What I'm not happy with is how 'out of proportion' the west end of the block looks, boy those buildings have to be cut down. And now that the front of the Commercial is fit, I need to at least rough out the next store front. Now, the next building to the west of the Commercial is a rather small and nondescript building, or that's what I thought it was. In '72 it didn't even appear to be occupied or have a name on it. All I knew was 'curio shop'. Well, not only isn't it interesting, it now has an historical marker on it as the Coconino Chop House. And, under the odd exterior, it is an IRON building. Apparently, after you've been burned out like four times in the same spot, this was a good idea. Still not sure I understand it, but here's the historical information: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=33268 One thing I did confirm reading the old newspapers is that the standard lot size in Flag on Santa Fe Ave. was 25'. That explains why there are so many small stores all lined up the way they still are today, almost identical in footprint and confirmed by my Google Earth measurements. Apparently it also has something to do with why the Commercial has a business on the side of it, the lot was actually subdivided between two lots as 1/3 vs 2/3, the only one that was that way, and that the Commercial had 'air rights' over top of it. That also confirmed my measurements of the front. So anyway, now I'll call it the 'chop house' building, that's more interesting. That shows a nice closeup, nothing like I thought it was, good for modeling. This one-story 25' wide building is also the 'odd one' on the block that never was increased to full false-front height as the next three further west were. Oh, and it's not your imagination that the bottom edge of the model Commercial front isn't flat. The entire townsite is built up on masonite, and it has grades on it somewhat similar to Flag. There's a very distinct drop-off behind the freight house with a retaining wall, so that grade is repeated, and 66 climbs as it heads east. With me moving buildings around on the model, that puts the start of that mild grade on one-half of the Commercial instead of about 200' west where it belongs.
Sometimes I enjoy the research more than the modeling. It is a shame, that even in N scale, sometimes we are forced to compress things a bit to get them to fit the scenes.
Thats why in my little world its "BC" (Before Columbus)....the world is 'flat'...lol. The only way elevations get any change is if the CFO (THE Wife) gets her way. Then there will be one incline going over and under. But mine is freelance so it can be dang near anything I want it to be. I still like your tenacity and detail towards history of the area. Living close to Flagstaff and going there often...I see things on yours I can relate to :thumbs_up:
Oh, and in case you haven't noticed.... there's a feature in TRAINS this month that highlights Flagstaff as a trainwatching spot, and the photo with the feature is the exact area I am modeling here, shot from Mars Hill. I can get just about the same photo angle on my layout by holding the camera up. I really love Flag as a place to visit and trainwatch. But it's just not the same as a 'quiet zone'. In 1994 I was up on the cinder-filled circus-style piggyback ramp across from the depot, westbound came through with three SD45's on the point. Blowing for all it was worth. As soon as he saw all the gates properly dropped and cars stopped, he slammed it into Run 8 for the hill west of town. Horns blowing, earth shaking, 645's screaming, smoke rolling,... through it went. There was so much noise and vibration that every car alarm in the station parking lot went off at once, to add to the uproar. I'll never forget that.
Well, THAT would be a nice stationary sound effect, forget chirping birds...! I suspect one would have to use it sparingly though... Otto
If you check this out, you'll hear the on-layout sound system I now have built into the hotel that has to be relocated. It's triggered with a pushbutton right in front of it. This is dubbed off of a videotape of Flagstaff, so the echoes are as they sound there. this is the system that has to be put into the 'new' Commercial, it's going to be a tight fit. It's one of those old Radio Shack digital recorders (battery powered, converted to a 3V power supply) that has 15-seconds capacity. I've got several of them when they went on sale. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km60IcCQ40Y Yes, I cropped these shots so that not much of the original hotel shows. I'm happier with the block over by the Monte Vista, that's 100% scratch by these methods, building for building.
You might find these useful, as they may be smaller than the Radio Shack devices: http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/PROJECTS-UNLIMITED-API-4260-LW150-R-/50-2992 The description says a 33-second limit, but I've put a just-over-a-minute file on one and it works just fine. They'll loop a sound file for as long as power is applied.
Found this today, maybe I can get him to report in as I think he's a member here too: http://jamesriverbranch.net/detail_15.htm With all the other stuff I'm jamming in the building (including the speaker and the power supply for the roof photovolactic units) I don't have room for that style of drive. I might have another idea though. A little nuts, but everything I do is a little nuts.
OK, some progress shots.... this is with all the doors put in. I'm using metal castings for the doors, old stuff I had in the scrapbox. The main front entrance is cobbled up from a combination of castings, Grandt and Tichy windows, and scrap styrene. The 'white doors' are just a styrene backing that the casting will go on to. Here's the back, with all that .040 square to get the windows to inset. The three huge styrene blocks have a purpose.... I need to be able to finish off the windows, put in glazing, but at the same time, clear this monster. I had a lot more room in the original building. So the blocks give me a 'stand-off' against the wall, I'll hold this on with 00-90 screws into those blocks. That's the speaker from the Radio Shack digital recorder with the grade crossing sounds in it. Sides are cut, and the chophouse building is also rough-cut out, photos soon. I have to get the walls painted before I put in the windows, so this thing doesn't follow conventional assembly methods at all. I also have to get the roof roughed out as soon as I get the side walls on to support the Miller Engineering photovolactic roof signs. The transformers for those will go next door in the chop house, so I leave room in the Commercial for a possible barber pole system. That's why the speaker is moved over to the side - to leave room on the other side. Right now I'm more interested in a lit barber pole instead of a spinning one, my barbers quit at 5PM and go to the bars. Those are all lit up for business.
You may find the N scale barber pole story of more interest than the Z scale one. You said that you weren't interested in having it rotate, but just light it. Both aspects are detailed here: http://whiteriverandnorthern.net/clinic_19.htm Of particular note is the illustration of the mechanism: A few notes... The styrene "tube" is actually a piece of rod stock that I drilled out endwise with a small drill in a pin vice. An axial lead microbulb was suspended inside. [video=youtube;TUXQwJBr4R0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUXQwJBr4R0[/video] On the downside, I hand-painted the single red spiral stripe, which IMO looks quite hokey. Continued in part 2...
Part 2: This is where I made a vast improvement with the Z scale version. Although it uses a solid styrene rod (unlit), the red and blue stripes are made from a pair of decals cut from scraps. [video=youtube;305cC0NB-cw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=305cC0NB-cw[/video]
OK, well that answers one of the puzzles - you drilled out the styrene rod to get it hollow and large enough for the light inside....aha! Did you use conventional K&S tubing or something better? I just did a bunch of projects with Richmond Controls golden-white LED's to make scale-sized light fixtures. Incredible. I'm thinking...maybe...that one could be suspended in the tube coming in from the top. The square ones that Jim solders up on wire leads are the tiny square ones http://www.richmondcontrols.com/WhiteLED.html which means I need about a .035 hole in a .050 rod, possible....possible. I love your drive, but I also know from experience how loud those drives can be on the gizmozone gearheads, and I have a sound system in the Hotel already. I'm thinking about cheating and maybe coming up from the bottom with a .010 wire right through the sidewalk and putting the entire gear drive in a soundproof box underneath the layout.
Amazing what you can find... so OK, just 'assuming' I may want to pursue this idea... so how fast does a barber pole spin? Marvy doesn't say, but Ebay has Marvy motors and gearboxes (probably a little more than what I need) but they unequivocally state....30 RPM at the output shaft. Huh. Back to Gizmoszone. Yup, I can get a $15.00 planetary gearbox that can run at around 50RPM....with a 7000 rpm input. http://www.gizmoszone.com/shopping/html/pages/810datasheet.pdf. Trim the voltage just a hair with a resistor, if it looks too fast, but yeah. Doable. At least to the point where I design-in the barber pole on the building at this point, even if I can't figure out all the final gory details yet. I have .010 wires and undertable drives running my crossing gates, and it's an observation that nobody notices those wires, even when in plain sight, when there is something more interesting to distract the eye elsewhere. I've got a pair of Tortise machines on them to move the gates, and with them mounted under the table, you really can't hear them. If you go back up to the YouTube video you'll see what I mean. If I could keep the pole anywhere near that quiet, well, the sound system wouldn't be drowned out.
OK, well here's the progress. There's a lot. I think the thing here I want to point out is how much prep and pre-painting I do before assembly. It's just so much easier to paint stuff before you glue it up. Left-hand and right-hand walls are cut and base-painted. I used Pactra Sand as the base brick color. The front wall is base painted. I diluted the 'Colter Blue' color I found by 50% white, as you can see by all photos it is really faded. And dirty, but we'll get to that later. The windows are painted on the sprues, see the LH side. An odd feature is that its very clear that the upper panes are dark colored, either rust or brown, and the lower panes were apparently removed and repainted, lighter colored, some obvious repointing even in the fire shots, which will be redone after base weathering. I got the tiling paint done on the El Patio, and the letters painted up for that. The roof is a sheet of .040 styrene with sandpaper ACC'd on it and painted white, again before base weathering. The odd slots are for the Miller Engineering roof signs. Some stuff is getting removed from the first Pola model, the roof signs (one shown) that were better than pretty much of anything under it, and the overhanging sidewalk sign had already been redone and that is pretty good, we'll keep that. Right at the moment I'm debating and guessing on the bottom windows between the 1940's shots, what I can see through the smoke in the fire shots, and a couple B&W shots in the Flag newspaper during the fire. The upper windows are looking the way I want, I'll finish gluing in those. After weathering, I'll glaze those and start on the mix of blinds and curtains behind them.
I'm not certain which picture(s) you're using for reference, so I can't take a look for myself, but--is it possible that there are screens in front of the upper sashes? That might make them look darker, even if they were painted the same color.
Here's the shot... http://archive.library.nau.edu/cdm4...&DMTEXT=&DMTHUMB=1&REC=7&DMROTATE=0&x=82&y=49 What it looks like to me is that the windows were getting really bad, and the bottom sashes were pulled out, partially repainted, and likely repointed and recaulked. Note the contrasting color. The fire shots in the paper have several shots with the bottom sashes raised, and one guy crawling out a window. I'm going to weather all this in, and then highlight the inside lower sash edges over with flat white. One thing for sure-- none of the photos or aerial shots I've seen have any clue of air conditioning. Those windows had to open. I'm not convinced there was any actual 'blue' color surviving on either sash by that point. Not like that nice 1940's postcard.
Progress shots - sides on, roof test, fitting the base. Feeling better about this project.... Shots like this though prove important stuff though... like the roof sign needs to be higher than on the old one.
That fit is looking reasonably precise now. I'm going to take a shot at seeing if I can hit from bottom-to-top threading a piece of 1/16" brass tube from the top of sidewalk to WAY underneath the layout (3 layers of track & benchwork) for the drive for the barber pole. The brass or steel wire will go inside the tube. As far as for concealing the wire, a strategically located figure on the sidewalk should do nicely. I got a 50's vintage advertising business card of the El Patio off of Ebay, and it is so clear I can scan it and use it for signage. Stay tuned! The other thing you don't see is the big honking holes in the backdrop to get most of the electronics out of the building and behind the backdrop. The little transformers for the Miller Engineering roof signs will go in the Chophouse building. The speaker is fitted. The sound system is being relocated to under the benchwork so that only the speaker wires are going to the building. The interior illumination stays.
Santa Fe Avenue in Flagstaff: Real Photo Postcards The Commercial Hotel model looks great! I came in here late but I thought I'd attach four Real Photo Postcard images of Santa Fe Avenue. One does not show the Commercial Hotel and one view is pretty oblique and shows little detail. The others show it but don't add much to what has been mentioned before. They may show more detail as to the adjacent buildings on the north side of Santa Fe way back then though.
