Home
Up

Fountain Place

NOTICE:  This project has been stopped.  See the bottom of the page for details.

This project is the fifth scratch built structure I will be submitting for my "Structure" AP certification.  Fountain Place is a prominent building in downtown Dallas, Texas.  I have admired it for years but only recently considered it a scratch built opportunity.  A friend and I were on a railfan adventure one Friday afternoon when I "discovered" it.  We rode the Dart light rail train from the Park Lane Station to Reunion Station in downtown Dallas.  We then went to the observation tower of Reunion Tower where we spent about two hours watching trains come in and out of Reunion Station.  At one time there was a Dart train, a TRE train, an Amtrak train and a UP freight train all at the Reunion Station.  I took about 40-50 digital photos and during that adventure and I kept noticing that architecturally fabulous Fountain Place.  During that time I made the decision to research it more and consider making a model of the building.  The photo below is the beginning reference my scratch building project.

FP_RefProto.jpg (170246 bytes)

The architectural element of this building are not easy to understand when view from the ground or from this photo above.  I built three concept models before I got the design and angles correct.  I then figured out the hypotenuse right triangle formula in three dimensions and put it all in a spreadsheet.  The concept models are shown below:

ConceptModel1-A.jpg (71445 bytes)    I did not have the angles worked out on this model (about one sixth the size of the actual model.

 

ConceptModel2-A.jpg (114780 bytes)    I figured out the dimensions (mostly) from the first concept model then built this model to figure out the beveling I would need for any given thickness of material I might choose.

 

ConceptModel3-A.jpg (47870 bytes)    ConceptModel3-D.jpg (44259 bytes)    The third concept model I ironed out all of the dimensions and angles of the structure.  The top view is the revealing view to figure out the basic architectural design.  At this point I knew I had ground level details to capture.  I made a drive to downtown to see what I could learn and discovered an parking lot adjacent to the Fountain Place which made it easy to get to.  The Fountain Place is beautiful!  The building is surrounded with cypress trees and computerized fountains.  Since these beautiful features were not actually a part of the structure I chose not to include them in the scratch built model.  To the extent possible in Z Scale, ground level structural detail is going to be attempted in this scratch built model.

FP_GrndLevelDetail.jpg (160855 bytes)    The trees obstruct the main architectural details and at this point in time I am working from a sketch and memory of the detail since the 15-20 digital photos somehow got corrupted.  I will probably make another field trip since it is such a wonderful place to visit.

 

The model is constructed with 3/16 inch Foamcore board.  The building's main structural planes are made up of five pairs of flat walls as shown below:

FP-ExternalSide-A.jpg (85499 bytes)    FP-ExternalSide-B.jpg (90323 bytes)    FP-ExternalSide-C.jpg (68854 bytes)    FP-ExternalSide-D.jpg (93109 bytes)    FP-ExternalSide-E.jpg (56420 bytes)

 

The fun is really beginning!  I have a major piece of this project almost complete, which is the ground level entry details. There are 38 down lights in the entry areas.  These are rice lamps with a diameter of 1.2mm at 1.5 volts.  This makes powering the lights very simple with a single D cell battery.

FP_Entry-1.jpg (135593 bytes)    FP_EntryComponent-1.jpg (116375 bytes)    FP_EntryComponent-2.jpg (120819 bytes)    FP_EntryComponent-3.jpg (155201 bytes)    FP_EntryComponent-4.jpg (119091 bytes)

The following photos show the structure partially assembled and held together with pins.

FP_OutsidePartialAssy-1.jpg (117317 bytes)    FP_OutsidePartialAssy-2.jpg (73688 bytes)    FP_OutsidePartialAssy-3.jpg (87686 bytes)

The following photos show the structure looking at the inside.

FP_InsidePartialAssy-1.jpg (102555 bytes)    FP_InsidePartialAssy-2.jpg (95935 bytes)    FP_InsidePartialAssy-3.jpg (138364 bytes)

Everything seems to be checking out and the parts all fit.  Now I will begin to glue the parts I currently have pinned.  All of the parts have been assembled and now the first very thin coat of metallic Teal paint has been applied.  Coats will be applied until I get a nice, consistent metallic finish.

smFP-FirstPaint.jpg (50559 bytes)

The original idea of simply painting the structure with metallic paint was not working.  The surface could not be made smooth enough.  Consequently, I airbrush painted the back side of the transparency film where I got a mirror-smooth finish.

FP-FinalMetallic-A.jpg (271605 bytes)    FP-FinalMetallic-B.jpg (367283 bytes)    Seven pound attack dog not a part of the structure!    FP-FinalMetallic-C.jpg (344596 bytes)

FP-FirstGrid-A.jpg (247463 bytes)    FP-FirstGrid-B.jpg (344032 bytes)    FP-FirstGrid-C.jpg (161539 bytes)    The photos do not do the finish justice.

I am very sorry to say that since posting the photos and comment above, I have stopped this project.  The photos below show the point at which I decided to stop work on this project.  See comments after the photos for the rationale for stopping.

FP-StoppingPoint-A.jpg (135734 bytes)    FP-StoppingPoint-B.jpg (131073 bytes)    FP-StoppingPoint-C.jpg (143842 bytes)    FP-StoppingPoint-F.jpg (116524 bytes)

FP-StoppingPoint-D.jpg (165719 bytes)    FP-StoppingPoint-E.jpg (118751 bytes)    

I stopped this project because the gradual loss of quality finally became more than I knew I would be able to overcome.  I intended to use this structure as one of six structures must receive merit judging.  Since it slowly lost quality because of my inexperience in modeling it was not until I got this far that I realized I could not make this structure good enough to receive a merit score high enough for it to qualify.  Since the judges are also my friends (they would be very impartial, however) I did not want to put them or myself the awkward position of having to give me a low score.  I have been a model judge and I can very easily recognized weak modeling.

I spent a great deal of man-hours, calendar time and money with only lessons learned with no satisfactory model to show for it.  OUCH!!!

LESSONS LEARNED:

1.    Do not make a model that will be bigger than the materials used such that splicing (or what ever) is required without having a tested method of making the splice look appropriate.

2.    Large models take a very long time to accomplish so make sure you want and need to make the time commit.