Rotating Coupler: Dominion Building Update

You guys probably wont listen to me anymore, I tell you todays post will be arriving later than usual but here it is earlier than usual. I was able to finish the few things I wanted done for todays post faster than expected and I have a busy day ahead of me so I decided to get it out of the way.

After the poll and a few persuading emails and posts I decided to forge ahead and erect the rooftop sign. I had been hesitant to build it because I thought it would be a long and difficult trek the build it and the results wouldn't justify it. But I've got to say, it went together rather easy and painless. The 3D mockup I had done stood at 24' tall, I cut a piece of styrene to see how this looked and it felt too short, so I upped it to 30' or about 2 1/4".

I needed to build six uprights, four would be identical and the other two would need to be custom to fit it with the rooftop building. I built the uprights from .030" square strip, I wanted to use .020" square strip but felt that it wouldn't be strong enough, but the .030" worked well.

I was surprised how strong the uprights were after the glue had cured.

The letters had been a dilemma from the beginning, how was I going to get the font I wanted and have the not look like I cut them out by hand. I am not a fan of those 3/4" white sign letters and so those were out. So I started to get a file ready to send and have them laser cut for me, but then I discovered something very cool. My wife loves to scrapbook and I heavily encourage her to do it because I feel guilty about spending so much time and money on my hobby. I had been a supporting husband and tagged along to a few scrapbook stores with her, I started looking at die cuts to possibly use to cut the the letters, but everything was too big or "too cute". I did a little research and for fairly decent price you can get machines to hook up to your computer and cut any font or clipart you want. My wife had been wanting a die cutter but just a cheep one that you bought the shapes and manually rolled the paper through. So to my luck Tuesday was her birthday and I went out and bought her the Quickutz Silhouette (with the intention of using it for my sign). So the letters are cut from a heavy card stock cause that is about the thickest it could handle, some of the more expensive ones out there can handle .010" sheet styrene. video at the end of the post of it in action

So after the machine cut out the letters I then glued on two .025" rods while the letters were still semi part of the scrap so all the letters would stay evenly spaced and level. I then glued on the up rights put it on top for a dry fit and . . . . its way too tall!!! After some consulting with people I trust I chopped 10' off or 3/4". That fortunately worked and it felt much better. I then added the lateral X-bracing in three of the sections and then painted and weathered in the usual fashion.

The other thing I finished was the columns at the main entry, this was another area that I kept putting off cause I couldn't decide on what I wanted. But I settled on HO scale columns made from Scale Structures LTD. (pt. # 2137). I had to shorten them very slightly to fit but they worked very well.

I have a open week coming up, so I hope to have most of the left overs done for next week, if I finish what I want next week will be the last Dominion Update (sniff). I have a few new structures that I scratch build and I have a few old projects that I need to finish. So what ever I do next it will be smaller than the Dominion, but don't worry they will be fun.

Chris