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What is the J&C Studios O Gauge Archive?
(Guest)   JCS Archive   JohnBoy   Miramar
 
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Miramar
JohnBoy
Joined: May 14, 2008
Topics: 110 Replies: 517 Topics: 110
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posted Sep 10, 2008: 
After mostly finishing Cousin Suites, I was anxious to apply what I learned on my real goal: a taller, blue-mirror office building. To get it to be taller meant making two smaller buildings and stacking them to achieve a taller one. This is for two reasons: 1) I found that anything more than 24" tall was rather unwieldy during the construction process, and also when handling the building after it's completed, and 2) The blue-mirror material (like most colored acrylics) is sold in 24" x 12" sheets, so the tallest I can get is two feet anyway.

What this meant is that I needed to be very careful about making sure the two buildings lined up properly, so that the seam between them is not obvious.

So the first steps were just like Cousin Suites - applying the same 1/16" black Chart Pak tape in a grid, to form the window pattern. I used the same marked templates that I used on Cousin Suites to line up the vertical and horizontal stripes:





I took even greater care in mounting the corner struts this time, with the understanding that it was going to help prevent a mis-align between the upper and lower buildings.









This time, I applied corner struts to both the long edges of only two sides. With Cousin Suites, I glued one corner strut to each building side, and then went about gluing them together vertically, one side at a time. This was challenging in that applying even pressure to form a good bond all the way up and down the edges was difficult to do while the building was standing up.

This time, I went a different route and created custom jigs:





The gap in the middle is just wide enough to squeeze in a 3/8" wooden strut, and the 1/8" thickness of the mirror sheet.





This allowed me to place two sides on the table at a time, horizontally but perpendicular on the table, and then lay a third side on top of these:





This did two things for me: it allowed me to glue two edges together at the same time, and it allowed me to place weights along each edge so that a more even pressure was applied to the whole edge while the glue cured.

It also allowed me to look at it from the top and bottom to ensure things were straight and square:





Again, I took great care in making sure the corners and edges were as perfect as I could get them:
 
JohnBoy
Joined: May 14, 2008
Topics: 110 Replies: 517 Topics: 110
My Archive Category | My Website
posted Sep 10, 2008: 
After getting three sides glued together in the first step, all I had to do was carefully flip the building upside down, and glue the fourth side - again, both edges at the same time - onto the other three.





Since the other two edges were already glued together at this point, the jigs were unnecessary. I could also glue in the lateral framing around the inside edges of the top and bottom while the fourth side was curing.

When that was complete, I needed to repeat the same process for the upper building. This one was going to smaller: at 12", it is half the height of the bottom building. Stacking them gives me a 36" tall building.





I had enough concern about stacking the top one onto the bottom one, that I did some special shaping to the bottom ends of the corner struts of the upper building:





Using the table saw, I shaved about 1/16" of an inch off of the bottom half-inch or so of the outer-facing two sides of each strut. This gives the upper building a tiny bit of wiggle room so that seating it on top of the lower building does not put any pressure on the lower building's sides.

After completing all four sides of the smaller upper building, it was time to go ahead and stack 'em:





I was right to be concerned about the seam between the upper and lower building, but it turns out I should have been more concerned about the bowing of each building side more than the cross-sections matching up at the joint. In these photos you can easily see how each building bulges out in the middle, and comes back in at the top and bottom.









The effect is magnified by the mirrors. Not too much I can do about this at this point, but I will have to ponder it some before I begin phase 2 of Miramar, which is to be an even taller building at 48".

For the roof of this post-modern skyscraper, I went with something a little funky, not too unlike something I saw on the rooftop of a Miami skyscraper:





I have no idea what the two silver elliptical cone-thingies are, but I thought they gave this otherwise boring rectangular structure a little visual interest at the top.
 
JohnBoy
Joined: May 14, 2008
Topics: 110 Replies: 517 Topics: 110
My Archive Category | My Website
posted Sep 10, 2008: 
Here's a photo of the building in place in the city, before I finished the top part.





I'm glad I finally have a blue-mirror office building in my city, which is still dominated by cement-facade structures. I want a few more black-glass and mirror buildings to balance things out, and the second part of Miramar will help with that.

Thanks for looking!

John
 
Stoneman512
Joined: Sep 15, 2010
Topics: 0 Replies: 2 Topics: 0
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posted Sep 20, 2010: 
One question - generally when taping the 1/16 tape, what are the window sizes?
 
Hartman
Joined: Sep 20, 2008
Topics: 21 Replies: 50 Topics: 21
My Archive Category |
posted Sep 20, 2010: 
I wish I had the space for a small city, but I'll just have to be content to enjoy the fruits of YOUR labor. Nice job.

Dennis
 
JohnBoy
Joined: May 14, 2008
Topics: 110 Replies: 517 Topics: 110
My Archive Category | My Website
posted Sep 20, 2010: 
Thanks gentlemen! Stoneman512 - I did window patterns that are 1" wide by 1.5" tall. This provides floors that are 3" tall - approximately 12'.

I have the space, but lack the time now to keep going. I'm still in the middle of my next building project; hopefully I'll be able to pick it back up soon...

John
 

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