St. Georg Care Center, Vreden - A very special Home

These final pictures were taken after the goodbye party. It was a great success, everyone attended and we had a lot of fun. We indulged in reminiscences and discussed our future plans. So many things happen in 18 years, so many people came and went, we made many new friends but we also lost some, one in particular.

And what began as a pipe dream finally became reality. This project was a lot of fun, from the impossible missions, uncovering the secrets of the architect, revealing the small deviations from the ideal symmetry to the build marathon, final reveal and surprise. This was by far the biggest hit among my colleagues and myself. The final days were the hardest, not only because of the time that was running out but because of the fact that with each day the day was coming nearer when I had to let the model go. However, I know for sure that my (now) former boss is cherishing the model. She was totally blown away and I have never seen her as speechless as on October 31st. She has planned to get a plexiglass box to protect the model and invited me to see it when it has arrived. This might give me the opportunity to add one or two details which I skipped.

Thank you very much for watching and for making this thread a MoM. It is really appreciated. Have fun and enjoy!

ADDENDUM:

My colleagues and several tenants were discussing the model and the most prominent three remarks they made were:

1) This is AMAZING!

2) Everything is there, you can even see the laundry in the window.

and

3) Where are we?

The logical answer to this question was of course:

Everyone was inside the house working or having dinner, so you can't see anyone outside!


(Granted, a few were standing right behind the window, but because they did not want to be photographed they put the blinds down: )

The aftermath



This project sees an unexpected revival. My former boss asked me to prevent the model from accumulating too much dust. In addition, she no longer needed the box and wanted it to go. So I grabbed a hobby knife and started chopping!





After cutting the lid from the box the fun part began:



STRIPPING!





After one hour of pulling and ripping my thumbs got numb and I chose to call it a day. Stay tuned!

zathros said:

There's a very important part of this facility I don't see represented. That is you, Marcel!!

Click to expand...

Well, yesterday I saw that I accidentally glued a hair from me to the back between two layers of the laminations, so I have always been a part of it. As a result of the surgery the hair is gone now though...

The next step:



After cleaning up the back side it was time to remove the "flesh":



SNIP - SNIP - GONE!



I continued cleaning up the back side to make sure that there was no glue residue which might cause the plate to lift up.



And now it is time to take care of the areas which need special attention.

A few lamps and signs fell off and need to be re-attached.



The roof of the car is not correct and will be revised.



And then the most prominent areas:



Did you notice something? Look again, please.



There is a strange spot on the wall. Do you guess what it is?

I'll tell you: This is the shadow of a lamp but the lamp itself is missing! It must have been accidentally moved to a layer which I deactivated for printing. Oh my!

And here we go again!

Today it was time to remove the eyesore I showed you above. This area was bugging me since I noticed it (and you have NO idea how much it was bugging me - this is the stuff of nightmares, I can tell ya! )

The missing lamps were printed again. This time I used a magnifying glass to cut them out. And as you can see, these parts beat everything I have ever cut out. They are by far the smallest parts I have ever put my hands on (or rather: put into my hands ).



OK, closer look:



Right in the middle of my hand. No, it's no dust particle. Maybe you recognize it when it is fully installed:



One right,



one left.



Mission accompl--- well, sort of.



When I was taking the first pictures of the update I looked out of the window and saw the roof of the van.



I'm sure it was the lack of time which prevented me from taking this exact view in the first place to make the texture of the roof. Needless to say that I facepalmed big time after I noticed that getting a top view would have been so easy...

Alright, back to the drawing board. I replicated the accurate configuration and attached a plate with the new graphics to the roof of the model van. And whilst I was at it I thought, why not adding a 3D version of the antenna as well.







Now it is much more accurate!

In hindsight I think that I was so immersed with the build that I did not even consider the possibility to go up the second floor and take a look out of the window to see how the roof looked like. Ah well. Better late than never.

Now a third area caught my attention. One of the roofs of the building started to wrinkle.



I cannot explain what was happening here, maybe the lamination was not perfect or the skin soaked up moisture from the air. To solve the issue I printed out another roof texture and glued it over the wavy piece.





To make sure that the fix did not follow the wrinkles I only applied glue at the perimeter, so the center is floating above the waves. Surfing roof plate, or parquet upside down.

Now it was time to make a house for the house!



There is a company called Sora which produces custom acrylic showcases and covers for display items. They use standardized assembly techniques which you can see here:


Delivery was extremely fast and the plates were packaged very well. The shop even offers a replacement service so that you only have to re-order the broken part instead of ordering a completely new case. Both sides of each plate is protected by a blue foil which must be removed first.



I tried to remove the marks on the black base plate till I noticed that even the base plate was covered by that blue foil.



They use the same notch and pin system on all custom-made cases which allows you to order any size you need. The parts go together very well, assembly is easy, straight forward and pretty fast. Just make sure that the widened ends of the drill holes are outside.



And here is the final result:



I felt the need to add a small tag describing the model, including a link to this thread:

TA-DAH!!!



What a difference this makes!









I changed the position of the tag and put it right next to the entrance:



This looked much better!







Now it truly looks like a collector's item or a museum piece.



Please do not pay too much attention at the dust particles; I wiped off the plates again after the shooting.





I am amazed at the gloss black base plate. It gives the whole model the opportunity to "shine".









A few glue dots keep the model in place.

This concludes this project (for the time being - never say never ). My former boss was VERY pleased and I loved getting another shot at it to refine a few areas. In the meantime I have revised all plans and smoothed out a few issues to improve the fitting. Just in case.

Thank you very much for watching!