A5 sized Z Shorty microlayout

[MichiK]

Work on the station building has begun. First of all, I didn't like the original graphics of the platform and the building's base. Therefore I made some completely new ones, utilizing some scalescenes textures.

 

 

 

Next the windows: There are several ways to do them - etched or laser cut gratings would be one possibility. What I did is this: First I glued a (messed up) print of the walls to some thicker card, marked the positions of the glazing bars, and glued a strip of adhesive tape (glossy one!) over the printout. Then I cut out the border at every position of a glazing bar.

 

For the bars, I used cotton sewing thread, which I tied to the template.

 

 

For the glazing I used diluted PVA glue - three layers in this case.

 

 

After the glue has thoroughly dried, I removed the windows from the template and cut them to size.

 

[MichiK]

The finished windows were then glued into the outer wall (again on adhesive tape, so that the part can be removed again from the cutting mat).

 

 

 

There's a minor glitch in the design of the station building, the inerior and exterior don't line up correctly (this, however is only of any matter if you cut out the windows)...

 

 

...but this is easily fixed if you move the dividing wall between the waiting room and the office a bit.

 

 

Benches and doors were prepared...

 

 

...and glued in place - station half finished! Tomorrow I shall continue...

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by MichiK

[cteno4]

Excellent work michi!

 

jeff

[MichiK]

Thanks, Jeff!

 

Un(?)fortunately, the weather forecast for today was quite wrong (or the predicted weather was 12 hours late, respectively), and the conditions outside were good enough for a few coats of primer. Thus I completely neglected this layout and rather tinkered with my series 103 shorty kit. I will report soon!

[cteno4]

Yeah I know the feeling, and when cooler and wet it takes even longer to dry and fume out!

 

ive wanted to do the thread trick for railings, seen it done a lot on ship models. Perfect for the wood slatted window frames! Have to steal that!

 

the 103 really looks fun.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[MichiK]

Thank god, the weather has turned murky again... 😉

[JR 500系]

Wow that is some intensive and wonderful modelling skills you have! Love that grill window effect! Thanks for sharing!

 

It would be interesting to see the station complete! Truly a customised one of its kind station!

[MichiK]

I'm working hard on completion, can't take too long anymore!

[MichiK]

A bit more interior for the station. First, the station master. He's a bit on the flat side, but that's ok because he'll be barely visible (if all), anyway.

 

 

 

Ginger, the magnificent Maine Coon, on the other hand, will be much more prominent (though not exactly obvious) and, therefore, deserves more attention. The base is a laser cut flat from the 1/250 scale Merchant Navy Crewmen and Harbour Workers set by Polish manufacturer JSC. It's cut from 0.4mm card, which gives already a bit of volume. Additionally, I stuck a snout in the cat's face and shaped the body with PVA. Finally, a bit of paint,...

 

 

...and now both are engaged in deep conversation:

 

 

[JR 500系]

That pretty impressive stuff! Gotta love the details, and that cute little cat!

[cteno4]

Excellent! Great way to fatten the cat up! Better than having to cut out a dozen z scale mice!

 

jeff

[MichiK]

The next update - this is what I've done the last week:

 

First the station building, which was still missing its stairway. It's constructed of pieces of the 0.8 mm card (well, actually it's 0.9 mm because six steps are enough for the ~5.4 mm up to floor level), coverd with Scalescenes concrete texture. The sides are separate parts.

 

 

 

 

Then the level crossings. Those are made of the same 0.8mm card, just as the streets. The wooden planks are strips of paper painted dark brown and weathered with thinned whit and anthrazite.

 

 

 

[MichiK]

As a little side dish, I've glued some strips of card onto the little field, later covered with tissue...

 

 

 

Back to the level crossings: The planks between the rails were built as described above, with guard rails made from 0.5mm card (cereal boxes and the like)

 

 

 

 

More 0.5mm card was added where the taxi garage and the warehouse will be placed, and the whole base was painted (and the station has received all of its rooves, obviously):

 

 

[MichiK]

Next comes the taxi garage. This, too, has a little design flaw - again some windows don't line up on outer and inner walls:

 

 

Of course, this issue is easily resolved by separating and rearanging the walls.

 

 

 

I've added a little office cubicle and a tool trolley to the interior. The little superfluous window on the one inner wall was covered with a switching cabinet.

 

 

 

The garage is finished (for the moment), too, but I have to make pictures, yet.

[MichiK]

FINISHED !!!

 

Nope, no chance for that. But with this layout I was taking part in a group build, which ended yesterday. So I hurredly knocked up something, which - to the untrained eye - might look like a finished layout: All the main buildings are present, the ground is covered, the streets painted, and - most important of all - a train is running.

 

 

And indeed: Yesterday at a quarter past elen pee-em I've uploaded the pictures of my "finished" work - mission accomplished!

The next deadline, however, is close at hand. Agomura is supposed to be displayed at the model railway show in our local tramway museum in a week. Until then, I must construct a transport and storage box for the layout, and I hope to add some details (station sign, warning crosses, more and better greenery...). And after that I will hopefully continue with the construction report...

 

Till then: A bit of cat content (because there's no content like cat content!)

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Catzilla coming to destroy everything ...

 

[Sheffie]

The cat really helps provide a sense of scale. Great work!

[MichiK]

Thanks, Sheffie!

 

5 hours ago, Martijn Meerts said:

Catzilla coming to destroy everything ...

 

 

Yes, that's what one might think, but actually he's quite well behaved in the vicinity of models. He just sniffed a bit at the layout and then left the desk again - of course, he had to walk across the layout doing so, but he didn't touch it once, not even with his tail!

 

Years ago, I was able to put him and my son in front of a (now defunc) layout, and then mind my own buisiness for an hour without fear that one of the two rascals would start any foolery.

[cteno4]

Michi,

 

Excellent,Mathis really came out beautifully! You should send it over th JAM, shipping box would be heavier than the layout! 

 

You could build little power supply into the base with some batteries!

 

really wonderful job, kudos and many thanks for documenting it so well here, thats really great!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[defor]

Wow this is really neat- I didn't even know that there was a "Shorty" Z scale format!

 

[Beaver]

Very nice work. The colours and proportions are just right, and thats difficult to achieve on a micro layout.

 

Must get on and finish my Z Shorty kit layout. It will not be nearly as detailed as this though.

[MichiK]

(First of all: A big thank you for all your comments! I'm still trying to catch up with half a dozend totylly unrelated other things. So it's still going to take some time until I will continue my construction report.

 

Secondly: Here's a wee, little video snippet of the layout, which was taken during the setup for last weekend's local model railway show. The KiHa hasn't yet warmed up properly, so we had to run it at a fairly high speed. During the exhibition, however, it had a much more appropriate pace!)

[MichiK]

...Time to catch up a bit:

The next building was the warehouse - once again there is a mismatch between the outer and the inner walls.

 

 

Not a big issue, I just painted over the windows on the inner wall.

 

However, the warehouse is much to tall to be placed on the layout edge, and I don't like the double-gabled roof, anyway. Therefore, I built it with a shed roof. You can see the score line in this picture:

 

 

 

Lots of boxes in the warehouse, as one would expect. I've added a wooden blue one for some variety...

 

[MichiK]

The two residential buildings and their surrounding gardens required some thorough dry fitting. The paving is sidewalk material from Paperstructure. When the exact size and position had been decided and marked, the paving was cut to its final size and glued on.

 

 

 

Then the garden walls (once again from Paperstructure) were attached.

 

 

[MichiK]

The next building is the green grocer. You have to be a bit careful with that one to attach the roof correctly: The front side of the roof is shorter and ends flush with the front wall. If you put it on the wrong way round you won't be able to attach the shop sign anymore!

 

As with all of those buildings I've cut off the bottom from the outer walls. The floor of the interior is enough!

 

 

Here I've used the bottom part as the ceiling of the shop. The green grocer does not necessarily need a ceiling. The rice shop and the noodle house, however, do - otherwise you could see through the windows on the first floor into the rooms below!

 

 

 

Theonly  particularily interesting thing to tell about the rice shop: I've cut the window bars of the front doors from paper, soaked them with super glue, ...

 

 

...and stuck them behind the doors. That was a bit easier than cutting out three separate holes from each door!

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by MichiK