The Hardware Store

[Keith Hayes]

Long ago, I shared some details of the construction of Carleno's Grocery. This was based on one of the buildings west of the C&S Depot near the center of this image:

After the grocery was completed, the building to the left (south) continued to haunt me. It has a random window pattern that just begs to be modeled. As I have shared, we modelers need nice building sides to model, as the false fronts rarely face the tracks.

As it happens, I have a backdrop to conceal behind the depot, and it occurred to me that this building could fill the bill. I checked my random Grandt parts, and created a Frankensten door and doubled up a couple windows and the Hardware Store was born!

The building has been done for a while, but I needed to make the sign. I created the art in PowerPoint, using yellow letters with a red drop shadow behind on a black background. I got some decal paper I could run through the laser copier at the office. There was some concern that the sign would be a bit too fancy for the late 30s, but it turned out okay. Turns out the yellow relies on the white of paper to read, and on the green building, it fades nicely. This particular decal paper is really thick, and took a lot of Micro Sol to get it to snuggle down into the siding. The decals also shrunk a lot in place.

I still have some work to do--paint around the sign edges, add some shades to the windows, and the ubiquitous snow stain along the bottom 36" of the building. But it is shaping up!

[Jeff Young]

Looks great, Keith.  I love the little window under the eaves — many of the manufactured kits miss these slightly odd or irregular details that give a building authenticity.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Jim Courtney]

Excellent model building, Keith!

Looks like the same techniques could be used for the graphics for the "Beer Depot".  All of Leadville impatiently awaits that repository of good cheer!


http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c16053

 September, 1941

. . . and you'd only need to build the front 60%, just so's you include the cupola and that precarious chimney on the right end of the roof!

[Norm Acker]

Wow, really nice-looking building, Keith! Keep up the good work!

[Keith Hayes]

With some Pan Pastel weathering and some shades and signs in the windows.

Andy a view of the depot with the start of some ground cover.

I got material for the roof, so it is getting time to level up the sub roof and discard the mock up.

[South Park]

  Cars did not have full wheelcovers or shiny mag wheels in 1940.