# Main street buildings



## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

Here are a set of CMS structures I'm finishing up for the main street in my town.





You can't really see the EL panel light in this view, but you can see the blink against the building side.

Here are some photos looking in the windows










I've since added some curtains/interiors/blanks to the upper floor windows. You can see the layer of stone I added at the bottom if the structure to make it taller--it's not really to 1/24 and looked quite short/undersized next to my 1:22.5 Piko buildings.


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Dan, very nice details! Care to elaborate on how you made some of those details?

-Jim


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## ewarhol (Mar 3, 2014)

Just like Jim said, very nice and please fill us in on how you made the detail parts.


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## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

Here's how various parts were made...

*Bookstore*
The book spines are a mix of sizes of styrene glued together and painted, and some images printed and stuck to styrene and sprayed with UV resistant spray. The books where you can see the covers are also styrene with images attached. I tried to find images of older books (the 1920's E.R.B Tarzan books for example, in German) and posters to use. The open book in the center was cast from a HistArts set of molds that I bought to create dining car and warehouse interiors
















*Grocery*
The grocery store has mostly items from the Pola Market set, which I picked up pretty cheap on eBay. The crates of food from that set just need to be painted. The price signs are tiny sheets of the thinnest styrene I have, glued to steel wire with CA and stuck into the crates. The bottles on the top shelf are from the same HistArts molds as the book. The steel cups are jewelry clasps I got from Walmart (25 for $2). Under the shelf is a micro LED with its leads bent to form the downlight that illuminates the crates.
























*Clothier*
It's pretty easy to figure out that the "mannequin" is a decapitated figure  The hat models are spare heads from workers I used in the factory. I drilled the necks and inserted a wire, then put the other end of the wire in some resin circles I had left over from casting. The stacks of clothes are thick, painted styrene squares. The outfit hanging on the wall is also made from cut and painted flat styrene sheets.


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Very clever Dan! Thanks for sharing!


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## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

Another thing I came up with...

Because these buildings don't have interiors, the upper windows would be difficult to leave open/clear. You would see that there wasn't an floor between the upper and lower levels, and likely notice the rat's nest of wiring running everywhere  . So just putting acetate or clear plastic in the windows wasn't going to work.
On the other hand, a building where *all* the upper windows had closed blinds/drapes seemed like it would look funny. I wanted you to be able to look "into" at least a couple of those second floor windows to add realism.
Here's my solution:








That's a baby food container (they're mostly plastic now, not the jars from when I was little) painted white, inside and out. Then I hacked the legs off a figure and glued him in. The result is the appearance that you're looking into the "room" even though it's only a couple inches deep.
If you look closely, you can see an LED on a styrene bracket that creates a "backlight" effect so that the figure is still somewhat visible at night.
















I also created two more of these--one with a faux bookshelf and the other with a sheet of styrene simulating a wall. It really adds needed "depth" to the inside of the building, IMO


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## SirSimon007 (Nov 26, 2014)

Dan - very nice. What is your power supply for the interior lights - battery?


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## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

SirSimon007 said:


> Dan - very nice. What is your power supply for the interior lights - battery?


I have an old re-purposed 12v transformer from a dead laptop in my garden shed and direct-burial, low-voltage light wiring running to the two places in the yard where I have structures to light. I buy the ww LEDs with resistors already installed (for 12v) from eBay, in lots of 100 or so. 

Each building has a barrel plug on its base, disguised as a trash can, planter, etc. and my wires have barrel connectors soldered on the end so the buildings "plug in" This has been handy the times I've needed to take a building in to work on it. I have one building that's been out for a year and have no deterioration of the plugs yet. It helps that I pack them with silicon to protect the solder joins. I've had bad luck with batteries left outside for extended periods due to humidity and temp swings I think, and I was already running wire (I'm using track power)

The EL light on the clothier sign is battery powered at the moment. I'm still pondering how I'm going get it the 1.5 volts its inverter needs. Since that thing has limited life, I'm thinking that I'll put it on a latching magnetic reed switch so I can turn it off those times I leave the lights on for extended periods.


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## Robert (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice detail. Thanks for sharing some of the how to's.


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## Ray Dunakin (Jan 6, 2008)

Nice work!


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## GaryGJ (Feb 9, 2012)

_Dan...detail is a lot of work but, I think well worth it. Certainly is effective with your buildings. Thanks for sharing detail and lighting specifics. Great job!

Gary_


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