With the individual walls assembled, it was time to paint their interior
faces black. This serves to prevent light leak through the plastic once a
light source is placed inside (the walls will appear to glow otherwise). I
could have also painted the insides of the window frames, in theory, but I
didn't see a way to pull that off without painting out the glazing at the same
time. My hope is that any glow of the window frame will be interpreted as
being due to the light streaming out through the glass.
Of course, paint will get in the way of the plastic cement, so you'll need to either keep it away from the areas you need to glue, or scrape it away after. The wall edges of these kits are mitred, and Keeping the paint clear form the mitre was straightforward enough. I also had an idea of adding internal struts and other reinforcement, since I've seen plenty of seam failures in this type of construction. I scraped the paint away to allow for this extra construction.
Even as late as this stage, I still wasn't clear on what I was going to do for an interior. If I had been, I could have measured and installed supports for bracing at the same height on each wall, installing angled beams like inverted capital Ls. This would have both supported the floors, and served as a gluing point for diagonal bracing between adjacent walls. Instead, I scraped off a rough patch of paint and then put the first two walls into a right-angle jig to glue them together. Using the same liquid cement, I first painted the mitre joint, then added square plastic rod stock on the inside of the mitre with some more cement. Once this had dried, I painted it the same matte black. Once the joint and reinforcement had dried, I cut some more of the square rod at a 45-degree angle, and strung them across the corner, cementing them in place.
I repeated these steps with the next joint, giving me a three-walled structure. At this point, I had to stop to think further. Once I added the back wall, I'd be closing off my options for the interior. The biggest issue was the picture windows in the storefront, which would now look onto a mostly blacked-out interior. On test assembly, I discovered that the lettering on the glass would be lost against that dark background. I had collected both stock images of office interiors, and HO scale office furniture, so a detailed interior was an option, but now that I had assembled three of the walls, adding that interior would not be easy. And, for my first model in a long time, maybe this was becoming more complicated than was reasonable. The model sat for several weeks in this unfinished state.
Years ago, I had worked in the theatre, where we sometimes used diffuser gel (also known as diffuser filters) over our lights. This is a thin, translucent plastic material made specifically for shining light through it, to soften harsh shadows. There are a few manufacturers; I went with Rosco for the simple reason that I was most familiar with them. I used their #250 diffusion gel, cutting a small rectangle out and wedging it in front of the picture windows. This both spreads out any interior light, to better illuminate the windows; and shows off the lettering, even if/when there is no light.
At this point, I had basically backed myself into a corner regarding the
interiors. My diagonal braces were at different levels (since I hadn't
measured and used supports for them), so any interior would be lopsided, and I
no longer needed one, either. I glued the three walls in place on the base,
reinforcing them with more of the squared rod. The base is designed with
sidewalks in front of, and behind the building. I'm not clear on the thinking
of this, but in my case it doesn't matter, since the back of the building
(and thus, its sidewalk), is hidden by the building. If it
matters in your case, cutting off of the back of the base is straight-forward
enough. I wanted to be able to slide the model to the back of the shelf it
will sit on, so I made this cut. The pattern on the sidewalks is of small
squares, with a separate curb and curbing along the property lines. Short-shortsightedly, those property lines don't allow for the alley needed to
access the side door to the upper floors. Thus, for a realistic presentation,
the original sidewalk has to go. One option is to reuse the front and rear
sidewalks, splicing them together to run the entire distance across both the
building and its alley. Another is to use aftermarket sidewalks. In my case, I
did neither, since the building will just be on a shelf, and to make things a
little easier on myself. I primed the sidewalks, then took dark grey paint and
randomly splotched it across the sidewalk tiles.
This blotching will show faintly though the next layer of paint, giving the
surface a variegated, more lifelike look. Once this dried, I painted everything
ivory. Then, I took some light grey and repainted several of the tiles, as if
they were poured later, as part of a repair; and did the same with some darker
grey. Finally, I dull coated everything, and hit it with a coat or two of the India ink to tie it together and darken the lines between the tiles. With the
base complete, I attached the three walls to it, reinforcing the join with
some more of the square rod stock.
The roof of the kit is designed to be sandwiched in by the four walls. There is a ledge along the walls, near the tops, where it sits. Above that ledge is a thin space for the roof, then raised detailing to show the brick inner face of the wall along the roof. In practice, I found that the raised detailing is low enough that the roof can be added after the four walls are assembled to each other, but I test-fitted to make sure. I reinforced the rear wall's joints with rod stock in the corners, but getting diagonal braces in would have been quite difficult. If I had added some L-brackets during assembly as gluing points, adding diagonal bracing now would have been much easier. Again, lesson learned.
This completes this build thread. I hope you enjoyed your time here.
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