Park Hotel Missoula. Silhouette.

[hegstad1]

This will be a thread documenting the building of a model of the Park Hotel in Missoula, Montana.  I generally don't do long threads so I can't promise that I'll keep up with it or respond quickly to questions.  Busy life. 

Some of you have seen the Carpenter Paper Company building that I posted in Weekend Update.  This will be the same process.



Before I really begin, I should mention that peteski desperately wants you to read the following thread. It is quite good and answers many questions regarding the Silhouette Cameo cutters. 

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23354.0

The Park Hotel.  It is located right across the street from the Northern Pacific depot and is prominent in most pictures.  It was built originally as The Kennedy around the turn of the 20th century and has had a few names but has been the Park since at least the 30's if not earlier. It stands today as an apartment building. On my layout, it will be against the backdrop and will more or less be a flat.  The relief will be about an inch.  Below are a few prototype pictures.









More to come.

[Cajonpassfan]

Oh, this will be fun!
Got to love the signage...
Otto

[hegstad1]

OK,

After prototype research, the next step was to do a drawing in the provided Silhouette software.  I have enjoyed this and I am learning a lot as I go. 

The approach I take is to find the basic dimensions of the building and then start with window and door placement.  In the case of the Park Hotel,  I was able to find drawings on the net from a property company who was doing some renovations a few years ago and needed approval form the National Register of Historic Places (or some such organization).  I was able to download this into the Silhouette software and trace over it.  The top floors have not been altered but are of the opposite side that I'm modeling and the bottom floor is quite different from when it was built.  For this I referenced old photographs to get close.  Below is the drawing from the improvement company.



This drawing was extremely helpful in getting dimensions, designing the ornamental brickwork on the second floor and the masonry trim around the windows on the third floor.

The next image what the basic walls and window openings look like.  In this case I did the three floors separately because they were made of different materials.  The third and first floors are stucco and the middle is brick.  This will allow me to separate the drawing later for cutting.



next installment soon.

[hegstad1]

...After drawing the basic walls with window and door openings, I drew the windows.  I initially drew all of the windows separately, but decided it would be easier to draw a wall layer with the just the mullions inside the openings.  A little tricky to describe but hopefully the following picture will make it clear.  I also began by making the mullions much too thin.  For the cutter to work well, they need to be at least .03in thick.  If they are any thinner, they are difficult to see.





I then drew a layer including the decorative brick on the second story and the trim around the windows on the third story.





Finally, a neat feature of the Silhouette software is it's tracing capability.  I used this to isolate the "Flamingo Lounge" lettering on the side of the prototype.  From this I will make a decal.  The "Flamingo" is from a later date and is on the opposite side of the building but I can't resist including it.



Here is a picture with all the layers together.

[MVW]

Very, very cool. I was impressed by the Carpenter Paper Co. building, and am looking forward to every bit of this thread. Thank you!

Jim

[rodsup9000]

 Following along as we bought a Cameo III, 6 months ago that I've haven't even played with yet. The wife uses it all the time for cutting shapes for her embroidery machine and other craft stuff. I'm going to have to play with it sometime. Don't know what I'd use it for as I use the laser cutter for all my cutting. 

[hegstad1]

So this past weekend I cut all the parts on the Cameo.  I used Plastruct smooth stucco for the first and third floors and N Scale Architect brick for the second floor.  A limitation of the Cameo cutters is it will not cut all the way through styrene or ABS.  This does not bother me too much.  It scribes it beautifully and and it is an easy job to punch out the openings.  I can't remember the exact settings (I'll get them if anybody wants) but I make three passes for the walls and that makes a deep enough cut to break the walls free easily.  I also send a sheet of clear acetate through the cutter with one pass.  This scribes the window openings to make placement of the vinyl windows later.

Speaking of the windows.  I started out thinking I would cut the window openings to the size of commercially available products from Tichy or Grandt Line but as it turns out, I couldn't find any close enough.  I am going to use some Tichy doors.  This led me to the idea of cutting them out in adhesive vinyl and placing them on clear acetate in one large piece.  This would then be glued to the inside of the brick or stucco sheet.

The decorative trim.  I tried to cut this out in styrene but it was just too brittle.  The solution was to also cut this out in adhesive vinyl.  This thickness seems good and should look nice when painted.  We'll see.  I was able to cut the trim for the third floor in styrene.  Below is a picture of all the parts ready for assembly.



Next is a picture of the vinyl "window" sheet adhered to the clear acetate.



Finally, I laid the parts together to roughly test alignment.



The next step will be to paint the walls. Which will be a few days since i need to run to hobby shop to get some!

[Cajonpassfan]

Very cool, Andrew, and the adhesive vinyl idea is very clever.
A question: I understand that scribing and breaking the walls along edges is easy, but window and door openings? Do they just pop out? I always struggle with small openings (scribed with a knife)...
Wonderful progress!
Otto

[hegstad1]

Very cool, Andrew, and the adhesive vinyl idea is very clever.
A question: I understand that scribing and breaking the walls along edges is easy, but window and door openings? Do they just pop out? I always struggle with small openings (scribed with a knife)...
Wonderful progress!
Otto

Otto,
cutting out the windows is an old Bob Hundman trick.  After the windows are scribed, cut an "X" across what will be the opening.  I use a tweezers to then punch out the middle and remove the triangles.  Below are some poor phone picture illustrations. 

[hegstad1]

I did a little color testing.  Krylon Almond, Testors Navy Aggressor Gray, and Krylon Catalina Mist for the Flamingo Lounge section.

[hegstad1]

I found a couple more interesting pictures of the prototype which lead to me making a couple of decisions.  The first one shows a great "Highlander" beer sign on the Northeast corner.  This was not present later on when I model but it might be too cool to ignore.  Any thoughts?  Another one shows "HOTEL" painted on the same corner.  Finally, I found a picture showing the Flamingo Lounge sign painted on the North side of the building as well which is the side I model.

[rodsup9000]

  This was not present later on when I model but it might be too cool to ignore.  Any thoughts? 

 Yes, add it. It will add to the effect of the era even more.

[hegstad1]

I don't like how my screen shots end up blurry.  Anyway,  Here is an illustration showing where the lettering would go.

[peteski]

I too would add the signs.  As far as the blurry pictures go, I think the reason is the automatic resize done by the forum software. The forum software does it automatically (down to 1280 pixels horizontally, IIRC).

You can try reducing the resolution of your screen captures on your computer (down to width of 1280 pixels, and having control over the results).  That way the forum software will let you upload your images without being automatically resized.

I love following this thread, and referring to your statement in the initial post here, I wasn't against you creating a thread on the construction of this model. I just wanted to point out that if someone has some general questions about this cutter, there are several older threads which provide lots of good info on it.

[Cajonpassfan]

Otto,
cutting out the windows is an old Bob Hundman trick.  After the windows are scribed, cut an "X" across what will be the opening.  I use a tweezers to then punch out the middle and remove the triangles.  Below are some poor phone picture illustrations. 
...

Thanks Andrew, I use the same technique (except I also drill a hole in the center of the X). I was hoping you had some magic trick to make the windows just pop out, but it looks like the "magic" is in the old P&P: precision and patience.
I suppose using thinner materials makes the removal a bit easier, too.
Great thread, I'm loving it!
Otto