A snapshot in time. A glimpse of the Plettenberger Kleinbahn in 1/22.5 scale.

[Hydrostat]

There is no longer any doubt: You have completely lost your mind.
But there sure ain't nothin' wrong with your modeling. It is overwhelmingly acceptable.
Russ

Russ, I wasn't aware there was something in danger to be lost. Gone is gone. I'm fine.

Hi Volker.
Your application has been accepted.
You can start on Monday.

Kim, see note above.

Volker,
You may have lost your mind, but you definitely have found your touch stocking the store!!!!

Bill, thank you. I do remember well your astonishing efforts and results with your HO scale store, which has been a strong impetus for me to tackle the Lohmann building interior.

Wow, wow and more wow. 

Stuart, thank you for the kind words from an authoritative source!

I defiantly have seen a workbench look like that many times - The bits and pieces for the shops Is a Bit of a mind blower feature
How are your eye balls doing after all these miniature masterpieces
Barney

Barney, I thought so - I would remember a picture of your workbench you had shown a long time ago, if I wasn't lacking brain as stated before. My eyeballs are fine, thank you.

This is absolutely fantastic!!
The Zeiss heads had me flip over to YouTube to watch Kraftwerk - The Robots

Hahaha - didn't come to my mind (it was 50 years later), but I still remember those iconic Zeiss heads from shop windows in my childhood, mostly in different stages of detoriation.

Looks just like the junk stores I'm dragged through by my lovely wife..
Mj

That's a good one ... your lovely wife seems to have an elaborated sense of taste.

Fantastic work. A great example of what can happen when great technology meets great talent.
But to spoil the good mood: What do we really know about the longevity of resin 3D prints? This is the kind of work that belongs in a museum to be enjoyed by generations of miniature enthusiasts (I have no doubt that the fascination for miniatures will remain). It will be a pity if the resin prints start to disintegrate within a couple of decades. 

Hauk, thank you. Wow. Your question implicates, that there is the wish to create something lasting, maybe standing the rest of time. I suppose that most modelers, even any people creating something, are orbiting this thought sooner or later. For sure I'm treating the models I do as very valuable things that have to be sheltered from harmful influences, be it climate or spectators. I always try to do the best in every facet of approach, in the choice of prototype, the choice of material and technique to reproduce it and in the way I do items again and again until they fit my imagination, but I'm aware that I always do have to accept my limitations of money, time and space, and I can't ignore their huge impact on my modeling. There's no assignment behind this, no one asked me to do this nor expressed the wish to possess it. I even don't know, if this is of any interest for anybody aside of a few folks lurking around here and there. When i chose the title 'a snapshot in time' I was thrilled by the idea of rebuilding something to an unseen and outrageous fashion, defocussing from a special topic to a cutout with equal importance of every thing within it. Only to understand, that the implicated thought of capturing a special 'state' is impossible to reach, neither by detail nor time. There even is no 'state' one could chose. That's an illusion. I now do understand that it rather depicts the years that have gone into it. Did you ever think about what happens to your artworks after you died? A snapshot in time or a snapshot of time. It is, what it is. I'm lucky if one day I can take a few good and meaningful pictures of it. At the moment I rather assume that the models will go, when I go and I'm fine with it. But we'll see, what future brings.

A little reading suggests that the lifespan of prints may be nowhere near as long as we might hope or assume.

On the other hand I've been doing this for over 10 years and have yet to experience a problem.

Resin type, curing, clean up etc can impact longevity apparently.  If you want things to last a long time then that should be a factor in resin selection.

Environmentally, the things that tend to impact prints are heat cycles, uv, moisture cycles, oxygen and similar.  All of these will be minimised by a bit of care and a good paint job. It's certainly something to consider.

I have no doubt that passive, non-functional parts will survive better than parts subjected to stress.

My gut feeling is that 3D printing is probably a good technique for typical modelling uses, but not of 'archival' quality if one needs things to really last.  On the other hand, media like styrene are not everlasting either.

Lawrence, thank you, I'm quite sure that you have some knowledge and experience about and with those things. In the end, 'lasting' is a relative term and it's hard (I tend to say impossible) to keep an object unaffected by time and circumstances. As I insinuated before: I'd always prefer high quality materials instead of 3D prints from questionable materials. If not ...

Fantastic work. A great example of what can happen when great technology meets great talent.

But to spoil the good mood: What do we really know about the longevity of resin 3D prints? This is the kind of work that belongs in a museum to be enjoyed by generations of miniature enthusiasts (I have no doubt that the fascination for miniatures will remain). It will be a pity if the resin prints start to disintegrate within a couple of decades. 

In the museum community there is a great deal of work on this front as printed parts are used in natural history collections to replace lost bones, artists are using printed parts etc etc.

Searching the conservation literature gave me a list of 60+ articles on 3D printed parts. All this is to say museums/art galleries are looking into it seriously. Here is one article that came out this year:

Title: Considerations in acquisition of 3D-printed art
Author/Creator: Hamilton, Emily, Oleksik, Peter.
Journal Title: Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, pp. 138-152,  v. 64, n. 2 (2025)

Abstract
3-D printing (also known as rapid prototyping or additive manufacture) is increasingly common and technically sophisticated, and is used in art and design, industry, and consumer applications. Museums and collectors are now acquiring works made using this technology, though their preservation needs are not fully understood. This article provides an overview of the technology and related terminology, review of related conservation literature, and introduction to current efforts for the care of these works. Discussion includes the formulation of collaborative working practices, documentation during acquisition, and consideration of periodic reprinting. Case studies include a pre-accession checklist developed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the reprinting of select components from Altar/Engine (2015) by Tauba Auerbach (b. 1981), which is made of 3-D-printed nylon and plastic on a table of aluminum, wood, and paint, at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. Though 3-D-printed works may be found in science, history, and other collections, this study will focus on works of contemporary art and design.

I think in art there's an additional point: sometimes artworks aren't even meant to last, but there is an (public) interest in preserving them because of their meaning for society, culture or whatever. That's an interesting conflict. Nothing beats real time experiences.

Oh well, they turned me loose. Proud to have managed this without AI. And brain.

Back to work.



Cheers,
Volker

[finescalerr]

Most of the above should be required reading for serious modelers. -- Russ