 lighting. Here's a 101 on lighting. Here's six 12 volt bulbs and one is wired in series much like your old Christmas tree lights where it goes into one side of the bulb and out the other and one one goes out, they all go out. The other ones are parallel, each drawing 12 volts from the leads. The difference is that in series they only burn it four volts each and the bottom series they burn it 12 volts each. So in order to get dim light, particularly with street lights or lamps on the platform or something like that, it's best to wire them in series to cut the voltage down so you don't over-apply voltage. Next one please. Here's a case in point. The station had a number of these platform lights and on the left is how it looks to the viewer. On the back is how it looks to the guy that's putting the bulbs in. I found that those the globes are like pearls and I found I could bore a hole in them because they're just plastic of course and I put a grain of sand bulb down each one to light them up and one leg of the the bulb was soldered or glued to the casting and the other leg of the wire was brought down to the back of the post to be hooked up so then if I wanted to light the bulb I'd put one wire on the brass tubing which helps support and locate the platform lights and then one wire from the wire and it should light. I'm a little bit paranoid to to see if it works but in so far I haven't but it's coming. Next. Here's a way of making Campbell's street lights work. I wrote an article on this a few years ago too. It he replaced the the column with a 1 1 8 inch brass rod tubing rather and just bore a hole in the bulb support and in the base and extended down below the base for making sure you're located so it doesn't fall over and you have to bore a hole in the prism too for the bulb to fit and maybe a little bit in the cap if the bulb has a little point to it but those work. Next one please and you see I grabbed this slide but I didn't have any lights, street lights or platform lights lit but that's the night scene in Mystic. Next one please. This is the Freight House where you see that door? That's the light shining through the door. This kit was given to me so I would in order to fix that I have to take the door out put a piece of cardstock behind it so it wouldn't shine through the door. There's my Styrene house upon a spot between the grocery store and Freight House so don't throw anything out even though you can't use it in the prescribed spot. Next one please. Here's Appleman's. Here's your interior detail. The amount of time I spent on making that detail it was well worth it because it just took me minutes to do. Next one please. Here's Amy Stills. Next one please. This is the passenger station and the Freight platform. Next one. Signs. To say that the value of signed is an understatement you should under the value of signs. I bet you saw plenty of signs since you got up this morning until you got here and you can't even remember all the signs you saw. There's a great value in signs. You can establish an era if I have a billboard on my layout ever advertising the aptitude groups of a Model T Ford in 1925 Ford so that takes my year is 1925. I have another sign on a building in Deep River and outside it says Hotel which means that building is a hotel and it says Deep River over it means it's in Deep River so I got two for one for that sign. So you can't under value the meaning of signs. Next one please. Now you can make your own signs by getting these letter sets. You can get them from art stores or probably complete stationary stores. I like the second one anywhere you can apply them and you can change the color of the sign by if you don't go outside the lines of course and make another sign but you can change the color of any of these signs. I won't go into it but technically what you do if you wanted a yellow sign you start off with a yellow piece of cardboard or paper you put down the lettering you want but you don't burn or shit and then you spray something over that which is whatever the color you want it could be right over yellow and then scotch tape after everything is dry lift the lettering up and now you have red over yellow and yellow lettering. Next one please. Wills Junction sent me, Carl Schultz started Wills Junction and he had signs for every category, soda fountains, automotive, whole host of things and that was black and white wonder when I made the Ginseng and Ginseng sign on the grocery. Next one please. For you contemporary models or at the which of Sunday and you have a whole host of signs coming toward you I would suggest that you were to be signed conscious to get a cardboard box and if you see a sign clip it out put in the box you not use it right away but you might not use it for 10 years but come back and you see the sign and I can use that and I thought it was nice that the Quaker folks published theirs and all popular skills they had O scale S H O and N but I put that in for a little joke but there is really no skills of signs unless you're talking about street signs like stop sign to yield sign it's a big sign H O the small one in O scale and you can interchange them you can use an O scale sign if you want a big sign on the side of the building. Next one please. Now I said that we're going to talk about preparation of signs back in 1925 it wasn't unusual for a guy to go around with a long handle brush with stiff bristles and a bucket of paste and if a circus was coming to a town or a new movie was coming to town he was at a place to put him up wherever he could find a spot so what we've got to simulate that. This is my graphing tape again which I use exclusively for this stuff. This is a sign out of fine scale miniatures sign set and it's a piece of sandpaper that's all we need. Next one please. Now I put a piece of tape down right in the center of the sign on the back the reason for that so you won't as you're going through the next process bore a hole in the sign. Next one please. So you start in the center of the sign and you go in one direction wearing away the paper in the back and when you start to see the blue or the colors of the sign coming through that's when you stop unless you want to sign it's been up for quite a while you want to rag it edge to it. Next one please. So that's what you end up with and you take that piece of tape off and maybe give it a couple more swipes and then you're all set ready. Next one. Now here's the same sign on the same wall it's the one the way I just described this is the one that comes out of the sheet and this one looks you could see the brick work showing through the back because it's so thin now and it looks like it was rolled right on there this one looks like it's either a cardboard or a metal sign on the side of the building but the the Gin's brothers was was the one that I particularly am pleased with because that went right around the clavards. I started with that sanding process and I put it up there and I put it up under the eaves and then I stroked it out and I went down one clavard and I had a straight edge and I put tucked it in the clavards again until it was all done and it came out pretty good. Next one please. Here's a sign that was on the side of Amy's Dry Good. It was a green building and I'm always changing color to the buildings and I decided to make it brick color you can see the green and places around and had this sign on it and I started peeling it away I wasn't getting anywhere so I I got up some coarse sandpaper and a block of wood and I started going back and forth sanding and I said I'll sand it off and I stopped and I said jeez it looks pretty good it's been up for a while so I stopped and probably there's everyone read it's 15 cents a loaf now and that sign went up so some things happen by by accident. Next one please. Here's I make my own cross bug signs I know you can buy them cheap enough but they're usually out of plastic they're usually pretty heavy and the lettering is jet black and if anybody has seen these cross books the first thing they go is the lettering gets faded by the sun and it gets grayer and grayer and so I can control that on my computer I just put these in Excel and put them across put them on a post and put them right the main line or the track. This sign is valid because the road here goes across a bridge and so does the train it goes here the same bridge. Obviously he had the right of way so he had to watch out for trains and I highlighted with a magic marker to draw attention to it now and look much much like that so the I made it to look like it's been around for a few years a few cans of oil the grease the gears but otherwise it's on its own a small platform a little heavy object from a flat car or something like that. Next one please. This is the freight house which is the busiest part of Mystic a lot of stuff comes and goes from here and it's a beehive of activity. Next one. Across the tracks is King Cole is the structure I made when I was about 16 years old and I didn't have the feel for skill size these rocks for the foundation are right bowlers and these bands are very heavy but I still put it right down in the front of the scene and used it. Next one please. Here's Appleman woodwork with piles of wood. Atlas makes these this lumber piles or did they make a single layer and you can stack them as high as you want and it looked like wood so I said gee watch I make a lot of problems losing up strip wood and I can get these right out of the box so that's what I did. Next one please. Here's a little few weeds and cans are starting to collect around. Amy's drive good. Next one. Oh man, Gin's got all his fruits and vegetables out on the walk today and he's got a scale there he's selling stuff right right off the front of the walk. Next one please. This is a railroad have no structure. I don't know if you remember these but it was all epoxy of the windows and wall are all one piece and they had a unique look to them all this design was built in even the sway in the roof was built in and it was a single roof that leaked apparently so now this side and then all with the other side is all corrugated rusted corrugated iron to prevent the leak and so I named it Tainan Brothers Garage from my grandson Ben and Matt. This guy got in trouble with his car. I wrote an article for Inner Gauge to give that on that one. Next one please. So here we are here's our focal point and the back I want to point to the distant house how it looks good from this point. Next one please. It looks good from this point too. Next one please. Looks okay from here too. So the way you place them and the way what you do with the background structures is what is important so that they look in any direction like they should. Next one please. Here's a track in the streets and I cut and fitted cardboard that was first I had glued onto some sand on the cardboard and it cut and fit that thing but there's an easier way putting a piece of paper down and taping it on the end and then going with the lead on an angle and over the rail and tracing every rail that way you can glue it right to the cardboard and have a nice fit. Next one please. There's Perkins Prado's he's a little bit nervous about the leaning towers but and there's Manjunian's on doing the sign change. Next one please. This is this is this is the last slide. These are the problems you wouldn't think anybody who has 50 years of modeling experience would have any problem at all putting this scene together but I I do and and you're gonna have some problems too but it's up to your own resourcefulness and you know where to get around them. The grocery store had a roof line that had to be altered. Stone foundation had to be added. The starting house didn't fit. Another one had to be built. Two industry buildings were added. One eliminated. The Queen house was painted green color change. The shed in the background house had to be extended. Amy's dry good change color. Sign couldn't be removed painted around the sign which was having to be a blessing and Mystic Bank in case the building shape modified. It's probably a couple more in there I couldn't remember but that that's I pointed these things out because you're gonna come across the same thing when you do if you try to do the same thing.