The Insectary is a many windowed box

Yesterday I posted a photo of the Insectary's front and right side walls. Over there on the left is the Insectary's other long wall. It too is lined with windows, but there's no door. 

Over on the right is the back wall; only 3 windows on this end. So, here's a count of the window castings needed for each wall:

Right: 9 ( + 1 door)

Left: 10

Front: 3

Back: 3

Total: 25

With 25 windows there's no way I'd try and build this structure with an old school window making method. I need to rummage through Tichy's and see if they have a suitable casting.

Beginning scenery

For little mental breaks while I finish up the E. L. Moore book I like to putter with scenery on the experimental farm layout.

I'm currently putting down the base layer of green grass beside the track. It's where the poles for the overhead wiring will be installed. 

Down at the far end you'll see Vicki's Veggies. It's at the farm's road edge so passersby can pick up some farm fresh veg on their way home. There's going to be a tomato patch beside it. Some Woodland Scenic's soil flocking has been glued down to get it started.

If all goes well there'll be a model of the Photo Equatorial building near the inside loop, and an 'insectary' somewhere inside the farm's grounds.

The Insectary: A classic E. L. Moore style subject?

Yeap, the insectary was an actual building at the Central Experimental Farm. Apparently during WWI there was a lot of concern about insect pests chomping away on crops, so research was begun to see what could be done. One of the buildings used to support that work was the insectary. The building still stands today, although I think it's being put to some other use.

First round of painting

It took a few days of part time work, but I finished painting the first layer of colour on the farm's internal road with Revell Aquacolor Stone Grey. The grounds the road surrounds were given a rough wash of raw umber.

That line down the centre of the farm's grounds is an internal walking path. It's made from fine sand white glued to the foam. 

Those white rectangles on either side of the inner loop are to be passenger waiting areas for streetcars. They're cut from 0.060" styrene sheet. That white strip over by the farm boundary with the main road is a sidewalk. It's also made from 0.060" styrene. This paint work is a little tedious, but after every session I'm glad to see more and more of the farm coming to life.

Modelling Ontario trees via the library

Ontario, the second largest province in Canada, stretches roughly 1,000 miles from north to south, and an equal distance from east to west with an area somewhat over 400,000 square miles. This is equivalent in size to three and a half times the combined areas of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. … Of this immense area, it is estimated that some 198 million acres is forest land, with slightly more than half of it productive. This area of forest land is equal to one-half the forest area of all the countries of Europe, exclusive of Russia. It is equal to seven times the forest area of France, and three times that of Sweden.… The forest throughout this vast extent includes about 90 kinds of trees, exclusive of the hawthorns, and shows well-marked differences in the occurrence of these, as one travels from south to north.

From the 1980 7th edition of The Forest Trees of Ontario.

Once the E. L. Moore book is done I want to get back to modelling trees and pick up where I left off last year. Trying to make properly scaled trees, not the usual dinky sized, lollipop things one usually sees on layouts, was something of a revelation. Just getting the size, shape, and colour right, even if the detailing wasn’t quite up to par, made for a big improvement in the overall look of my little Loonar Module. Up close it’s clear its trees need work, but standing back a bit and looking at the whole composition I’m struck by a feeling of rightness and recognition with the scene. 

This, for better or worse, has made me a tree snob. Any how-to-make-model-trees guide that doesn’t start with looking around outside at trees, research in books or the internet about real trees, or simply looking at tree photographs, I immediately dismiss. I realize for most layouts trees are background items, and often vast quantities are needed, so approximate methods are required for their construction, but still, I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing with that approach, especially when there’s conceptual spillover when it comes to making so-called quick-and-easy foreground trees.

So far the guides that have helped me the most are a series of tree making videos by Boomer Diorama, and Gordon Gravett’s two tree modelling books. 

Here’s one of Boomer’s videos, but there are several more at his channel.

I bought copies of Gravett’s books online from the Pendon Museum’s shop last year. They were pricey, but well worth it.

Boomer models British Columbia’s trees and Gravett does England’s, with me it’s Ontario’s, so although I can use their techniques I had to look up some Ontario specific tree reference material. On The Loonar Module I used my own photos and some data found on the internet. For the next round I thought I’d see what I could find in the way of Ontario tree guidebooks.  

Inside Ontario Trees

When we were visiting the Royal Ontario Museum a few weeks ago I found a copy of Jeffery Domm’s Ontario Trees in the gift shop. It was published in 2022, and I’ve eyed it for awhile at a few online booksellers. When I saw it live and in person, ok, well, I bought a copy. I figured even though I’d have to carry it back home, at least I wasn’t giving Jeff B. even more of my money and my purchase was helping out a place I liked, even if only in a small way. 

I must admit I bought it mainly for the pictures of entire trees and tree data, which are excellent. The subtitle is A visual guide to the most important species and the publisher’s done a great job in providing the visual information a modeller needs, even though they no doubt never had that in mind. 

Speaking of the publisher, it’s a Nova Scotia company called Formac Publishing, and in the acknowledgements section the publisher notes it received financial support for the book from both the federal government and the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage. I don’t see any note of any support from the Ontario government. Weird. 

However, here’s something of a classic in Ontario tree identification literature that the Ontario government did at one time support and publish: The Forest Trees of Ontario. Copies of this publication by the Ministry of Natural Resources seemed to be everywhere when I was growing up. The cover is instantly recognizable to me, but I had more-or-less forgotten what was inside, so I bought a copy of the 1980 edition from an online bookseller. 

It’s not much use to the modeller as it focuses on structured tree identification by leaves, fruit, bark, and twigs. There’s an extensive collection of photographs of those things, but none of whole trees. 

The front matter notes the book had been in print since 1925, and was revised in 1946 and 1968. In the forward to the 1925 edition it’s noted:

Twenty-four years ago, Dr. W. H. Muldrew, a well-known Ontario educationist and naturalist, issued the first tree book of the province, entitled “Sylvan Ontario - A Guide to Our Native Trees and Shrubs.” This was a very useful publication, filling a long-felt want, but has been out of print for many years. 

Some leaf drawings from Sylvan Ontario

Luckily I have the internet and found an online copy of this 1901 book. 

It turns out Dr. W. H. Muldrew is William Hawthorne Muldrew, B.A., D. PAED, Principal of the Gravenhurst High School. Wikipedia tells me, “Dr. W. H. Muldrew was the first principal and being an expert of native trees and shrubs, designed the landscaping.” Dr. Muldrew notes in the book’s preface, 

The trees, especially, so common and so interesting, though so little known, he [Muldrew that is] has tried to introduce to his classes as neighbors worthy of attentive study - not as mere units in a system, but as living things solving the problem of life in their own way. In pursuance to this idea there has been established in the grounds of the Gravenhurst High School an arboretum, where practically all the trees and shrubs of the district may be seen and studied. The collection and care of such specimens has made necessary an accurate knowledge of their features, and the method employed in introducing them to successive classes has helped to make possible the preparation of this hand-book.

Like The Forest Trees of Ontario that was published a quarter century later, the book features a structured method of tree identification based on leaves and other characteristics. Unlike The Forest Trees of Ontario, there are no photographs of leaves and so on, but there are 131 leaf drawings by the author. No drawings of entire trees though.

I don’t know why these old Ontario books don’t have any photos or drawings of entire trees. Maybe that was not considered existential for identification? Maybe that was too arty for inclusion? Production complications? Something else?

I couldn’t end this without mentioning Trees and How They Grow by Katherine Carter. It’s not about Ontario trees, but I did receive it as a Christmas gift in Ontario in 1967.

Finally finished the AMT GMC Jimmy kit

Back in September I decided to take the Jimmy off the shelf and finish it. Long time readers may recall building up the chassis was giving me fits, and I shelved the project before it could cause long term psychological damage :-)

Why the change of heart? In late August and early September last year I was getting all sentimental as the first magazine I bought dealing with plastic model construction was the September '72 issue of Car Model. It had been 50 years since getting into model building. The young me was enthralled by the cover story: how to build the 'Desert Dodge' from MPC's Baja-Brute, a kit of a Dodge Adventurer SE pickup. 

I was lucky to find the kit used in the story for sale in the toy department at a local Simpsons store. I saved up my allowance, bought one, and did the best I could to build that truck. Well, I didn't come close to reproducing the model in the magazine, but had great fun trying.

So, last September I started thinking, I could get the Jimmy off the shelf and build it up to resemble the Desert Dodge. Remembering how frustrating this kit was I gave up on that idea before it got too far and decided instead to use the Jimmy to practice my painting skills. It had lots of molded on trim and it seemed like that would be fun to paint. I had already sprayed the body during my first attempt at the kit, so after close to 2 years on the shelf, it was cured enough for detail painting :-)

Painting was indeed pleasant, and it was satisfying to see the model come to life with each new item painted, but a few steps before finishing the model I shelved it again to devote myself to the ELM book. I didn't want anything potentially distracting me from making progress on the manuscript.

Ok, this time the shelf was metaphorical. The model was actually pushed to a corner of my workbench and ignored. A few days ago I noticed it had acquired a few stray paint flecks and a lot of dust. There were only a few steps left, so I cleaned up the model and finished it.

I had hopes of adding more interior detail and a bit of light weathering, but I thought too much time had passed and just glued on and painted up the pieces left - and some pieces I had lost during the long period of neglect, like the rearview mirror.

Overall, although the painting part was fun, I found this a tough kit to build because it seemed there were many part fit issues and often the parts weren't too well molded, which I assume was because the mold was quite old by now as this a repop of an old kit.