I combined a thread about making a real gold leaf sign for the pharmacy (original thread is still here: http://www.finescalerr.com/smf/index.php?topic=3139.0) along with an older thread that showed some of the interior details for the pharmacy. And today I added two new interior views of work in progress to the thread as well.
I've been working on this model for quite awhile and still am less than halfway done, but here are a couple shots of some of the interior pieces posed against a scrap piece of matte board that is about the same color that the wall will be. Everything is scratchbuilt. In the first photo the posters above the cabinets are GIMPed in, but will be added when the interior is installed. The magazine rack on the far left is just posed in the photo. It will be on the opposite wall of the pharmacy, next to a soda fountain. You can click on the photos to enlarge them.
Bill, how did you do the bottles or shiny brass items left hand?
Volker
Volker, those are tiny gold colored metal "crimp beads" for spacing bigger beads apart on bracelets, necklaces, etc. I got them at a craft store. Because they are tiny hollow tubes, I glued styrene rod inside them to look something like a "cap" and to give a little more surface area for gluing the beads to the shelf.
Very adequate. -- Russ
Thank you , Russ. It's no Anders HO diorama (or others' level), but it's OK.
Looks great Bill nice work.
Jerry
Thanks, Jerry.
HI Bill, very nice work and that in HO my appreciation.
Danke, Helmut.
Here is the other side of the interior, not quite completely done in this old, but still most current photo.
Like Barney, the main pieces for the counter and cabinets behind the counter are Legos. The red seat covers are the "buttons" cut from a Lego block. (click photo to enlarge).
I'll take a Cherry Coke float please.
Lawton, Sorry, Cheeseburger cheeseburger cheeseburger, chips, Pepsi, no Coke :) Well, actually no grill, so no cheeseburger either - yeah, what the heck, one cherry coke comin' up :)
Quote from: Bill Gill on March 05, 2019, 01:33:12 PM
Thank you , Russ. It's no Anders HO diorama (or others' level), but it's OK.
I like your understatement.
Bill:
You get 2 bonus points for using Legos in your build. If you had used the full bricks you could have earned more points.
Volker, Here's the package for those gold colored beads you asked about.
I got them at an A.C. Moore craft store, but have seen the same in other places.
The item number is JFCT1G-0.75G/MZ
Lawton, Just like me to go at this in a half-bricked way and lose points because of it. :)
Nice work very life like in such a small scale
Barney
Thank you, Barney. Distance enhances viewing.
really nice work Bill.
Thanks, Kim.
Here's a look at some of the things used to make the items on the shelves:
1. Bits of transparent plastic with paint for "tops"
2. Twist-off tips from dog flea medication tube
3. Corrugated strips cut from clear music CD case
4. Colored styrene cut from bread wrapper clips**
5. Glass seed beads with nut- bolt-washer "tops"
6. Gold colored metal crimp beads for jewelry
7. Leaf springs cut from HO caboose truck
8. Florescent bits turned from "Light Brights" toy
9. HO shutter slats with crosscuts part way thru
10. Bits of lenticular lens toy^^ & added backing image
11. Tiny bits plastic fiberoptic rod with paint "caps"
12. Two tiny steel screws
13. Styrene rod, iridescent paint, nut, bolt, washer "cap"
** Using colored plastic meant didn't have to paint so good bond and no paint to smear with solvent cement.
^^Those flat sheets with a ridged face. When you tilt the sheet the image "inside" appears to move. The tall rotating display is mounted on a cutdown base from Model Power street sign.
The other items are mostly styrene strips, sprue or rods with tiny labels cut from magazines. Open boxes in the display cases are .005 styrene glued to sides of whatever the contents are. There is also a very tiny snail shell (not visible in either photo) on a shelf in the back.
Is this reuse, re-purposing, or recycling? Bonus points if you can find a use for takeaway packaging. ;D ;D
Is this reuse, re-purposing, or recycling? Lawton
Yes!
I haven't tried it, but clear plastic blisters from some packaging could possibly be cut for use as curved window glass. I found a small vacuum molded packaging "well" that looks like a one piece rectangular fiberglas bathtub insert with a shelf around the top. Too modern for my time frame, but tempting to use somehow.
And, of course the foam clam shells can be carved to look like stone and brick.
I like some of the vacuum formed boxes because the plastic isn't totally flat and from some angles takes on the appearance of hand blown glass.
This is very nicely done, really nice work Bill!
Thanks, SandiaPaul
Most of the interior furnishings and the products are unknown for a modeler with Euopean background. As far as I may remember, pharmaciese looked quite different here in the fifties/sixties, but the MAD cover even I know myself;-)
Terrific work, and all of that in HO scale!!!
Thank you, Peter. I think the MAD cover might be universally recognizable :)
Here is one of the old photographs used for reference for the interior appearance
Chuck Doan's father also built a beautiful diorama of a diner or drug store. If Chuck happens to muddle by this thread maybe he can post his dad's work. -- Russ
Chuck, if you do look in here and have photos of your father's diorama I'd love to see them.
Fantastic work, Bill! I did something similar in 1/24th and that was a pain...can't even imagine doing it in HO.
Unfortunately the plastic I used to glaze the windows of my drugstore has fogged and yellowed, so all that interior detail can't even be seen anymore. I want to refurbish it and replace the plastic with real glass, which I use on my current structures. I just have to figure out how to remove the window frames without destroying them.
I moved the thread about the gold leaf sign here to combine the entire Finnuken'sPharmacy build in one place
The sign for the pharmacy has been on and off for quite a while. Some time ago Ed Traxler (eTraxx) converted a sign I designed for my layout to a 3D printable piece using SketchUp. I don't remember if Shapeways did the actual printing or another company, but Ed did all the hard stuff prepping my 2D art.
The printing was complicated. Not only was the lettering small, but I wanted the raised letters to have a curved cross section rather than straight sides and a flat face. And, just to make it harder, I wanted the letters printed as they would be on the sign but raised on tiny stems above the carrier sheet so that they could be goldleafed without getting gold on the background.
Amazingly, Ed managed to do all that. Unfortunately I was too klutzy to manage the tricky process of trnsfering the individual layers to the signboard without breaking several of them.
Fortunately Ed anticipated problems and also had the letters printed directly on a correctly sized resin signboard. (First photo below)
I, however, spent a long time trying to find a way to apply the gold to the letters (23k patent gold leaf - the kind attached to a tissue paper backing) I had done some 1:1 goldleaf letters on a sign and a few other items for Mystic Seaport Museum. This project was in a different league.
After many failed experiments I finally managed to get ...acceptable...results. My previous experience involved oil based size for the goldleaf. That wasn't working well at that size, so I experimented with various acrylic materials. Eventually Wellbond PVA glue thinned to milk consistency with water, and with a tiny bit of red oxide acrylic craft paint (so I could see where the glue "size" was applied and it worked.
The signboard had a few printing artifacts that also took so fiddling. if you look very closely, besides the layer lines there are also some faint lines under the G and S in drugs. They are in other places as well that don't show in the photo. Sanding was not feasible annd scraping dind't work well. Eventually this is what I found worked as best as I could at the time:
1. Clean the 3d print with original Dawn dish detergent and warm water
2. Rinse with water, then methanol
3. Prime with flat black spray paint
4. Paint the tops of the raised letters with dark yellow acrylic paint and let cure several days
5. Dilute WellBond to milk consistency, add pinch of red oxide acrylic.
6. paint the "size" on one letter at a time and immediately lay the gold leaf on top of the size and press down firmly with tip of finger.
7. Remove tissue and press again with bare finger tip.
8. Gently brush off excess gold with small soft brush.
9. Repeat for next letter.
10. Let cure for day or so, then touch up any missed spots with same technique.
11. Coat the background signboard with a thin mix of black acrylic, water and matte clear acrylic varnish and imediately sift on thin layer of baking soda using a fine nylon mess teabag to screen the baking soda. Let cure. (The slightly grainy texture of the baking soda hid the printing artifacts on the signboard and very effectively represents the fine crushed black glass "Smalt" often applied to the backgroung on gold leaf signs.
12. Apply thin washes of black acrylic over the baking soda without getting on the letters.
13. Touchup both gold and background several times.
Here is the resin sign after cleaning. it is 2.25 in. (5.72 cm. long). The finished sign at this point is only digitally added to the storefront using GIMP.
Click images to enlarge.
The results aren't perfect, but the results do look passibly like an older gold leaf sign that's been out in the weather for some years.
One reason I wanted to use goldleaf was because everything else (including a goldleaf spray) was far too grainy for HO scale. (See first photo below). This 3D print was my first version. The idea was to apply the gold to the idividual letters (printed on tiny stalks to raise them above the base) Then individually apply each letter to the black signboard. The letters were too fragile. I broke some just looking at them.
Ed's second version, with the letters on the background worked better.
The irregularities in the finished Finnuken's sign letters are due to my fiddling with trying to fill gaps in the leaf from working with tiny scraps and doing several touchups.
The second photo shows a full size sign I did some years ago. It had been out in the weather over 20 years when the photo was taken. It has flat rather than raised letters, but you can just make out the textured black smalt background.
Here is a little updated work on the wall behind the soda fountain. Everything is just temporarily set in place while looking to see what arrangement will work best.
A couple of words something like - HO MADNESS - but lovely
Barney
going for an eye test !!
Sign looks good, and that interior is amazing -- I have to keep reminding myself it's HO scale.
Thanks, Ray. I must confess your amazing detailed interiors have inspired me to detail the few building on my layout.
After looking at the soda fountain for a couple days and getting a comment from a friend who recalled soda fountains having mirror(s) on the back wall. I agreed and added a pair of narrow vertical mirrors based on the prototype tiny soda fountain still operating near here. I also raised the items on the rear wall a little because originally I forgot to allow for the thickness of the floor when I stuck them on the wall. There isn't a person in the photo for reference, but the height does look better now and I like the mirrors too.
Nice!
Plus a very nice
Barney
Thanks Ray & Barney.
Still looks a little sterile. You need a rack of glassware and maybe a bowl of bananas but the mirrors are an improvement as they allow the soda jerk to watch the customers while working.
Thanks, Lawton. There will be a bit more stuff around as I figure out what I can fabricate. My experiments for a shelf with a couple sizes of glasses hasn't done well. There will be a customer on a stool with a strawberry shake and straw (see about 1/2 down page one of this thread). A small prototype soda fountain still in business nearby stores the glasses under the counter. I may wind up imagining that.
The other thing that hasn't worked yet is modeling a shelf with glass cannisters full of different penny candies as seen in this reference photo.
It might also benefit from several dozen whiskey bottles, some brass spittoons, and an oil painting of a Rubenesque half naked woman .... -- Russ
It might also benefit from several dozen whiskey bottles, some brass spittoons, and an oil painting of a Rubenesque half naked woman .... -- Russ
Oh, that stuff, yeah sure, that's all along with the cigar smoke and poker tables in the backroom that's partially seen between counter and the ice cream freezers in the rear wall...
The door to the left of that leads upstairs to the bikini clad, thonged beauties, but you probably already knew that. ;)
I suspected as much. -- Russ
There should 2 teenagers sharing the milkshake. With only eyes for each other and possibly an old maid at a table out in the room giving them the evil eye.
As for Russ" suggestion this is a family friendly discussion site and his mind needs to be relegated to one of those back alley places where no family man would dare to be seen going to or coming from.
Lawton, turns out the Finnuken's daughter is working at the soda fountain this summer.
There is a strawberry milk shake yet to come and the leftovers in the stainless cannister the shake was made in, but they won't get glued to the counter until the rest of the pharmacy is complete. (Both are visible part way down on page one of this thread)
I took a few shots today from slightly different angles, outside in the sun because even though the the floor won't be glued to the walls, when the walls are lifted off the building the items behind the fountain won't be able to be photographed from this view point.
Here's two more looks (click photos to enlarge).
Love those tiny details. Nice work.
Bernd
When I was a child the Westhampton Pharmacy which was in the West End of Richmond, Va would serve the mixing container along with the milk shake as there always was a bit more of it then would fit into the glass. Custom was that you finished the mixing container first so that they could clean it and have it ready for the next customer.
Lawton, The pharmacy nearby wher I lived in Warwick, VA also served the leftover milkshake container along with the rest of the shake in its own glass, but there we quickly slurpped the glass low enough to empty the rest of the container into it. Collapsed a lot of straws and got a lot of brain freezes, but we did our part to help the counter person. That pharmacy also had real fountain Cokes and custom mixed the cherry and lemon Cokes.
On the side view photo above, just to the left off the magazine rack you can see the green mixer for shakes with a grayish mixing container under it. A little further to the left is the gooseneck spigot with black nozzle and lever for carbonated water.
Are you still there? I am a life long resident of Williamsburg.
I'll have an Oreo shake, please!
LAWTON, No, that was a long time ago. I may or may not have an old friend in Williamsburg...there is a mix of addresses and I can't sort out which one is current.
RAY: Will that be a regular, double stuff or Big Stuff :)
Bill:
Tell Ray to put his Oreos into Russ' martini shaker and put some Jimmy Buffett music on before acting as his own bartender.
Bill,
your degree of detailing is really amazing and so is your choice of materials! Howsoever I'm looking forward to see some distance shots of the finished scenes; texture is an annoying as well as inevitable giveaway in closeups of small scale modeling.
Cheers,
Volker
Volker, I agree with you completely that textures and other things quickly giveaway small scale models. I am woking as well as I can on every aspect of this pharmacy project and I like it, a lot. But looking at it in photos it is instantly obvious that it is a model, even without the plastic people.
Compare that you your latest photo on your Quiet earth. Heck, compare almost any of the photos in your Quiet earth thread, where at the very best an extremely observant viewer might wonder if the photo could possibly be a model...but most likely conclude it isn't.
One difficulty with "distant shots of the finished scenes" is that those latest photos pretty much are the distant scenes. The shots were taken with only two walls of the pharmacy in place and the "photographer" was looking in from outside through one missing wall.
Here is a photo of the front display windows that my son took with his phone. The phone was very close - you can see the right side of the photo is out of focus - but if the phone were moved back much it would capture things beyond the tiny layout itself.
Yes, we can tell it's a small scale model but it still looks excellent. -- Russ
Bill very nice. You have done an excellent job on this!
Jerry
Quote from: Bill Gill on August 31, 2021, 05:11:35 PM
Volker, I agree with you completely that textures and other things quickly giveaway small scale models. I am woking as well as I can on every aspect of this pharmacy project and I like it, a lot. But looking at it in photos it is instantly obvious that it is a model, even without the plastic people.
Compare that you your latest photo on your Quiet earth. Heck, compare almost any of the photos in your Quiet earth thread, where at the very best an extremely observant viewer might wonder if the photo could possibly be a model...but most likely conclude it isn't.
Bill, I think that there are different approaches in model making and each one has its own limits. Taking pictures is difficult, especially if you don't want a too narrow depth of focus; foto stacking is one way, but you may try to take a picture rather from the diatance, allowing a bigger depth of focus, and then cut off the outer areas. Given the resolution of most current devices this still may leed to some reasonable results. The last shot from QQuiet Earth was taken with the Ultra Wide Lens mode on my smartphone. It allows to get quiete close to an object but still have a big depth of focus. Again one has to remove upper and lower areas, which tend to have a strong fisheye look. And I' second, what Barney and Russ said: excellent modeling!
Volker
Thanks, Russ, Jerry & Volker.
For some reason this particular project led me to really 'focus' on details.
One example is in the close-up photo of the display windows at the bottom of page 4 of this thread.
In the right hand window with the Kodak sign there is a tiny Kodak box camera on the red display disk. A nod to the camera my dad lent me to take to Boy Scout camp. And the photos on display are actual family photos I scaled and laser printed in black & white. No one but me (if I squint really hard) could possibly recognize anything in those photos, but I know what they are :)
The interior is at the point where the strawberry milkshake and the cannister could be glued to the countertop.
(click photo to enlarge)
Nice paint job on the figures. The counter lady looks like she's standing on a bean bag. :o ;)
Bernd
Bernd...she's short ;). Well, she's standing on a piece of blue tack poster putty because I want to see if I can repaint her face, so she isn't permanently glued down yet. Focusing on the straw while taking the photo, I didn't even see the glob of blue goo until your post.
I keep thinking of how tiny the bottles and jars were in my 1/24th scale drug store, and then how much smaller these must be in HO scale. Mind-boggling!
Hi Bill .
I have been there.
cheers Kim.
Progress on the pharmacy. The interior is done for now. A few more posters and signs may
get added to the walls if I find ones that are interesting.
The exterior walls are now all permanently glued together. They fit over the floor that holds
all the shelves, display cases and the soda fountain.The mosaic tile on the entryway floor is
in place (you can see it a bit on edge in the first photo).
My son suggested a really neat idea for lighting. If it works, I'll post photos, but it'll be awhile.
The second photo is greatly enlarged and cropped from a shot for a potential article in the works.
The train crew guy won't normally be there.
Fantastic!
HO scale models don't get much better than that. -- Russ
Hi Bill.
1-87 scale outstanding.
cheers.
Thanks, Ray, Russ, Kim.
Being part of this forum is improving my modeling.
Bill outstanding job on this one. Those figures HO scale came out erfect!
Jerry
Thanks, Jerry.
A little more work done on the pharmacy. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.)
The mosaic tiles in the vestibule were created with GIMP and a neighbor printed the image on his HP inkjet printer on glossy photo paper. Full disclosure: I have not had an opportunity to get an actual close up photo of the tiles in the vestibule, so the first photo has the second photo GIMPed into it.
I scribed the grout lines between all the tiles so there would be real shadow lines when illuminated with low side lighting on the storefront. Unfrotunately when the piece got sprayed with a clear flat finish the ink dissolved and turned into a smudgy blur. I got another print made at a drugstore photo kiosk and it was fine at scribing and spraying. The overall size of the mosaic is 0.7 in x 0.5 in.
Very nice!
HO doesn't get any better than that. -- Russ
Brilliant!
Les,
Thanks, Ray, Russ & Les. lurching forward in little steps.
Super with detail - do your eyes ache ?
Barney
That's bloody brilliant Bill... beautiful job. You must have very good eyesight and really thin fingers... ;)
Beautiful work! I remember that exact style of store.
A wonderful work - I like to watch!
That mosaic is just incredible. How on earth did you manage to make it?
Sorry for the delayed replies - I haven't had access to a computer for almost a week.
Barney, Thank you for your kind comment. I can see that you asked something, but the letters are still too fuzzy to read :)
Thank you, Paul. See comment above about eyesight. The thin fingers come with my fat head :)
Chuck, Thanks. There are 2-3 stores in this general area that have those details and I've wanted to combine them all in one place for a long time.
Thank you, fspg2, This is one project that I really worked on.
Hauk, Thanks. Making the mosaic wasn't too hard. I knew shortest all the letters could be was 5 squares tall. Next I blocked out FINNUKEN on a piece of graph paper to see how many squares wide it would need to be. Then I measured the dimensions of the floor space the tiles had to fit into and fiddled a little to come up with a scale tile size that would fit all the letters and have enough room for a border around the perimeter. The extra white squares allowed enough fudge factor to make adjusting the fit fairly easy.
After that it was just a matter of setting up a scale size grid in GIMP (sort of a free version of PhotoShop) that was full of scale size squares. Then I filled the individual squares with a green color and a friend printed out the mosaic on his HP inkjet printer on glossy photo paper.
I lightly scribed all the grout lines so there could be real shadows between them. Then there was a small setback. When I sprayed the piece with Krylon clear flat the ink completely dissolved into a blurred smudge. After a few choice words I got the file reprinted at a drugstore Kodak kiosk, rescribed the lines, crossed my fingers and sprayed it with the Krylon and it worked!
The Kodak images worked because they are created from transparent layers of material rather then being sprayed on by the ink jet printer, with a clear layer added at the end to protect the other layers.
The June issue of RMC is just out and it has article about making Finnuken's Pharmacy. Pretty much all of it has been covered in this thread.
Thanks for providing us with a discount. -- Russ