not much

So not much has happened recently with the model. I finished painting all the roads grey, and I also finished putting in most of the sidewalks. There are still driveways and parking lots that need to be put in, but I would rather building those around the buildings than make the buildings around the parking lot. If I had to warp the shape of something, I would rather it be a parking lot than a building.

Speaking of buildings (have I used the word "building" enough? here, I will do it one more time... "building"), I did something dumb. It isn't as dumb as the time that I didn't have white sand to mix with the black sand, so I glued sugar to my model, and not quite as dumb not water proofing my model well enough before pouring the modeling water onto wet paint, but still pretty dumb. After making the first 3 buildings of many, I decided to see just how many "many" really is. Turns out, my model is going to have about 1,627 buildings on it. Maybe I will make "buildings" the word of the day. Any Peewee Herman fast out there? Any fans at all beside my mother, girlfriend, and Jake? Who are you, anyway, Jake?

So today I am going to try to make a few more complicated buildings (word of the day: ahhhh!) and I'll time myself to estimate how long the rest of this model will take… that is this thunderstorm ever stops and the power comes back on). I’m going to make the complicated houses as my test ones because I’m going to assume that it is a good average between a house with four walls and a roof (simple) and the shopping center with a dozen stores (complicated). I counted both of those examples as one building (ahhh!). Granted there are more houses than shopping malls (thank goodness), so maybe I will be pleasantly surprised by how fast the model goes. That would be nice.

Enjoy the photos.

PS: I feel sortta bad because my model looks nearly as done as it ever will when it's seen as a whole. The only difference between what it looks like now and what it will look like in 2 years is that the frames will be painted white (next weekend), there will be a pond or two and a river, and over a thousand buildings smaller than a monopoly house. The houses won't add much as a whole, and my camera is really terrible at photographing small things. Perhaps I'll get a new camera around the holidays. Mine was bottom of the line and being discontinued when I got it in 2005.

"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, water water everywhere... [and not] a drop to drink" ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

- - - - - - - - As you can probably tell from my quote from the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"... and the pictures above... I put the water down. And when I say "water water everywhere," I mean it. What a mess. I need to make more sure next time I do this that everything is water proof. Well, I'm skipping ahead. Let me start from the beginning.

I went to Michael's and got blue paint for the lake. Seneca lake is the third deepest lake in the United States (after Crater Lake, and Lake Tahoe), which means that it is a dramatically different color in the middle than it is on the edges. In my opinion, the edges of the lake or more grey than blue, and I spent a while arguing with my mother that I should not paint the lake sapphire, but we eventually compromised on a navy for the middle most part of the lake and a true blue for the edges. Applying the paint wasn't much of an issue, it actually looked really nice, but I was impatient and don't have a picture of it to show you. In fact, I was so impatient that a half hour after I finished painting, I poured the water on top of it. That was when everything hit the fan. The water became cloudy from the wet paint, there were some bubbles in the water surface, and the underside of the trays (the lake is on two trays) began leaking $20 worth of fake water all over the kitchen table and wood floor. There was nothing I could do about the cloudy water, the bubbles I started popping with a pin but discovered that my finger tip worked better, and the leaks were "stopped" by my duct taping wads of paper towels under the tray. The leaks didn't really stop but there was less leaking onto the table.

I tried to carry the trays into the garage where I didn't care about leaking water, but the trays didn't fit through the door (groan). I figured that the water was only 1/8" deep (3.1mm) and was already a little thick from drying... maybe I could turn the trays sideways for 2 seconds and get them through the door. I got a bit of water on the grass and some on the laundry room floor, but I got the water to dry in the garage.

The water looked terrible when it finally dried (the bottle said 24 hours, but in a garage with no ventilation, 36 hours is probably more reasonable). The water was uneven and had fingerprints in it from my seeing how dry it was. The blue was also WAY too blue. It was just too bright for my model. so, about a week after I first poured the water, I repainted the water (with helpful supervision and a little micromanaging from my loving partner, Betsy). It was so hot out, that the newly colored paint (more black and grey than before, but still very much blue) was drying before I could blend the colors well. The result was a lot more streaky than before which actually looked more like the satellite images on Google Earth/Google Maps. Also, because it was so hot out, the paint was dry in a matter of hours. I poured the water for the second time and my girlfriend and I spread it to the edges. The bottle said to spread the water to the edges of the lake with a tooth pick, but my lake was so big, that Betsy and I just blew it to the edges of the lake. By the way, I do not recommend blowing on fake water unless you enjoy dizziness. Yeah, we got a little high on water, I'm not ashamed.

I'm now realizing that maybe I should have posted a blog sooner; this is going to be very long.

In the panel with my campus, I painted all of the roads grey. I was originally thinking to paint them black, but roads aren't really black, are they. My only regret is that I used glossy paint why turned out to be very... um... glossy. I discovered that if you put enough paint down, the paint automatically smooths itself, but if you put too much it runs onto the grass. Once that dried, I added sidewalks by scraping away the grass the same way that I scraped away the grass for the roads. The color of the vinyl is a good enough color for he sidewalks in my opinion, so that was easy. also on the panel, I painted on the yellow and white road markings using the tiniest of paints (which Hobby Works in Maryland has a very large selection of), and an even tinier paint brush. It came out really nice in most spots, but I had a bit of difficulty keeping all of the parking lot lines the same thickness and length, but I touched it up with grey paint and it looks less sloppy now.

Lastly, I am experimenting with how to make houses. Keeping in mind that even a two story house is 3/8" (9.5 mm), even a monopoly house and/or hotel is slightly too big. On the other hand, there are going to be over 1000 houses (I should really count out that number exactly, so I called the people at Hasbro and at USAopoly. They both said no, but maybe I could take the combined 100 houses and hotels that I already have in my two monopoly sets and copy the, 10 times in a resin copier I found in the hobby shop. The resin copier is like $70, though!

Another option for the houses is to make them all individually. I could take a sheet of 1/8" thick wood and cut our a floor plan. I'll paint the sides of house white and then color it as I want (sharpie doors and windows). I tried this already with the three identical dorms that form the mini-quad on my schools campus. I had originally planned on painting the buildings white and then coloring them with marker. It doesn't look like marker really sticks to paint, but maybe the paint was still too wet. Anyway, it still looks really cute, but I may still touch it up. I suppose that what you see in the photographs are actually the mini "miniquad."

Okay, I think that I am all caught up. Until next time!

Roads, step 1

Mick the master carpenter came over. That was a big to do. He pulled up in the little alleyway behind the house in the huge panel truck. If I had made these trays myself, I probably would have used glue and a miter box. Mick came with a huge electric miter saw, a nail gun, an air compressor for his nail gun, a drill for screwing, and a portable circular saw. Wow.

He and his assistant worked pretty fast. They had three of the four panels finished in no time. Unfortunately, he did not buy enough wood for the fourth tray. "Ah don't know where my mind is aht," he said in a thick Irish accent. So, he and his assistant headed off to the local Home Depot to get $10 worth of wood in their truck that gets 8 miles to the gallon (3.4 kilometers per liter, which was annoying to convert). By the time they got back, Mick had played the game telephone with himself and messed up the last tray. Luckily, it was too big and not too small. So, after a short fit of Irish semi-precious metaphors and swears, we cut it down to size and all was well. The panels, now covered in green grass, were screwed into place with a 1/8 inch gap all around. I will fill in the gap later with hot glue or caulk, whichever is more convenient. ...and the trays are done. It is beginning to look like a model.

So, now the roads. On my topographical map (which was drawn in the early 60s) are the roads and major buildings as they existed at the time. Luckily, not much has changed in 50 years. I check on maps.google.com to make sure. The only thing that is very different is that the major highway that runs along the lake (Routes 5&20) has been moved a few times to accommodate more traffic, as have several of the roads that lead to it. It does not seem like a big deal, but it just means that I need to work a little harder to place the road, since it is not on my nice grid paper. In addition, there has been a very large and ugly hotel built on the lake, which is not on my map. I would rather leave the hotel out because of how ugly it is (concrete walls and a BRIGHT blue metal roof). But - like American banks and insurance companies - this hotel is just too big to disappear. Both the hotel and the highway changes are in one panel, so I will save that panel for last.

If I could have one superpower while laying the roads, it would be x-ray vision. While making the topography out of foam core, I had drawn a grid that corresponds with the topographical survey I got from city hall to help with accuracy. Now the grass covers the grid, so I need to use a ruler to figure out where the roads should be, as well as using the topographical contours as a guide. If I could do it again, I would have drawn the edges of the grid into inside of the walls of the trays so that I could use the grid, even after the grass had been laid. Oh well. Next time.

The model grass scratches off really easily. I picked two points where a road starts and ends, and scratched a straight line into the grass. Then I went to Google earth and used their ruler tool to find out how wide the road is. I do not think that I could do this project without Google. I picked a flat-headed screwdriver that matched the thickness of the road and scraped of that grass.

Not much more needs to be said about this step of making the roads except that I am collecting most of the grass that I pick up in case I need it later. Also, if I did not pick it up, it would make a mess everywhere.

The pictures attached are in this order

*One tray with the center of each road thinly scratched in. I only made a few mistakes here, which is odd for me (not that I do not tend to make mistakes, but that I do not tend to make that few mistakes. Maybe my craftsmanship is getting better. Right before I paint road marking would be a good time to magically get better craftsmanship).

*My widening the roads with a screwdriver. Notice the bag of grass that - at this point - is nearly empty.

*The first two panels done. Notice the huge parking lots on the panel to the right, which will be where the supermarket (Wegmans, one of the best supermarkets ever) and where the shopping plaza will go.

*Google maps of the area represented in the previous picture.

Back to work

Well, it is long overdue that I post a blog. The problem was that I was getting many school assignments and just did not have the time to model that I did at the beginning of the semester when two of my four professors were out sick. Once I had a full load of classes again, and my chorus was getting ready to go on tour, and spring break came, I never felt like I made enough progress on the model to make a blog. Anyway, here is what has happened since.

I put grass on the model. Modeling grass is super easy. It comes on a roll that warps with heat (a heat gun is mentioned in the directions, but everybody uses a hairdryer according to the man at the hobby shop). So you spray on glue, roll out the grass, blow-dry it, and you are done. The only thing that I recommend that is not in the directions is wear a thick winter glove on the hand that you are using to smooth out the grass. Otherwise, you will burn yourself.

I knew in advance that my four panels would not line up seamlessly as is, plus they will warp, and they do not transport well as is… so I built a tray for each of them. This consisted of making columns of scrap foam-core to make the underside of the model the same level (see picture). Then I cut out a sheet of 1/4" (5mm) plywood and glued it underneath. Next, I cut out two strips the length and two strips the width of each section (four pieces total) and glued them to the sides of each section to make walls. It is like having a shoe box lid turned upside-down, and putting my model in it. So, I made one of these tray-like-things for all four sections. It looked nice. The perfectly plum edges of the tray really emphasized the contours of the hills. Some of the plywood was warped, but it really did not take too long to make all four trays.

My parents and I decided to ship home my model so that I could work on it this summer. During the week this month, I am interning for a design and construction firm (I make computer model of proposed extensions designed by the in-house architect to be used for both his design process and for marketing. Message me if you want to see some). Next month, I am going to be a camp counselor. But on the weekends, I could be working on my model (such as right now). So I made this huge box from cardboard left over from another class's project (they made real boats from cardboard and duct tape), and slid all of the sections into it. The box was as big as a section, a foot (32 cm) deep, and weighed 55 lbs (25 kg). It cost $100 to ship it home, but when I got to the UPS place after walking half a mile with this huge box on my back like a turtle, that the weight did not affect the price of the shipping, it was the enormous size of the box. The price would have changed a total of $2 if it had weighed between 25lbs and 100lbs. But, if I had only put two panels in a box instead of four (and had two boxes), each box would have cost $30 to ship, or $60 total. I think I will do that when I send it back.

Anyway, when I got home for the summer, the box was waiting for me in the garage. The box itself was not ripped or opened, but it seemed quite a bit flattened. What was 12” deep was now 4” deep. When I opened it, all of the 1/4" strips that made the walls of the tray-like-things had been broken off, and each section was sitting right on top of each other. What I think happened, was that UPS put this box under many other boxes, laying flat of its face. The other boxes crushed all of the trays. I was a little upset, but also glad that there weren't any buildings to be crushed in the move.

My parents hire a master-carpenter to fix a lot of things around the house. When they saw what happened to the model, they offered to have him come round and help me remake the frame. We met yesterday to discuss it. Mick (the master-carpenter) and I are going to put a 3/4" frame under the existing sheet of plywood and screw it to the model, so that the model is sitting 3/4" of the ground. Then we are going to remake those strips that broke off, but make them taller (3/4" taller to match how far off the ground the model is now), and have them be 3/4" thick. We will also screw it all together instead of gluing it. It will be heavy, but just like to see UPS try to break it next time. I know this sounds confusing, so I will take pictures of the process for you visual learners out there.

We will build this frame next week maybe. In the meantime, I am going to be working on the roads. Making sure my map is accurate compared to more recent ones, etching away the grass, painting the roads black/grey, etching away the sidewalks, and painting the yellow and white lines on the roads. The roads and sidewalks are my goals for the summer. If I have time, I will either plant trees in the heavily forested areas, or start making some buildings. I will probably make the forest instead of buildings because they would fare better if the trays break again. Another option would be to have my parents drive me back to school (6 1/2 hours due north). I will think about it and let you know.

Finishing Step 1

Today, I finished the fourth sections of the topography, so I walked it over to the art campus and photographed it. It's huge, by the way. It's about 5 feet by 6 1/2 feet. Hopefully, you can get a sense of the scale from the attached photographs. In order to draw the grid to copy the lines from the paper to the foam core, I had to draw a grid consisting of 4300 squares. I already miss this mindless and uncreative process.
This afternoon, I will start to lay the grass, and then mark with scratches where the roads and buildings will go. After that, almost all mathematical aspects of model making will be done, and I will have to estimate everything. I have no way of knowing how tall to make a building or how far apart windows are on a façade, and I am not looking forward to all of that guess work. Well, for the really tall buildings (such as the 5 or 6 church steeples or the taller shops on Exchange St.), I think I may order or make a cheap sextent and do some trigonometry to find the height of the buildings. Hopefully I can remember how those 9th grade algebra word problems were solved. Anyway, how much difference does this estimating make when a milimeter in my model is equivalent to 3'2"?

A Good Day for Modeling

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - With the exception that I currently have little scraps of foam core all over my floor (which my vacuum is too wimpy to pick up), today has been a great day for making my model. I had previously gotten a large sheet of green felt for the grass, and I quickly realized that maybe a deep mossy-green might be the wrong color. So today, I went down to the local puzzle and model train shop, which has been a very helpful resource so far (lakecityhobbies.com). There I was introduced to the magic that is Ready Grass's Vinyl Mats. For those of you who do not know what this is, it a sheet of vinyl (which has the texture of poster board, but does not tear by accident) with model grass already glued to it. You just roll it out and glue it down. With the felt, I was worried that I would have to put the road way on top of the felt, which would give it a strangely raised effect, but with Ready Grass you can easily scrape away excess grass to either paint on a road or glue one onto a flat surface. The company recommends using a plastic putty knife, but I will probably use something thinner, like a spoon. And the BEST part of Ready Grass, is that if you heat up the vinyl with a heat gun (or hopefully a hair-dryer), it stretches and I can get the grass to fit snugly over the topography I am currently working on. I'm very excited. Can you tell?

Speaking of the topography, it is officially half way done (see above photo). I think that it is coming out nicely, but I still cannot wait until I can work on something a bit smaller. Trying to draw even grids with a 40 inch straight edge is not as much fun as it sounds.

I had been a bit bummed that the thinnest dowels I could locate at hardware stores and the internet have been 1/16" of an inch in diameter. I wanted something to make posts out of, but 1/16" is 5 feet in my scale. At the model store (which has earned a lot of cool points today), I discovered that they have white plastic rods and tubes .015" in diameter (about 18 inches in my model, which may be perfect). They also have ultra-thin plastic cards with grooves engraved into them at what would be the equivalent of 2 feet apart (which will be perfect for making crude stairs or a white picket fence). I felt so hopeful about this project while leaving Lake City Hobbies.

I am currently looking for a summer job. As nice as it would be to get a job near my parents' house so I could have free room and food, it would be impossible for me to ship whatever progress I have and work on it without being on site. Keep in mind that - with the exception of the topographic map I got from city hall - my entire model will be based on my personal observations and whatever satellite imagery Google Earth and MSN maps has to offer. Thus, I am actively looking for a summer job in Geneva. I have talked with Architect Dan Long, who has an office here. He said an internship might work out, but I should come back when the summer gets closer.

Today, though, I was walking home from model shop with a roll of grass under my arm, when I passed an office building with several different architectural renderings of different buildings on display near their entrance. I timidly went inside, feeling bad that I had not called in advance to make an appointment or to make sure that they are, in fact, an architectural office. I heard a man's voice on my right that said, "You're in the right place, Jason." It was Eric Ameigh, the city planner who commissioned this project in the first place. He was there for another project, but he introduced me to the people who work there. By "there," I mean a new branch of an existing architecture firm just south of Rochester. The woman I spoke with said that her company and the Dan Long were considering getting one intern to share between them, a job which I am a good candidate for. That was exciting.

This week, after I do my homework, I am going to finish the topography. I am determined!

Getting started with a good foundation

Originally, I had planned to model only my school's campus. I mentioned to my architecture studio professor my intentions to make this model, and she said that the city planner had mentioned to her that he was interested in the same thing, but of the downtown area.

So I walked over to City Hall, where the city planner works, and had a nice talk with him. This was, of course, many months ago in mid October, which is why I am telling this story so quickly. I asked him where he saw this project going and we discussed the boundries and scales. I was big on making the downtown area and campus because they're interesting to see. He really wanted to see the residential districts so that the people looking at the model might be able to find their house on it (which would be cool, I must admit). We compromised on the dimensions and scale previously discussed. I still can't believe how big and detailed this model is going to be.

I wanted to start my model on the right foot, meaning that the model's foundation would be an accurate depiction of the topography of Geneva. Upstairs in City Hall, I photocopied their topographical maps, and later at home I enlarged them and drew a grid on them.

My next step was to find a material to carve the foundation into. The topo map has lines representing every 10 feet, so the scale calls for a material 1/8" thick. The material had to be in a sheet, be easy to cut, and soft enough to "plant" trees and buildings into later. I looked at rolls of cork and thin pieces of styrophome, but I decided on foam core, despite how easy it is to damage it. Each sheet is 32"x40," so 4 of them will be the size of the finished model. I drew out a grid on all of them so that I could convert the topographical map accurately onto the foam core. Of course, it does me no good to have a picture of the topography. If you draw out the topographical map twice and cut out all of the even lines on one piece of foam core and all of the odd lines on the other, you can stack and glue them together to create what I expect will look like stairs on both the top and bottom of the model using relitively few materials.

I'm still in the process of drawing the topographical map onto the foam core, so I'll let you, know how it works out. Also, I just realized while trying to photograph 4 pieces of foam core to show you the size of the prospective model, that there is no spot in my room large enough to lay out all 4 pieces next to each other. Not even on the wall. As you can see in the picture, there is a fire sprinkler in the way. This means that if I live in this room over the summer and again next year, I'll never see the full model pieced together until it's done unless I find another place to work on it. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it!