This was a bit of a saga, what 6 months in the making? [:I]
Today I installed the Coliseum Ballroom onto the layout. I did go with the fiber optic solution for the marquee out front, thanks for all the suggestions on that. I am pleased with the effect. Here is the behind the scenes look at the lighting setup.
It was a real pain drilling all the holes for the fibers!
This is what it looked like in 1950 something.
Here it is modelled in HO scale in 2007 on my layout.
I still need to do some work on the trees out front (N scale pine trees I think might work?)
The Marquee is a little high, I messed up and cut into the front facade without thinking! I was not about to re-do the whole thing so I can live with the error. Anyway, I am quite happy with the end result. This was really only my 3rd attempt a modelling a real place. I had a lot of fun researching it. I would strongly recommend this to anyone that is looking to develop another aspect to the hobby.
Wow, that’s a model to be proud of. I hope you post the photo of the prototype prominently in your layout room. Have you considered submitting the pair of pics to Trackside Photos in MR?
Is the “building” a back-wall flat? It kind of looks like it from your photo.
That looks TERRIFIC, my friend!!! [:)][tup] Very, VERY nice!! (I think a tutorial is in order.) That will definitely be a (if not THE) center piece of your layout.
Very nice project Simon. I hope you are planning to have some Big Band sounds coming from a speaker nearby for the entertainment of the miners and the rest of the folks in town.
Thank you all for the kind words. This was a very satisfying project and has been very rewarding as the faces of friends that know the place light up when they see it.
In answer to some of the questions posed…
Yes it is a flat, about 1" deep. My layout, being an around the walls design has several quite narrow shelves. The ballroom sits neatly against the back wall in one section that is only about 14" wide.
The fiber optics came from http://www.fiberopticproducts.com/Unjacketed.htm at 7 cents per foot you get a lot of it for the money. It was not nearly as hard to work with as I imagined. I used the razor blade in my NWSL Chopper II to get nice straight cuts. Drilling the holes and adhering the fiber was the hardest part. I used .25mm so it was a bit of a fiddle. It is illuminated by a pair of white LED’s. This fiber is plastic, so you have to be real careful around heat. I darned nearly ruined the whole thing when I put my fiber bundle up against an incandescent bulb to see the effect. It melted a bunch of the fibers but I had fortunately cut them long and could trim them back.
I am planning to have some Big-Band sound coming from the Ballroom. Many of the famous bands played there in its heyday. So all the miners will be able to dress up and hit the town. Built during prohibition the place has 3 huge bars! It is said that Al Capone would frequent the place, but I have found nothing but local rumor to substantiate that. However, it is known that one of the co-owners in the 30’s decided to turn States witness. He never made it to testify and was found tied to a lump of concrete in the Decatur River. I think I might have to have a gangster shoot out going on outside!
Just to give you a notion of what a pain installing the fibers were here is an in-progress shot.
I had been warned against using any glue with solvent or CA as it can make the fiber brittle, so I used good old wood glue. I just drizzled a little over the back of each row of fibers when they were in place. I think that there are about 60 fibers in each row. Getting them through the holes and keeping them in place while the remaining fibers were threaded was a real chore. I ended up threading them halfway and then once all were in place retracting them to the right position. Once glued in place and dry I used a sprue nipper to get them trimmed to the right length on the outside of the sign.
Simon, your ballroom looks magnificent! I’m glad that you got such a good result with the fibre optics - now you know they’re fiddly to work with, but worth the effort. Seeing your model makes me want to tackle something similar for my next Japanese module, which will feature street running, shops, dwellings and the like. Thanks for posting the photos!
You should feel proud of what you have accomplished it looks great. You have kept the heritage of that building alive on your layout,where in most places in the US it would have been torn down and resouricng it would have been impossible,great job.
One question. Did the sprue nippers leave a clean enough cut on the tips of the fiber optic rods? I thought they needed to be flat at the ends in order to transmit the light evenly.
Tom, I think because these are such fine rods that it probably does not make much difference. The tips certainly glow well enough for my purposes. I suspect that my technique would give the engineer in-charge of the Trans Atlantic fiber link absolute fits!!
The end where the light goes in was cut cleanly using the razor blade in the Chopper II so I guess once the light goes in one end it has to come out the other even if the other end is not that clean a cut?
I assumed that you had made the “backend” of the fiber-optic rods (closest to the LEDs) flush so that the light would transmit well through the entire length. I was just curious if the rods weren’t cut flush on the “viewable” end, whether you’d get a consistent look to your marquee.
