Hooper & Co Diorama

[Anglia105E]

2 hours ago, DonW said:

Great photo, but I'm curious about the registration number - W.O's 8 litre was GK 706.

I also like the Little Chef concept - we always went there on our travels to and from BMW Car club races.

Better than Happy Eater,,, 

You are absolutely correct about the registration number, Don....... W.O. Bentley's car was indeed GK 706, and something else is different about the model that I have. The paint colour of GK 706 was until recently green and black, but a current owner has discovered that the original colour of the car was all black. This owner intended to restore the car back to it's original black paintwork.

David

[DonW]

I believe the car was taken from him with no prior notice after Rolls Royce bought the Bentley firm in 1931. Which was a huge loss to him, understandably.

 

[Anglia105E]

2 hours ago, DonW said:

I believe the car was taken from him with no prior notice after Rolls Royce bought the Bentley firm in 1931. Which was a huge loss to him, understandably.

 

Fascinating story, Don..... and apparently W.O.'s wife divorced him around the same time as he was asked to return his personal 8 litre Bentley.... the Rolls-Royce company stepped in to take over the financially struggling Bentley firm, as they regarded the 8 litre model to be a threat to the sales of their Phantom II model.

David

[Eric Macleod]

I've not had time to check in for a while. You continue to post some amazing work. 

[Anglia105E]

8 hours ago, Eric Macleod said:

I've not had time to check in for a while. You continue to post some amazing work. 

Thanks a lot, Eric..... and I quite understand that many members are not checking in as often as previously, due to the current situation in the world.

I really do appreciate any interest in my project, and all comments are very welcome...... the whole process of posting on MCM forums and the interaction between model builders is extremely important in my view. Hope you are keeping well yourself.

David

[Anglia105E]

The Little Chef building has been brought to the diorama table, and a piece of MDF sheet has been cut to size, coated with primer and painted with grey emulsion. This extension baseboard has to line up flush with the other two diorama baseboards, using blocks of wood because the window shelf is higher than my worktop surface. Later, when the dioramas are on an exhibition table, the blocks will not be necessary.

The entrance to the car park is through the white five bar gate, and the car park now extends to the right of the Little Chef building. Need to put the signboards in place, and also add some cobbled road surface with pavements, to extend Duke's Road which runs between the factory and the terraced houses. Today I added a few cars and figures to see how the proportions look in photos.

 

David

[Anglia105E]

Having placed the Little Chef restaurant building on the grey painted baseboard extension, I am now working on the cobbled road and pavements, over to the far left of the diorama. This road surface will extend Duke's Road by about 11 inches, with the Little Chef immediately to the right of the new road section. A friend of mine who is a model builder and pattern designer, pointed out that maybe the office staff who worked at the Rolls-Royce factory across the road might have gone to the Little Chef for their lunch breaks. Usually, I think a factory such as Hooper's would have had a canteen for the workers.

David

[Anglia105E]

The new petrol pump that arrived today is better than the one that I had already, it is shorter in height, and it is British rather than American. The taller petrol pump is diecast, whereas this shorter one is either resin or plastic ( resin I think ). Few photos attached that show the new petrol pump near to the Little Chef building, also alongside the taller one, and how it looks inside the petrol pump stand . Some further photos of different cars next to the pump.

David

[Anglia105E]

The 1:43 scale AEC Regent RT London Bus by IXO did not have any advertising banners on the bodywork, so I have sourced some adverts from a local supplier. These are cut out from a sheet of quality paper, and they have a self-adhesive backing to them. The model bus has the registration number plate KYY 628 and here are some photos of the real bus...... the owner is David Arnold, and one of these photos shows the bus parked in the driveway of his house. This model bus adds a great deal of realism to the diorama setting, both for the factory diorama and also the terraced houses diorama, all in 1:43 scale.

David

[landman]

Not much room left in front of his house. ?

[Anglia105E]

5 minutes ago, landman said:

Not much room left in front of his house. ?

I am extremely surprised to see that it is even possible to get a London bus into the driveway of an average British semi-detached house of that type. A friend of mine who produces patterns for the moulding and casting of small scale bus models in resin, commented that this man's neighbours are probably not too pleased about having a huge bus in the drive next door!

David

[Anglia105E]

Picked up a large sheet of Foamex board, which is a plastic product and 3 mm thickness, and also a high quality scenic photo image of a summer sky.

The summer sky backscene was nicely rolled up in a tube, and came with a large sheet of instructions. There are three ways of mounting this scenic photo image onto the Foamex board, it can be glued in place with spray adhesive, or you can use double-sided tape, or if you are very confident you can peel off the backing film and let the self adhesive backing do the job. The instructions warned that this self adhesive is very strong, and if you are unsure don't use this method. I could see that method going badly for me, so I used double-sided tape which I am comfortable with. Using the whole of the kitchen table, which is the only flat surface big enough in our house, the mounting procedure went well.

Backscene is in place behind the 1:43 scale dioramas and looks pretty good.

 

David

[Anglia105E]

Yesterday I made a base for the 1:43 scale Shell fuel pump, by using some card paving material and laminated several layers together with PVA adhesive.  This was left to dry overnight, with heavy books to keep it flat. Trimmed the edges of the paving today, then used a grey Sharpie to colour the white exposed edges of the card and cut the corners into a slight curve. Here are a couple of photos that show the petrol pump on the base, just in front of the Little Chef restaurant building. There is a 1:43 scale Ford Cortina MK I by Minichamps, and also the metal figure of a man in a long brown coat, who appears to be about to serve petrol. The background image of summer clouds is quite an improvement on a plain white background.

David

[Anglia105E]

Today, there was a delivery from Ebay, which was a 1:43 scale 1953 Ford Popular 103E in black, by Somerville Models...... this is a much more accurate model car than the Corgi version of the Ford Pop that I have already. As you can see from the following photos, the black car has far better proportions than the green car, and especially the size of the windscreen. To be fair, the Corgi is intended as a child's toy, whereas the Somerville Models car is a collector's model, not a toy.

David

[Anglia105E]

Over the weekend I set up the scenic backing board, and also two white side boards for the 1:43 scale dioramas....... this arrangement should eliminate any background clutter that is in the room, appearing in photographs of the models. Also, the light from the 100 watt daylight bulb will bounce off the white boards to create a better effect, hopefully. Here are a few shots that I have taken, to determine the difference in the quality of the photos.

David

[Anglia105E]

I have started constructing the factory units to go behind the Hooper & Co factory frontage, and here are a few photos to show my progress so far.

There were 9 units for the real factory, but I only have space for 3 units. There is an entrance to the first factory unit from Duke's Road, and the wall that runs along the side of the building will be a brick red sort of colour, with grey roof sections, and rows of skylights on the shorter roof sections. The whole building will be constructed from Foamex sheet, with some wooden beams to add strength and rigidity where needed.

The guy at my local print shop, gave me a bundle of Foamex off cuts instead of the one sheet that I asked for...... he assured me that he had referred to my calculations, and there were plenty of sheets for my 9 pieces. This has proved to be correct, and I have more than enough for the job.

In addition to the two sides of the factory units, I have also added a third profile piece, which will be placed in the centre to prevent the roof sections from bending downwards.

 

David

[Eric Macleod]

Again,  it has been a while since I checked on but this thread remains my favorite.  I look forward to seeing the next installment. 

[Anglia105E]

5 hours ago, Eric Macleod said:

Again,  it has been a while since I checked on but this thread remains my favorite.  I look forward to seeing the next installment. 

Thank you, Eric......... and I shall be posting further progress during the next 24 hours. The three units factory extension is coming along nicely, and this should bring a more balanced view to the diorama.

David

[Eric Macleod]

7 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

Thank you, Eric......... and I shall be posting further progress during the next 24 hours. The three units factory extension is coming along nicely, and this should bring a more balanced view to the diorama.

David

David,

I will look forward to it!

You may have seen in another thread that I am looking to make much of an exit from the hobby.  While I really enjoy it, I have developed a bit of a benign tremor in my right hand (probably a result of using power tools for years) which severely limits my ability to do quality work, and the models I have finished lately have proven to be a real disappointment to me in terms of quality. 

As a result of the tremor, i am going to severely cut the number of projects to perhaps 6-10. At the rate I build models that still represents 5-7 years of building!

The other reality for me is I am trying to focus my interests and limit the amount of space my hobbies take up. To that end, I remain interested in model cars but will only own/display a few. I plan to sell off/give away the remainder of the models so I can have a fighting chance of getting other things (like my 1:1 scale '37 Cadillac,  and my collection of regular wheels Matchbox cars) done to my satisfaction. 

Leaving the hobby or not, I will continue to look in on you once in a while. And included in my "final 10" likely will be a British vehicle or two.

All the best to you,

Eric 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Eric Macleod
Clarification

[Anglia105E]

On 8/17/2020 at 5:42 PM, Eric Macleod said:

David,

I will look forward to it!

You may have seen in another thread that I am looking to make much of an exit from the hobby.  While I really enjoy it, I have developed a bit of a benign tremor in my right hand (probably a result of using power tools for years) which severely limits my ability to do quality work, and the models I have finished lately have proven to be a real disappointment to me in terms of quality. 

As a result of the tremor, i am going to severely cut the number of projects to perhaps 6-10. At the rate I build models that still represents 5-7 years of building!

The other reality for me is I am trying to focus my interests and limit the amount of space my hobbies take up. To that end, I remain interested in model cars but will only own/display a few. I plan to sell off/give away the remainder of the models so I can have a fighting chance of getting other things (like my 1:1 scale '37 Cadillac,  and my collection of regular wheels Matchbox cars) done to my satisfaction. 

Leaving the hobby or not, I will continue to look in on you once in a while. And included in my "final 10" likely will be a British vehicle or two.

All the best to you,

Eric 

Eric,

I wasn't aware that you were planning to take a back seat, as it were, and I am sorry to hear that this tremor in your right hand is having such a detrimental effect upon your model building abilities. You have obviously thought this through, and your decision is not an easy one, for sure. Good luck with your 1:1 scale '37 Cadillac, which must be a motor car that you are very proud of.

Here are some photos of a mock-up of the three factory units. The 6 roof panels all have two coats of grey emulsion, the end wall has a coat of tile red paint, and the skylights are in place for one of the three narrow roof panels. Following several days deliberating over the method to use for the skylights, I came up with my preferred method. This is to score the clear plastic with a sharp 3B pencil, and then turn the panel over so that the indented side is on the inside.

The assembly of the roof sections will be tricky, and this needs doing in a precise order to get the structure right. The footprint of this factory extension is quite large, at 75.0 cm x 37.5 cm., which is 0.28 square metres. The idea is to be able to lift the entire structure off the baseboard, so that vehicles and figures can be placed on the baseboard inside the factory units, for the photography. I intend taking some shots through the outer entrance doorway, with the daylight coming in through the skylights...... maybe with some dust rising from the factory floor, and caught in the beams of sunlight.

 

David

[Anglia105E]

Much of the time over the weekend was spent completing the end wall of the factory units, that runs along Duke's Road and behind the factory offices frontage. I have used some brick wall material and windows from the Purple Bob's Edwardian Plating Factory kit, and cut some window apertures in the Foamex wall section of the building. Scratch built some eaves out of thick card. Quite time consuming work, but also very enjoyable.

Need to produce two more skylight roof sections, same as the first one and then trim all six roof sections down slightly, so as to achieve a good fit. Final assembly will include the back wall section, along with some additional wooden beams where required. Here are a few photos to show my progress over the weekend.

 

David

[landman]

Beautiful job on the end wall. Very authentic looking.

[Anglia105E]

10 hours ago, landman said:

Beautiful job on the end wall. Very authentic looking.

Thanks, Pat...... and I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out.... better than I expected really. The three skylight roof sections were completed by midnight last night, so I am hoping to be assembling this factory extension building during today. It is all about getting everything lined up now, and ensuring that everything fits precisely.

David

[Anglia105E]

The factory units extension building is almost completed, and some of the following photos show the building in place on the diorama baseboard. All I need to do now, is to get some angle strips of wood to form the ridge tiles along the three roof apex joins, where the roof sections meet at the top edge. This is not 90 degrees, so plastic might be better than wood?

You can see from the photo of the real Hooper factory, when compared to the photo taken in B&W and from approximately the same angle, that I have just about got it right ( I hope ).

The whole structure is easily moved, and also quite strong. The front of the factory can be lifted clear, which gives me access to the inside of the factory units. This will allow me to position any vehicles and figures that I need for the photography. One of the Ebay orders that will be arriving later this week is a white metal kit of two Rolls-Royce cars in 1:43 scale, and I shall not build these kits, but instead I shall use the body shells and parts to represent cars undergoing production inside the Hooper factory. They could be on wooden trestles, as I have seen in some of the old photos of coachbuilders at work.

 

David

[landman]

You are missing five units...?