To begin with I need to apologize for missing last Sundays update.  I did not have much time to work on the building and so I felt that what I had done did not justify an update.  So this past week I made sure to get something done so as not to fail you again and to satisfy my modeling needs.

Construction

All I had for last week was the framing of the upper little square windows, but before I could go any higher, I had to complete the back.

Little Square Windows

Just above the windows on the tenth floor is a row of small square windows.  They are about a quarter inch square and so getting the height correct was easy, the width was a little more difficult.  To get the height all I did was add 1/2″ long pieces of .060x .250″ strip styrene directly to the top of the cut stone detail that was added earlier.  This left me a 5/8″ gap of flex area that would need to be filled in latter.  Next I capped off the blocks with a piece of the same material surrounding the three sides.

It is a brick facade on this layer of the building, so I needed to cut the brick sheet into 1/4″ strips to fit.  The problem was I needed to get the square centered above the windows.  The simple solution was to make two jigs that wold be clamped to the mullion on the windows with locking tweezers.  It would then extend up to the next layer with a scrap piece of 1/4″ stock glued to it.  Then with both jigs in place, I had the exact distance to cut my strips of brick.

First Layers of The Back

The three faces of the structure that I had been working on were ready to move into the large cornice on the top.  On the prototype the cornice wraps around the back and ends after a few feet.  Because of this I could not move on until I finished the back.  Unfortunately I was unable to find any quality photos of the back, I mostly use Google Maps street view to figure it out.  One big difference between the prototype and my model is that the prototype stands alone so the back has many windows.  Mine will have a mid-block building similar in size of the Gordon Building butted up to it.  Therefore I didn’t want to waste time cutting out windows that will forever be hidden, so I left it a blank brick wall, except for a few windows.

The layers on the back were from what I could tell, simplified designs of what was on the front.  On the first run I started off with a simple run of tiles and then added dropped downward by adding the tiles for the columns and then filled in the area with sheet styrene.

On the next layer I had to wrap around the staggered block and brick that was on the third floor.  The rest of the area was filled in with brick sheet and then I added another run of tiles for where the next layer would begin.

Demolition

When I was cutting the large brick sheet for the next step, I quickly realized that I cut the brick on the outside pilasters too narrow, they had to be redone.  I was worried that I might not be able to strip the brick off because I glued it on with CA glue.  But I used a X-acto knife with a square nosed blade that made it surprisingly easy.  After I had the sheets removed I had to sand the surface down so it would be smooth and because glue does not bond to dry glue very well.

Brick Sheet and Upper Layers

On the same floors that I removed the brick sheet on the pilasters, I had to cut a large sheet for the back.  First off I cut the sheet to its final size and then I had to cut notches into it so it would fit where the capitols would be and the pilaster base wraparound.  On the back of the sheet I marked off where I wanted windows placed, I kept the few windows that I was going to cut justified to the right of the back.  I then cut each window from the sheet, one window overlaps layers, so I had to notch it out.  After the openings for the windows were cut, I filed the square if needed and cleaned up any misconformities.

To add depth to the wall because usually windows are recessed on a masonry wall, I glued on strips of .040″ stock to the back of the brick sheet.  Lastly I came through later and added a stone sill made from .010x .030″ strip.

I then built the bases for the capitals on the back so I could add the next layer of liner tiles dividing layers.  I then added the next layer of brick, making sure to finish the notch for the upper window.  The two back capitals were built to match the ones built a few weeks ago and a few other touch-ups were done as well.  The last item done was re-adding the brick to the pilasters, cut to the correct width.

Conclusion

I really felt horrible not being able to have an update for last week, but by getting the back nearly finished now moves me into the topping out phase.  The cornice is going to involve allot of work, but I am very excited to attempt it.  When it is done, I will then move into window prep work and then it is painting time.  The tricky part of the windows will be one of the very last steps.