New Commerce Field Museum WIP UPDATE 6/27/10

[Operator5]

I was able to do some work on the Field Museum for my Historicon game and since I like to chronicle my projects, I might as well share them with everyone else (whether they want it or not).

Here is a shot of the whole museum so far. The board is 24" x 24" total, the museum footprint is about 17" x 22". Only the first floor is in progress right now. There will also be a second floor. In the background corner you can see some wood dowel. This has had 4 magnets embedded in it. The walls will have magnets attached to them as well. This will allow me to break the whole museum down easily.



This second shot is a closeup of the wall. The whole building is being made of plastic board about 3mm thick. The stonework at the bottom of the wall is a 1" high strip of the plastic, scored with a scriber. The white embellishments between the windows are styrene strips. The corners have styrene angles to hide the joins of the walls. Each window is 1" wide by 3" tall. Window frames and crossbars will be added later.

[Bobble]

WOW!!!
Looks fantastic so far!!!!

[Johnno]

Holy Moly!!
Simply amazing.
Can think of so many uses for that....
I think my brain just exploded

[Operator5]

Spent a little time this evening working on the front of the museum.



And this is a closer look at the new build portion.

[The Dozing Dragon]

Quite excited about this one! What are you using for the walls?

[Calimero]

Looking good already

[uti long smile]

Nice. The magnets are a very good idea.

[Operator5]

What are you using for the walls?

The walls are made of 3mm PVC sheets. One of the guys in my group works right near a company that makes them. $50 gets a 4' x 8' sheet. The stuff is sturdy and easier to cut them styrene (that does mean you have be a little more careful with cuts as the knife can started to edge away from your ruler if you don't pay attention). It also does not have the tendency to warp like foam core.

Nice. The magnets are a very good idea.

The magnets will allow me to get more use out of the pieces as well. For example, the front facade that I worked on last night will be a separate piece. I will be able to pull that away and put a different one in place to allow me to turn the museum into a manor. A third one could turn the manor into a government building. So with 3 facades and the walls, I have three full buildings.

[gamer Mac]

Great looking stuff
Really like the idea of the different fronts.

[uti long smile]

Brilliant idea! I'm nicking that

[Tsune]

Very nice and great ideas!

I am going to build a museum too, so I am very interested in your project development and ideas!

[Operator5]

Thanks everyone.

I spent a few minutes today cutting more windows out. Tedious like most repetitive tasks, but necessary. I'm sticking to the old adage measure twice-cut once.

I found a neat little method for doing the magnets as well. After the ones in the post are glued in place, I used to drop the opposite one in, put a drop of glue and press it to the wall. This led to some of the second magnets getting glued into the posts on previous projects. For this one, I slipped a piece of .5mm styrene between the two magnets. This kept them separated until the glue dried to the opposite wall. It's worked perfectly.

[Operator5]

Some more work done tonight. Seems like sometimes this goes at a snail's pace. But I want to make sure everything is done as close to perfect as I can make it.

Anyway, a shot of tonight's progress.

Added trim to the top of the front. Glued some PVC sheet to the foam that the front sits on. And cut the first floor out. It's in place but needs some little tweaking to get it to fit properly.



You can also just make out that the doorway has been cut and the brick baseline on the close side is sitting there.

There were no new little adventures today, which is a good thing for me, but it means that I have no tricks to share either.

[Operator5]

I got back from a week away on Friday night and had some time this weekend to work on the museum. Not too much, mostly working on getting some detailing of the front done and cutting outer walls for the second floor.

I dusted the stairs and front porch with some primer so that it would be easier to photograph (once each section is complete I will do that for each.).

Here is a top down shot showing the addition of the second floor sections. Both sections will be removable. The center will be a tall gallery for the first floor so no section will go there. You can also see the ledge that covers the  separation between the two levels.



This is shooting from lower, up at the museum to get another shot of the ledge. You can also see the small window sills for the front windows. I need to pick up some more styrene planks on Tuesday so hopefully will have an update again by the end of the week with more detailing.

[chantyam]

Thats a nice build