krylon red.

When I looked again at the red sign I had printed with the Lexmark printer for the Art Deco Chapters build, it is not what I’d call ‘true red’ either when compared to its red window frames – which is pretty close to Krylon red. I did have a printer many years ago that we used with an ancient iMac that seemed to print a pretty good red, and I used it for printing decals for this spaceship model, so printing a true red is possible.

Well, in a bit of frustration, I did try and apply one of the off-red decals to the building with an eye towards manually tuning up the colour once it was dried and secure. With the help of decal setting solutions the decal did conform to the bricks quite well, but it was clear the colour was so far off that no post-application brush work was going to make it look right.  I peeled it off and I continue my mission to print a true red :-)

WSMoftheWBB* gets a roof

With the rain we're getting, the roof installation happened none too soon:-) 

The roof lights that overhang the sidewalk are made from Model Power HO scale street lights. They aren't particularly realistic, so I guess they aren't too well thought of, which probably accounts for why I have been able to buy a couple dozen or so at various swap meets and resale bins over the past few months.

The only modification I made to the lights was to cut off the bases.

Around the upper wall perimeter I glued in some styrene Z-channel to hold the roof slab in place. Jumping ahead a bit, some double-sided tape was applied to the channel to hold the roof in place. It isn't a permanent bond and allows for the roof to be carefully pried off to turn the lights on and off.

The building had a rather pronounced warp in it causing the front wall to bow out a bit. To fix it, I cut a strip of 0.020 inch styrene and used to connect the front and back walls together where the bow was worst. The strip is in tension and straightens out the walls.

The above picture is the roof slab after the holes were drilled for lights. The slab itself is made from two pieces of 0.060 inch styrene glued together to create a 30 inch long piece that snuggly fits into ledge created by the Z-channel styrene. That broken piece of styrene inside the building near the tension strip is my first attempt at taking out the wall warp - it didn't work and I had to cut the piece and try again with a new idea.

Here are the 6 roof lights glued into their positioning holes. Each is supported by a small triangular piece of styrene that wedges into the base of the light and is glued to the roof slab and light pole. These triangular pieces aren't very realistic, but were needed to give the light stands some strength. Once painted, they are fairly unobtrusive.

I wanted the building to be battery powered so it wasn't dependant on an external power source, so the lights use two 9-volt batteries for juice. Battery holders are glued onto the back corners of the roof and 3 lights are connected to each battery. This produces a warm, gentle glow that doesn't compete with the sign. The lights are connected in parallel to the batteries, and a small slide switch is soldered into each circuit.

When I went shopping for battery holders and little switches I discovered that an era had recently come to an end. A few years back the Radio Shack chain here became 'The Source', and became even more focused on consumer electronics. Some electronic hobbyist parts were still available, so even though the price was a little high, if I really needed something immediately, I could pop down to the mall and get it. Not so now. It turns out that just a few weeks ago, the chain got rid of the last remnants of the hobbyist gear and is now more-or-less all consumer goods. Definitely the end of an era. Luckily, there is still a family run electronics parts store not too far away and they came to the rescue.

I didn't texture the roof, just painted it with some very loose washes of flat black, oily black, gray, and mud colours. The air conditioner is a Walther's item.

That's it for major construction on this project. There are just a number of detail items that I need to wrap up.
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*World's Smallest Model of the World's Biggest Bookstore

Missing construction photos found + a start on the roof

I had shot a few photos of the WSMoftheWBB's shell pieces just before and after gluing them together, but they went missing, and I thought I had accidentally deleted them from my camera without downloading. Lucky for me I had just misfiled them, and found them while searching for some other pictures. The top photo are the walls just before gluing up the box - they're pretty basic.

And here is the shell after sitting for a day or two after gluing.

I used a builder's square to line-up the walls while gluing.

And jumping forward to today, I'm working on the roof now that I've rounded up the parts I'll need for it and its lights. The roof is glued up from 2 pieces of 0.060 inch styrene. Along the top edge of the box I've glued in some styrene Z-channel along the perimeter, and the roof sets in it. As you can see, the front wall has a bit of a bow in it that I'll need to take out with a tension piece connected to the back wall.

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