Tax Time Means New Attraction !!!

I am happy to announce that, after a "Tax Refund" discussion, and after funding exciting things like credit debt and family dental bills (no fun), I was given the okay to purchase our very first ride!

I chose Faller's Pirate Island Wildwater Canoeing Course. I can't tell you how excited I am to get this. It will truly put my modeling skills to the test as it is rated as "Difficult: For Experienced Model Makers". *Gulp*

Of course, I'll keep you updated on its arrival and I'll have a full report on building it. Should be good fun!

Making A Spillikin

 

 

You can never have enough Spillikins! And so last night I was back to work with the clay and toothpicks. The magnifying jewelers helmet helps me to smooth out the details (which is what the toothpick is for.

 

 

These two are ready to be baked (which turns them brown) and then painted! More Spillikins to come!

 

 



 

Backstage Look At Our Mascot

Keeping with our fond memories of Six Flags Magic Mountain way back in the 70's & 80's, we have created a prototype for our park mascots. Say hello to the Spillikins!

With an HO scale trainman that we purchased standing in the middle (he was our size model), here are the Spillikins. Those of you who are Magic Mountain fans may remember Spillikin Corners which opened at the park in 1978. It was a portion of the park that featured different craftsmen and women who demonstrated making yarn and candle making. You could do it too!

We took the parks old characters, Bloop & Bleep, redesigned them, and called them Spillikins. We plan on making lots more of these little guys to greet guests in Mystic Mountain!

The Park Has Been Named!

We are happy to announce that our miniature theme park has been named! In homage to Six Flags Magic Mountain, a park I used to go to a lot when I was a kid, here is a prototype of our park's new logo:

 

UPDATE: This name and even the HO scale of the park will be eventually changed!!!! Keep reading! 

Faller #140446 Finished

While I still plan to add some paint here and there, here are both models side-by-side, waiting to be moved to their new location.........the theme park!

Building The Second Carnival Game Booth

We start with the base and the back wall. See that wheel on the bottom lower-left? I will end up breaking it off its axle and will have a heck of a time super gluing it back into place!

With all the walls in place we add display space and start decorating. Those colorful game pieces up top are extremely small. And we have three more rows to go! Each row takes about 20 minutes to complete. And then it's time to add teddy bears, elephants, horses and other fun prizes in different sizes and colors.

And here is the game booth fully loaded. Now it's time to finish building the decorative outsides.

 

The game booth is ready for tiny little customers., This was a bit tough with a lot of small pieces. Add to that me breaking a wheel and losing a side-piece that I had to reconstruct out of extra plastic and you have a crazy modeling experience.

 

 

But it was all worth it. I love the inside of this one. Now all they need is for me to learn a bit more about wiring LEDs and I'll add a light into each booth.

This game booth took me 6 hours to complete. Lots of fun and a great learning experience.

Building The First Carnival Booth

I was so excited to finally have a Fuller Model box in my hands. But I have to admit, I was a bit nervous too. The pieces are incredibly small. Just how small you ask? Take a look at these ducks that we will be using in our first model, the Duck Booth.

 

Yep, that's a quarter, and those are ducks that had to be cut out of the holders and then filed down to get rid of the "flash" marks. Now can you see why I was nervous?

 

So, knowing what I was going to face, I decided to stop and pick up a few items. I got a pair of tweezers, a smaller file and a magnifying helmet with a light on it. I may look crazy wearing it, but it saved me from destroying this model. So back to work we go.

 

 

I was able to glue in all the ducks, plus two bowls and four coke bottles (ridiculously small......even smaller than the ducks!). Once I got this done I was able to breath a little bit.

 

 

I then built the walls and applied the decals and lots of little details including a tiny speaker in the upper left-hand corner (not visible in the photos). When I finished, here is the way it looked.

 

 



 

 

It's tough to tell in this picture, but several of the billboards actually have dimension. And I love the fishing poles sitting out front waiting for the next customer.

 

 



 

It's so small it fits in the palm of my hand! The only thing I didn't finish was the very top (not seen in these photos) which I need to leave off so I can add an LED inside to light it up. Once I do that, the trailer will be finished. including the roof.

I painted only a few of the items on this model and plan to paint a bit more once I get a light in it. Although I didn't time it, I estimate the model took about 5 hours to complete.

I have one more to build and this time, we will clock it to see exactly how long it takes.

By the way, if you are wondering, the answer is yes. I did have a lot of fun building this little game trailer!

Excited!!!

Okay, I know you're not supposed to know what you are getting for Valentine's Day, but hey...... I figured I would give my wife a break this year and buy my Valentine's gift myself and then give it to her to give to me! Now "that's" romantic....right?

And I am super excited about it. This will be our first Faller model. It's an easy piece to put together and will give me an idea of what it is like to work on these German models.

The box contains two models which are game trailers for a carnival. This one is a fishing game. Notice the fishing poles sitting on the counter.

And this one....my favorite of the two, is a duck pond game, also complete with poles. This one reminds me of the fun my wife and I had when Disney California Adventure opened and we would play this game on the boardwalk. Good times that I miss dearly.

I can't wait to get my hands on these and start building them. I am already working on a way to possibly change the graphics to make it more personalized (and in English!) and am looking at ways to light it up!

Stay tuned for the arrival of our first actual amusement park pieces!

Let's Build a Model

 

While I am fairly confident that I can do all of the things needed to build our little theme park, I have to admit that I am worried a bit about the amusement park rides we will be using. They are models that need to be built and the boxes say they are for experienced modelers (which I am not). These models are hard to get here in the USA and are a bit expensive (some are way too expensive!) so the idea of getting one and destroying it is not a fun one.

 

So on our train store trip we also stopped by a hobby store that carries some train items and picked up a $15.00 water tower that looked just like the one I pictured for our layout. The weekend came, and it was time for the test!

 

First, here is a picture I found of what the model looks like right out of the box after it is built.

 

 

It looked too much like plastic so I decided to paint it first. I didn't like the green and wanted the wood to look more like real wood. So I painted the pieces in the basic colors I wanted first. After drying, I started putting it together.

 

 

Everything went well until I got here. Putting the legs onto the base gave me an idea of what "experienced" meant. It was tough. Nothing wanted to fit and I tried several things. I ended up bending some of the supports but finally got them in.

 

 

 





I then worked on getting the top foundation on and finished it off by attaching the barrel. I touched up a bit of the paint and was fairly happy with the results.

The issues I had with bending some of the bottom braces don't show unless you look VERY carefully and even this can be fixed.

I actually learned a lot doing this one and feel confident that...with a more careful, slower  technique, I can build a larger model!

Let's Go To the Train Store !

A coworker suggested I check out Eastside Trains in Kirkland Washington, so I packed up the family and off we went.

Folks, this is a model train lover's heaven! I had heard you could spend hours in this store and it's true. Don't be fooled by the picture I used of the building. It's a pretty big store chock full of everything you can imagine and then some. Autumn even found a pink railroader cap which she is now very proud to own. Of course, she told me I HAD to get myself a black one......so I did!

We also picked up some catalogs, a piece of cork roadbed and a sample of HO people. All of this was so we could start doing a little experimenting. The HO people will help us to get the idea of the scale. We also picked up some extra track so that our train could actually make some practice runs and not have to keep going back and fourth on its two foot straightaway any more.

If you need a little inspiration while you're in the store you'll find a couple of large layouts that everyone enjoyed watching.

 

I would highly suggest checking out this store if you are in the Washington area. If you are even remotely interested in model railroading or miniature scene building (lots of items here for those pesky kids school projects too) this is the store for you. The helpful staff were a real plus too!

Passenger Cars

Okay, this is where it starts to get tough. There are tons of cars to pull behind an HO scale train. But because we have narrowed our layout down to a theme park we have painted ourselves in a corner. You won't find a graffiti-laden boxcar in a theme park!

So, with some Amazon credit left, we went searching. And this is what we found. It's a Bachman Silver Series Jackson Sharp open-side excursion car. And if it resembles the front-seating Disneyland passenger cars.....well.....it's not my fault ;)

We bought two of these and I will be adding passengers and maybe even tiny speakers inside. Of course, they will be so small no one will know they are in there but me and you. But the detail is half the fun. Walt would have agreed!