The other Krakow Auto Repair in 1/87 scale

[Junior]

Low profile...aha! Very nice wall with great details - love the color combination.

Anders

[DaKra]

Yeah, low profile like this-->

[Malachi Constant]

Christian --

The pipes add a lot of interest to the wall ... and it's interesting to see the contrast between Anders' older garage and your modern one.

One nit-picky critique regarding the fan belts:  Dave's parts set includes some with the paper/cardboard sleeve cut in place and some without -- presumably so you can add your own.  If you take a real fan belt out of the sleeve, it will spring out into an "O" or oval shape.  The curvy, figure-8 shape occurs when the belt is squished into those paper sleeves.  (So, the laser-cut belts without sleeves have an unnatural shape by themselves.)

Again, this is a VERY picky little item.  If the belts are NOT glued in place, you might consider adding some little sleeves to those without, or rearranging them to have the belts with sleeves in front.  If they are glued in place, please IGNORE what I've said:
a) It's very obvious that this is an assortment of fan belts, and it makes an interesting detail ...
b) As you add more stuff to the center of the shop, all of the items on the wall become "background" details!

Shaping up rather nicely!

Cheers,
Dallas

[BKLN]

Thanks, Dallas. I am open to critique, and I know this is how Russ wants this forum to be. If I want some praise I'll go somewhere else, but I am seeking inspiration and expertise.

I had no idea about the fan belts. I drew the initial file for Dave, but honestly I have no clue how most machines work. So I really appreciate the advice. Speaking of fan belts, mine still need to have the paper wrap painted.

[Ray Dunakin]

That wall looks great, nice detail with the pipes and tank, and I love the colors. Looks very much like some of the real auto shops I've been in.

[Chuck Doan]

On the fan belts I did, I used a three sided sleeve. You couldn't see the missing back.

[Bill Sartore]

How about a clean-out at the bottom of the waste pipe? It's just a little stubby capped-off piece coming out from the waste pipe at an angle.

Did I send you any hypo tubing? It's the stuff I use for making gooseneck lights. Generally you would just use some solid wire for conduit but if you wanted to have a length of abandoned conduit coming out of a junction box with a couple of little wires coming out from the end of the conduit it makes for a neat effect.

-slim

[BKLN]

Bill,
that's a neat idea. I want to add a sink in the workshop anyway. I won't go as far as Anders and show a full bathroom; just a dirty little sink to wash hands and brushes.

[BKLN]

It's been over two years, since I last showed you any progress on this project. Job and family have left me with little time to work, but I owe you guys some progress update. I visit this forum on a daily basis and every day I am inspired by the great work shown here.

Anyway, I consider this thing done. I still see a lot of things that could use improvement and that are missing, but I just have to draw a line here. This project was a little too ambitious for me. In the process, I have dropped the idea of the interior detailing. Maybe this will follow later, but I have left the "drawer" to pull out the main work area.

So here is Krakow's Garage, based on 66/68 Bergen Street in Brooklyn:

[BKLN]

Detail of 68 Bergen Street. The folding gate was lasercut by David Krakow. The car in the garage is from Busch, detailed with the VectorCut auto part detail kit. The car jacks and some of the tools are from Preiser, the tires are from Busch and Auhagen.

[Ray Dunakin]

Amazing work! For a second I thought the first pic was a prototype shot.

[BKLN]

Detail of 66 Bergen St.
The dumpster is by VectorCut. I was always intrigued by the handpainted shop sign. The business is now home to a fancy restaurant and the building has lost all it's morbid charme, after the facade was redone in clean brick.
The business to the right is fictional. But I had a lot of fun building the knocked out neon sign.

[BKLN]

Now, the back is also made up. I just couldn't find any reference material, so I tried to incorporate a couple of impressions of similar businesses. The oil drums are excellent new castings from Tichy, the tire rack and most of the tires are scratch built. I always hated that the tires in HO model cars were solid, meaning not hollow, so these are made from two lasercut discs (for the tire walls) sandwiched around a piece of styrene tube. The smaller car parts are also from VectorCut and the bigger parts came from cut up Busch cars.

[BKLN]

The side wall was an earlier experiment inspired by Marc Reusser's paper bricks. The cinderblocks were individually cut from thin cardboard in a similar fashion.
I wanted to keep the sides rather neutral to keep the focus the viewers attention on the front and the back of the building.

[BKLN]

And one last shot with a bit of New York skyline...

Thanks to everybody here for great inspiration, in particular Anders, who has mastered the art of "authentic overloading", Marc for his endless experiments and David Krakow for the never ending supply of custom laser jobs. And thanks to Russ, who hasn't sent me into the corner yet or kicked me out due to lack of contribution.