The castle on my layout is also a tourist destination.

Like any tourist attraction, it needs a place to sell tickets. I started this project this weekend. It’s brass sheet and tube with a Pola umbrella to shade the vendor from the sun/rain. I’ll place this right across the tracks from my castle whistle-stop “station” with some folks walking over for a tour.

Nice brass work Dan! Looks very convincing. Looking forward to the paint and placement. Castle is looking good too.

Cool

Nice idea, I need to do one for my tourist train

Any idea if the umbrella is available as a separate item? I searched a bit with no luck Thanks

Jerry

I’ve started painting. First I applied a coat of metal primer, then sprayed a base of exterior white on the top, brown on the stand, and texture on the base. The rain here tends to “unbury” bases, so I’ve started applying a texture coat (with a little sand thrown on) so they don’t look ridiculous if they show.

Next steps are to apply some fill to the gaps (tamiya putty) and then paint by hand so that the base of the “desk” looks like it’s made from individual boards. It turns out that I don’t have one of the figures I was planning on using here (a Preiser figure I apparently used somewhere else) so I’ll need to either modify one of my cheap Chinese figures or buy another “good” one.

Jerry: I don’t have a source for these umbrellas. I bought the kit that has the old lady and her produce stand to have the figure and produce to use in one of the “stores” in my village (windows below) and this umbrella was in my parts bin.

I’ve made them out of brass for my street cafe scene (because I needed two that were the same)

OK thanks Dan I appreciate the info

Jerry

Unfortunately, my phone died and it took me awhile to get a new one, so no interim pictures were taken. But here’s the finished product by the castle.

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Once the ground cover grows over the edges of the bases, it should blend in more.

I have another experiment going here… I have some epoxy that’s supposedly somewhat UV resistant. I decided to coat the sign next to the stand with it to see how it holds up. The sign was printed with good ink, then sprayed with Krylon UV resist. Then a layer of epoxy was applied over that and another coat of UV resist. Have to see how it holds up, but if this works I’ll have a better solution for ink-jet printed signs.

I like it. What is next a souvenir shop??

Todd, I thought about that. Possibly just a rack of souvenirs behind the counter? I considered turning one of those hexagonal Piko stands (burger joint, newspaper stand) into a souvenir shop, but thought it might be too big to easily fit the space next to the castle.

I’m thinking a drive in theater projected on the fence to the north of the castle for some O Winston night time pics

How about a souvenir vendor cart, like the kind of carts they sell hot dogs out of in the big cities…or so I have been lead to believe.

that looks very cool, great job

Dennis

" Rooster " said:

I’m thinking a drive in theater projected on the fence to the north of the castle for some O Winston night time pics

That would be interesting. My idea eventually is to add a “backdrop” layer to the fence, depicting mountains in the distance. But I have to wear the wife down, first.