Category: "Greenleaf 2012 Spring Fling - The Aero Squadron Lounge"

Unfettered

by brae  

While buying supplies for The Artist's Studio, I picked up a battery operated flickering firelight from Minimum World for The Aero Squadron Lounge.

If you recall, I had hardwired the fireplace bulb, which hampers the removal of the removable fireplace.

Close-up of the recess and fireplace wire.

I have to slip the bulb out of the hole drilled for it in order to truly remove the fireplace.

Before deconstructing any of the hardwiring, I made modifications to see if the new battery light would work for this instance.  I fed the bulb and wire into the fireplace to see if the wire was long enough.

Since the back wall of the fireplace is made of foam, I was able to cut a space to house the battery mechanism, switch side down, as well as some excess wire.

It worked!  :D

I will probably paint the wire black to blend in more, but it doesn't really show with the fire screen in place.

The flickering isn't as smooth as the LEDs from Evan Designs that I used in the jack-o'-lantern, but it is bright enough and relatively convincing.  Even a solid red bulb with this battery setup would be nice to have for fireplaces and stoves.

I decided to leave the hardwired bulb in as a backup since it is already in place, so I curled the wire and bulb into the recess made for it.

The fireplace with its new battery firelight sits perfectly in place and is now quickly and easily removable.  :D

My final assessment is it's a great light for easy access with the caveat that it does not have a completely realistic flickering motion for imitating fire.  It is somewhat pricey, too, but overall I'm pleased with it and would likely use it again in the right situation.  If I had enough room for full hardwiring, however, I would use the orange flickering LEDs from Evan Designs instead...as I did for the Heritage parlor.  Those are brighter and more realistic, but they have a larger battery adapter that's not as easily hidden as this unit from Minimum World.

The Aero Squadron Lounge - a pictorial review

by brae  

Many images in this post can be clicked to view larger.  To see a list of posts showing details on how I made things or what materials I used, as well as more pictures, click this link.

On the property of the local aviation museum sits The Aero Squadron Lounge, a WWI themed lounge modeled after a French farmhouse ruin.  Outside is a replica 1917 Sopwith Camel aeroplane, and inside you will find a unique setting to enjoy a beverage and view the WWI and aviation memorabilia.  Climb the tower for an aerial view of the Sopwith Camel and picturesque grounds.  Stop in today and enjoy one of our signature cocktails: The Flying Ace, The Bombardier, The Tailgunner (limit two please) or The Barnstormer.  Please don't feed the hens.

This build was so much fun, but so challenging, too!  I made just about everything for this build myself, including the 1:32 scale Sopwith Camel, dogwood tree, flowers, hens, fireplace and furnishings.  The things I purchased include the glass, plastic and metal items as well as the display cabinet, shrubs and lighting.

As you can see, this is a 360° build, with the removable fireplace being the remaining component of the bombed out back wall.  This allowed me to include more inside while still maintaining a view of the inside.  It's a difficult build to photograph and is best seen in person where you can walk around and peer into all the openings.

Making things look blasted apart while still holding structural integrity was not easy.  :D

I learned so many new techniques and used a LOT of math.  :O

The Lounge was made using the base kit and the greenhouse addition.  Here's where the idea started.

I swapped the oatmeal container for a mailing tube found on Freecycle and altered the kit by adding two inches to the height, width and depth.   The mailing tube story is rather humorous.  I put an ad on Freecycle looking for a 5-8" diameter mailing tube at least 24" tall.  I had a reply within two hours and picked it up that evening.  You should have seen their faces as I stood in their foyer wide-eyed with a huge grin and actually said, "Hooray," in a tiny sing-songy voice.  Haaaaaaaa!!

The outer walls and the lower portion of the greenhouse addition are pink builders foam.  This stuff was awesome to work with.  All of the outer walls were scored with a brick pattern, even though I planned to cover the exterior with stucco and leave only a few patches bare.  The tower is covered with white styrofoam sheet also scored in a brick pattern.

I couldn't believe how realistic the stone looked after painting.

The front door was made from scrap wood to replace the clean laser cut door of the original.  The working hinges are from Olde Mountain Miniatures

This stone slab was made using white styrofoam, spackling and paint.  The gravel is Woodland Scenics Ballast left over from Baslow Ranch.

This was my first time landscaping in earnest.  I started with a sheet of builders foam for the base, and used a carving knife to slope the edges.  The dogwood tree has been detailed previously, and it had its own raised base.  The grass is Woodland Meadow Field Grass by Heki, from Scenery Express.  It's so realistic!  The mulch is from A Little More in Miniatures, and the gravel path is Woodland Scenics Ballast leftover from Baslow Ranch.  The shrubs and smaller trees are Squeeze Me trees from Model Builders Supply.

The dogwood tree has been detailed previously, and it had its own raised base created during the assembly phase.

I love the way it looks with the bench in front of the tree.

The rustic planter filled in the remaining area and helps disguise the front lawn seam, which is slightly visible from some angles.  The plants are detailed here and here.

The henhouse was inspired by one made by Terry Harville that I saw at the Bishop show.   If there's one thing I have, it's leftover scrap wood, especially from the Heritage build.  I've been throwing all my scraps and punched out pieces into a plastic bin that I can rummage through as projects come up.  The henhouse was made using only scrap items from this bin.

I used Greenleaf half scale speed shingles that I had left over from the Heritage gables for the roof.  The nests are made from raffia cut into small pieces and glued in place.

The breed of hens I've made are Faverolles, a French hen suggested by Teddi.  I have a standing hen not yet completed, but I will add her later.  :D  These are made from polymer clay.

The chicks are flocked using snipped emboidery floss to make soft down.

The eggs were made from clay, using several shades of pale brown.  Lyssa made the basket.  :]

Detail shot of the watercolor paintings from 1916, wartime, that Elga scanned and sent to me.

The tower spiral stairs were a challenge, but I love the way they turned out.

The most challenging light to wire was the tower light.

Even if I hadn't made the tower roof removable in the end, I wanted exposed rafters and holes in the roof.  That meant you would be able to see the wire, even if I cut a channel into the balsa beam and painted it.

I opted to hide the wire in plain sight with conduit made from 3/32" aluminum tubing from my local hobby shop.  I eliminated the chain on this light and made it a ceiling fixture.  The wire goes up through the beam, through the conduit and out the side of the tower.  The end wire runs between the tower and side wall, eventually to be covered with stucco.

To disguise the end of the wire inside, I used a round wooden bead.  I painted the conduit on the beam brown to match the wood.  I painted the conduit along the wall and the wooden bead warm white to make it blend in with the wall color.  I have seen conduit done like this in real life many times.  I added a metal doorbell from Sussex Crafts to act as a vintage light switch.  Now the illusion is complete.  The whole process is detailed in the tower construction post, part 3.  Here is the faux switch for the tower light.

The tower roof was my second major foray into math.  I found this forum thread on conical roof framing, which had exactly the reference photo I needed to help it click for me.

After the supports were formed, I added thin sheets of balsa, shown here after painting. The support system was one thing, but shingling a conical roof is another thing entirely.  I used the same Greenleaf speed shingles, but I cut and applied them one at a time.  With all the layers, the roof ended up being very stable, so I've left it removable.

The cone cap is just a piece of heavy paper painted to match...and the windsock is a glued tube of orange cotton held in place with a head pin.  Yes, it rotates, though it pretty much always falls back into the same place.  :D

I found these fantastic Scene Master spotlights on amazon.com and instantly knew they would be perfect for lighting up the plane.  They have a vintage industrial look about them that complements the plane and building.  They are labeled multi-scale, and I think they work wonderfully in my scene.  In the final layout, I used only one of the pair that were included in the package.  I aged it with brown and black acrylic to remove the plastic sheen.

The most challenging part of the build had to be the 1:32 scale Sopwith Camel, built from a plastic kit by Academy.

It's been a long time since I built a model car, and I've never built an airplane let alone one with rigging.  I love the way it turned out!

The shiny red nose turned out so well, I couldn't bring myself to age it or dirty it in any way.

The rest of the plane received a modest amount of wear and weathering.

The "wood" portions were easier to mimic than I thought they would be.  When I read that you were to first paint the base color and then paint on the wood grain, I thought, "Riiiiiiiiiiiight."  But, it works!  :D  I used a hand painted base coat of Testors Flat Light Tan followed by Testors Flat Military Brown, also hand painted and then wiped away with a paper towel.  Maybe it's not fine woodgrain, but it is remarkably convincing.

Nothing brings a miniature build together quite like lights, but wiring a structure always has challenges.  This build has its own particular challenges with removable pieces and exposed rafters.  I have a full post on the wiring here.

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For those of you in the U.S. who'd like to see one of these theme restaurants in real life, there are still a number of 94th Aero Squadron Restaurants in operation, namely in San Diego, Van Nuys, Miami and Columbus.  The one near me in Wheeling, Illinois has since closed, which is a real shame.  I spent a few birthdays there and even one New Year's Eve.  It was an interesting restaurant and lounge with good food and wonderful artifacts and planes.  Had it still been there, I would have taken some photos of my model in front of it.  :D

The results are in! - The Aero Squadron Lounge takes third!!!

by brae  

The results are in for the Greenleaf Dollhouses Spring Fling 2012 contest (the link its currently broken but may be restored so I am leaving it as is for now).  I am so thrilled to have placed in the top three!


my entry - The Aero Squadron Lounge

What an amazing array of entries this year!  They seem to get better every year.  You can see the full gallery of entries here.

It came as no surprise to me that April won with her beautiful Asahi Tea House!!  And, I loved Karin's Harvest Home, so perfect for this time of year.  Congratulations to April and Karin as well!!  :D

As always, I thank you for your kind comments and support for The Aero Squadron Lounge and my other projects!  I'll post the usual pictorial recap soon.  :]

The Aero Squadron Lounge - Landscaping

by brae  

This was my first time landscaping in earnest, and I enjoyed the process so much!  The feel I went for was manicured rustic.  :D  This is a vintage bar in a more modern setting, so I tried to bridge the gap between farmhouse natural and tidy grounds.

I started with a sheet of builders foam for the base, and used a carving knife to slope the edges.  Out the front door, I carved (ok...butchered, whatever) a pathway out of the foam.  I sealed the foam with grey gesso.

I made the front stone step in the same manner as I had for the fireplace.  It's a scrap of white styrofoam covered with spackling, sanded and painted to look like stone.  The crack in it was a happy accident.  It didn't quite fit into its alloted space, and when I bent it to make it fit, the surface popped.  I love the cracked detail and wish I had thought of it myself.  I added further paint washes to really accentuate it.  That front chip is also a happy accident.  :D

To make the walkway less trecherous, I first used some stucco patch to even out the surface.  Once that had set, I applied a thick layer of Aleene's Quick Dry glue, shown here before I spread the glue with a brush.

The gravel is Woodland Scenics Ballast left over from Baslow Ranch.  I poured it on generously, pressed it gently and let it dry overnight.

I brushed off the excess back into my bowl for later use in another project.  I then added some paint washes to make the gravel look more natural.

I had originally planned to have the plane and dogwood trees switched, but when I did the layout, it didn't work out so well.  The tree blocked too much of the tower, and the plane was lost in the larger space on the right.  Here you can see I painted the landscape portion black just in case the ground might show through in areas.

After determining the amount of mulch I would need on either side of the pathway and around the tower, I cut pieces of newspaper to make patterns for the Woodland Meadow Field Grass sheets by Heki, from Scenery Express.  I marked the outlines on the landscaping board.

The shrubs and smaller trees I used for the final layout are Squeeze Me trees from Model Builders Supply.  While I was awaiting their arrival, I was reduced to using aluminum foil stand-ins.  ;D

It was messy cutting the grass sheets, so I made all of my cuts on the counter and shook the excess from them there as well.

I saved all of the clippings for filling in later on where needed.

I spread glue evenly over the landscaping board with a brush.

I pressed the grass pieces in place and kept an eye on them until the glue set a little, continuing to press the edges down.  The sheets measured 15 3/4" x 9 1/2", so there was some piecing required to cover the entire lawn.  For the henhouse side, I cut a curve along each piece since I thought it would make for a less noticeable seam.  I cut the back piece and applied glue just as I had before.

This time I applied glue to the edge of the back piece where it would meet the front piece.

It turned out very well.

With the henhouse in place, you can barely see it at all.

The back seam worked out very well, too.

I carefully applied glue to where the mulch would be.

I applied mulch from A Little More in Miniatures with a spoon.

I lightly pressed it into the glue with my fingertips.  While the glue was still wet, I removed any obviously out of scale pieces with tweezers.

I then mowed the lawn and raked the mulch with my Dyson vacuum cleaner.  :D

In this close-up, you can see where I dirtied up the lower edge of the building all the way around using a very diluted black and brown paint wash.  This was done prior to all landscaping applications.

The materials turned out so realistic!

The dogwood tree has been detailed previously, and it had its own raised base created during the assembly phase.

I had the scary task of removing the tree from its base in order to apply the grass first.  I used stucco patch to even out the ground around the raised tree base after gluing it to the landscaping board.  Once that dried, I sealed the new surface with gesso and painted it black.

I cut a rough circle in the grass to surround the dogwood.

I had to patch the area behind this piece, so I cut a pattern to fit.  Oh, don't let the hens see the grocery ads!  :O

After planting the tree, I applied glue inside the circle and to the remaining edge of the pathway and added mulch.

I love the way it looks with the bench in front of the tree.

The rustic planter filled in the remaining area and helps disguise the front lawn seam, which is slightly visible from some angles.

Once all of the grass was in, I planted the Squeeze-Me trees with a dab of glue on the bottoms.

I had originally considered making them flowering shrubs, and below I've placed some impatiens from Small Talk (no web address) in mockup.  I thought the white and peach competed with the building and the dogwood.  The dark crimson was so dark that it was hardly worth the effort to add them.  I really liked the bluish purple, but I didn't think they added so much that it would be worth taking the time to shape and add centers to the amount I would need to cover twenty shrubs.  The dogwood had exhausted me!

I added plain wood trim around the baseboard to finish, and here is the end result.  :D

And from the other side...

That should do it for the Lounge posts.  If there is anything I've missed or there is something you want to see closer, just leave a comment.

The Aero Squadron Lounge - structural details, part 3

by brae  

Continued from structural details, part 2 for The Aero Squadron Lounge.

The beams are made from balsa, marred and painted to look like slightly burned and weathered wood.  I didn't go overboard on the weathering, because I didn't think it needed to look like it was still smoking.  :D  This photo shows the base color...more aging was added later after shingling.

I originally wanted vertical beams to rise up from the floor to hold the ceiling beams in place.  I would have been able to hang pictures and other items related to my theme there.  Even with the added floor space, though, there was not enough room to have them without messing up the furniture floor plan.

One of the ceiling beams terminates at the fireplace and serves to keep the fireplace unit from tipping into the room.

I completed the wiring for the hanging lamps for the tables as well as the front door carriage lamp.  All the wiring for this build is detailed in a separate post.

Roof planning was next, and I used a scrap of the Cellfoam 88 I had used on the tower to determine just how much roof decay I could have.

I determined the amount of strip wood I would need to cover this space,  then cut sixteen strips of wood measuring 3/8" x 12" from 1/16" thick bass wood.  I stained these boards, front and back, with a wash of black and brown acrylic.

I glued the strip wood planks to complete the partial roof structure, breaking the ends where it opens into the main room.

To create a front eave, I left excess hanging over the front wall.

I shingled the roof with Greenleaf speed shingles - love these!  :D  I first covered the roof with loose shingle strips to determine how many I would need.

I stained these before applying, and you might recall my shingle drying apparatus.  See those liquor bottles were a hint and you didn't even know it at the time!

I followed the bass wood planks and broke the shingles to form the jagged bombed edge and a few holes.

Here is the view from inside.

I touched up the paint toward the end of the build, and here is the finished product.

Finishing the roof essentially completed the main room build, and the rest of the time was dedicated to the tower.  Those posts begin here.  The conical roof for the tower was another math challenge, and its detailed post is here.

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