Tim Purcell’s Plaza Hotel
A few months ago N Scale Limited author Chris Brimley wrote an article on other uses for DPM modular walls. In that article we showed a “work in progress” of Tim Purcell’s Plaza Hotel that was partially inspired by the Steven’s Hotel built by Chris. Today N Scale Limited is pleased to share Tim’s completed Hotel.
The Building
Using primarily the two story window modular walls from DPM (Woodland Scenics) to build his hotel, this created a good amount of initial detail. Beyond that, the rest of the building is largely scratch built. On the floor beneath the steep pitched hip roof are the same modular walls but flipped so the back is facing out. On this face of the wall Tim added strips of styrene cut to simulate individual blocks of stone.
The hip roof was built from sheets of styrene with strips glued on in a vertical pattern. Tim also scratch built the dormers and he says that they were one of his greatest challenges he had. The chimney was built from blocks of styrene that he had sanded the sharp corners down so it would look closer to real cut stone. Just bellow the roof is a cornice that was made from doll house crown moulding.
On the bottom floor, Tim again reversed the modular walls and gave it the same treatment as the top floor. The entrance was another section of the building that Tim had to scratch build as well. For the doors he used some scrap ones from an old kit he had on hand. Over the rest of the building he used a mixture of strip styrene and jewelry that he found at a local Hobby Lobby store. For example the gargoyles are actually little angel charms, to make them work all he had to do was cut off the little loop on top.
Lessons Learned
Prior to this building, Tim had primarily worked with kits and scratch built with balsa wood. This was basically his first time working with styrene on a large scale and he did a great job. We asked Tim to share with us a few things that he learned from this building and this is what he said, “I think the thing that really surprised me most about this project is that it took on a life of its own in short order. It was suppose to be something quick. A couple weeks, I thought, to keep me from going crazy over another project I am working on that had me burned out. Ha ha, the joke is on me. This thing took 6 months.” He also goes on to say, “You can never plan too much. I am the kind of guy who just sits down and thinks, ‘hey lets give this a try’, with little or no fore thought. Big mistake. I ran into some sink holes, I like to call them.”
Thank You
We at N Scale Limited would like to thank Tim with sharing these photos and experiences so we could pass them on to you, so now you may enjoy them and use them for inspiration. We greatly look forward to seeing what Tim comes up with next.
Please enjoy these photos that Tim provided to us.
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