Quiet earth (was: Exercise module for Plettenberg railroad in 1/22.5 scale)

[chester]

Welcome Volker,  very nice. Your masonry coloring is spot on.

[trisonic]

Lovely stonework!

Can you get "finescale" wheels for that scale/gauge now?

Best, Pete.

[Hydrostat]

Hi Russ, Pete and Chester,

the masonry should look like travertine which was used around 1920 for somewhat prestigious buildings.

Do we get finescale wheelsets for meter gauge in 1:22.5? Not really. I will have to make or adapt them myself. The Plettenberger Kleinbahn had another wheel and flange profile (similar to streetcars), that doesn't fit the regular wheel standards. You have some nice wheelsets in the States (by Gary Raymond i think). For my exercise practice drill tutorial training module it doesn't matter. As written in the German posts, even Playmobil (or everything else in G) runs on it 

Best wishes
Volker

[Design-HSB]

Hi Volker,

welcome from me here to take this opportunity.
As I wrote in the BBF, in my view for a long time no longer practice facility, but as decisive.

[finescalerr]

Both Gary Raymond (Gary Raymond Metal Wheels) and Gary Watkins (Sierra Valley Enterprises) are personal friends and do make wheels close to finescale standards. Both have an exaggerated fillet to minimize a slightly oversize flange and to provide better rolling qualities. Gary Raymond makes 1:32n3 wheelsets with 24 inch diameter wheels to exact (e.g. "AAR") standards and nobody bought them so he backed off trying the same thing for the larger scales.

The NMRA has spent more than decade dragging its feet on large scale wheel standards and has hindered manufacturers' attempts to push the hobby forward. I was on the original standards committee and quit the NMRA in disgust. Gary Raymond still wages battle with them.

The current Modelers' Annual, now in the mail and soon available online, includes an article by Bob Uniack on cast resin freight cars in three scales (1:32, 1:29, 1:20.3). All roll on Gary Raymond wheelsets and, if you want to evaluate their appearance, the photos show them clearly.

Russ

[Hydrostat]

Hi Helmut and Russ,

just a short excursion to the "real thing":





Steel sleeper: me by prototyping. Rail: Miha (=Llagas Creek Code 250) by Helmut, who milled down the rail foot/base (I don't know what it is in English) to scale (thanks Helmut!)

I got some original plans of Plettenberg railroad pointwork that I'm going to recreate to scale; got some poor quality pics only. Please don't mind the Peco rails: The point will be in street level. You will only see the surface.







Even Gary Raymonds (nearly perfect) wheels don't run over that. I've got some here ... Okay, I should have told you.

Volker

[Ray Dunakin]

The NMRA has spent more than decade dragging its feet on large scale wheel standards and has hindered manufacturers' attempts to push the hobby forward. I was on the original standards committee and quit the NMRA in disgust. Gary Raymond still wages battle with them.

I doesn't help matters that a lot of folks in "large scale" get their lynching ropes out every time someone evens mentions "standards".

[artizen]

I enjoy my large scale modelling in 7/8ths and I have to admit, setting arbitrary standards is a minefield only because the prototype was as diverse. Only in the UK could you get track gauges of 1 ft 11-1/2 ins and the guys around the corner were using 2 ft 3 ins!!!! Each original railway was built by individual committees who worked in isolation it seemed. Even the major rolling stock manufacturers in the 1800s couldn't break that with off-the-shelf items (which must have been cheaper to buy).

I like the quirkiness - but I get frustrated with the lack of precision (scale) wheels which appear to be coarse so they cope with the diversity of track from Peco to LGB and everything else in between. Then there is the coupling question which is never going to be satisfactory because the prototype used different ideas and for scale appearance you need to have something remotely the same on the model. All that considered it is a wonderful scale to work in and lends itself to this style of incredible detail. It gets to be that any scale smaller than 1:43 is too small!!!

[Hydrostat]

I hope I did get you right, but when I wrote of "regular wheel standards" I meant the existing standards of the real German meter gauge - not modelling standards. Why should scale modelling stop at rails and wheels?

[Hydrostat]

Back to the brass rails. Next step is the doorman building. This time I used a layer of wood fiber hardboard and glued 5 mm Styrodur (hard foam?)  inside and outside 3mm Styrodur "travertine" disks on it. The ceiling was made of several layers of Styrodur.









The doorman building gets a metal transom window. The doorman has to watch both the actual access and the factory gates for rail and truck service. After trying in brass I decided to use polystyrene: angel section 2x2 mm and t-sections 1,5 x 1,5 mm. I glued that together on the drawing and then inserted windows of Vivak. The glue has to be well seasoned. The four-digit zipcodes were changed to five-digit ones in 1993.





On one disc there was a small adhesive edge. So I tried to weather the disks with thinned wood glue, that I wiped away and replaced carfully with a brush while drying.





The abutting edges and thickening of the individual struts get smaller blossomed rust later on. And a view from the inside. The columns on the window frames have to be closed ...



The other window is composed of several layers of wood. From the outside, it starts with a circumferential narrow frame, the actual window frame, the bottom bar is designed to be thicker and slightly bevelled. The whole rests on a broader basis, which represents the actual window frame. Then a screen of Vivak is glued inside the circular window frame. A thin veneer strip is applied, so you do not see the raw edge of Vivak.





The window handle is formed from wire and the aperture of a metal piece. This was once the rail connector of an old-H0 Piko hollow track, which has already unilaterally a nice rounding.



Meanwhile, the wooden window has found its place, and the building survived the first dirt rain.



Next is the roof covering. The doorman building gets a visible drainpipe that hides the subsequent transition to the factory wall. This substructure and gutter obtain the necessary square neckline.



Square? Wait a minute. Downpipes are still round. To square the circle does not do much: 5 mm brass tube, about 1 mm copper wire and a piece of 8 mm rectangular tube. The wire is placed around the circular pipe and fixed by an underlying bracket. The rectangular tube is put on top of it and then is connected with generous solder insert.





Now take it to the drill. A steel axle clamped in a vise serves as a guide. I used a file and sandpaper to form it on the running drill. At the bottom of the funnel end, I tried to stab a groove to represent the transition from the hopper to the pipe, which would be plugged into the prototype. I will have to do a bit more on it with the jigsaw.



Now it's waiting to be installed.



But only when the clamps are attached. Arising from self-adhesive copper foil. The eyebolts I'll try again to get them fine. The used 0,5-wire seems to be to thick.



Best wishes
Volker

[okiecrip]

great lookin modeling

[Lawton Maner]

Nice looking Guard's Shack. 

How did you make the trolly rail?  What did you use to make the channel which defines the flangeway?

[Hydrostat]

The rail I've shown here is soldered Peco Code 250 and brass angle section 3 x 3 mm (0.12'' x 0.12'') with 0,5 mm (0.02'') wall thickness. The angle section fits perfect to the rail head to get a 1,8 mm (0.07'') wide flangeway.

[Hydrostat]

Meanwhile, the downpipe has found his niche.



And again a little closer.



Frithjof was kind enough to mill me the clamps of 1.5 mm (0.06'') brass, the thickness is 0.2 mm (0.007874''). Works better than the self-adhesive copper foil, which starts deforming when heated for tinning. The real challenge, then, was the replica of the eyebolts. Before that I made the cast iron pipe end of some plastics.



On the drill revised and painted it looks like this.



The eyebolts arose from 0.3 mm (0.011811'') wire I found in the form of carbon brush coil springs in the junk box. The eyes should now be as small as possible. This Frithjofs tip: you simply wrap the wire around another bend it once gone through 90 ° and cut off at the appropriate place (where the wire meets itself again). For the latter, I used a nail clipper. So much for theory. In fact, the 0.3 mm wire is (even as spring wire!) far too lenient than that you could wrap it. So I clamped a sharp scriber in the vice and a small piece have had to survive. There you can easily wrap the wire around. The clamps were then cannulated for the eyebolts to 0.3 mm, the tabs to be shortened and rounded, and on the rear wall for receiving the holder yet 0.8 mm (0.031496'') holes drilled. The whole was then plated preassembled.



Best wishes
Volker

[Ray Dunakin]

Very nice!