Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lancaster, PA model III, more images.

Here are fifteen more images that I just took of the model, today. including some closeup detail shots. They are somewhat better, as I took the time to dig the model out to photograph it outside. Sorry about the reflective glare off the plexiglas panels, but I did not want to remove the model from the display box, as it is a very delicate model. The backside of the model is little faded from exposure to direct sun through a window that it is sitting in front of. I did not realize this was happening to it until about 7 years ago, so, I placed a big huge piece of blank corrugated cardboard in front of the window to block the excess light from hitting the model, so the light damage has been slowed somewhat. Remember, I completed this model 20 years ago.

The actual building was designed by the famous Lancaster architect C. Emlen Urban in the late 1880's.

Jim.

Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lancaster, PA model III.

This is a model that I completely drew up scale plans for, and built in 1/96 scale from 1989, and completed it in 1991. I actually took pictures of the actual building in 1986, but the project got sidetracked until after I got married, and settled down.

The title of this post says model III, for this was my third attempt at modeling this building. The first time I did this was around 1968 as a ten year old kid. I think I gave it to my Sunday School teacher, there. I do not remember what happened to it. It is what I call my first "pizza box" model of the thing. Not very good detail,as most of it was drawn on. The second one I made in 1971, to replace that first one. I still have it, as you saw in an earlier post on this blog. It is intact, but really in scruffy shape, and very inaccurate, and like the first one, lacking in detail.

By 1989, I thought my modeling skills were honed enough that I could try to precisionly model this almost to perfection. The only things I left out was the brick and shingle texture details. I think I was able to get across the American Gothic Revival beauty of this 19th century building extremely intricate textured sculpted brick work detail, as well as the valted windows. and fancy wainscoated woodworking. This building is as it stands today was built in 1891, I believe, and other than the brick now being sandblasted clean of the red paint that was so prevalent on brick structures in Lancaster County, it is the same now as it was the year it was built. The actual building sits on the slope of a hill, the lowest ground level point of the actual building is at the main bell tower, right at the corner of Strawberry , and Manor Streets on the west side of Lancaster City, PA. For ease of building purposes, my model is built on a level plain, which necessitated a taller set of outside steps on the back southwest corner of the model, than the actual building really has. I believe my model is somewhat proportionately correct.

The darker, but sharper images that were taken inside the house of this model were just taken today. The brighter, but fuzzier outdoor image were taken at the time the model was just completed in 1991. The model is now alittle over 20 years old, and the red balsawood framed reinforced posterboard walls are beginning to fade, and the model is starting to show some age,but it still looks very nice!!

Here they are.

Butterflies and Moths, and Dragonflies, Oh My!!

I have been collecting butterflies and moths off and on since 1968. I love to raise them, to from egg, to caterpillar, to pupa,(chrysalis, or cocoon), and adults. It is very fascinating to watch the complete metamorphosis life cycle of these beautiful insects, as well as to collect them. I have, over those years in my family and friends circle, according to them, become quite the expert on these critters. I love seeing the beauty in God's handywork, in lepidoptera, the latin name for the family of butterflies and moths, a lifelong hobby for me.

Here is an image of a 16" x 24" Riker mount set of 32 specimens of some Lancaster County, PA, U.S.A. indigenous species, that I collected, and did in 2006. Included are 3 specimens of one species of dragonfly, and one specimen of a damselfly.

Click on the image to make it bigger to see the specimens more clearly. How many can you identify?

Jim.

Handmade wooden toy bank barn remodeling job, cupolas, and all!!

This is a model that I did not build. I bought it from someone else who built it, but he did a real rough job in doing so. I completely remodeled it, detailed it, added cupolas that I designed, as well added ventilators, windows, and cross buck details for the doors. I also added the white wooden vertical wall corner mouldings, as well. I smoothed over all the uneven joints, and added a piece of plywood to the bottom of the model to give it more structural integrity. I painted on by hand the stone details for the foundation, and the barn hill retainer walls. I repainted the roof edges white, from gray. Added two cross buck doors to the livestock barnyard side of the barn, as well as adding windows there. This model is rather large, as it is 15" long, measuring from gable to gable, and adding the roof overhang, and about 12" high at the roof peak and 13" wide, measuring at the gable end roof overhangs. The model is mostly made of painted 3/8",and 7/16" rough hewn scrap plywood, and skid slat wood construction, with painted solid maple wood cupola assemblies. The ventilator assemblies with their louvre slats on the cupolas, as well as on the barn's walls themselves, window frames, and cross buck door trim mouldings are all made from heavy gauge cardboard, and mat board material, and painted the colors as needed. The model's front and rear cross buck doors open and close on jewelry box hinges, painted white to match the rest of the barn's trim, and the door handles are tiny cuphooks screwed into the doors, painted aluminum. The "glass" in the six actual window openings in the barn is clear polystyrene plastic. The two windows on the livestock level are false windows. The guy who originally designed the overall configuration of this barn did not cut window openings there. There are only six actual window openings in the upper levels of the barn. The overall height of the barn at the central cupola weathervane lightning rod is 17-3/4". Living in Lancaster County, PA, I have seen lots of bank barns of this fancy style when I was a kid, all almost every one of them are gone, now. Victims of overdevelopement. This is not a model of any one specific barn, but of a menagerie of several barns that I remember from when I was a kid, and also a Plain friend that I work with, who gave me some pointers, and recolletions of barns his friends and relatives have, or did have.

This model was originally built to be a farm play toy, but I turned it into what would be in real life an agricultural Taj Mahal.

I got the model in October of 2010, last year, and I just put the finishing touches on it yesterday, May 15, 2011.

Here are some pictures of the completed model.

Other than some preliminary cleanup and surface prep work as well as repaint and the stone foundation detail that is painted on the model, here, these two images are of the barn, basically the way I bought it in October of 2010. I also in these pictures had already added a plywood bottom to the model, as it did not have one when I bought it at the time.

Early working design drawings of  the cupolas I did before making them.

Jim.

1993 Scratch built wood Parthenon model.

Here is an abstract model I did of this ancient landmark, because I became fascinated by it's architectural beauty of the building in 1972 in my ancient history class in 7th grade with my ancient history teacher, Mrs Menges, in then Lincoln Junior High School in Lancaster, PA. The simple beauty of its fluted Doric columns, and the the friezes on the pediments on both ends of the building are a thing of beauty to behold.

The actual building was completed around 445 B.C. by the great Greek statesman, Pericles , for the worship of the Greek goddess, Athena Parthenos, who, supposedly was the goddess of prosperity. It is still on the huge fortified outcropping overlooking Athens, yet, today, known as the Athenian Acropolis. Although it is a ruin today, it is still a thing of great beauty! They are, though slowly restoring the monument, today, as of this typing.

My model took a little over a month to build in the spring of 1993. I built it mostly at my work, on my free time. I'm a woodworker, by trade. One day, when I was at a work station, there, I saw a huge box full of these wooden fluted dowel pegs, and it inspired me. I thought they would work perfect to use as the bodies of the columns in a Parthenon model. So I basically drilled and cut pieces out of solid paint grade birch wood and plywood to fit around these pegs, and turned it into a very nice model of the building, although, with what I know now, is far from being architecturally correct. It is missing the inner portico columns that are behind the end facade columns. But I did get the basic proportions close. It does have the correct number of columns on the outside of the model. Forty-six of them, total. Not counting the corners twice, it has the 17 columns on each side, and 6 on the ends, as per the original, (in between the corners on the ends, that is, as when you look at the ends of the model, there are 8 columns across, on each end). The model is still pretty neat though, to look at. That is why I call this model an abstract interpretation of the landmark, because it is not all that accurate. But, then again models of the Parthenon are few, and far in between.

The model is about 14" long, by about 7" wide by about 4-1/2" tall. April 21, 2011- I was just asked to figure out the scale of this model, so here it goes.

If I just figured it out right, it comes out to about 1/200 scale, give or take a few points on the lower number of that fraction.

I spray painted it flat white, after I got the lintel/ columnade rectangle structure built. I spray painted the inner room walls separately before I assembled it to the outer column assembly, then I spray painted the pediment/ceiling/ roof assembly separately before I assembled it into the model, completing it.

The embossed frieze details on the pediments, and "dentil" details on the lintels of the model were made by gluing cut heavy gauge pieces of cardboard to these areas as needed to provide the relief detail that these areas have or did have on the actual building. I cut out the frieze silhouettes using, again heavy gauge cardboard, drawing the shapes on the cardboard, then hand cutting them out with a #11 blade X-acto modeler's knife. Then I glued them onto the flat recesses of the pediments. The little dentil squares on the lintels were embossed with the point of a dead ball point pen, with two lines evenly dividing each square into three even rectangular sections, as per the original building. I put enough detail in this model to make it interesting looking, but again, I say, it is very far from being exact.

Here are select new images of my model that I just took, today.

Jim.

Jada's 1965 Cadillac; How it can be made more realistic.

The way this model comes in the box, it is sorely lacking in detail, both the exterior, and interior. This model, although somewhat disproportionate, and lacking in detail, or incorrect detail, for it's size, is still somewhat of a nice model. Scale models of 1965 Cadillacs are far and few in between, in the first place. So, really, when one comes along, beggars cannot be choosers. But because of it's size, at 1/18th scale, it is very easy to add the missing details to the exterior of the thing, and these items can be made very easily from scratch by modelers with moderate skills.

I used self sticking aluminum tape around the back window to simulate the moulding around it. Also, I used this same aluminum tape, trimmed to fit around the front wheel openings,to blend in with the cornering light details on the front end of each front fender. Also the rear wheel openings on the back fender skirts were trimmed out with this tape, also. In between the back edge of the hood, and the windshield wipers, I added the "chrome" cowl vent grille, which was completely missing from this model, out of the box. On this yellow model, I made this out of very heavy gauge posterboard, and I used a ballpoint pen to heavily emboss the grille grooves in the thing. Then, I cut the thing to shape to match the front curvature of the front edge of the cowl, and notched out the back edge of the thing to fit around the molded in wiper blade arms. Then I glued it on the cowl, and carefully painted it silver. The door handles were made from pieces of flat sheet styrene, the main piece 1/8" X 7/16" long, and notched out for the handle hold. Then I glued a small rectangle underneath this to complete the handle body, and on top of this small rectangle, I added an even smaller square, making that the push button for the assembly. Then I crazy glued them to the doors, and painted them silver. The door lock cylinders were made from very tiny pieces of lightweight posterboard, cut as circular as I can get them, as this piece is less than 1/16 inch in diameter to be scaled right to this car. Then they were glued to the car, right below the upper horizontal crease, and painted silver. The last thing I did was I "blacked out" the front grille. I did this by using Testors spray paint flat black, not shaken up the whole way, so it would be thinner than normal. I spray a little bit of this stuff in a small disposable container, such as a spray paint can lid, and with a medium size modelers brush, quickly paint it on the grille. I then let it tack up for about a minute or two. Then I quickly wipe the excess off the raised areas of the grille, leaving the black only on the areas behind the grille "egg crate" fins, giving the effect that the grille is actually open to the back, like the real car. Some modelers call this effect, "blackwashing", and the effect on model car grilles is very realistic. I've been doing this effect to my different model cars' grilles for years.

The first one of these models, I totally disassembled, stripped the metal body, and repainted light metallic blue in 2007, and reassembled it, detailing it out very similar to the way I did this yellow car. The only difference, other than the stock yellow color that I left on this second model, is the fact that I did NOT disassemble this one to detail it. I did this one while it was together.

I have one more of these cars still in it's "Reservoir Dogs" box, and I intend to figure out how how to fully detail the exterior, AND the interior on this one, as I have not worked on that aspect of the model, yet. The seats are shaped correctly, but are not engrave detailed at all. The dashboard is a 1964, which is a totally different dash from what the 1965, in real life actually had. I'm thinking about sculpting a new dash out of balsawood, plastic and posterboard, and then painting it to match what ever color I decide to make the interior. Hopefully, this third model will be about as close to scale perfection that I can get with this model.

For me, this model is very fun to experiment with, honing my modeling skills.

Jim.