As per your request Russ, here is a pic of the model (https://www.finescalerr.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi5.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy169%2Fmy30mm%2FMacton%2FIMG_7545x800.jpg&hash=39d8027ebed337971554d339f832ad6a16bcf28e)
regards Michael
I have a lot of pictures of this layout/model I have been working on it for a couple of years on and off, I know that Marc has seen some of it before, Hello Marc. It is a model of a Locomotive Works and a figment of my rather warped imagination. It is basically an experiment learning and trying out all of the amazing model tecniques that I have read about from the likes of Marc, Chuck Doan, Gordon Birrell, Mic Greenberg, Marcel Acker and others like Gerald Wyngrove, and many others that I have difficulty remembering their names. The model includes some of my own experiments and is an ongoing work in progress. I have torn up and rebuilt parts, reworked some of the design and reworked some of the stuctures. When I look at some of the critiques of the work on this site, I go back and revisit some of the things that I have done, and wonder how I can improve them. I have made a lot of mistakes as things progress, these are great learning opportunities, and sometimes they are unexpected bonuses. (https://www.finescalerr.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi5.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy169%2Fmy30mm%2FMacton%2FIMG_3367sml.jpg&hash=07c3be3c5d59ef03a7c06bf36fabe1d9a608eb5b)
regards Michael
Hi Michael,
Yes I remeber seeing and enjoying your work on this before. Really glad to see you continuing on it, and posting it here. I like that how you have been able to try and use so many different techniques on this...really great to watch.
Cheers,
Marc
Post more photos, Michael, and please keep us up to date as you finish new models and scenery. Outstanding! -- Russ
This is a close up of the staircase on the side of the foundry building. It is constructed from evergreen styrene and expanded aluminum mesh for the treads. The corrugation is crimped printed coverstock. and the rust stain on the asbestos corrugated is from prismacolour pencil. The weathering and painting is all preliminary at this stage, as things progress i will be doing finer detailing, as i learn new tricks.
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The big nail is a 3 foot mother and boy are they hard to come by, what with the cost of steel these days ;)
regards Michael
Michael, impressive work. I too would like to see more photos of this project. What scale is this? Overall dimensions of diorama?
Paul
Hello Paul The model is 24 x 61 and depicts a 15 inch gauge Locomotive works line works line. The scale is 1/24 using 16.5mm gauge code125 track for the 15" track and 2 5/16 gauge code 210 to represent standard gauge.
here is a shot that depicts the overall design of the model
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This early planing shot gives some sense of scale between the standard gauge and the 15" gauge. the locomotive on the well wagon is a Bachmann GE44
and the little red loco in the background is a Bachmann Percy(heavily modified to represent a Horwich well tank loco)
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The idea is to have an overhead crane above the loading area and dock.
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Then I can load locos onto the rail line or the back or trucks.
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These pictures represent different times and configurations of the main buildings over the last few years and now they are pretty much finalized and are mostly card and paper. with the exception of the brickwork which is watercolour paper bricks glued to 1/4 inch MDF. The overhead beams are made with evergreen strip and sheet. the rivet detail is embossed with a homemade rivet tool. The works gate is made from flattened electrical copper wire beaten on a piece of rusty rail track as an anvil.
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Probably enough rambling for now.
regards Michael
Remarkable modeling, Michael. Thank you for giving us a little better idea of what you are building. Did you apply the bricks one by one? I would assume you did the stonework in the same way, right? -- Russ
Hi Russ, yes the bricks were applied individually it took a long time to do the little bit of brick work that you see.
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This particular section of brickwork did not survive the changes in the model's design however it clearly shows one of the the ways I eventually developed in placing the bricks. First I drew the brick sheets in Autocad then printed them on 140 lb Arches watercolour paper(tough on the printer) then cut the courses into strips, I used a toothpick to spot the glue under the next row, the next strip was then placed and the watercolour paper was cut almost all the way through but not quite. Once the sections were glued and set I lifted out the sections between the courses and between each brick with the point of the #11 blade to give the gap between the bricks. I used watercolours to get the initial washes of colour, this is where they are still at at the moment. There needs to be more work done on finishing the weathering and detailing of the brickwork but it will come eventually.
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The sandstone building has gone through a period of change as well, the first "stones" were done from strips of MDF but I was not happy with the results, so started over with corrugated card foundation with archival matt board scraps to lay up new "stones" out of card.
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The windows in the sandstone building were made of wood frames with slide glass after reading Chuck Doan's postings about the backscene for the 1/16 scale tractor. The glass was glued in first with acrylic matt medium then white modelling putty was used as a "putty" for the glass.
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The wood was cut from a salvaged maple window blind that I picked up ar the local landfill. a dog had chewed the corner of the blind, I saw it as a source of thin maple slats.
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The picture of the window shows it installed in the MDF stone which I abandoned in favour of the card one at the begining of this thread. The door in the building is made up of real wood as well but I'll leave it there for now.
regards Michael
Very good information. Your little "mini-clinics" are of inestimable value. -- Russ
Thanks Russ. I have always thought that these forums were an invaluable way to share ideas and learn from each other, Books are great too but there seems to be an imediacy in these forums that is not possible from a book. It is great to be able to have a piont or idea clarified pretty much right away when one has a question. These same questions often come up for me when I read a book or magazine(which are great) but I cannot just ask the question and get an answer in as timely a manner.
regards Michael
Thanks for posting the additional photos and information Michael. I really like the spatial relationships you've created between the various structural elements and the railway equipment. I hope you continue to post pictures as you progress with this project.
Paul
How did you do the lettering over the gate?
Michael,
Any progress on this wonderful project??
Marc
Marc, I have not been able to do anything on the model for a while, I moved to the country and built a house. I do not have a workshop yet and am managing to do some modelwork at the computer desk. I did build a garden loop for some larger scale stuff. I am presently having some fun learning how to make figures.
I have not checked in to this forum in a while so I am sorry for the delay in answering your question.
Ray the method that I used to make the letters was by folding up some of the flattened copper wire with some needlenose pliers, I laid the letters over the drawing to guide the bending. I had a few rejects along the way.
regards Michael
Great Project... Michael,
I like the Gate... It is very unique not to mention very impressive
Looking forward to seeing more as you progress... Love it!
thanks for sharing it with us.
Mike
This project has been recently salvaged from a cold and damp storage situation and is undergoing extensive rebuilding.
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Because of the damage the sandstone building was chopped and will be reconfigured and a new building has been inserted and a new track plan organized.
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The new track has been sunk into the landscape by adding layers of card and watercolour paper, the surface was then given a light coat of commercial latex house paint, and then the scribble of Rembrandt pastels, I had some difficulty staying between the lines.
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After blending with a soft rag I wend back over selected areas with pure white Conte crayon and did spot blending.
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The surface need a lot more work but it is good to be playing again.
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Michael
Glad to see you back at this! Dig that last shot ... nice job of sinking the rails. -- Dallas
Very nice! The blended pastels over latex paint looks surprisingly good.
YES!! -- Russ
Dallas, thanks, there are those here that will be giving me some schick for not filling in the spaces between the ties, and I must admit that it does need to be done.
Ray thanks yes pastels work fairly well, I need to do more experiments with fixatives.
Russ thanks, The buildings are pretty much all paper and card, a bit if wood and glass thrown in for good measure.
I am still sorting out the new building and its connections to the old sandstone one, which still needs a lot of work, and the bridge to the shortened asbestos corrugated one. we wont even discuss the brickwork at this time.... way too much work to do on on those facades! I did not like the rather flat surface of the new arched building so an toying with the idea of setting back the left hand side set of windows, to break up the surface a little.
I had a problem with the spray adhesive lifting at the rail edge, so I cut out the offending section with a number 11 and replaced them after spreading some carpenters glue over the card and underside of the watercolour paper. I cut the paper to represent some fractured concrete, still more work there as well.
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Plonking the buildings back down to get a better feel for all the coming work needed on the ground.
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I took this opportunity to also move the tree off the upper level and thought that it would be better growing along side the paving. and changed the stone wall as well. I can see that there will be a ton of work there to bring it up to the standards that are required to pass muster on this site.
Michael
Hi Michael,
very nice work! The sandstone you've done looks very realistic. The street has a nice texture too and I like the standard gauge track disappearing in grass and dirt. If I may criticize one point at your latest work: the tracks should either represent grooved rails or if not the street's surface should be sloped towards the rails at the flangeways - with a lot of chipped nooks. For my opinion the narrow gauge trackwork looks anyway far to evenly and neat for industrial trackage because of the standard model tracks you used.
Regards
Volker
Quoterepresent grooved rails or if not the street's surface should be sloped towards the rails at the flangeways
Volker thanks for your observations, yes I agree with you about the look of the being too clean and toy like. Can you point me to some images of what you describe about the sloping toward the flangeways.
Michael
Volker no need now that I have visited your work on the "test Module" I think I made as much noise as Andi falling over. you have not made my life any easier, Now I have to take up knitting, again.
I'm going to go sit in the corner now and suck my thumb.
All that said, brilliant work on your street Volker, That is a very high bar, I'm going to need a 20 foot ladder to reach that high.
Michael
Thank you very much, Michael - but please don't hide your light under a bushel. Unfortunately I can't change the "not to scale" brass rails anymore ... But you can improve your trackage a bit. I thought of something like that:
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Those rails are mounted in concrete. Any sharp edges at the flangeways would breake when trafficked with heavy equipment so they sloped it towards the rail. You can see how worn wheels even affected the concrete at the rail's outside. The flanges of worn wheels scratch on the flangeway part of the concrete, esp. in curves.
By the way - I didn't get exactly how you made your brickwork. Did you glue the complete printed sheet or just one horizontal strip of bricks and then cut out the vertical joints? How did you avoid glue to blur into the joints area?
Volker
Volker, Thank you for your thoughts and for the picture, your observation re the concrete is one that I thing I might be able to address. I will revisit the material between the rails with some dampened watercolour paper to shape it I will do some tests when I get back from the town I have to go and collect some water for our cistern, 250 gallons, we do not have a well here where we live and there is no water supply locally.
michael
Got back from the water expedition, wow a balmy 9 degrees Celsius... its a heatwave! ::)
first step of the test was to rip out the centre section of the bit of track through the gate. Straight and easy.
then to glue down with 5 minute epoxy a new strip of scrap card 1.2mm thick. the 140lb watercolour paper is .5mm thick The rail is code 75 Peco fine scale 16.5mm gauge to represent 15 inch gauge approximately
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I soaked the watercolour paper for a few minutes in cold water.
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Then domed the paper to be sprung between the rails and squashed down the centre by running my finger up and down.
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Now I will wait for it to dry , I was tempted to use the hot air gun but decided to let it dray naturally.
So we will see how this pans out.
Michael
This is the right direction, but now looks a bit like a hill between the rails. Not sure if it's just because of the picture. Please try it with a wider strip glued between the rails to get the flangeway as narrow as possible. Maybe it can extend to the rail shoes depending on the wheelsets you use. The small remaining slant should then have some 45 angular degree.
Hope not to be offending ...
Volker
Teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs here I know! - but of course you could give your new paper strip a coat of thinned PVA to make it a far tougher piece of engineering.
More importantly though I do happen to agree with Volker - it does look contrived, or will when you've done the whole shebang!
For what it's worth I think you might for expediency's sake be as well to run around those edges with a bloody sharp chisel and just trim them to 45°. And I think the roughness and inconsistency of the cut when back filled with a bit of plop will render the hewn and damaged edges pretty well?
- Dang sight quicker too.
Volker, thanks for your feedback. Yes I agree it is the right direction and that the hill needs to be flattened.
Andi, being a stubborn old fart I will do more experiments before resorting to the squidgy filling of any of the wide range of fillers from plaster to auto body putty.
So I pulled the strip out and tossed it back into the water and cut a new wider strip of the 1.2mm card 12 mm wide and placed it between the rails without gluing it down then put the strip of watercolour back and used one of my sculpy forming tools to seat the edges into the small gap either side of the card underneath. I placed a strip of styrene plastic on top and weighted it down with some heavy blocks of metal.
And waited for it to dry, I was impressed with how well the first placement held in, so thought that after the next test dries it ought to be quite well fixed
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even these rather coarse OO wheels roll well enough.
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So now to play with the chalks again and a few spots painted with some isopropol Alcohol it is looking better but still a way to go yet.
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The next test will have to be on a curve.
Michael
And what's wrong with that result? -- Russ
Looks much better, Michael! If you have darkened the flangeways a bit and add some light rust stains it will look close to the original. Did the paper's fibers come out because of watering? Compared to the surrounding surfaces it creates another impression. Maybe you don't need to water the paper if you notch it, glue it to the strip beneath and then use thinned, nearly fluid Elmer's Glue to fix the flangeways.
Another point to mention: The rails have bolted joints and concrete usually is going to break at those connections, at least between the rails. If your street's surface is representing concrete you should add some expansion points filled with tar. Or grass. Just to answer Russ' question.
Volker
Russ thanks, I do think that there is a fair bit of room for improvement yet. Then the is the issue of different watercolour paper weights 90lb and different brands because they do have different textures.
QuoteDid the paper's fibers come out because of watering? Compared to the surrounding surfaces it creates another impression.
Wow are you looking at this through a microscope?.... just kidding! I think that the difference Volker is because I worked the inset differently than the surrounding concrete because I did not paint it first with the latex house paint, I just rubbed the chalks over the raw paper. It took only a couple of minutes to do after the paper was dry. I think that the Camera caught some of the chalk still laying on the surface. I skipped the latex step which would have sealed the surface without losing the texture too much. because I was in a hurry,
If things work out well on the curves I will then see what I can accomplish with the points, I woke up thinking about them this morning trying to picture them in my minds eye.
I will slow down a bit and take a little more care, after all it is a hobby isn't it.
Michael
The wetting of the paper really helps to shape and set it into place.
QuoteThe rails have bolted joints and concrete usually is going to break at those connections, at least between the rails.
This has also crossed my mind so I will use shorter lengths of paper to create the joints, I was going to do this as I test the process on the curves.
This project has been dredged up from the past because I am still fiddling with it. After moving and looking at the sorry state of the base I have made a new base and am in the process of revisiting the track plan and also the way to get the appearance I want without using up the rest of my life doing it. I'm turning 70 next April so want to get on with things. The new track plan is simple and I will be using turntables instead of points to move about the works.
Michael
I am soldering the track together first using my third hand tool.
Michael
Looking good - very neat workmanship -nice textures and plenty of atmosphere
Barney
Please don't put it aside again. I'm a sucker for a good diorama and really want to see how yours comes together. (At least some dioramas can fall within my limited set of skills; I could never build a boat or a mill.) -- Russ
Glad to see you working on this again!
Thanks Russ, I won't put it away now, Ray me too.
This evening I soldered up most of the sections of track. the tabs will get drilled for some small brads to hold the rails to the baseboard.
Michael
Looking really nice!
Michael, I hadn't seen this diorama before. Glad to see it now and follow along as you tinker with it again, It's looking good.
Hi Michael,
very interesting diorama with many possible details. Is it also possible to operate there?
Greg and Bill thanks for the comments. Helmut I this be able to move the locos from inside the building to the yard and back via the turntables.
Michael
A bit more tinkering, I am looking at a more traditional brick factory type structure for the right end of the diorama layout. I think that the massing works better. The gap between the sandstone building at the left side and the asbestos rear building is filled with a stone wall with a door. This closes the rear massing better although the filler is stone at the moment this will change.
Once the massing is OK then I can start working on the more permanent structures.
Michael
I like how you filled up the background with structures. The brown brick protrusion with three windows doesn't seem to integrate well with the rest of the scene, maybe because the material of the big structure behind it is different in color, texture, and size and maybe because it looks like it just was stuck on. No doubt you'll mess around with everything before arriving at a final layout, though. -- Russ
Hi Russ At the moment the brown Brick structure is actually quite detailed re the bricks they are 3D. the colour will look the same as the printed three story one when it is fully detailed more like this.
Michael
Cant stop tinkering yet.
Michael
Made a start on the turntables today, general construction card, styrene, and wood (pine) cut the disks out with a sharpened compass glued the card to the styrene with rubber cement, styrene to styrene with plastruct styrene cement, and wood to styrene with CA. used the micro mill to do the recesses then a hand held pin vice with a drill in a drill guide to center the hole for the grant Line nut bolt washer.
Michael
More pictures. one of the drill guide a piece of 1/16th copper tube soldered into a brass holder. one nearly complete I ran out of nuts.
Michael
Adequate. -- Russ
Nice Turntable, Mike. Glad to see you back at work. How do you plan to support and pivot the TT?
Is there a "mechanism" underneath? Is it "hand driven?
Carlo
Good morning Carlo,
QuoteHow do you plan to support and pivot the TT?
I haven't crossed that bridge yet, The likelyhood of spending time at shows it next to zero so needing to "operate" the layout to any significant degree is really minimal. one of the things that do need to be addressed is the issue of power to the turntable, I am thinking that a wiper type transfer would be sufficient something that would be minimal thickness. unless I go to radio control then of course power is not a concern. I am going to keep the turntable mechanism as simple as possible so it might end up being hand turned with a pole type device inserted into a casting that would be flush with the surface with a sliding tab to lock it in position. Any thoughts?
Michael
On mine I used the "wiper"
Just a brass tab under the rail that touched the TT rails when in position.
Polarity was always right and no power unless correctly lined up.
Initially I used Lego gear-set to turn, now its manual.
Marty