Steinberg store box

The previous post didn't clearly show the box that makes up the basic structure of the store, so I thought I'd post a couple of more informative pictures.

I decided to try modelling the wall surfaces by attaching various types of papers. The front wall is 140 lb Arches coarse watercolour paper, the sides are built up from construction paper, and the back wall is standard brick paper.

The colours and textures are all speculation on my part. The front wall should be a multi-coloured brick with maybe 60% white bricks in the mix, but I couldn't replicate that to my satisfaction, so I just I just modelled it as a textured white surface. Likewise, the side walls appear to have been panelled as shown, but I can't find a colour reference, so I went with something that seemed ok. 

On the model the main features are the glass facade, its MCM roof, and the retro Steinberg signs, so I think it's ok for the surfacing of the supporting walls to be a secondary concern.

Steinberg's return

With the lower Ocean Blvd module back on the layout, I've moved the parts for the Steinberg supermarket back to the layout table.

So far I've glued finish papers to the basic structure (a little hard to see in the photo I must admit), attached the main support columns to the glass front (which is a piece of 0.010" clear plastic), and have started on the decorative roof that rests on those columns (it's that long cardboard piece at the bottom of the photo). That roof is an iconic mid-20th century design with its upside-down pyramids at the top of the columns. I did a bit of experimenting to figure out how to make those pyramids. In the end I figured they'll each be folded from a suitably drawn cardboard template.

I had hopes that I could build this model in a week or two of spare time. I've failed on that one already :-) One of my impossible model building related resolutions for the new year will be to figure out how I can build model buildings much faster than is my custom. I have a lot I want to build, and improved speed would be great.

Wired

It took a few days of spare time, but the lights on upper Ocean Blvd are wired up.

Those copper strips are the power buses - there's one for each side of the street - and the side street is a stub off the lower bus. A pair of 9VDC wall warts are used for power.

Once the power buses were installed the module was flipped right side up and the overhead 'wires' - actually, elastic cotton threads - were strung using the same methods as used on the lower section of Ocean Blvd.

The module's now ready for reconnecting to the layout. Once there I'll just need to connect the overhead to the section on lower Ocean Blvd. 

Yeah, that middle street light needs some straightening - that's not perspective distortion. Although, when I've viewed a few street lights up close and personal, many are not as perpendicular to the ground as one might expect, although that one is particularly bad.

Overhead wire poles for upper Ocean Blvd

The last few days I've been working on adding poles for overhead wiring along the upper part of Ocean Boulevard. As this part of the layout is only one small module I decided to disconnect it from the other Ocean Blvd modules and work on it on the 'layout' table. In the workshop I use 2 adjustable standing desks with 2'x4'x1/2" composite tops attached to them as my work areas. They're back-to-back with one being used for the usual model making work, and the second - that has the module on it - for layout work associated with large projects. They're also on wheels, as is the layout, so they can be moved to wherever they're needed. 

I used the same technique for building the overhead wiring support poles as I did for the lower section of Ocean Boulevard. One thing that is a little different is that the light assemblies came from Model Power highway light standard set #476 (the ones with 2 lights per light standard) instead of #475 (which have 1 light per light standard). I only had 5 pieces from the #475 sets left; not enough to make all the new poles, so I went to some hobby stores to see if I could find any. Luckily, even though both sets have been out-of-production for many years, I found some #476s. Turns out a #476 double light standard set has 4 individual lamps, and a #475 has only 3 single light standards, and hence only 3 individual lamps. And with the #476 sets costing $2 less, this was a bargain! Luckily I had some luck :-)

Once all the poles were installed in the sidewalks, the module was stood on end so I could begin installing a lighting bus and attaching all the lights. Those wires you see there are for track power.

Hot Wheels Maserati Mistral restoration is complete!

I've spent some odds-and-ends of time finishing the Maserati restoration. It went fairly well except for chipping the paint during a test fit of the chassis, which required the body to be resprayed. 

At the end of the previous post in this series I was ready to strip the old, original paint from the body. I wasn't sure what to use for a paint stripper, so I decided just to drop the body in Super Clean and leave it overnight. Next morning the paint was soft and loose. Some scrubbing with a bristle brush under running water removed most of the paint. The photo on the right is the result. I then used a dental pick to clean paint from the panel lines and a few areas where the paint refused to let go. After that, I polished the body with a small wire brush attachment in my Dremel.

The chassis was a gloppy mess of thick, black enamel. I don't think the fine little springy axles had much spring as they appeared to be stuck in place. Although, the wheels did turn.

Some careful poking and prying with tweezers and an Xacto knife popped the axles free. The hardened enamel was then scraped from the wires. 

The wheelless chassis was then dropped in Super Clean and left for several hours to soak. The usual process with a scrub brush, dental picks, and the wire wheel was used to clean this piece. The front bumper also underwent the same cleanup process.

And this was the result. The wheels are considerably springier now that the wires were de-glopped. The chassis had a slight upward curve from when I pried it from the body back in the '70s, so I straightened it out with a pair of pliers. I also carefully straightened the wheels so they wouldn't look quite so misaligned. 

We've been lucky weather-wise and there was a mild day when I could spray the body outside. After several light coats this was the result.

After hardening for a few days I tried test fitting all the components and wound up chipping the paint on the front :-( So, a fix up and another round of painting, drying, and then spraying with several light coats of Testors Gloss Cote. 

Then there was another round of parts fitting and gluing the components in place.

The front bumper is attached to the chassis with a medium thickness superglue. The chassis is attached to what remains of the body pins with Weld Bond. 

There are still some gaps in the chassis to body fit, but nothing extreme. I only did the minimum amount of chassis and body bending as I didn't want to risk any serious damage. 

That blue image is what remained of the toy until a few weeks ago when I accidentally found the old chassis and bumper.

I didn't try any wheel restoration, so it's still got the 'racing aged' ones from it's speed demon career in the late '60s and early '70s :-)

I brush painted the red tail lights. I think the toy originally had the headlights painted silver, but I didn't try that on the restoration. After having to respray the body once, I didn't want to press my luck and have to do it again.

And that's that. A pleasant little project and an interesting diversion.