Designing a shadowbox diorama

[Barney]

HUMBROL RULES

[Hauk]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
Especially Barney, you steel looks better than mine!

For my steel surfaces I first airbrushed them XF-56 Metallic Grey Matt that was rubbed with a 5B pencil. Final polish by thumb.
I am not entirely happy with the results, some areas look good, but the effect also varies a lot with the angle of the light. The surface often look too coarse as well. It looks fine on the belt wheels at the back of the lathe, but for other surfaces it looks quite unrealistic. It is a problem with many airbrushed metallic paints.  I will certainly try certainly try Barneys technique.

Anyone tried Alclad Steel or AK Interactives Xtreme Metal steel, by the way? I have used Alclad for copper finishes, and it is really good for that. Unsure about how alclad is for the more muted look of bare, cast steel.

[Barney]

I am no expert model painter - I got this tip for metal surface from a top of the range model painter Loco
many years ago

As he said keep it simple and you can't go wrong - and remember the more coats of Sealers / undercoats and additives the greater the loss of detail will be . The motor rail bike Im doing at the moment Has a lot of Aluminium some polished so if its a metal like Aluminium  I use a lighter shade  of undercoat grey and then dry brush the metal coat- the dryer the better -  Main thing is IT WORKS
Barney   

[finescalerr]

This is a very good tutorial on replicating a metal finish. Thanks, guys. -- Russ

[Bernhard]

Very interesting and helpful. Thanks, Hauk and Barney.

Bernhard

[Hauk]

I´ve been playing with my lathe last night, and here is the result:





It really feels like childs play when I make cosmetic details on the lathe. No need to worry about the 1/100th mm, if it looks OK, its OK.

And using my small hobby lathe to make a model axle that was made on the lathe I´m modelling makes the playing analogy almost perfect.

But enough with the quasiphilosophical musings. What we are looking at are wheelsets that are supposed to look like freshly reprofiled wheels coming straight from the wheel lathe. I have no really good reference pictures of such wheelsets, so I have strived for a look that seems plausible. The wheelsets would probably have been washed quite thoroughly before machining.  As the wheelsets are from an engine that had been in service for almost 3 decades at the time of this revision, I assume that all original paint on the wheels would have worn off. So the steel and iron would have been a rust color of some sort.

I primed the wheels with Tamiya XF-1 straight black, then used a combo of Tamiya XF-64 (I think!) and a grey mix left over from the lathe. Finished it of with some pigments, dark rust, dark dirt and very lightly soot black.

The freshly machined surfaces would be shiny steel, and for this finish I was home free. You really can do no better than the real thing!

The idea with the axle is that it is a replacement axle for one of the wheelsets for the engine. Probably not one of the wheelsets in the picture, as I would think that the axle would be replaced before the final machining. But perhaps they discovered a crack in the axle before installing the wheelset back in the truck?

The finished axle is just left as it is, but mayby it should be given a wash of fresh oil? Would it be likely that they wiped it down with some oil as rust protection after machining? I do not know these things. Maybe a worksop in the late thirties would use stainless steel for a part like this? If not, perhaps it would be painted? Feel free to join the speculation!

[Krusty]

It's about 45 years since I last saw wheels and axles being turned in a railway workshop (and about 15 years since I last saw an underfloor lathe working), but my recollection is that wheels and axles arrived more or less rolled to size and only the working surfaces were turned. So, on old wheels with separate tyres, the whole of the tyres would be turned, while the centres would be best grot. Axles would be coated with mill scale with just the journals and wheel seats turned.

Mind you, I mostly saw wagon wheels. Loco wheels might have been different – and it's been even longer since I saw them being worked on

[Lawrence@NZFinescale]

I don't have Krusty's experience in these things, but I have spent time in a lathe shop.

My first thought is that it's unlikely things would be turned unless necessary. In the case of wheels/tyres/axles that is presumably for reasons of fit, roundness, profile, or balance.

The attached loco axle isn't especially relevant, but the note on the drawing is clear that this axle is machined all over. Whether you could distinguish rough machining from the toleranced areas in a model I'm not sure - perhaps by painting or a different gloss level, or polishing the relevant bits.

The tyre drawing suggests that for new tyres most (but not all) of the surfaces would be turned when new, but presumably only the running surfaces when reprofiled. So your sets look great to me.

[finescalerr]

In the 1980s I went to the MKT shops in Parsons, Kansas and saw diesel locomotive wheels they had freshly resurfaced. The contrast between raw steel and weathered, filthy metal was striking, just as on your drivers. The MKT wheels were very dark brown, almost black. You could dust your wheels with pastel chalks to create a virtually identical appearance.

Nice job with the lathe, too.

Russ

[Hauk]

Thanks a lot for the feedback, folks!
Regarding the axles, i missed the fact that there shold also be two bearing surfaces on the inside of the wheels. The traction motors have bearings that the axles turns in. I should have realised it before it was pointed out to me by a mechanic that worked on the full size museum engines. You can clearly see the the bearings in this image:



I even included the greasing channels on my model, so I should have thought about this!

Even now I hesitate to polish up the bearing surfaces as I fear that they will look a bit odd for a person not very familiar with the design of the traction motors. Sometimes it might be better that it looks right, rather than authentic. A bit uncertain about this one, I can feel. Maybe authentic is better after all.

[Barney]

Its looking great leave it alone
Barney

[lab-dad]

Beautiful work?
Does anyone make traction motors for models?
Like G, F or 1/16
Just asking for a friend. 🤪
MJinTN

[SandiaPaul]

Marty do you mean working ones? If so I do think someone(s) does, I remember reading about it and thinking wow that's neat!

[Bernhard]

To ease my conscience, in borderline cases like this I ask myself how many people will later point to this exact spot on the finished model and criticise it.

Bernhard

[Hauk]

Working traction motors is not unheard of, just think about the Magic Carpet drives made by NWSL.

I have also seen some really nice British 0-scale models with working traction motors featured in Model Railway Journal.

I have been toying with the idea myself. One of my projects is a model of the directors coach on the Thamshavn Railroad. This is a coach that just has to be modelled with a full interior!



So I bought a couple of Faulhaber 1512 gearmotors for a motor bogie. They are just small enough to fit between the wheeels on a Om model.