Art Deco Billboard

While searching the internet I found another Billboard in the Art Deco Style. A definition with examples of Art Deco can be found HERE and on Wikipedia.

It appears that this billboard is visible from both sides

I designed it with one center piece of 1.5mm MDF and the trim for both sides from 1mm MDF. Again this kit yields 2 additional small spare billboards.

I painted it off white and used toothpicks for the legs.

On the reverse side I attached a picture of old faded and torn down ads.

Both styles will be available for purchase soon. Stay tuned and watch for details.

Art Deco Billboards part 2

I'm a great fan of billboards because they really set the era or time frame. When I found a picture of an Art Deco billboard that looked like a TV I decided to model a similar one.

 

After figuring out the different steps in how to assemble such a billboard I again made a CAD drawing and got it laser-cut from my friend.

I designed the billboard in 3 layers on 1mm MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard)

With the tip of my hobby knife I pricked the holes of the "speaker" out.

Then I glued the "knobs" on the engraved spots.

Finally I glued and clamped the 3 layers together.

I painted the billboard with a brown color and glued a billboard ad from the 1940's era into the frame.
You'll find tons of advertisements on the internet. Most are jpeg's and with a little scaling on the computer they can be printed out on a normal printer.

After I had assembled the Art Deco Billboard I thought about what I could do with the leftovers. The panels that had been discarded from the frames give a neat rectangular billboard.

For the new frame I salvaged the small strips from the carrier sheet, which are a scale 6" wide

With my NWSL chopper I cut the strips at a 45° angle.

Then I glued the frame around the edge and voilà, a spare billboard from scrap pieces.

I painted the billboards dark green and applied period appropriate ads.

Now I need to build some legs or probably attach them to the side of a building.

This Art Deco Billboard will be available soon. Watch for details.

Adobe structures

Adobe is the Spanish word for mud brick, a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material (sticks, straw, and/or manure), usually shaped into bricks using molds and dried in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and rammed earth buildings, but cob and rammed earth are directly made into walls rather than bricks. These bricks were used to make pueblos in New Mexico. The Anasazi, Hopi, and Zuni peoples used this. (Source Wikipedia)

 

(Adobe house near Las Cruces, NM 1936)

Since modeling the Southwestern part of the United States I quickly realized that many of my structures needed to be build in this style.

Adobe had been in use by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Southwestern United States, Mesoamerica, and the Andean region of South America for several thousand years. The Pueblo people built their adobe structures with handfuls or basketfuls of adobe, until the Spanish introduced them to the making of bricks. Adobe brickmaking was used in Spain starting in the eighth century B.C. The Spanish Conquistadores also left their trace all along the California Coast with numerous missions and stucco buildings. (Source Wikipedia)

From old photographs and visits to different pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona I tried to catch the look of these structures in miniature. There are only a few models of adobe buildings available, so scratch building is the way to go here. I'm already used to it from my home layout, set in Southern California.

For a new project layout in HOn3 I plan to build a street scene set somewhere in the Southwestern US, near the mexican border. The track will be running through the street. Here are a couple of finished structures so far.

Garcia's Garage will feature a detailed workshop and outside junkyard.

 

The CasaAdobe above represents a small 2-room house.

The Barber Shop is also a small 1-room business.

To simplify things I used Corel Draw to draw an adobe house and a friend cut it out on his laser cutter. I tried a new method to cover the walls with grout to represent adobe or even stucco if used in a lighter color and painted.

To do so I painted the walls with a coat of white glue and then sifted the grout over it. Because most of the grout did not stick to the walls and there were still some bare spots, I covered the walls again and wetted them with a spray bottle. This worked out satisfactorily.

After the walls had dried completely I assembled the building.

As you can see now the tabs and slots are still visible.

I mixed a batch of grout with a little wet water and white glue and painted the edges and the inner walls on the roof.

It ended up with a different shade so I decided to dab the whole structure with the new mix.

I inserted the vigas and glued the roofs in place.

 As you can see the grout dries very mat like the real thing. I guess I could not top it with just painting and weathering the walls.

Building Foundations

For a narrow gauge project I'm building a fictitious street scene, set somewhere in the Southwestern United States. The structures will be mostly adobe buildings, with white-washed or painted walls and dirt roads along the tracks.

Most of my structures are removable, to make it easier to replace light bulbs or dust them off. I don't like the look of buildings sitting ON instead of  IN the ground. Therefore I place the finished building on the base where it is supposed to be and draw the outlines around the walls. Then I build foundations following these outlines. The foundations are glued to the baseboard.

Using the outlines of the buildings I glue scale lumber strips (8x8, 10x10 or even 12x12) down to the baseboard.

To save the more expensive scale lumber strips I keep the left-overs from wooden laser kits. There are normally many useful pieces to build the foundations, by cutting them into strips.

Modified Miter Box

Modified Miter Box

I also start a new tools and general modeling topic on this blog, because sometimes there are jobs to do, to complement the actual layout theme or are also useful in other modeling areas.

Some years ago I have build a jig for cutting scale lumber, styrene or metal strips. This simple jig accepts a standard modeling miter box. Some bigger lumber or styrene shapes just cannot be cut with the NWSL chopper, neither do metal shapes. So this jig simplifies the task of cutting a number of same length strips, like telephone poles, lumber or pipe loads, etc.  

Material list:

- A piece of 1x4 lumber (left-over from your benchwork building)
- 2 small pieces of hardboard (left-overs from your backdrop or fascia/valence)
- 1 piece of thicker wood or whatever serves the purpose (for setting the length)
- 1 small C-clamp
- 1 piece of "paper" tape measure (available for free in most Home Depots like IKEA, serving the customers to make quick measurements of the furniture o.a.)
- Small Miter box and razor saw

 Construction:

- Glue or nail one piece of hardboard at the outer edge of the 1x4 (right)
- Place the miter box against this stop to determine the "0" location of your measuring tape (the center of the miter box)
- Glue the tape in place.
- Put the miter box against the right hand stop and glue or nail the left hand stop in place on the 1x4.

- Now use the bigger piece as a moveable stop and clamp it at the desired mark on the measuring tape.

Place the miter box between the fixed stops, set the desired length with the clamp, insert your scale lumber or styrene stock and cut it with the razor saw. 

On a spare piece of plywood I nailed 4 spikes, spaced for the width of my flatcars/gondolas. This simple jig helps in glueing the poles in layers so the load may be build removable.