In the following 2 photos you can see how I am making room for a small gangers’ shed.

You can also see in the above and below photos that I am experimenting with alternative scenic material for soil. This is bought about by the decision to model the Otways area of Victoria where the soil is very much more brown than what I was first contemplating. This will mean a reworking of the other station module’s scenery.

In real-time reality I am a bit further on scenically than these photos depict and hopefully I will update you with more photos in a week or two.

]]> http://ttrakandrew.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/bringing-it-all-together-almost-finishing-one-shunting-module/ Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:04:16 +0000 ttrakandrew http://ttrakandrew.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/bringing-it-all-together-almost-finishing-one-shunting-module/ After waxing lyrical on various subjects over the past few posts I thought it was time to show how I am bringing them together with the shunting modules. I am experimenting with.

This is a reworked GreenMax factory kit. The real Armstrong Engineering was owned and operated by my father-in-law and was a smaller and non-rail served premises, but when the building came into place on the module it felt very right to name it so.

Overall view of the join between the `Armstrong Engineering’ module and the “Saddlers’ Interstate Forwarding” module.

Overall view from one end of “Saddlers’ Interstate Forwarding” Module. Saddlers’ Interstate Forwarding is a name variation on Sadleirs Logistics that use rail and road for freight movement from Sydney and Melbourne to Perth. This is a very much shrunk down version from a POLA kit I had on hand. I still have a few `fiddly bits’ to finish off on this module.

Close up of the platform at Saddlers Interstate Forwarding.

Some ground work and electrostatic grass and the new bufferstop is looking very much at home.

Roast for dinner???? Not with these little black ducks!!!

One of the standard designs of the old Australian state government run Victorian Railways can be found at Mark Bau’s Victorian Railway web site:

http://www.victorianrailways.net/infastuct/infastructhome.html

hiding amongst the `F Series’ plans as F 243b.

Using Google Sketch Up I have made a drawing of the basic dimensions for a 1:160 scale model. Click to open the following file.

VR Buffer stop draft 4

This design fits BETWEEN the rails and BETWEEN the final sleepers at the end of the track. Hence the 10mm extreme width of the pair of posts for VR broad gauge. For 9mm gauge I bring the posts closer together and reduce the width of the cross bar by 1mm. The height dimension is from the TOP of the SLEEPERS.

My first construction effort is shown below. The upright posts were cut from bamboo `kebab’ skewers that are about 3mm in diameter. The cross bar is from 1mm and 2mm thick balsa wood sheet I had in the offcuts box. The Kato Unitrack had already had a thin  layer of Woodland Scenics ballast stuck down and so the  drill was deflected slightly on one side and didn’t go as close to the rail as I needed it to, but it still came out O.K. for a first effort.

This the view from the other side.  I need to add another coat of white paint:

The following photo shows a `jig’ that I made out of a 15mm long piece of Evergreen Styrene 6.5mm(1/4 inch) square tube plus some 1mm (0.040″) thick styrene add-ons. This makes placing and assembling the bufferstop very much easier and faster. In this photo the jig is reversed in relation to the bufferstop so that you can see the `ledge’ I created to position the height of the cross beam.

The view below shows the bottom of the jig with a 9mm long piece of styrene centrally located on it to fit between the rails and hold the jig in place on the track. As you can see in the view above.

The next photo is an end view of the jig. The top of the posts scales out to 9.5mm above the top of the SLEEPERS. The code 80 rail is 2mm high, which means that the top of the posts is 7.5mm above the top of the rails. Adding a piece of 1mm (0.040″) thick styrene on top of the Evergreen 6.5mm square tube gives us that desired height above the rails. The bottom surface of the cross bar has to be 3.5mm above the top of the rail, and I added a 3.5mm wide strip of 1mm styrene on the bottom half of one side of the jig to give this height.

When in use the `smooth’  side of the jig is placed against the posts to align the top of the posts to the correct height for gluing into place before the crossbars are fitted.  When the glue has set the jig is reversed and the crossbar is fitted and aligned between the jig and the posts. The glue for the crossbar-post joint has to be sparingly applied at the back of the crossbar to avoid sticking the jig to the bufferstop. The cross bar height lines up with the MicroTrains knuckle coupler height.

When the glue has set the two small blocks at the end of the crossbar can be applied.

]]> http://ttrakandrew.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/australian-buildings-modelling-the-colourbond-colours/ Sun, 22 Jul 2012 07:27:50 +0000 ttrakandrew http://ttrakandrew.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/australian-buildings-modelling-the-colourbond-colours/ Modelling Australian buildings can at time lead us into interesting internet adventures. I  was in the process of kit-bashing and painting a POLA N scale kit into a free lance transfer shed for a freight forwarding company. To enhance the Australian atmosphere I thought I would paint the roofing and metal areas in a Colorbond green shade. The Colorbond coated metal sheeting is the modern replacement for CGI (corrugated galvanized iron – beloved of Australian industrial builders since who knows when – http://www.colorbond.com ). Tamiya bottled acrylic paints are available at our local toy shop and so I searched the internet for suggestions of what Tamiya colours would be close matches. Via a Star Wars fan site (how to build your own Boba Fett bounty-hunter costume – http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f20/phantom-esb-fett-42769/) I was informed that Tamiya Field Grey was a good contender. My own explorations of the Tamiya racks at the toy shop resulted in XF-65 Field Grey and XF-71 Cockpit Green (IJN).

The following photo shows the results:

Tamiya Colorbond colour matching.

The XF-71 nearly disappeared into the Rivergum background and this became my choice for the building. From my reading and experience, the smaller the scale, the greater should be the tendency towards choosing lighter shades over darker, especially if a lot of detail is involved. The XF-65 would be contender for a larger, plainer building, especially if it was based on a prototype that had the darker Colorbond green.

On this website/forum/blog:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/3263

Tamiya Sky XF-21 was used over a base coat of  Tamiya neutral grey XF-53 to give a reasonable result. Being U.S.A. the stock prototype colour colour may be a bit different to our Australian range.

If you have anything to add, please leave a comment!

If you’ve finished, can we go for a walk????

One of the activities I’ve been involved in this last weekend was setting up a `proof of concept’ electrostatic grass applicator. There are a lot of sites and YOUTUBEs that show how to make these beasties and so all I will do is roughly outline my own particular circumstances, approach, and suggestions for improvements.

First off, a better explanation than mine:

http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=31460

Firstly the electronic flyswatter:

I purchased mine from the local Lyal Eales store:

http://www.lyalealesstores.com.au/

but you can find them at lots of discount stores. Mine cost $10.00, actually $20.00, because my wife `secured’ the first one I bought after we found out how good it was at zapping the large ‘blow’ flies we get around here.

When you unscrew the body of the swatter you find the following:

With the battery holder, only place the batteries into it when everything else is done, the experience of a `short’  is quite memorable!!

I have done my temporary wiring with sheathed alligator clips. I chose the red covered wire as the active wire to connect to the shaker. The white covered wire  is the `earth’. In the Railroad Line Forum web page the flyswatter has uninsulated wire.

In most builds of the applicator a strainer is used, either all metal, as in the web page referred to, or a metal mesh in a plastic frame. I tried the all metal version and didn’t feel comfortable with the WHOLE OF THE FIXTURE IS CAPABLE OF ZAPPING anything it touched. I couldn’t find a metal mesh strainer with plastic frame, but in my search of the local “IGA”  supermarket I found the small flour sifter shown below:

While it has a metal mesh, the rest of the structure is safely plastic. Confusing I know, but the white covered wire you see here is connected to the RED covered wire on the swatter.

At present I am using the flour sifter by itself without any physical connection to the swatter except the single wire. Not a lot of control in some ways, and a bit of a pain to refill/change colours, but a lot safer than the all metal strainer which is the present alternative.

The EARTH side of the circuit is connected to the scenery base via a nail or screw. The base is doused with a 50-50 mix of water and PVA glue.

Being deficient of a third hand/arm I could not take a photo of actually applying the static grass. Essentially, place some static grass in the flour sifter/strainer. Push down and hold down the micro-switch. Move the sifter/strainer to only a couple of centimetres ( just under an inch) above the  glue area and gently shake it. The static grass should fall out and land in the glue standing upwards. The extra stuff can be vacuumed up, or shaken off if you’re using a small module, after the glue has dried.

SOME IMPORTANT WORDS OF CAUTION: AFTER SWITCHING OFF THE APPLICATOR YOU MAY FIND THAT THE METAL MESH STILL HAS A STATIC CHARGE, YOU WILL NEED TO GROUND IT BY TOUCHING THE MESH TO THE EARTH ALLIGATOR CLIP.

The results in terms of with/without comparisons:

My static grass was bought via E-Bay in the form of a ’4 seasons’ pack from a war games scenery supplier in the U.K.  It was a cheap way to get a variety of colours. The lengths of the fibers vary from just over 2mm to 4mm, which is perhaps a bit long for N scale green grass (it scales at one to two foot (30cm to 60cm))

Never the less, the following two photo’s of two made in China N scale figures, complete with a young girl carrying a teddy bear (just back from the fun fair?) suggests it could pass for `rough’ untended grass on the side of a road.

The hobby budget for March will allow some  purchases from the Modeller’s Warehouse:

http://www.modellers-warehouse.com.au/Wild%20places/Static%20grasses%20page/scalemodelgrassf.html

where 2mm length fibers are available and a good selection of colours. I will have to peruse my photo’s of the Timboon branch to find out the better colours to choose.

Planned improvements/changes:

• Obtaining a plastic framed strainer.
• Conferring with my brother the electronics expert on how best to replace the existing on/off micro switch with a single-pole-double-throw micro switch and resistor combination. This would allow the  the stored static charge in the metal mesh to return to `earth’ in a controlled manner when the micro switch is released.

Overall I have found the static grass experience to be nothing short of OH WOW! As I look back on the hobby I remember when modellers were content/endured with dyed sawdust, then came Woodlands Scenics and ground foam. It is now most likely about to become the age of static grass. What next? Nanobots programmed to assemble individual blades of grass and leaves?

The following photo’s show how I was able to move the mountain from the old style module to the T-TRAK corner module I have built. The actual hill was formed of expanded polystyrene pieces covered with strips of paper stuck down with diluted PVA glue. This was then covered with a thin layer of cheap acrylic gap-filler, followed by the normal scenic treatments. To protect the outer side of the hill, and also provide a smooth surface to it, I had built up a wall of 3mm MDF along the two outer sides.

I was 99% sure there were no nails holding the polystyrene blocks together or fixing the hill down to the baseboard. Teeth were gritted as I sawed away. My confidence was justified, and the expense of a new saw avoided.

After gluing down the hill formation I used acrylic gap filler to match it into the module base.

To build up some ground height on the inside of the track curve I  fixed down some roughly cut layers of corrugated cardboard.

When the glue had dried I spread out some acrylic gap sealer and revisited finger painting at kindergarten to spread out the gap filler and make a smooth surface. I dipped my fingers in water a few times on the way through and finished off with a wide brush, again dipping into water a few times along the way.

The next few stages were rushed together, not the best move I discovered! Later in the day that I applied gap filler over the cardboard layers I covered it with a coat of brown paint for the basic soil colour. This sealed off the gap filler too early and slowed down the drying time considerably (the result was found out a few days later). A day or so later I fixed down a layer of earth over the new area, liberally applying diluted PVA glue to hold it in place and then topping it off with some coats of Woodlands Scenics ground foam for grass. This looked really good until two days later when I discovered ….

…. that the  acrylic gap filler was still drying (curing?) and has shrunk a little under all the soil and grass cover, resulting in cracks and creases in the scenery. A less to learn: Acrylic gap filler used for ground formations dries out fairly quickly for small amounts, but larger areas need to be left maybe a week or so before putting paints and the other scenic materials on.

Fix it up action consisted of giving a few more days for drying/curing and then lightly coating it with diluted PVA glue sprayed out in a mist via an empty hair care products pump pack. It is important to let the spray gently `mist’ down onto the surface and be soaked up. Ground foam was then sprinkled on via a small sieve and fixed in place with more diluted PVA misting. The results are as follows:

The result is quite acceptable to me and hopefully gives the impression of good `dairying country’. Once I sort out the fencing and some trees  I have a herd of N scale plastic Friesian cows ready to place and help fix the theme of a rural branch line in the southwest of Victoria.