09-04-2011, 10:54 AM
For some reason, no matter how many hours I spend working on a project, it only seems like I get about 10 minutes worth of work done. Well, after another night of working on it, here's what I've got to date:
The canopy is now 100% complete. I decided for (bird-crud covered) aluminum panel roofing. I've started construction on the pumps structure. The illus. board "backbone" will be covered with poster board, which in turn will be covered with the details.
Here's another shot of the canopy with one of the roof panels removed for demonstration. Each piece has a "flap" that tucks under the roof peak (non-removable) and when fit snugly, is almost seamless. Accessing these light bulbs will be easy... removing the roof (and consequently having to put it back on 8 columns) is not so easy.
Originally I was just going to do the same type of lettering that I did for the FOOD MART to the side of the canopy - plain ole "Chevron" along the side. However, looking closely at the logo, the letters are a bit more spaced apart, which means I would have to cut out each letter individually - not gonna happen.
So, instead, I decided to go a little more extravagent... the photo shows it lit up, so I will make a variation of the logo (the chevron bars with "Chevron" on top of it, and larger to the right) in a sort of "box" that will be lit up from within. I'll be using a hybrid of dash10's back-lit sign technique, with some ideas of my own. Here's what I've got so far:
1. First I scoured the internet for a suitably sized image that I could "Photo-CHOP". (Image shown has been scaled down considerably.) I then cleaned up the lettering and put everything as a "negative". Since my laser printer does not print in color, I made a black background with the stuff I want to color white (or clear when it prints out on acetate.) Then, flipping horizontally, I reversed the image. (I do this so that it prints on the "BACK-SIDE" of the transparency. This is the side we will work with, so the "FRONT-SIDE" is clean and protects the whole thing.)
2. When you print it out, this is what it should look like. I only need 2 of these patterns, but I always make extra as I'm bound to screw up at least one of them.
3. The next step is to carefully mask the areas you do not want to paint. Since I am starting with the red chevron bar, I masked everything else. Tamiya paints smell really awful, but I have to admit they are pretty good in an airbrush right out of the bottle.
4. This is what the "FRONT-SIDE" looks like. When this dries, I will carefully peel up the tape, and then repeat the process for the blue chevron bar. I DO NOT plan to paint the letters white, as I will put a piece of posterboard or paper to act as the white and make the black appear more "solid". (Don't know why this is, but exposed, the black looks splotchy - when put on a white background, it looks great. Weird.)
Well, the little HOW-TO above turned out to be a success. Below is a picture of the result. I had mistakenly printed out a set of signs the "RIGHT" way - meaning, I forgot to reverse it for the painting procedure - which turned out to be useful.
What I did was cut out the reversed one, after painting, and also cut out a matching non-reversed one... then sandwiched a piece of regular paper in between. I encased this in a little wood frame that I painted and temporarily placed it in it's location. I don't want to give away the glorious lit ending to this thread, but let me just say it looks pretty good lit from behind!
I wasn't really planning to post this until I actually had more progress to show - working on the smaller stuff is in baby steps and it doesn't look like I've done much at all. At any rate, I've been waiting for a printer I ordered (just arrived as I was typing this!) to print out some of the details to continue, but I will post these pics in the meantime as they relate to the pump structure.
Here is a fold-up pattern I made to make the long part over the pumps. The end is shaped like the bottom half of a stop-sign. I left openings for the canopy columns to go through.
And here it is assembled and glued in place:
The canopy is now 100% complete. I decided for (bird-crud covered) aluminum panel roofing. I've started construction on the pumps structure. The illus. board "backbone" will be covered with poster board, which in turn will be covered with the details.
Here's another shot of the canopy with one of the roof panels removed for demonstration. Each piece has a "flap" that tucks under the roof peak (non-removable) and when fit snugly, is almost seamless. Accessing these light bulbs will be easy... removing the roof (and consequently having to put it back on 8 columns) is not so easy.
Originally I was just going to do the same type of lettering that I did for the FOOD MART to the side of the canopy - plain ole "Chevron" along the side. However, looking closely at the logo, the letters are a bit more spaced apart, which means I would have to cut out each letter individually - not gonna happen.
So, instead, I decided to go a little more extravagent... the photo shows it lit up, so I will make a variation of the logo (the chevron bars with "Chevron" on top of it, and larger to the right) in a sort of "box" that will be lit up from within. I'll be using a hybrid of dash10's back-lit sign technique, with some ideas of my own. Here's what I've got so far:
1. First I scoured the internet for a suitably sized image that I could "Photo-CHOP". (Image shown has been scaled down considerably.) I then cleaned up the lettering and put everything as a "negative". Since my laser printer does not print in color, I made a black background with the stuff I want to color white (or clear when it prints out on acetate.) Then, flipping horizontally, I reversed the image. (I do this so that it prints on the "BACK-SIDE" of the transparency. This is the side we will work with, so the "FRONT-SIDE" is clean and protects the whole thing.)
2. When you print it out, this is what it should look like. I only need 2 of these patterns, but I always make extra as I'm bound to screw up at least one of them.
3. The next step is to carefully mask the areas you do not want to paint. Since I am starting with the red chevron bar, I masked everything else. Tamiya paints smell really awful, but I have to admit they are pretty good in an airbrush right out of the bottle.
4. This is what the "FRONT-SIDE" looks like. When this dries, I will carefully peel up the tape, and then repeat the process for the blue chevron bar. I DO NOT plan to paint the letters white, as I will put a piece of posterboard or paper to act as the white and make the black appear more "solid". (Don't know why this is, but exposed, the black looks splotchy - when put on a white background, it looks great. Weird.)
Well, the little HOW-TO above turned out to be a success. Below is a picture of the result. I had mistakenly printed out a set of signs the "RIGHT" way - meaning, I forgot to reverse it for the painting procedure - which turned out to be useful.
What I did was cut out the reversed one, after painting, and also cut out a matching non-reversed one... then sandwiched a piece of regular paper in between. I encased this in a little wood frame that I painted and temporarily placed it in it's location. I don't want to give away the glorious lit ending to this thread, but let me just say it looks pretty good lit from behind!
I wasn't really planning to post this until I actually had more progress to show - working on the smaller stuff is in baby steps and it doesn't look like I've done much at all. At any rate, I've been waiting for a printer I ordered (just arrived as I was typing this!) to print out some of the details to continue, but I will post these pics in the meantime as they relate to the pump structure.
Here is a fold-up pattern I made to make the long part over the pumps. The end is shaped like the bottom half of a stop-sign. I left openings for the canopy columns to go through.
And here it is assembled and glued in place: