Today is the final build day on the miniature stores. The truck came at 5, and we just made it! For some reason, we were able to really enjoy this build. Even though the timeline got squashed at the end due to the "mid-project" prop build we had to, I still found the time to really appreciate the models. Back in the summer on the Turbo-Town build, I had no time to enjoy the work, just build and ship, build and ship. And when it was done, on to something else. This has been great.
I think a lot of it is because these clients are so low stress, they are a dream to work for!
I started the day off by assembling all the wall panels. When I painted the window glazing, the first coat of paint was the wall color, followed by the silver mullion color. This meant that from the inside, the window mullions were wall color, but on the outside they were silver. As the ABS lacquer is very opaque, it blocked any light from showing through the silver, which would have looked pretty bad.
Once the walls were assembled and glued down to the base, I installed the 3/4" thick pvc shelf blocks around the perimeter of the store. I pocketed in 2 holes in each block. These holes will get a 5/8" screw driven into them. The thought being that we will glue magnets to the backs of the shelf facades we made, and they will grab onto the screws. This will allow them to just quickly attach new shelves, with different product graphics, if they choose. I do believe that eventually they want these to represent an assortment of stores, from liquor stores, to grocery/ convenience stores. The swap out shelves will be fool-proof for them.
Once the walls were all together, I was able to fab the sidewalk pads that will butt up against the bottom of the walls. I had to do these manually, just in-case the model wasn't dead center on the base, which proved to be exactly what happened! The concrete expansion joints were quickly added by our little table saw with a .040" blade. The sidewalk serves 2 purposes for us. One, it cleans up the look of the building by hiding the wall to floor seam, and two, it creates the final side of the "track" for the walls. Effectively giving more gluing surface for the walls/ base joint. So the walls of the building ends up pinched between the interior floor, and the sidewalk pads.
Once the sidewalk pads were glued down, I wrapped the sides of the bases with a brushed metal laminate, then installed the final block-work around the walls. The last bit of assembly was to attach the entrance arch to the columns.
We actually took these final pictures while the models were half way out the door. As I look back on this post as I write it, It amazes me how simple and easy the model looks, yet I know how many hours went into it. It seems the more work you put into building something, the more you make it look simple!
The final step now, is to fabricate the small labels that will identify all the zones they want. Were going to build those over the weekend, for delivery to Vancouver.
Then I'm off to teach Vectric software for 2 days up in Thunder Bay, ON.
That should be a lot of fun, I like teaching. Which is ironic, because I hated school!
8)
JO
