Connecting the overhead at the module joint

This is the overhead 'wire' connection at the joint between the upper and lower Ocean Park modules. At this location the wire support poles are unusually close as I wanted to have more-or-less each module completely spanned by its own overhead so I could disconnect the modules and still have most of each module spanned by overhead. 

At this wire joint there's a short piece of thread spanning the two pairs of poles. On the rightmost module in the photo the thread is attached to the ears with superglue as per usual, but on the left pair of poles, the thread is attached with rubber cement, which allows for the thread to be carefully pulled off the ear for module disconnection. I was surprised that the rubber cement could resist more tension than I first thought, so maybe I should have used it elsewhere to hold the overhead in place. Live and learn. If you look carefully at the photo you'll see there's a kink in the thread near the ear on the pole in the lower right. That was caused by putting a little too much glue on the thread. I'll need to straighten that out a bit.

Track disconnection isn't too difficult. The street inserts lift out to expose the rail joiners, which then can be slipped back over the rails and away from the module joint. All that needs to be done now to disconnect the modules is to remove the two bolts underneath the layout that hold them together. 

The track on the lower Ocean Park module doesn't rely on the rail joiners for power transmission, but have power leads soldered to both sections of track. 

 

That completes overhead wire installation along the length of Ocean Boulevard from the Mortimer Park loop in the east, to the Ocean Park interurban crossing in the west. That's a length of 9', maybe a little more once the loop is taken into account. Likely early in the new year I'll get out the Ocean Park module and begin scenery, but for now I'm going to test all the lighting and track along Ocean Boulevard. Maybe take some photos too.

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.