Smoothing out the Backdrop

This morning, before leaving for work, I sanded the second layer of drywall mud on the backdrop. It’s looking pretty good now, but I’m sure glad I hired someone to do the drywall on the rest of the basement (Amazon Contracting were excellent by the way; if you need drywall in Vancouver, look them up […]

Soldering up LED Light Strips

When it comes to bending, the LED light strips act a little like thick tape. They will go around quite a broad curve, but you have to break them to go around a sharp corner. Fortunately, every third LED, the strips have a line where they can be cut, and little solder pads to wire […]

Thanks for all your Help, Jim

I’m devastated to let you all know that Jim Peters passed away suddenly last week. He was one of the Proto:87 Posse, who regularly came to my place last year to work on Pembroke. Apart from all the help with putting ties in jigs, he was a source of endless amusing stories. He enjoyed his […]

Top Cabinets Finished

The top cabinets finally got finished this evening, and they look better than I’d imagined. Indeed, it’s pretty amazing how close they come to looking like the original design. The face frames are mostly poplar, with a couple of plywood panels thrown in around the corner. For strength, they are assembled with dowels and glue. […]

First strip of lights goes up (temporarily)

Andrew came over last night, and we installed the first strip of LED lights to try it out over the whole layout. As I mentioned previously, one strip is definitely not enough. Also we both agree that the mixture of warm white and cool white is more pleasant than just the cool white (shown below). […]

Getting Finescale

My friend, Mark Dance, just sent me a link to the Pendon Museum website. It’s been updated since the last time I checked in, and might be worth a look if you’ve not seen it before. I was first introduced to Pendon more than twenty years ago, when I was in university. Leafing through the […]

Next two pieces of backdrop

Tonight Andrew and I managed to get the next two pieces of backdrop up. The curve on the right is a 3′ radius, and was much easier to accomplish with the quarter inch Masonite. As with the sharper curve at the other end, we made a couple of plywood formers to support the curve. The […]

A Start on the Backdrop

Andrew came over for the first time in a while this evening and we made a start on the backdrop. What a battle! Of course it doesn’t help that I’m super-cheap, and so I’m using hardboard that I salvaged from the original basement walls. It is nominally 1/4 inch, but it’s about fifty years old, […]

Lights

I went back and forth for ages on what to do about lights for Pembroke. On the one hand, I’m familiar with fluorescent lights, and I know I can get ~5000K bulbs relatively easily. On the other hand, vertical space is at a premium, and I really wanted to check out the new LEDs. Finally, […]

Top Cabinet Carcasses Installed

Last night I finished installing the angled top cabinets in the corner. These were originally going to be just a single large cabinet, but it turned out to be more efficient in terms of material to make two cabinets. For some reason, which I shall have to investigate, the smaller of the cabinets is a […]