Friday, March 27, 2009

Model Railroader 2008 10


I was scratchbuilding a large HO scale model of the Las Vegas Harvey House when I decided there had to be an easier way to handle this sizeable, partly finished structure. I didn't have any plans, so many of the dimensions had to be estimated from a mock-up. prototype photos, and sketches. Eventually, the building outgrew my workbench and, to make matters worse, many of its subassemblies were rather delicate until they were installed. Inspiration hit when I saw a television promotion for a cooking show where the hostess was frosting a cake. She was decorating all sides of the cake by rotating it on a lazy Susan - and she never had to touch the cake. This immediately got me thinking about how I could adapt this concept to my modeling. I soon found out that the readily available kitchen products were too small, as my hotel filled most of a 30" x 36" footprint. I did have a piece of scrap plywood that was the light size, but how could I make it rotate?

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