I started this project on January 20, 2019, after purchasing the Design Preservation Models (Woodland Scenics) kit, “Pam’s Pet Shop” at the train show in Puyallup, which was the first structure kit I’d built in 30 years. I initially planned to put a small restaurant and second floor apartment inside, but later decided it was too small for a restaurant, and chose a radio shop instead, which needs very little space, and would help convey the late 1940s era.
By March 2019, I had started to build interior walls and floors and installed LED lighting, which by April was animated by an Arduino to simulate a 24-hour cycle of lights coming on and being turned off in each room at different times. The animation included a simulated TV flicker effect in the living room of the second floor apartment. TVs were still a pretty new thing in 1949, but they were on the market, and I figured the owner of a radio shop would be the type of person to be an early adopter of the technology, and might have one in his living room. However, when I obtained 3D printed vintage radios, they came with a small vintage TV, and I decided to move the effect to the the TV and place it in the storefront window, Illuminating the tiny screen with a fiber optic filament.
The shop was named in honor of my husband’s grandfather, who repaired vintage radios as a hobby. I completed the model in August 2020.
