Railcar and a Sidetrack

Two little projects on my workbench: the railcar kitbash and a luggage cart.

I've only gotten this far, but it's a start.

Then I discovered an article written by John Allen on how to build a luggage cart, and I decided to modify his design a little and try my hand at it.

Here's his design.

Here's my progress so far on a card model version. I've added an extra rack to the back, per some prototypes, along with lettering on the side. Allen's wheels were acetate with the spokes drawn on; I decided to cut the spokes out, add rims and wrap a paper band around the outside.

Next Project: Kitbashed Clever Models Caboose into Railcar

I decided my next project should be an HOn30 whimsical railcar. (It'll just be stationary.) I'm kitbashing together the following three things:

1.  A Jordan Highway Miniatures Model T Ford stake-bed pickup truck,
2.  A Clever Models caboose,
3.  Some N Scale wheels I had from another project.

Here's my mockup, just to get some of the sizes and proportions the way I want them.

I always like to use bogus train line names, and "Shamrock" has been a recurring word in my work, so I made a new logo for the Shamrock Island Line. (After all, it's not the REAL Rock Island Line!)

Here are some of my other bogus signs and logos...

My take on the old AT&T logo.

Obviously based on the Nickle Plate Road logo...

Clever Models Gateman Tower, Test Fitting Sub-Assemblies

I am 5/8ths done with the upper tower walls and windows. 

Here's what I have so far, roughly balanced together in order to see if I've screwed anything up.

My original plan was to light the inside, but at this point, that's too much of a hassle. I did sandwich a layer of black cardstock between the outer and inner surfaces, so if I do light it later, the light won't shine through the walls.

Clever Lever

I'm finally getting around to finishing my build of Clever Models' Octagonal Gateman's Tower.

I've had the stairs done and sitting around for a long time now; I guess it's time to finish the durn fool thing.

The project of the last couple days was making the lever which operates the gates. After Googling around, I found the following image showing the proportions of the lever.

I zoomed in on just the tower, and in GIMP, I pasted the cropped image below over the Clever PDF, sizing it to get it to match the size of the upper room.

From that, I was able to get my measurements. My first attempt was made from black cardstock, which looked all wrong. Then I took some stiff wire intended for earring and jewelry making, along with the foil cap from a wine bottle, and made this:

I assembled the whole thing with CA glue, and wrapped the top and bottom with a thin strip of the wine foil cap, and added a drop of black acrylic paint to the tips of the levers to resemble the rounded ends of the handles. I think that's about as close as I can get to the prototype, given the supplies I had on hand.

Putting clear windows in this beast at HO scale is very difficult indeed; I'm getting quite a bit of squeezeout from the CA glue, but I've decided it's pretty minor, given the scale, and it looks a bit like cobwebs. Cobwebs, yeah, sure, that's the ticket!

I'll probably make the roof removable if I decide I can't see the details through the windows.

Replacement for Ertl plastic powerhouse.

A client sent me an HO scale Ertl kit, the Easton Mill. It consists of two plastic buildings, but the sculpt, fit and factory paint-and-weathering on them... let's see, how to say this nicely... it's not up to my standards.

I talked my client into allowing me to build the power house as a cardstock model. I pulled all the dimensions from the Ertl kit and then made it in The Gimp.

Here it is.

Stereoscopic View

 

The main part of the building is inkjet-printed cardstock laminated onto museum board. I used Clever Models textures, as usual. I laminate with the cheapest spray adhesive I can find, which happens to be Aleen's Tacky Spray. (I'll have to do a proper how-to post on this technique when I find the time.)

The most painstaking part of this build: I cut out the doors and windows, then painted the thick edges of the holes with neutral grey acrylic, then I used brown, yellow and grey gouache paints to touch up the edges to match the stones.

I tried a new technique for the steps; I made the bottom tread part of the base of the building. That way, there's no chance of the steps falling off if the structure is handled roughly. Once I had the steps assembled, I treated the edges with cyanoacrylate glue and sanded the edges. 

The original model included a boiler out front, and I replicated it with two caps from Trader Joe's disposable pour-over coffee brewers, along with some brass tubing scraps and bits of museum board.

All in all, a quick and fun project.

Gorre & Daphetid diorama in N Scale, Pt 1

I just started working on a diorama based on the Cross Junction / Corsa area of John Allen's Gorre & Daphetid railroad. I bought the plans from Silver Ridge Modelworks. It's available as either an HO-scale laser-cut kit, or you can just purchase the instructions and the templates, and build it yourself from scratch in whatever scale you want. My plan is to take the templates and apply Clever Models textures with The GIMP to make an N scale version of the depot, and install it in a diorama which is similar to the original G&D scene.

Here is the diorama suggested by Silver Ridge...

...and here is how the station looked in the original G&D setting.

You can see that Allen had a tunnel perpendicular and under the upper track. I decided to put that in.

I threw together a quick, corrugated and chipboard dummy in three dimensions to see what the proportions might look like. This gives me some planning flexibility, because I can move the station around, and I'll have an idea what works and what doesn't.

This is what it looked like after a couple hours.

I converted the measurements for the diorama down to N from the Silver Ridge plans, but when I got to the station, I used no measurements at all -- I just hacked away at the chipboard and slathered the edges with Aleene's Tacky Glue. If someting was too big, I chopped it off. If it was too small, I tore it off and made a bigger piece. It's a bit like sketching with a pencil and erasing whatever looks wrong. It's a lot of fun, and the whole process only took a couple hours. Possibly 90 minutes. I'm having trouble estimating the time spent, because I was "in the zone" the whole time.

The following evening, I threw together a very rough cityscape, similar to the G&D original, but a little more urban. I'll use forced perspective to fit that skyline in the very limited space, and the buildings in the front may need to be a little smaller than N scale.

Overhead shot.

I can already see I'll have to lower the skyline about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch, because I don't like the proportions. Also, I'll modify that cross street so the back of it is hidden a bit better.

The upper deck of this should have a streetcar, while the lower station will provide passenger and freight service.

Build Your Own Working Clock Out of Paper

I'm trying to finish this kit I set aside years ago for the PDX Mini Maker Fair next weekend. I like to challenge myself and have a new showpiece or two every year.

Don's Radio Shop in N Scale

I started a couple days ago, after I finished the Gorre engine house.

The rusting green sign under the MERTZ ad is for Nesbitt's Lime Soda, another Negativland joke that doesn't have much to do with Don, but what the heck. I liked it better than putting a damn Pepsi logo on my model. I like making fictional signs, and Nesbitt's has never actually made a lime soda. I altered the colors of a Nesbitt's Orange sign.

The red and yellow "Don's Radio Shop" sign and metal supports turned out nicely.

I realized this model is small enough to fit in a very inexpensive display case designed to hold baseballs.

Gorre Engine House, Pt. VI: Assembly

FINISHED!

There are a couple minor things nobody except me would notice, which I'll fix later, but overall, it turned out very nicely.

Gorre Engine House, Pt VI: First Dry-Fitting of Subassemblies

Dry-fit test. Needs about five more parts, and it should be completed this weekend.

 

Gorre Engine House Pt. V: Rafters

I finished the five center rafters on Clever Models' Gorre engine house. Each of these subassemblies consists of 11 pieces. Two more to go -- with 16 parts each -- for either end of the building. 

 

Believe it or not, this actually hurt my back a little. I assembled these on the kitchen table, which is lower than my work table, so I was hunched over for quite a while.

Gorre Engine House in N Scale, Part II

7/20/15

Only had a couple brief moments today to work on this: in the morning as my wife fixed breakfast, and again this afternoon after I'd done the grocery shopping. Managed to cut holes for the windows along the back wall and install the windows, and to make and install six more window frames (without the transparencies) for the interior. Pics to follow.

7/21/15

Had a little over an hour in the morning. Treated some trim pieces with CA glue, laminated and cut openings in one entrance, added the round and rectangular windows, then dry-fitted what I had so far.

NOTE TO THOM: slight correction needed -- the door on the wall with the round window needs to have the trim added around the rectangular window and the door frame. If I cut out the white areas as printed, the holes would be the size of the door and window frames, rather than the size of the door and window. My window sub-assembly nearly fell through the hole.

Clever Models Gorre Engine House in N Scale, Day 1

Spent most of the day working on these windows for the Clever Models Gorre Engine House. I still need to make the interior trim (because this is a building you can see into) and the skylights. I decided to work on windows first, because I was experimenting, and I wasn't sure how they would turn out -- I didn't want to be nearly finished with the building and have no way to make decent windows.

Penny for scale.

The mullions are inkjet printed on transparency film, while the trim is cardstock which I soaked in cyanoacrylate before cutting. This made it easier to avoid overcutting because the cardstock is a little tougher and more like plastic. 

While the building would look better with several windows open, I decided that one was enough, because it was really difficult to do. 

My new Glue Looper tools proved very useful today. They're little doodads that fit in an X-Acto handle and give you a tiny metal loop you can use to transfer CA glue to tiny spots. I clamped the transparencies to the frames with wee clothespins, dipped the Glue Looper into a drop of CA, gently touched the edge of the transparency -- and just the right amount of glue seeped between the parts through capillary action. Slick!

I stopped shortly after taking this photo because the CA was misbehaving as I soaked window frames, and it began dripping onto my workspace. It was just a matter of time before I glued my fingers together, which, surprisingly, I didn't do all afternoon. Thank you, Glue Looper!

N Scale Lighthouse build, continued

Finished the roof this morning. The gable isn't a great fit, but the flaws are under the soffit... so, "F" it.

I put the coin battery into the underside of the carved pink foam base. For the moment, this works pretty well -- the foam presses the wires from the LED into the battery nicely. In the long term, I'll be able to pull the leads down and work them into layout wiring.

Next: painting and landscaping the pink foam.

N Scale Cape Disappointment Lighthouse

My interest in the Ilwaco Railway & Navagation Company led me to building the lighthouse at Cape Disappointment. It shares with the railroad similar stories of North Coast incompetence: the tower was built first, but when the lamp lenses arrived, they were too big. It took two years for the tower to be rebuilt to fit the lenses. However, when the lighthouse was finally completed, it couldn't be seen by ships approaching from the North, and a second lighthouse was erected two miles away at North Head.

Oh, and the fog bell couldn't be heard over the rain and surf. Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln...

I started out with a downloaded kit from Fiddler's Green ($4.95). FG models are often a decent starting point -- most of the geometries are already figured out for me, and I can usually modify what's there to make it more accurate... or more to my liking, anyway.

My first step was to alter the textures a bit. I opened the files in The Gimp, then used some roof tiles from Clever Models and surface textures from Dave Graffam Models, and overlaid them on the appropriate parts to replace the the cartoon-y colors of the FG kit. Then I reduced all the parts down to N scale and printed them on matte photo cardstock.

There are a few inaccuracies on the FG model. The cone shape goes through the lower walkway and all the way up to the bottom of the upper walkway, while on the real tower, the lamp house continues down through both walkways. I chopped off the top of the tower and fabricated a new lower lamp house from black cardstock. Also, the FG roof is roughly the shape of a Chinese sun hat, while the actual roof is more of a dome.

I built the lamp house first and worked my way down. I knew from the start I wanted to have a light in this, so I poked two pinholes into the center of the upper walkway and inserted an amber LED. By coincidence, a typical LED is about the same size, in N scale, as a lighthouse lamp. Soldering the leads to wires was tricky because the paper bits were so close, but it worked out okay. I added some heat-shrink tubing to prevent the leads from short-circuiting.

I still have the smaller work room and mud room to finish, but that's really straight-ahead model building.

Test Results on Warping

To recap, I put three cardstock models in my bathroom and left them there for a week to see if the steam from showering would warp them.

I don't time my showers, but here's how they go -- I shower for about 10 or even 15 minutes, get out, open the bathroom door so the fog will clear from the mirror.  I took six showers in that seven days and my wife used the tub to take one bath. (She has her own bathroom with just a shower, just in case you think she only bathed once this week). When I take a shower, the humidity on that shelf goes from about 65% to 85% -- yep, I measured it.

The first little model was an onion dome from the Tower of London. It didn't warp at all. (No photos, but just trust me.)

The second was a trackside beanery I built to the specifications of a client -- and his measurements were all wrong, so I didn't care if the model was ruined.

It wasn't. There's a tiny bend up and down along the doors and windows of the long side, but it's barely noticeable -- it would certainly pass inspection under the three foot rule. The short side looks fine. The roof, which isn't reinforced with trusses, also looks fine. I expect this very minimal amount of warping will even out when it fully dries.

Here's what I think goes on: the tabs and folded edges of the model act as reinforcements. The chipboard base and the roof serve the same function. The model might tend to warp along the direction of the grain of the cardstock, but the tabs and edges resist that tendency, and it all evens out.

On the second day of the test, I added the third model. It's been subjected to five showers worth of damp air.

It's not really a model, per se; it's just a bit of O-scale wall and a window that I built as a reference so I can see all the layers required to make a sash window. The wall is chipboard laminated with a cardstock printout. It did warp quite a bit.

Notice how it warped: side to side. This could be due to the differences in expansion between the thin cardstock and the thick chipboard. (That's why it's always best to laminate with a non-water-based glue.) I expect with a roof glued on, this side to side warping would have minimized. If I'd included a simple tab along the bottom or top, I think it would have remained straight.  It remains to be seen whether it will flatten out when it dries. (UPDATE: It did.)

My conclusion is: a complete cardstock model that has a lot of tabs and folded edges will be fine.

Also, if your basement or layout room is so consistently damp that it could warp a cardstock model, I suspect you'll have even worse problems with mildew, or corrosion of electrical connections.

Stereoscopic Views of Howl's Moving Castle

Here are some stereoscopic views of my build of Howl's Moving Castle. This is one of the more intricate models I've built. No single part was terribly difficult, but there were a lot of them, and I printed this model about half the intended size. The main body is about the size of a orange.

It's available on my Etsy shop.

These images are intended for free-viewing.

Stereo Views of the Small Brick Machine Shop

Finally got a new battery in the better camera, so here are some slightly-better-than-before stereoscopic shots to document the Clever Models Small Brick Machine Shop build.

As usual, these images are for free-viewing, not cross-eyed. US penny for scale.