Agate Lake Hotel, Marais Minn

[dmirguy]

I wanted to update my fictional town of Marais Minnesota with a stylized version of the old Easy Bay Hotel that was in the actual town of Grand Marais for so many years.

I'm about 90% of the way through this project, and thought I'd post some of the highlights of the build. This was the first time I tried "kit-bashing", in the past I would try to build things as close to the instructions as possible.



The Agate Lake hotel would take some hints from the original Easy Bay Hotel and the Inn on Lake Superior in Duluth, but would really be a lot of imaginative remembering (and concession to minimum operator abilities)

 

[dmirguy]

I'd start with "Marilyn's Bar and Grill" (HO scale) from Branchline Trains, http://www.branchline-trains.com/laserart_structures/commercial/commercial_ho.html a pretty expensive kit to mess with.

 

[dmirguy]

These are the changes I would make:
1) make a base
2) resting blocks for 2nd and 3rd floor
3) side doors and picture window
4) dont use back exterior stairs; fill and paint; change doors to windows; add ladder
5) Front - replace windows with doors on second and third floor balcony
6) add balcony; add balcony divider; add safety railing; add chairs
7) Interior, make separate rooms upstairs and on floors (for lighting)
8) Interior detail for dining on main floor, add booths, tables, chairs; people
9) Lighting: use decoder, tee power to main floor dining; other outputs to rooms; light tubes for outside deck lights
10) cement side walk on side, boardwalk in front

 

[dmirguy]

The site of the Agate Lake hotel would be at the end of town on the shores of Agate Lake.

So; some assembly required.

 

[dmirguy]

Mod 1: First thing was to make a base to support interior detailing

 

[dmirguy]

Mod 2: Then, attach resting blocks for 2nd and 3rd floor

Mod 3: Next was to cut the side door and picture window. I freehanded this (kinda obvious, eh?)

Mod 4: Dont use back exterior stairs; fill and paint; change doors to windows

 

[dmirguy]

There's a lot of parts in this kit. It's like a miniaturized Ikea gone insane. The only way for me to get a handle on it was to start by building all the doors and windows, then setting that aside.

 

[dmirguy]

After putting together the 3 walls, and front walls main and first floor, it was time to see how it looked on the site.

And then doing more rework on the site.

 

[dmirguy]

Mod 5: Put the front entry way on, after cutting the base of the 2 front windows so they could become doors onto the balcony

Put in the front entry lighting. Originally was going to use light tubes, but couldn't get the hang of it. A simple bulb with tin foil relector would do the trick

 

[dmirguy]

Mod 5: Cut the top floor window assembly so they could be doors

Mod 6: enhance the top floor balcony

Note the doors to balconies, the built up second floor, and the privacy divider.

 

[dmirguy]

OK, all the window trim has been added, and we're ready to look it over

 

[dmirguy]

Mod 8: Interior detail for dining on main floor, add booths, tables, chairs; people

Howzit look? (note- I filled the Ceylon light crack above the entryway, but need entry rugs for the base of the doors)

 

[dmirguy]

Mod 9) Lighting: use decoder, tee power to main floor dining; other outputs to rooms; light tubes for outside deck lights
Wow, did that not work out. The light tubes were unmanageable. I'll try again, but not here.
But much much worse, the Digitrax TF4 decoder wasn't able to deliver the kind of power to light the lights. With 3 lights on one output, and one light on each of the other 3 outputs, the lights were at about 66% of "max". Using a spare DH121 decoder, the lights on the function outputs hit about 85% of max while a light hooked to the motor output hit 90% with the motor speed cranked wide open.

Best laid plans...

So, I hooked them to a separate AC power supply I use for lighting (14v 4amp) and powering the turnouts. That is 100% "max". I made a switch housing for all of

Marais lighting needs, a time delaying project in and of itself!

Here's a shot of the first and second floor and the light bars for the main floor and the first floor and the light stands for the second floor (ignore the decoder...)

Main floor light bar

Main floor light bar installed, first floor flooring installed, first floor light bar installed, second floor flooring in hand. Note the fancy shmancy room dividers. Yea, all the

window shades in the rooms are pulled down.

 

[dmirguy]

Mod 10 and... So, the railings are installed, there's a sidewalk, the main floor and room lighting works great.
Don't have the boardwalk and shore benches for evening s'mores yet

So, theres still a little stuff to do, but all in all I'm happy with it.
Visit http://dmirguy.com/ProjectAgateBayHotel.html if you want to see more on the project

 

[Rico]

Wow, looks like a place I stayed in once, fantastic work!

 

[dmirguy]

Thanks Rico. My wife commented that there were a lot of girls in swimming suits. So I was off to the hobby store today looking for some guys.

ummm, that should be rephrased...

 

[montanan]

Well done. The detailed interior really makes this stand out !

 

[dmirguy]

Thank you!

There are a lot of times when I'm not sure what I want to do with an area, a building, some scenery - so I'll just try something and see how it works out. But from the mmoment I saw the picture on the box in the store, I saw the view in the side and front windows (a side window that didnt exist), and they are recreated exactly as I pictured them. It was really gratifying to finally take the actual picture of the scene that had been imagined for so long.

 

[Jim 68cuda]

Nice work. I like your version of the kit better than the original version.

 

[railfan]

I'm pretty sure I stayed there on one trip. And that red canoe looks familiar too.



Mike