Part 1 Working On A Dream - The O Scale Bond's Funeral Home Diorama Project
John asked me if I be so kind to archive the Bonds Funeral Home build we are doing on the OGR Forum here. As you all know after a while OGR "Flushes" their forum server and the articles are lost. So at least here on the J&C Blogs, they will be saved. So the week October 4, 2010 I will be putting Parts 1 thru 8 which is the latest here. Thanks all for your support.
Working On A Dream? The O Scale Bond?s Funeral Home Diorama Project
Part One: The Facts & Planning
As most of you on the OGR forum know, Maria and I have made O scale model buildings for Don Klose?s Bellevue & Schenectady O Scale Railroad for some time now. From making some of the most picturesque structures of downtown Schenectady, NY to the bright colored & lighted structures on the boardwalk of Wildwood, NJ.. Using countless number of photos, postcards, input from people of the area, historical societies & even the Library of Congress. It has been an incredible journey in finding out facts on these buildings and re-creating them.
In early 2009, Don emailed us about some possible upcoming projects for the B&S RR.. The most interesting we thought was making an O scale version of Bond?s Funeral Home in Schenectady, NY. Two facts make this build very interesting. The first one that some of you forum members might know is that this is the funeral home that Don is Funeral Director at.
The second fact is the building has major historical significance. George Westinghouse ( The father of the Railway Air Brake, The Reversible Frog, The Union Switch & Signal Co. as well as the company that bears his name) built the mansion for his mother, Emeline Vedder Westinghouse in 1887 for a total cost of $22,500. Emeline Vedder Westinghouse didn?t want to stay in the mansion because it wasn?t close to the social life of Schenectady & that the home was too large for her so it was later sold.
So now we can see the reasons why Don would want this grand upstate NY structure on his layout. He then decided on a footprint for the area on the layout where it will take residence. The whole diorama will be in a 3? x 3? area, it will be fully landscaped with proper elevations of the property, all the ornamental details that exist and lighting (indoor & outdoor). Also with ?Selective Compression? size the structure so it fits within the space while not losing any of the major details and lines. He also asked us if we could give a step by step tutorial on the OGR forum with this build. We agreed that we would so it can give some insight on how we recreate some of these O scale structures.
In the upcoming weeks on the forum string, we will show you: The planning on how we put it down on paper in plan & template form while we use all the facts we can collect on the build. Materials used in the build & techniques used to recreate certain stonework and ornamental details as shown in figures 1 & 2
Simulating both incandescent & high-intensity discharge (HID) for the interior and outside perimeter of the diorama. Also wiring it for easy connection to the existing layout (Figure 3)
The landscaping and property elevations of the grounds the structure will be placed on. This will be including the driveways and parking lot in the rear, front lawn with lighted signs, landscaping & hanging plants (Figure 4)
The next installment of this forum string will be on the drawing, cutting and assmebly of the base & main walls of the funeral home.
We hope you enjoy is upcoming tutorial on one of the State of New York and it?s capital regions most interesting buildings.
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JohnBoy
Joined: May 14, 2008
Topics: 110 Replies: 517
Topics: 110
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Thanks so much Mark - looking forward to the other installments. This is very useful information, and can be used on a wide variety of other projects.
Progress: