Hooper & Co Diorama

[landman]

Is the lady Printle?

[Anglia105E]

The lady is a cheap Chinese figure, of poor quality....... so not Printle, Pat..... I have only used this figure for the photo shoot because I don't have a seated figure of a man or woman that is 3D printed. Actually, I have to admit that the lady figure is not even particularly well painted ( by myself ). This situation clearly needs to be addressed.

The photos are primarily about featuring the hexagonal tree bench in a diorama setting, so maybe I would have been better not to include a figure.

As always, thanks for looking and how are your projects going?

David

[Anglia105E]

This is the latest addition to the 1:43 scale Victorian Houses diorama, and this diorama will extend to the Hooper & Co factory, Western Avenue, Park Royal, Acton, London later...... here we have a 1:43 scale Horse and Cart by Langley Models, which is a tin / lead alloy white metal kit ( unpainted ). The idea is for this cart to be a ' Rag and Bone ' man, as we say in England...... not sure what he would have been called in the USA ? The horse would pull the cart around the streets, with the man standing on the cart shouting ' Rag Bone, Rag Bone ' This was a common sight when I was a boy of 7 years of age, in the city of Nottingham ( as in Robin Hood ). The kit went together nicely, and painting is mostly brown, applied using Vallejo acrylics. As well as old cookers, fridges, TV's, washing machines, bicycles and anything that people were throwing out, I thought I would place some dustbins ( trash cans ) on the cart too.

David

[Anglia105E]

These photos are the results of a black & white photo shoot, to show the horse and cart, with a gentleman in a long coat and flat cap driving the cart.

David

[Anglia105E]

Two new Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I models arrived today..... both are 1:43 scale Oxford Diecast cars, one is finished in black and one in Smoke Green.

Here are a few photos of XGO 999 in Smoke Green, which was the last Silver Cloud I ever to be produced, in 1959. I was quite impressed with Oxford Diecast as a company because not only did they get the registration number plate right, but also the tyres do not have a thin white wall, which again is correct for this car.

The Rolls-Royce is parked outside the Victorian terraced houses and blends nicely into the cobbled stones of the street.

David

[Anglia105E]

The following photographs show the latest addition to the 1:43 scale model car collection, which is a 1959 Morris LD 150 Royal Mail Van, by City Vitesse.

Arriving early one morning to collect the post from the pillar box on the corner of the street, the Royal Mail van parks at the side of the road, partly on the pavement. We can see that the door of the telephone kiosk is slight ajar, as someone has just made a telephone call and walked away in a hurry. Later, a Rolls-Royce motor car is seen to pull up briefly, to allow the owner to post his important letter.......

David

[Anglia105E]

Started working on the factory diorama this week, which will be the Hooper & Co factory as it was in 1959 at Western Avenue, Park Royal, Acton, London.

This factory building will be 1:43 scale and the 75 centimetre baseboard will become a continuation of the previous 75 cm baseboard that is the Victorian terraced houses diorama. The road that is Western Avenue will run along the length of both diorama baseboards. I have placed an order for some Evergreen styrene 1/4 inch square tube, from which to construct the framework of the building, and the walls will be fabricated from white card. I shall use the hot glue gun to assemble the entire factory, and I am treating it as five box structures..... these being the central block, plus two inner wings and two outer wings. The photos show my actual size plan drawing on thick white card, which is precisely accurate to the original plan drawing that was provided for me by Warwick University in England.

The amazing coincidence, if you can believe in coincidences, is that the width of the real factory building was 105.78 feet..... which surprisingly translates to..... guess what?...... yes, it's 75 centimetres in 1:43 scale. The whole factory fits onto the baseboard exactly. There will be a forecourt in front of the building, where Rolls-Royce motor cars will be parked, and also a petrol pump (gas pump ) on a small island. This forecourt will front onto the road, Western Avenue and a short road will run between the factory and the terraced houses, called Duke's Road, at right angles to the main road. Behind the frontage of the factory, which is a white art deco building, there will be a corrugated configuration of roof structures that represent the working area of the factory.

This diorama project needs to be completed in advance of the RREC Annual Show at Stamford in June of 2020.

David

[landman]

That looks pretty involved. Looking forward to follow the development.

[Anglia105E]

Yes, Pat..... it probably does look quite involved, but compared with the Hooper & Co showroom building that I have done in both 1:24 and 1:43 scales, this factory building is relatively straightforward as buildings go. Breaking it down into box structures and thinking about the line of the windows is a useful process to establish the basic proportions of this factory frontage. The central block has a main entrance doorway, and the ornate surround to that doorway.

The Evergreen Polystyrene Square Tube arrived today in the post, which is 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch ( 6.3 mm x 6.3 mm ) and Made in USA ( Des Plaines, Illinois ). The supplier in UK only had 9 packs of 2 x 35 cm lengths in stock.... and I needed 9 packs for this project. The tricky bit now is to be be as economical as I possibly can, with the cutting of the lengths, so that I don't waste too much, and also I don't want to end up one pack or two packs short at the end of the construction.

David

[Anglia105E]

Just spent a few days making windows for the Acton factory project....... there are 30 windows along the front of the building in total, and so far I have produced 15 windows. These are hand drawn onto thin white card, then black Sharpie around the edges of each window, followed by black permanent marker pen to block out each window, then silver Sharpie to define the horizontal and vertical bars of the windows and finally, I used light grey Vallejo acrylic paint to block in the divisions between each window. The bars of windows on thin white card are then glued onto the thicker white card using washable PVA glue from Ryman's. Further horizontal panels of thicker white card are PVA glued in place, above and below the bars of windows. This process must now be repeated for the other wings of the factory building, on the other side of the central block.

David

[tbill]

You sir, are a mad genius! ?

[Anglia105E]

2 hours ago, tbill said:

You sir, are a mad genius! ?

That is most probably an accurate description, Tom...... mad, yes..... and genius, maybe?

I hope you find the project interesting as it continues.

David

[Anglia105E]

Following extensive work on the 30 windows and divisions between the windows, I made a good start on the central block of the building today, which is the main entrance doorway...... and for the first time, the front wall of the factory made entirely from card, was raised up to a vertical position and photographed.

I discovered from a newly acquired reference photograph, taken from a newspaper dated 1935, that the colour of this factory building was cream and blue. This means that my assumption in believing the building was white and grey was incorrect. All my reference photographs are in black & white, of course. Later I shall be painting the walls with Magnolia, and the art deco panels will be pale blue, as will be the sign-writing..

Considering this is a two dimensional representation of the factory frontage, which still has to be cut out of the larger sheet of card and much more detail has to be added yet, I feel this model has a lot of potential. When the structure becomes a three dimensional building, with a styrene square tube framework, and once the side walls and roofing have been fabricated the model will take on the appearance of a real factory building.

David

[landman]

Fascinating!

[Anglia105E]

Thanks Pat..... watch this space !!!

David

[tbill]

That’s fantastic ! 
 

so, what’s the hold up? I need more......., haha...

[Gramps46]

Really coming along nicely now.

[Anglia105E]

Thank you, Tom and Gary........ here is the new reference photograph, which shows the Hooper & Co factory building as it was in 1935....... the 1/4" x 1/4" styrene square tubing is being delivered to the factory construction site by a 1959 Morris LD150 Royal Mail Van......

David

[Anglia105E]

The factory front wall has been cut away from the larger sheet of card, and the styrene square tubing has been measured and cut to form the support structure for the back of the front wall. Today, the 1962 Daimler 2 1/2 litre V8 in Indigo Blue was delivered, and this photographs quite well alongside the Royal Mail van and the front of the factory. Once the front wall assembly is able to stand vertically, I shall construct the styrene framework to form the whole building.

David

[Anglia105E]

The pieces of cut length 1/4" x 1/4" styrene square tubing have now been super glued in place, on the rear face of the front wall. There are 21 pieces in total, and as I move on to construct the three dimensional structure of this building I shall be using the hot glue gun, instead of the super glue to join the lengths of styrene tubing. Also in the following photos, you can see a test sample on white card, which is the paint that will be applied to the front wall of the factory..... this is a water based furniture paint by ' Rust-oleum ', called Chalky Finish, and it is a smooth touch flat matt finish..... the colour is Clotted Cream. This cream shade should go well with the blue sign-writing and the Art Deco features of the building.

David

[Anglia105E]

I have applied a single coat of the Clotted Cream furniture paint to the front wall of the Hooper factory building, which is now ready fro the blue sign-writing.

A gentleman who is one of the coachbuilders employed by Hooper's has arrived for work on his bicycle, first thing in the morning......he is about to go in through the main entrance door to clock in for his early shift. ( the main entrance door hasn't been fabricated yet, so he might struggle with that ).

David

[tbill]

Very nice! 
I can only imagine the look on his face. ‘ there was a door here yesterday.......’

’ am I late if I can’t get in?’

[Eric Macleod]

On 12/14/2019 at 8:13 PM, Anglia105E said:

That is most probably an accurate description, Tom...... mad, yes..... and genius, maybe?

I hope you find the project interesting as it continues.

David

That coupe in the first photo is certainly an amazing car. I continue to be amazed by your phenomenal work.  It makes my day every time I check in on you!

[Anglia105E]

25 minutes ago, Eric Macleod said:

That coupe in the first photo is certainly an amazing car. I continue to be amazed by your phenomenal work.  It makes my day every time I check in on you!

Thanks very much, Eric..... and I think that is an early Bentley Continental S1 Fastback by Hooper, which is parked outside the Acton factory in that photograph, probably around 1956.

Once the factory diorama is linked up alongside the terraced houses diorama, you will see Western Avenue running along in front of the factory forecourt, and Duke's Road running between the houses and the factory building, at right angles to the main road. The Hooper factory forecourt will have a petrol pump, an entrance gate with walls and railings, also an area of grass and a telephone kiosk at one corner.

David

[Anglia105E]

11 hours ago, tbill said:

Very nice! 
I can only imagine the look on his face. ‘ there was a door here yesterday.......’

’ am I late if I can’t get in?’

You have interpreted the scenario perfectly, Tom...... your imagination seems to be on my wavelength !

David