Ibaraki Shorty Construction

[disturbman]

9 minutes ago, Madsing said:

Felivert does not mean anything afaik, but it really sounds French.

🙈 I suppose, if you had not said it, I would not have thought of it. But it could be Frapanese, it's not unheard of. Thought the only thing "Felivert" makes me think off is "fait divers", which means miscellaneous news item...

Edit: It could also be "Felibert" since Japanese does not distinguish between V and B, and that would sound like a name if you add a diacritic to the E, "Félibert".

Edited January 20, 2022 by disturbman

[Cat]

Just wrapped up a close approximation of the billboard.  The actual one is a different layout on a rectangular format.  On our building, a square sign will fit better and this layout matches the style they have on their website.
 
And today, I google-learned that the double-loop icon means 'toll free' number:

 

[cteno4]

Excellent! (Waynes world! Wayne’s world)

 

may have to steal that!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Cat]

Anybody is quite welcome to use this — spread the Felivert Sunshine!
: 3

[Madsing]

Very nice!

What about a thread where we post the signs that we have made(-up)?

[cteno4]

Ok dude you asked for it…

 

https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/18891-homemade-sinage/

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Cat]

It's been a fun weekend of adding greeblies to restaurant models.  We're working on a trio of restaurants from a back street behind Mito Station, which will get moved over beside the station for our layout. 

 

The Greenmax pack of 6 little shop models provided a great starting point for this project.  The double-stacked one will go in the middle of the block, I just had to add some framing at the joint of the upper level to glue one of the window pieces in there. 

 

The outer walls of the restaurants are festooned with electrical boxes, blowers and vents.  Some of these pieces came with the kit, others were added with bits of styrene.  Filling one front window to be flush with the wall called for a bit of .005 styrene in the furthest recessed half of the window frame, and then a .015 piece on top of that for the fill.

 

Because of the big front façades, the narrow alleys between the buildings will not be visible from the front.  They will barely be visible from trackside views in the back, so they only needed a couple of greeblies right at the end of the inside walls and don't need the full length detailing of the outermost walls.

 

A few larger greeblies, window railings and AC units, will be painted separately and then glued on.  When I spray paint these, I will also do a few HVAC units and a short set of steps to add to the roof of the Fuji Festival building; that rooftop is weathered and waiting for the additions.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.3716101,140.4746223,3a,75y,203.97h,90.31t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgEwftuIGuAVZwYsg_QkNPQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Cat

[Cat]

All pre-painting sub-assemblies of restaurant row are done.  Now to sort them out into which parts get spray painted in which base colours.
 

[Cat]

I needed a very short set of steps for the access room on the roof of the Fuji Festival building.  There was nothing just right in the bits piles.  I could have completely scratchbuilt; but because it was such a short flight, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to try a product I've been eyeing for a view years now.
 
Builders In Scale makes sets of laser cut parts for building stairs.  These had me wondering how well they dance on the edge of amazingly perfect for all sorts of flexibility to insanely fiddly.  Short answer: somewhat fiddly and amazingly great.

I picked up a couple of packs of stringers in a variety of riser heights.  This gives really nice flexibility to fit the total height requirements of any given model needs.
 
I also picked up packs of stair treads in a variety of lengths.  Especially for building taller stairways, I can see the value in having a stack of pre-cut matching treads.
 
For this application, I needed to cut my own treads though to get more length.  Opted for the Northeastern HO 2"x4" (N scale 4"x8"), oversized but the HO 1x4 is quite fragile.
 
The magic widget that makes this not completely insane is the Stringer Alignment tool.  Assembly turned out much much easier than I had imagined.  They recommend using a wood glue, I opted for Gorilla Super Glue for faster setting and handling time.  Once the lower stairs had set, I pulled it out of the alignment jig to glue on the top tread from the wider HO 2x6.

 

[Cat]

Yesterday was Spray Paint Festival here, restaurant parts plus a grand pile of little HVAC units for general rooftop usage.  Now they go to Roxanne for the pre-assembly detail and weathering painting.

 

[cteno4]

It’s cool you guys have a little construction team for these projects!

 

jeff

 

 

[Cat]

36 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

It’s cool you guys have a little construction team for these projects!

Yes, it's a fun joint project.  But there is a price to pay — I have to let her have the joy of the weathering!  At least I get to do the touch-up painting and tie-it-together weathering after assembly.
 
It's also fun travelling to train shows together.  Fortunately, we had already decided to skip the big Springfield show this year.  It's on right now, and we're getting walloped with a big blizzard.  Not a good day for driving the Mass Pike.  Great day for staying inside and modelling.

[cteno4]

Ha arguments on who gets to weather! 
 

yes very smart move not going to the show. Sad it hit the weekend of the show, shows are not huge moneymakers for the organizers and losses for the vendors if low turnout. But you are right not a day to be on the pike! Luckily we just got dusted here.

 

jeff

[Cat]

Well, we made our saving throw back in February, and decided to order our module kits from Masterpiece Modules because of pandemic related supply chain issues for Baltic birch.  We were able to order the 7 main triple modules.  At that time, they weren't taking any custom orders (which we wanted for the single wide Naka Valley segments) until catching up on a huge backlog of orders that had been rolling in since the end of last year.
 
Fortunately, we got all the triple modules.  But Masterpiece is now halting production until such time as they can get good plywood again — Baltic Birch comes from Russia and war sanctions have cut off supplies.  We're not in a rush for the single modules, and the layout can operate fine without them.  Constructing the main modules will keep us busy for some time, and we can ponder future options for adding the Naka River Valley at our leisure.
 
The big bundle of modules arrived here much quicker than I had expected.  Nearly finished clearing a large table in the basement to store the bundle of kits and have room to work on one too.  That table had been covered in many archaeological layers of various gaming projects that are getting sorted in to their own dedicated shelving.  Then on to add shelving to store the completed modules.  Whee!

In the meanwhile, these 38.3 pounds of module kits sit on a folding table in the parlour: https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/998-what-did-you-order-or-the-post-deliver-japanese-n-gauge/page/548/#comment-236370

 

[Tony Galiani]

Disappointing news about Masterpiece Models.  Unfortunately I live with the Princess of Procrastination and it must be rubbing off on me.  Last year I missed out on some Hokkaido KiHa 40s as I procrastinated too long and this year I have been sitting on an order for Masterpiece Modules but never got around to acting on it.  Oh well - I have a few other projects in the pipeline so that will keep me busy.  No indication on their web site of when they think they will be back in action so I am sure it is rough on them as well.

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[Cat]

We had planned to do more joint modelling over the holiday week, but that was a bit upended by other unplanned holiday festibrations.  Having been getting work done on a number of buildings over the New Years weekend at least, and will continue on.  The Eddy Family Fuji Festival building is now fully operational and ready for funerals and doll ceremonies, plus the TOA Busan shipping company Mito office on the ground floor is open.  

 

[cteno4]

Nice job cat! What were the elements used to create this?

 

jeff

[Cat]

4 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Nice job cat! What were the elements used to create this?

Thanks!  A modified Outlands building, modified Tomix billboard on top, a (you guessed it) modified Walthers HVAC unit, a Gold Medal Models brass fire escape, and various bits of styrene.  Parts details at the top of page 2 — it's been in progress for awhile...

[Cat]

Detail painting has been proceeding on the GreenMax kits for restaurant row.  Getting the signage on the Ushigami rib shop and almost ready to spray with Dullcote before adding the window glazing.
 
I thought I had a signboard already set aside for this that sticks out over the sidewalk.  But as I was about to cut out the signs to glue on, I couldn't find it in the parts pile for the restaurants or in any of the likely bits boxes.  Time to pull out the strip styrene and put one together!
 
I sunk the support struts into the main signboard, and cut slots into the facade where it will be glued in.  Counter-sinking the plastic parts will give a much more secure bond than just gluing them onto the surface.
 

[Cat]

Another GreenMax restaurant, another quick styrene signboard.  The eel joint has a 4-sided sign on a dolly that they wheel out onto the sidewalk, so that was a simple task to glue a square post onto a base.
 
For previous builds, I had detailed each wall, then sprayed with Dullcote, then did final assembly and touch-up puttying and painting at the corners.  For restaurant row, doing it slightly differently and gluing pairs of walls together before the Dullcote stage.  (The ground level store front pieces which are clear plastic with painted on details are not glued in at this stage.)

This still allows access for adding window glazing after the spray varnish, and makes it easier to dry-fit the sub-assemblies with the interior floors so I can better see just how much more interior shapes and people I should add in visible locations.
 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Cat

[Aleks]

Felivert looks like it may be a port-manteau off of French. Note the Japanese version ends in ル = ru, i.e. "t" is not pronounced, which is typical for French. My guess is "feli" is the start of "felicitation" which is "congratulations", and "vert" ("t" not pronounced) is "green" in French. Given their website, it looks like a wedding facility staged as if it were in a forest. https://felivert.jp/

　

[disturbman]

Interesting take, but in that case I would suggest that "feli" is the start of "félicité" ("felicity"), which would make slightly more sense for a wedding space: "Green felicity".

They named their wedding hall "Forest of Happiness" in Japanese.

Edited January 11, 2023 by disturbman

[Cat]

Continuing to add details to the restaurants.  Finding good images to use for signage and posters is pretty straight forward — paste in the restaurant name and scroll down Google images.  Struck gold with 茨城特産 大衆酒場 志音, Ibaraki public specialty bar Shion.

They feature Ibaraki specialty foods and drinks.  Which of course has included a Girls und Panzer branded apricot sake!
 
I'll be tweaking this image to work with the available wall space by the front door of the izakaya:
https://mito-ibaraki.mypl.net/shop/00000355203/news?d=1572263

[Dashworth87]

Hey man! some lovely scenery work you are doing! have just been through the thread and looking forward to more updates.

[Cat]

Thanks! 

Here's a brief update.  I had posted a photo of an earlier sign printing in another thread, but might as well put one here too.

It's been many years since I've bothered buying expensive inks for a home printer that dry out long before I use it up, so when I need to do any printing I bring my thumb drive to Staples.  It's just a flat rate of 70¢ a page; so unlike home printing, I cram the page with a ridiculous number of duplicate images so if I make any mistakes in cutting or gluing, I don't have to run back to the store to print another.  Last week's print run included extra signs, menus and posters for the restaurants in addition to what I had printed for them earlier, plus a bunch of flags for 15mm Napoleonic miniatures.
 
I've also learned that the colours I see on my screen often print out darker, especially blues.  So I've taken to laying out variants with brighter colours.  I don't have any fancy dancy image software, I just open the image in Preview on my Mac, crank up the Exposure level and then tweak the Contrast and Sharpness levels.   Repeating if necessary to push the colours even brighter.  Then I can choose the printed version I like best.