Building interiors and furniture - resource list in first post

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, Hayashi said:

I just discovered a site called Shapeways. They sell 3D printed items. There is a HUGE selection of n-scale interior pieces (pianos, office furniture, bathrooms, house furniture, kitchens, restaurant pieces, etc.). Prices are reasonable. The webpage for interiors is: www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/interior-models/?tag=n-scale.

 

They also have exterior details such as substation transformers and tech shack. I haven't dug into everything yet, but there is a lot of stuff.

 

The second post in this thread lists a bunch of interior products. If you find anything good that isn't listed, just post a link and I'll add it. 

[Hayashi]

Too many to list. There are over 1500 exterior pieces and at least 50 interior pieces.

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, Hayashi said:

Too many to list. There are over 1500 exterior pieces and at least 50 interior pieces.

 

I just mean the seller. 

[Hayashi]

Definitely link with Ngineer at https://www.shapeways.com/shops/Ngineer

 

He has LOTS of N-scale interior and exterior detail parts and some buildings. 

 

Also, TaBearSales at https://www.shapeways.com/shops/tabearsales

 

 

Edited September 20, 2018 by cteno4
Made links live

[gavino200]

Review of the Luetke n scale Office furniture set

 

https://www.luetke-modellbahn.de/track-size-N/furniture-142/Office-furniture.html

 

I'm giving this product a mixed review. Probably 3.5 stars out of 5. 

 

First of all it's 38.95 euros plus 6.60 postage to the US. ($50.42). That's not too much if you consider the quantity of items and compare them to prices of 3D printed items on Shapeways. But it's a decent amount of money and for this amount I'd generally expect a somewhat finished product which this is not.

 

The Leutke furniture is made of dyed polystyrene sheets "Precision" milled by CNC. They come 'on the sprue' which is fine. I'd expect that. But literally every single corner or right angle has traces of singed or somehow still attached styrene. It all has to be carefully removed. For this set that amounted to hours of work with magnification and an xacto knife. 

 

 

The office desk is probably the best looking piece. It would look great even up close. This piece is first rate. 

 

I also like the armchairs, sofas, and simple chairs. However they're fairly rough. Single radius curves and right angles only. Lot's of sharp angles. So they don't really look good at very close range. For background pieces they'd work well. They fit the cheap Chinese n scale human figures perfectly, and are nice to spice up an interior space that doesn't get much intense scrutiny.

 

The large table is huge and will crowd small spaces. But it can be divided in two to make one desk and a more convenient sided table out of each one. 

 

The sideboard and wardrobe are terrible. They don't really look much better than a similar sized piece of cut styrene. Leutke is kind enough to give you a ton of these pieces.  The sideboards might be useful as store counters, or reception desks. The 'wardrobes' could maybe be wall cabinets or giant filing cabinets, but aren't good at all. 

 

Here's what you get. 

 

95 chairs, 32 normal desks, 18 giant desks, 12 sofas or loveseats, 24 armchairs, 36 'sideboards',  and 40 wardrobes.

 

 

 

So, would I buy these again? Well, I did a lot of thinking about that during the long time I spent finishing these pieces. You probably have to figure into the cost, the value of a few hours of your own labor, to do the finishing and quality control work that Leutke didn't bother to do. Also, you could get away without painting if you're not planning on placing the pieces predominantly. Otherwise, you definitely need to paint them, especially the black styrene pieces, as the finishing process leaves a lot of very obvious white spots. I'm glad I have these pieces. They'll buy me some time and get me through a bunch of building constructions. But before I'd buy the kit again, I'm going to think hardto about learning how to design similar pieces myself and either have them printed by a service or consider getting a 3D printer myself. 

Edited December 2, 2018 by gavino200

[cteno4]

Thanks Gavin, nice review!

 

yep look to need some refining and nothing that could not be chopped out of stryene and cardstock. Chairs would be the most tedious but the bent wire chairs can get churned out in a minute or two and have any colored seat and back from colored cardstock w.o painting and a slimmer look. I’ll have to find the rolling office chair I did with just a 30g flat head jewelry head pin and 2 pieces of cardstock for the seat and back. Just have the head pin on the floor for the chair base then zig and zag the vertical for the seat to rest on and the last vertical bit to hold the back. The appolstered chairs are just Chanel stock (or square tube stock with one side removed) and a small bit filled in with square stock. 1mm Fun foam also worked well to make stuffed chairs and couches, I think I did those tests in like less than 5 minutes.

 

3d printing at this size with a home extrusion printer I doubt will give great results though and may need more cleanup than this. Nice stuff on shapeways is high resolution fusion printers now.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, cteno4 said:

Thanks Gavin, nice review!

 

yep look to need some refining and nothing that could not be chopped out of stryene and cardstock. Chairs would be the most tedious but the bent wire chairs can get churned out in a minute or two and have any colored seat and back from colored cardstock w.o painting and a slimmer look. I’ll have to find the rolling office chair I did with just a 30g flat head jewelry head pin and 2 pieces of cardstock for the seat and back. Just have the head pin on the floor for the chair base then zig and zag the vertical for the seat to rest on and the last vertical bit to hold the back. The appolstered chairs are just Chanel stock (or square tube stock with one side removed) and a small bit filled in with square stock. 1mm Fun foam also worked well to make stuffed chairs and couches, I think I did those tests in like less than 5 minutes.

 

3d printing at this size with a home extrusion printer I doubt will give great results though and may need more cleanup than this. Nice stuff on shapeways is high resolution fusion printers now.

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Don't worry about the bent wire chairs. I have a link to it earlier in this thread. Also, I bought some wire and card stock to work on it. Just haven't got round to it yet. I'll post my results when I do attempt it though.

 

[gavino200]

Review of Sankai Miniatureart kit Table and Chairs

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10205388

 

Great product. I give it 4.5 out of 5. It lost half a point because they're a bit delicate. I'd say they're for structure interior only. Put these anywhere else on the layout and Murphy's lay says they'll be squashed.

 

What I like is that these are essentially done once they're assembled. No painting necessary. And they look amazing even close up. Top quality. 

 

A word of warning. They are a bit tricky. I've made a few other Sankei kits so I knew what to expect. The pieces are made of tiny laser cut card that fit together. It seems like this would be impossible but they fit together extremely well. 

 

I recommend using magnification. These things are small. Also, I like to use E6000 glue for these models. It's robust enough when it dries, but it's flexible for long enough to get the pieces exactly where you want them before it dries.

 

https://www.amazon.com/E6000-237032-Craft-Adhesive-Clear/dp/B004BPHQWU

 

 

A few things I learned from putting the kit together.

 

The table and chair legs are very thin - less than the width of an xacto knife. The tendency is to err on the wide side to avoid damaging the leg. That's a mistake as any widening is quite obvious. It's close to impossible to correct this without damaging the leg after cutting the part loose. Instead, err towards the leg side if at all. 

 

 

The best way to assemble the chairs seems to be to lay the seat part flat and glue the front legs in place. Then after that has dried pick the seat up firmly with a flat ended forceps, glue the tab and fit it to the chairback.

 

 

I tried two ways to assemble the table. What works best is to hold one leg piece in a stationary foreceps. Then attach the second pair of legs using a second foreceps. Then once the legs are dry fix them to the table top. The exact position is conveniently marked with an x.

 

Here's the result. I'll definitely buy some more of these things. 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

I also did the ubiquitous rolling office chair that I did not photo with that other post. Even simpler...

 

i also did a 4 leg chair with just 2 simple wire U pieces and cardstock seat and back.

 

btw check out the stiff colored art papers in the scrapbook section of the craft store. They usually have assortment packs that are a nice range of colors for stuff like this. It’s got harder fibers and resin than regular cardstock.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

After finishing the three sets of Sankei Tables & Chairs I have a couple of observations. I'm adding these mainly for myself, so I won't have to relearn this the hard way if I make another one of these in future after I've forgotten it.

 

I'm not claiming this as the "best" way to do it. Just the best way I can work out. If anyone knows a better way please share.

 

Pitfalls

1. Make sure to lean heavily enough on the knife when cutting the piece out. If you don't cut deep enough it causes separation of the card layers when you remove the items from the card sprue. This separation can be repaired with glue if noticed immediately. It's harder to fix later on as it allows the chair legs to fray a bit.

 

2. The E6000 glue is good for assembling these kits. Howver, it's not quite rigid enough to give strength to these tiny joints. My solution was to coat the joints with thin CA after they have fully dried using an obliquely cut cocktail stick. I did experiment with just using CA in the first place for the whole construction, but it's too messy and unforgiving. The result is better with the two stage process. This also gives a second chance to fine tune the angles allowing for close to perfect right angles.

 

3. Use a new blob of glue for each joint. After even a minute or so the glue gets a kind of skin and is too viscous to work optimally with. Make sure tto remove the little glue "trailers" that this glue tends to form. Otherwise these little glue strings are very disruptive and can catapult these tiny parts across the table or further. It's best to use slightly more glue than the bare minimum and to lower the part into position very slowly. Getting it right in one go is a lot faster than multiple readjustments.

 

I did a better job making the second and third kit. But even considering that, I think the brown and white square table sets are better than the black round table kit. I wouldn't get the black kit again unless I really needed a round table for some reason.

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by gavino200

[cteno4]

Nice! Yeah it’s something that takes some practice. Cutting the screws of sankei kits does tax the points of X-Acto and dulls them fast, what ever their chipboard is it really is quite hard.

 

There was a trick a friend i think used on these when she used them for a 1/144 mini course she taught at a convention last year to help with folks glueing on the legs, I’ll ask her.

 

might look at Arlene’s tacky glue. It’s thick and sticky like E6000 but dries hard not flexible like E6000. There is a glue similar to E6000 that dries hard, E6000 is designed to be a bit flexible when dry. But as you say it does allow some wiggle to adjust if needed! I like the Arleen’s tacky glue for General sankei construction as it does not run and easy to control and pretty fast drying and sticky from the get go. I think it’s just thickened pva.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

Shapways  3D printed furniture from "Ngineer"

 

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/ngineer

 

I bought a bunch of this stuff one night on a buying spree. This seller has a huge selection of n scale items including a few interior items. The prices are reasonable in the $5-10 range. The pieces are all unpainted as expected.

 

The quality is quite good. The pieces are well designed and include the tiniest detail. The only problem is that there is a fair bit of ridging on many pieces from the printing process. It's absent on others, strangely enough, so maybe it's a question of poor quality control. Anyway, the ridging is only obvious at close range. But so are the details. So if you get close enough to see the details, your see the ridging. If you stay far back enough so as not to see the ridging, your can't appreciate the details. A bit of a paradox, but at small issue. They still look good regardless of ridging.

 

Some pieces are extraordinarily fragile. These are the narrow vertical rod shaped pieces. Specifically the desk legs, office chair stems, and TV stands. They break with the slightest touch, and probably should come with a special warning. I'v tried strengthening them with thin CA glue. We'll see if that works. 

 

The detail of these pieces is too fine to use them a mere "through the window" interior pieces in background structures. I'm saving them for future "split-structure" buildings that will be right on the edge of the layout. Doing justice to these pieces with painting will be a whole project in itself. I'll have to develop some skill that I currently don't have in order to do this well. 

 

Here are some pics of the pieces. They've been primed with Vallejo grey primer.

 

 https://www.shapeways.com/product/78DSY8USH/n-scale-engineers-office-furniture?optionId=63599480&li=ostatus

 

 

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/2UVVB9AWV/n-scale-office-furniture?optionId=59082824&li=ostatus

 

 

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/2XP72CVSZ/n-scale-workshop-interior-details?optionId=58683491&li=ostatus

 

 

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/8MP5762CN/n-scale-household-appliances?optionId=63720079&li=ostatus

 

 

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/TMUHB9NJR/n-scale-house-furniture-modern?optionId=60454492&li=ostatus

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/9E9M8TCEV/n-scale-house-furniture-70s-80s?optionId=63083625&li=ostatus

 

 

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/26YUAXL27/n-scale-grand-piano-closed?optionId=62708777&li=ostatus

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/ZVKB2UPNK/n-scale-shop-counter?optionId=65004087&li=ostatus

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/NC4FEUBUJ/n-scale-kitchen?optionId=62257154&li=ostatus

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by gavino200

[cteno4]

Wow Gavin you really went on a spree! Great stuff, thanks for the review.

 

yeah n scale is still at the boundary of getting nice 3D printing. If done just right it can be great but a tad off and you get ridging, rough areas, weaknesses and warping. It’s a real art to deign the object file so it prints well in a certain printer with orientation, facets, etc. it’s not just slapping in a 3D file for the tiny stuff like this.

 

so where is the piano cafe goig to be with the piano and sankei chairs and table?

 

jeff

[gavino200]

8 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Wow Gavin you really went on a spree! Great stuff, thanks for the review.

 

yeah n scale is still at the boundary of getting nice 3D printing. If done just right it can be great but a tad off and you get ridging, rough areas, weaknesses and warping. It’s a real art to deign the object file so it prints well in a certain printer with orientation, facets, etc. it’s not just slapping in a 3D file for the tiny stuff like this.

 

so where is the piano cafe goig to be with the piano and sankei chairs and table?

 

jeff

 

Yes, quite a spree. I ordered a few more sets again over the weekend. 

 

I'm not going to attempt a "split structure" until I have a lot more experience with buildings. So for the time being I'm mostly collecting. I need to do a lot of research into how to paint the fine details so they don't turn out blobby like many I see (including the example pictures on the Ngineering page). I'm hoping to do as much as possible with airbrush and masking tape. I think fine tip pens will also be an option. 

 

You mentioned before about 1:150 scale dolls houses. That's been stuck in my mind for a while. I've been meaning to research it. Do you have any sites in particular to recommend.

 

As for the piano, it'll probably go in a fancy modern "Frank Lloyd Wright" type house on the edge of the layout. As of yet I don't have one in mind. For the 70s wall unit with TV I'm tempted to mill out the TV screen and place a flickering LED behind it covered with a translucent image. But that might be pure madness.

[gavino200]

Lot's of great furniture from the world of 1:144 (micro scale) Dollhouse. I'm not sure if the scale difference would be a problem. I'm guessing no for the most part. Also, the stuff is a bit expensive. Understandably so. But for some applications they might be perfect. If nothing else they are a source of ideas and inspiration. I'll look further for websites and how-to material. 

 

Here are a few examples:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-144-Scale-Dollhouse-Wee-Little-Printed-Furniture-Kit-With-Extras/123523191026?hash=item1cc28e50f2:g:0-UAAOSwYahbjXKN:rk:8:pf:0

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-144-Scale-Oval-Table-6-Chairs-Dining-Room-Kit-Very-tiny-0001974/113387437104?hash=item1a666afc30:g:Vu8AAOSwtLtbzN6g:rk:30:pf:0

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-144-Scale-Provincial-Living-Room-Kit-Very-tiny-0002015/113387437071?hash=item1a666afc0f:g:FT0AAOSwO2hbzN2q:rk:35:pf:0

 

I wonder if this hobby exists in Japan? I'd be shocked if it didn't.

[cteno4]

Yep lots there. One thing is these are usually done as little scenes for doll houses so they are not always accurate scale and may not be quite the exact stuff you want. It’s meant to look like a doll house in a doll house, so a lot has that doll house feel. But some get uber accurate and amazing detail. My friend Fran does awesome work. Her site has quality links for 1/144 stuff. It’s wonderful as she lives very nearby and we have coffee every few months and bring goodie bags for each other of useful bits and pieces and talk for hours on ways to do things and tools (she has more micro tools than I do!)

 

https://www.somelikeitsmall.com/

 

here are past online conventions from a yahoo group that have lots of ideas and some printouts and such

 

http://siphonophore.com/microminis/

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

I nice blog post on interior detailing from Tokyo-in-nscale.

 

http://tokyo-in-nscale.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-05-10T20:54:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=126&by-date=false

[Misha_K]

Do you guys know this interior detail set from Scalescenes?

 

https://scalescenes.com/product/interior-detail/

 

It's very reasonably priced and you get a pdf so you can print it as often as you like. Includes wallpaper, tiles, floors, furniture, kitchen appliances, rugs, pictures, etc. A while back I did an interior using this stuff, as well as some Sankei chairs and tables and some scratchbuilt stuff.

 

 

[gavino200]

12 minutes ago, Misha_K said:

Do you guys know this interior detail set from Scalescenes?

 

 

This looks great Misha. Thanks for sharing! I added it to the index list in the first post of the thread.

Edited February 1, 2019 by gavino200

[cteno4]

i have the scalescene interior and they are nice internal bits.

 

somewhere there were tatami mats printies (as the doll house call the print out card stock stuff), but i cant find them now. but enough pictures of tatami mat you can use to print out and make your own.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

Just adding a link to a nice lighting post so I can find it in future. 

 

 

[kenjidm]

just out of curiosity does Tomix make some type of road planks to create a street like feel?  something similar to lego roads...

 

[JR 500系]

2 hours ago, kenjidm said:

just out of curiosity does Tomix make some type of road planks to create a street like feel?  something similar to lego roads...

 

 

Tomix don't, but Kato does:

 

https://www.katomodels.com/product/n/diotown_ekimae

 

However, Tomytec does something similar with their moving bus tracks, then can also be combined to make complex junctions and dual carriageways, with the option to joint with Tomix tram tracks to make a really nice busy street: 

 

https://www.tomytec.co.jp/diocolle/lineup/soko/soko007.html

[bill937ca]

Greenmax offers precolored roads 

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10511930

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10511927

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10511925

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10487583

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10487582

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10487581

[railsquid]

Those are pavements (sidewalks), you have to make the actual road yourself.