The Beginnings of The Gordon

Let me introduce what I will probably work on after I finish the Dominion Building.  I have named it The Gordon and it is not based on a specific prototype but kind of a conglomeration of a few.  This is what I have done as of yet on the elevations.  

I don't think it should be to difficult of a structure to build, I need a little break after the Dominion is finished.  It will be a 100% scratch build again, that means more windows YEAH!!! At least there are only a few unlike the 130ish on the Dominion.  

I need to finish up the design on the main floor, on one half I will have a little delicatessen, the other will be a art deco entrance that will tie in with the rest of the structure.  I will also need to do the elevations for the sides and back, those shouldn't take too long.  I will repost when the plans are done.

I also have a few mini projects that I want to start on as well that are similar to the water tower and billboards.  Hopefully I will have those build-a-long.'s done soon.   

Rosenwach Wood Water Tanks

This company has built over half of the thousands of tanks in New York City.  Its a good video ruffly showing how they are built.  The basic form of construction hasn't changed in over 80 years, they are still using some of the original equipment to mill the lumber.

Also if you can find it, this same company was on an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.  It is a little more informative than this news report, and Mike Rowe is more entertaining.  I believe it was Season 4 episode 8 "Dirty Jobs of the Big Apple".

  

Water Tower Reference Photos

These are a few photos I used as reference on my water tower.  As you can see they are in different sizes, colors, bases, and condition.  

Enjoy

Water Tower pt. 2

This post has been moved to N Scale Limited

More Dominion Pictures

Just a few more pictures of the progress.

I forgot to mention on the previous post, but on a few of the windows on the first floor I used textured dollhouse wallpaper for a little detail above the windows (click on 2nd picture for detail).  

Now I am going to clean up my work space and get things ready for the next phase.

Dominion Building Update

Here we are again with the Dominion Building, and again with the weekly update. . . . . again!  No I am kidding I am still having fun working on the little giant, I still take a few breaks away from it and do other projects such as the water tower and billboards.  I know a few professional painters that will work on as many as five paintings at a time, just so they don't burn themselves out, I like that philosophy.  

So what's changed!

All attention was diverted to finishing up the bottom three floors.  I first had to clean things up from the old windows that I had ripped out, then it was onto my favorite activity of making friggin windows.  I must have sniffed a little to much plastic cement when I first built the skeleton for the bottom floors because no two windows were the same.  I had to custom cut and file each part so they would fit, looking at it they seem to be even, which as Martha Stewart would say "is a Good Thing".

Once window torture was complete I gave the building a nose job.  The entrance was rather. . . . Blah!  It is very roughly based on the prototype, I mostly wanted to carry the arch windows theme from the top down to the bottom.  The whole thing is made from styrene, but the half round design was not.  It is a metal piece I found at a craft store, they came in a pack of ten and are for making your own jewelry, I just cut the thing in half.  There were many thing that I found that I hope to use on other structures.   I found many things at the craft store that could be used in many different situations, I was bored one day and walked every isle to see what I could find (I got some funny looks when I was looking at the designs on the lace to use for structure detail). 

After the front was done I did some work in the mezzanine, but I am not proud of what has been done in there so until I like it, you cant see it.  Then I painted everything and thats about it.  

Before anyone says anything I already know that a piece is missing on the left up right, if you look in the second photo it was there, I think it was ripped off when I masked everything off for the windows.

Water Tower pt. 1

This post has been moved to N Scale Limited