To me, one of the most challenging and fun aspects of scratch building is making windows. I have nothing against commercial window castings. I just really enjoy making them myself.
When you build windows from scratch, you can make them any size you want, and in any style you want. You aren't limited to what's in the detail parts catalogs.
There are several techniques for making windows. Most involve building up the sashes in layers. Muntins can be painted on, or made from graphic ruling tape, stripwood, or bits of wire. In this build, I'm using painted strips of paper, and using a glue stick to apply the strips. A glue stick has a nice advantage -- you can remove glue smears from the windows with a damp brush.
For the exterior of the walls, I'm using strips of card stock to simulate random-width siding. I'm leaving a tiny gap between strips. That allows the dark paint underneath to show through the thinned paint in the cracks, enhancing the detail.
I installed yellow LEDs in the front walls to simulate porch lights. Yellow "bug lights" were common back in the day. (Yellow bulbs were supposed to attract fewer bugs. I don't know if they really worked or not.) I'll be reducing the brightness of the LEDs by pairing each with a 390-ohm resistor. I plan to put some sort of fixture over them too.
For the interior walls, I printed a wood paneling texture. Here's the texture I used:
I've had this project in mind for some time. I've been wanting to capture in miniature something that was part of American life in the mid-20th century and dotted the landscape: a small motel.
It's difficult to model a typical motel of the mid-20th century, because there were no "typical" motels in the days before huge franchises and corporate chains. They were often individual or family-owned businesses. While they shared some characteristics, most were unique.
They were built in a mish-mash of architectural styles, including Streamline Moderne, Space Age motifs, Prairie Style, Greek Revival, Colonial -- you name it. Kitsch wasn't limited to the Doo Wop motels of Wildwood, New Jersey. It spread from coast to coast, reflected in eye-catching and inviting motel designs across the country, and in the signage that called attention (and guests) to them.
What I wanted to do was capture a few things that appeal to me personally. I like motels from that era that reflect Mid-Century Modern influences, and I like the smaller places. I like a mix of building materials. I also like neon accents and lighted signs. I plan to incorporate all that in this build. I also plan to do some interior detailing and lighting.
Vintage postcards are a terrific resource for ideas and period design. You can pick them up in lots from various sources. I used a couple as references for my build. The pictures in this article are scans of cards in my personal collection.
I decided to combine two designs I liked. One building in particular appealed to me for its use of stone (which I find fun to carve), and its boxy, "modern" design. I liked its open deck too.
I liked the sign from another motel, and it had the advantage of being tall and vertical, which would fit nicely on the stone facade of the other building. Putting the sign directly on the building, rather than building a freestanding one, will save space.
(Incidentally, both of these real-life structures are still in use. One was converted to a tourist shopping mall, the other is still doing business as a motel under a new name and new ownership.)
This particular project will differ from many miniature building or model railroad projects in that there won't be much aging or weathering applied to the finished structure. Motels of that era competed for guests, and few tourists wanted to stay in a "run down" place -- at least, not as their first choice. So most motels were maintained by their owners in crisp, clean, like-new condition.
Whether building for a model railroad layout or a diorama, "compression" is the way to maximize effect and minimize the space a structure takes up. You keep the important details, and reduce the size of the rest. For example, my motel, when finished, will have only one guest room. But that's okay -- imagination will fill out the other thirty units or so.
I'm also reducing the overall footprint of the structure in a way that would be impractical in real life, while still keeping it a plausible size. And I'm reducing the height of the stories by about 6 scale inches. (This is something often deliberately done with real structures in theme parks to give them a charming appeal.)
Here are the plans (with dimensions in scale feet and inches) and the first build video.
This little project was only my second using Sculpey. I think I used it once before to make a fire hydrant. So I'm by no means a Sculpey wiz.
I used original Sculpey. I would have liked it to be a little less soft so it would hold its shape better while I worked with it, but it worked out fine.
The build video is below, along with a pic showing the dimensions of the pieces. The dimensions aren't critical -- close will do.
Incidentally, I showed the chairs to a real Sculpey wiz. She approved, and said that if she were making them, she would have taken them a step further and rolled the pieces out on a tight-weave fabric to emboss a fabric texture in them. Since I plan to put these inside a model structure, and they'll only be seen through a window, I chose not to do anything so elaborate -- although that would be a cool detail.
O scale figures can be purchased inexpensively in large lots. Unfortunately, those lots usually come with many duplicate figures. And often the poses are static -- figures just standing or sitting, rather than appearing to be in motion.
Repainting can help mask some of the sameness, but to add even more variety and action to O scale figures, try re-posing some of them.
Here's the build video showing some simple techniques.
This little project adds an extra touch of fun and realism to an O scale vehicle. When I say "O scale vehicle," I'm taking a bit of license, because there are very few diecast cars actually labeled 1:48 scale. Most are 1:43. Fortunately for O scale modelers, some manufacturers tend to build their 1:43 diecast vehicles undersized, which means they look about right in an O scale setting. You just have to pick the ones that do look right.
Some diecast vehicles have transparent headlights and tail lights, which makes them ideal for lighting. You can just stick LEDs right behind them. The only other consideration is making sure there's room enough in the vehicle for the LEDs, resistors, and wiring. In tight spaces, tiny surface-mount LEDs can be used. But they can be a challenge to solder.
For this vehicle, I decided to just light the parking lights. I used orange and red 3mm water clear LEDs. Today's superbright LEDs are too bright to look realistic in this kind of application when their rated current is used, so I underpowered them by using relatively high value resistors with 3.3 volts of power.
I was very pleased with the results. The photos don't do justice to the color of the lights, but they do give a good indication of the effect of adding lighting to a scale vehicle.
Attraction brochure racks were common sights in motel offices and restaurants throughout the last half of the 20th century.
The size of this model is about 5 scale feet tall, and about 28 scale inches wide. It's built entirely from paper and white glue. I plan to wall mount mine in the interior of a model structure, about a scale foot above the floor.
Here is the build video. Dimensions and the printable brochure graphic (in png and jpg format) are posted below.
The brochures in the graphic are various vintage brochures from the southeastern United States. I picked them mainly for color, since they're illegible when printed scale size. You can use the picture as a template in a photo editing program and substitute your own if you like.
Typical trifold brochure size is 4 inches wide by 9 inches tall. Size the print to match your scale if you're not building in O scale.
You can modify the plans in several ways: You could make the cabinet section (the lower half) taller, you could add extra rows of brochures, or you could eliminate the bottom section and a row of brochures and make a counter top version.
Click on the pictures to enlarge, right-click to save them to your computer or device. Have fun building!
Here's the vid of my scratch build of an O scale classic soft drink vending machine from the 1950s and '60s. It was a blast to make.
I made the wrapper graphic using GIMP open-source image editing program, and printed several copies to use for the build.
And here is the wrapper, in png and jpg formats. Click on a picture to enlarge, then right-click (or long-click) and "save as" to save it to your computer or device.
Original Vendolator (later, Vendo) VMC-81 soft drink vending machines stand about 54 inches tall, 25 inches wide, and 18 inches deep.
Set your printing size and resolution to match your scale. Best results will be obtained using a laser color printer (although some inkjet printers are capable of fine detail), and building in O scale size (1:48, 1/4" = 1') or larger.
