This is a good discussion. Notice above the sign that you can see part of the brick building across the street, so at least that part is one story. I'm shoehorning it into a nice two story victorian style building just for fun. This design appeared in a May 1957 Model Railroader mag that I got from my uncle in the 1950s. I wanted to build the kit since then. I don't let go of ideas easily... It was built old school with strathmore board, brick paper and thread for window mullions.
Even with a shortened session (exercise day), I did make some interesting progress. I finished framing up the lower curved front structure minus the outer decorative framing. I needed to pack out the curve to bring it level with the outer surface. I did this with three layers of .040" X .125" styrene which was thin enough to make the curve and glue solidly. I could have avoided this step id I would have notched the ABS piece to drop the front pieces back so the curve was flush with the facing, but I didn't think of that until today and that ABS piece was solvent and CA cemented in place and it didn't want to budge.
It was still about .010" lower so I added a piece of thin styrene sheet which did the trick.
With the surface ready, I then sheeted the whole curve with 0.015" styrene which gave a perfectly smooth surface for further framing appliqués to detail this portion of the window area. I test fit the piece here and you can see the nice, regular curved front that's perfectly square.
I needed to reinforce the top edge to make it stiffer and give more gluing surface so I laminate some 1/8" square stock on the top straight edges, and used the thinner piece laminations to handle the curved portion. Here's what that looked like.
Before I did anything else it was time to make the 1st floor plate. I found a piece of Masonite that was exactly the correct width (5-5/8") which I chopped sawed to the other interior dimension (5-15/16").
I laid out and cut the corner curve and notched out the other corners to clear the corner reinforcing pieces and then tried the floor panel with the window piece to see how it fit. I glued two 1/4" square lugs at the window sill base for a glue point and reinforcement to put the curve back into the building.
Back to the sill. I didn't have any more sheet styrene, but I have a nice big sheet of 1/16" aircraft ply which I used to layout and cut the first layer of the wide window sill. The will be a couple of other pieces that will go here to shape and captivate the clear styrene which will make the large curved window.
And a bonus. I was looking (and didn't yet find) my Rusty Stumps stair making kit, I found a bunch of sheets of MicroMark O'scale stone wall textured, adhesive backed detail sheeting which is now going to make the stone foundation for the building. At least that's today's plan. I had forgotten that I bought this at least 5 years ago. It might be a bit large, but it looks pretty good. I will have to figure out the best way trim the top.
All the LED supplies arrived today, so I'm going to do one more day on Nighthawks and then it will be back to the Essex. Some of these materials may find their way to Nighthawks. I bought adhesive copper foil to provide invisible conductors for lighting the flight deck and it will also work well in buildings. I also bought tiny, wide angle, surface mount LEDs that would provide vey uniform lighting to the ship and the cafe.
