z gauge Hakuho

[kevsmiththai]

The control panel top, made from Acrylic sheet, has been masked off with the trackplan ready to be painted from behind. This is being made using the same techniques I've used on my previous layouts.

 

 

Underside of the layout during wiring up, still a rat's nest!

 

 

Kev

 

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by kevsmiththai

[kevsmiththai]

So with the masking tape still on the back of the control panel is sprayed all over. Once dry the masking tape is removed one piece at a time to reveal a clear section and this is then painted (From behind) with the same colour as the feed wire to that particular section. It here is ever a problem you can trace that colour from the section switch, though the various multi-plugs to the rail to find the problem. You can see a pre-wired 25 pin din plug on the left.

 

 

Switches will be DPDT toggle switches able to feed either controller to each section. This will allow trains to crossover from inner to outer tracks in the station.

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

So I've been out with the other layouts (Republic Steel and Cuyahoga)  at shows for a few weekends so not much progress has been made on the layout as the workshop was rammed with baseboards!

 

I'm out with Republic at the end of August but thought I'd press on with the control panel this weekend

 

Now fitted with the section switches and sat alongside the power pack

 

 

The power pack is used on all my exhibition layouts which means it has done a lot of shows! Built to be virtualy bomb proof with the scart plug fitted umbilical cable taking the power to the control panel.The inner track can be switched to DCC (NCE Power cab) using the keyswitch on the frontright hand corner.

 

The Excel sheet below shows how I manage the various feeds the power pack can supply. This is printed on card and kept in the electrics box in case I get a problem at a show

 

 

So in the control panel the scart socket that takes the feed from the powerpcak is on the right hand side. The 15V AC feed from controller 2 feeds the Gaugemaster electonic track cleaner ( I Still call them 'Relcos' though)

 

Controller 1 feeds the inner track, Controller 3 feeds the outer track. Youll see how I've used domestic grey cable clips to keep the panel tidy. The nail holes in these are just the right size to run an M3 Tap down to thread them so the can be screwed down.The Track cleaner is secured by two plastic clips. These are designed to hold the kick boards on Kitchen units and were spare when I refitted the kitchen a few years ago and have just the right tesnion to hold the unit. These can be slid out to access the feeds in the tag strip hidden behind.

 

So the centre, 25 pin Din, socket is all the track feeds to the layout. The 50 pin socket on the left will be all the feeds to the point motors as some stage in the future

 

All the switches are in place ready to take the feed from the Relco and then supplying the feed to the socket via the tag strip. The Relco will have by-pass switches fitted at some stage to isolate it if required.

 

 

More soon

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

In a gap between shows I managed to press on the wirng this weekend. 

 

With the layout stood vertically on the trestles (Clamped of course!) and the control panel I tested the continuity of th feed from the panel to the railhead.

 

 

wiring the DPDT toggle switches

 

 

The video makes more sense and in the second part I start to to look at using downloaded building designs (Papercraft, Brother etc) to plan the townscape

 

 

 

 

 

[kevsmiththai]

So, very little has been done to the layout for a while. It moved into the layout shed for the rest of the show season as I had all three other layouts ( Shasta, Cuyahoga and Republic Steel) out at various shows. Taking three different layouts out in a four week period was too much and I won't be doing it again. The logistics of swapping over the baseboards, stock boxes and electrics was too much.

 

This coming season is split between Republic and Hakuho with the Japanese layout making its debut at Macclesfield in March so i need to get a wriggle on! First inspection after it came out of the layout shed was that it was O.K and the flight case had done its job in protecting it. As left, the right hand scenic board had some terrain on it and the left and rear boards were just bare.

 

Potions and lotions ready for the job

 

 

So i made start on extending the scenery at the right. The hillside was continued around the back of the layouts central divider and the first few inches given some basic foliage,

 

 

I've started standing some tower blocks around to see see what will fit. The old loco shed used to live on the Dunsmuir board on Shasta, I'll come back to what I have planned for that later.

 

 

you can see how the central divider loses itself into the trees.

 

Now during another job I managed to get hit on the head by a tin of screws that fell off the top shelf, nothing serious no cuts or concussion and even though it bounced off the layout no real damage seemed to be done until I found this.

 

 

That section of track is goig to have to come out and be replaced.

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

So the left hand board is going to feature the outskirts of the town. staring with some houses and small shops. I'm going to use all Sankei buildings in this area so need to get some more ordered

 

 

The freeway has been extended with a truss girder bridge and the farm track extended underneath it

 

 

I need to make some more semaphore signals for it as I borrowed the ones I had alread done for Republic. Some of the plain areas of grassland will eventually be replaced with rice paddies similar to the ones on the front

 

Kev

 

 

[kevsmiththai]

So pressed on with the right hand board and did decide after some dithering to do a small bit of a golf course

 

 

The scatter I've used for the green is far too coarse so I'll nip down to the model shop in Barrow tomorrow to get some finer grade. The bunkers are just scoured out of the MDF with a powerfile and left in natural finish. I'm quite pleased with them. And you can see I've started to plant some Silver birch trees to break up the conifers.

 

 

The centre divider is becoming less prominent with every tree added

 

 

At the other end the concrete flyover is getting its look softened by vegitation

 

As the fog outside got really thick last night I had a night in the office doing the artwork for a load of billboards and posters. Gleaned off the internet these are shrunk down in Photoshop, montaged together and printed on Glossy card. I know they cover a wide span of eras and probably don't go together but they'll do for now. This one will get a couple of coats of acrylic sealer before I lock the workshop tonight (it stinks so is always the last job! )

 

 

Just after I printed this out I found some Sumo (including Hakuho) and Kirin beer ones on the web so I'll do them tonight.

 

My next parcel of Sankei buildings is on its way from Hobby Search. I can have a nice quiet few nights upstairs assembling them whilst sipping a glass of Singha or Hoegarden. Some times winter does have its plus points

 

Kev

Edited January 23, 2020 by kevsmiththai
spelling

[kevsmiththai]

So I mentioned I had a plan to use the old 'cab forward' shed off Shasta. Representing a building that looks on the vege of falling down it is goinfg to be a delapitated corugated iron building that has seen better days but still serves as the'Hakuho Electric railway' HQ

So in the latest delivery from Shapeways were two 'streetcars' by stonysmith designed to fit the Shorty chassis and also some nice generic commercial vehicles from Steffens Z Bahn shop. I quite like these as they are fairly generic and i have not found any accurate Japanese road vehicles in Z yet. Time for Rokuhan to get their finger out!

 

 

seen fresh out of the Ultrasonic cleaning bath.

 

So you can see what I'm thinking. This will not be connected to the main lines and all the track will be set into the road surface for street running.

 

 

Kev

 

[MichiK]

Nicely rickety - I like it!

 

The trucks work well, too.

Well, the Robur is a bit too distinctive to be Japanese - but only if you know what a Robur looks like (I do, aparently...)

 

 

Just for completeness:

Steffen's vehicles all have actual prototypes, even if the brands are not mentioned. The reefer truck, e.g., obviously is a MAN 10.224, and the buses are Daimler Benzes. Robur an Barkas are former GDR brands (I guess, there's no legal trouble to be expected from this side anymore!).

[kevsmiththai]

Not too close a shot as I haven't finished doing all the windows. How many pieces of glass does one car need?

 

[kevsmiththai]

So.

Stil waiting for my Sankei buildings but looking at the tracking they are in the U.K now. So I thought I'd do some test running over the replaced section of track and give the street cars a work out.

 

Nothing, dead!

 

No power to either the inside or outside tracks and the only sign of life was to the Relco track cleaner. I could understand if one channel went down but two? Got the multi meter out and started chasing the Volts from the power pack without much success and called it a day last night immensely frustrated.

 

It occured to me that maybe my use of the universal power pack might not be such a good idea for Hakuho. The Rokuhan locos really don't like the starting voltage of the Marklin contollers anyway and smooth starts are a bit hit and miss. As I'm not planning on having any lights on the layout or going DCC all I really need is two smooth DC controllers and one 16VAC for the relco. The twin Gaugemaster I use for the test tracks works really well with the Rokuhan's so I'm going to use that instead and I've added and additional feed into the control panel using a Bulgin 8 pin plug and socket (these are absolutely bomb proof! I used to use them in gauge 1) The Scart feed from the main power pack is still in situ if I want to plug that in I'll just piggy back the new feed into it. Because the Gaugemaster is a 12 volt output I'm going to fit a detent button on each control knob to lock the maximum at 8 Volts, 

 

The cable from the control panel to the baseboard had 25 pin D plugs at either end so there were two joints. To improve reliabilty at shows the cable at the baseboard end is going to be hard wired onto the tag strip eliminating one joint.

 

I'll keep you posted

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

Hoorah!

eight Sankei buildings turned up this afternoon so I know what I'm going to be doing over the next couple of weeks in the evenings.

 

I'd put out an enquiry on the prototypes thread about how the fish vans would weather down in traffic as the Tenshodo ones are eye wateringly bright. Got a link to some later ones and there are odd glimpses in black and white on some of the steam era JNR films on youtube. As the Japanese don't let vehicles get really filthy I needed to be fairly subtle. I ended up using Humbrol no 72 enamel, a light brown colour, in a very thin wash diluted with lighter fluid (Naptha) This picks up the roof hatch detail nicely and if you apply a bit too much can be dabbed off with some dry kitchen paper towel

 

 

One of the D51s hustles empty ones back to the seaport.

 

I've added the station nameboards and made some more lower quadrant semaphore signals ( I knicked the others to go onto Republic Steel) and have made a start on some distant signals as well. 

 

 

 

The Fish train again with the C11 waiting with the local 'All-stops' passenger service.

 

The roadside noodle shop is doing good business and is very popular withh local delivery divers.

 

 

More soon

 

Kev

[Sheffie]

I like those conifers! Where are they from?

[MichiK]

2 hours ago, kevsmiththai said:

The roadside noodle shop is doing good business and is very popular withh local delivery divers.

 

You should name it tampopo ! 😉

[kevsmiththai]

2 hours ago, Sheffie said:

I like those conifers! Where are they from?

They came from Architrees in Manilla in the Philippines. We are having the same conversation over on trainboard.com as Robert Ray and some of the other west coast guys have also been using these. I bought 500 for just over £100 when I waa building Shasta.

 

However, he has gone very quiet lately but still appears occasionally on ebay. Rumour I heard was that the village where they are made got hit really bad by a typhoon a few years back

 

He sometimes apprears under the guise of ' treedad' as well and these was a picture of him with some of the ladies in the village who make them

 

Good hunting, let us know if you find him

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

Part 4 of the Hakuho build video

 

 

Kev

 

[kevsmiththai]

So as first Storm 'Ciara' and then Storm 'Dennis' battered the U.K I hunkered down each evening slowly putting Sankei buildings together. It certainly wasn'f fit to keep going outside to the workshop as the wind blew and the rain lashed down.

 

 

There is a lot of work to do just doing all the deatils around the buildings as they get positioned onto the layout

 

Need to paint the road marking on Before I glue the buildings down!

 

In the video I spend a bit more time on assembling the Sankeis before looking at the dearth of Japanese road vehicles in Z and how I'm getting around it for now. I also do a short piece on improving the Rokuhan hopper's coal and limestone loads

 

 

Kev

[MichiK]

Cars/Trucks in Z scale is a problem, indeed.

 

What I miss most is Kei cars and trucks, followed by twin steer trucks (like the Hino TC 10). One day, I might have a go at cars in 3D myself, but but those round, flowing shapes (in particular from the 50s and 60s) are certainly not easy to model...

 

At least, there is (still) A2-model's Renault 4CV, which was license built by Hino, and, therefore, is spot on for Japan in the steam era.

[cteno4]

Kev,

 

nice job on the sankei kits. I just got some new glue blades to try that look to spread PVA glue very evenly and may be great for the sankei kits, I’ll give them a whack this weekend.

 

Brilliant use of the mill hold downs! 
 

jeff

[beakaboy]

On 1/25/2020 at 8:38 AM, kevsmiththai said:

So I mentioned I had a plan to use the old 'cab forward' shed off Shasta. Representing a building that looks on the vege of falling down it is goinfg to be a delapitated corugated iron building that has seen better days but still serves as the'Hakuho Electric railway' HQ

So in the latest delivery from Shapeways were two 'streetcars' by stonysmith designed to fit the Shorty chassis and also some nice generic commercial vehicles from Steffens Z Bahn shop. I quite like these as they are fairly generic and i have not found any accurate Japanese road vehicles in Z yet. Time for Rokuhan to get their finger out!

 

 

seen fresh out of the Ultrasonic cleaning bath.

 

So you can see what I'm thinking. This will not be connected to the main lines and all the track will be set into the road surface for street running.

 

 

Kev

 

Hi Kev, you mention using ultrasonic cleaning bath for 3D prints. can you give more info on the process, such as liquid used , time in bath,etc. thanks John

[kevsmiththai]

On 2/21/2020 at 8:45 PM, beakaboy said:

Hi Kev, you mention using ultrasonic cleaning bath for 3D prints. can you give more info on the process, such as liquid used , time in bath,etc. thanks John

 

Hi John.

This is the technique that seems to work for me

 

I start with fairly warm water with detergent in it giving it a 20 second bursts folowed by swirling it around and then repeating the process In the bath for about 10 minutes or so. left to drip dry and then run my fingers round it to see if there is any remaining stickyness.
if the model is small enough I then put it in an old 35mm film canister (the ones Kodak and Fuji films came in) and squirt some lighter fluid in, put the lid on and gently shake. This neutralises any remaining residue and greasiness. You'll notice the FUD goes slightly white after this. If the model is too big I have to bite the bullet and squirt the model direct from the can over some kitchen roll

The petrol dries really quickly after that and I then apply one light coat of Aerosol acrylic grey plastic primer. As the weather here is cold at the moment I put the primer on the radiator for a few minutes to warm the contents up and get the propellant pressure up.

When dry this will act as a 'reveal' coat and show you the areas where you will need to clean up any layer lines. The reveal coat usually makes things look worse than they actually are!

 

On the BR Class 37 the areas that needed attention were the cab sides and nose end and under the bodyside grills. Most of these were smoothed out by gently scraping with a sharp scalpel rather than using abrasives as you can get into the tight corners easier. The sections on locos like taper noses often throw up odd rasterisation lines, the 'Deltic' bodyshell was almost psychadelic but ten minutes work got rid of it.

 

Once you're happy another light coat of primer  will tell you if you've done sufficent cleaning up. Next, if it is a loco that is going to have lighting in, I mask off and spray the inside with two coats of Matt Black acrylic. Because the plastic is translucent the whole bodyshell will light up if you dont!

 

Remember that if the loco or vehicle has large areas of yellow on it to spray the thing yellow first and then apply the darker colours over the top. 

 

I use a variety of paints for top coat. Some Steam era colours can be matched exactly by 'off the shelf' Car aerosols (British Leyland 'Damask red' is a perfect match for LMS/BR Maroon).  This paint dries perfectly as it is the same formula as the undercoat. Tamiya and Humbrol Railway Acrylics are very different in spec but both spray and dry O.K. I don't go near Cellulose anymore except occasionaly a clear varnish used with caution (It stinks!)

 

Enamel is an isue though. I still have Humbrol and Precision paints railway paints that are a superb match for colour , however, every now and then I use them as a top coat, thinned with lighter fluid not white spirit. The use of lighter fluid usually results in a quick drying, super smooth finish but occasionally I have had 3D printed models where the enamel refuses to dry and stays tacky.In the most recent example a Fairbanks Morse H10-44 bodyshell I was doing in Nickel Plate Road livery ended up in a bath of 'Modelstrip' to get it back to bare plastic so I could start again.

 

Anyway here is the same Class 37 finished as Tinsley depot's 37 013 'Vampire' in Railblue. The yellow ends are 'Ford Signal yellow' and the Blue is Humbrol acrylic. Tinsley TMD became notorious for some of the maintenace fitters hand painting unofficlal names on the Locos on their lunchbreaks and they are represented on the model by waterslide decals. Actually they are N gauge ones but at an exhibition nobody can tell!

 

If it is a model that has the windows printed solid you'll need to do something to pick them out. Road vehicles are usally printed this way as are some locos. The Stonysamith street cars I did recently had all the windows solid and they had a lot of windows. To do them I use a fine black 'Staedtler Permanent Lumocolor fine marker' to outline the edges using the window frames as a guide. If it is small window I'll just fill the centre in with the marker. If it is a big one I'll use Tamiya gloss black and a fine brush. If the model is black I'll use Tamiya 'german grey' to get the contrast

 

 

The model is given a final coat of acrylic lacquer as a top coat to seal the decals 

 

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

The final countdown.

 

12 days to go before Hakuho debuts at Macclesfield Model railway exhibition. Some trepidation as the show is held in a school and the Corona virus situation changes by the hour regarding public gatherings.

 

Anyway, No point losing impetus so tonight I've started the final photoshoot for future shows promotional uses and the article for Continental Modeller magazine.

 

Starting with the right hand side of the layout where the line passes the goods shed and passes under the truncated forest line embankment

 

 

C11 165 on a short local passes a C64 on a southbound express. The scenery finishes just around the corner for now but you can see how the two lines split to give the inpression of diverging lines

 

 

D51 542 shunts the small yard. using a nitric acid tanker to pick up a couple of wagons. D61 612 rubles past with a loaded coal train

 

 

C11 165 is now paused on the forest line waitng to propel some box vans 

 

More soon, plus a look at how i set the workshop up for photograhing the layout

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

So here is the mess I make taking the pictures.

 

I have three pieces of hardboard I can use as backdrops to hide the rest of the workshop. These are painted in one of the fancy 'Chalky blue' paints beloved of interior designers at the moment and match the scenic divider quite closely. sometimes clamped to the layout and sometimes perched on whatever.

 

All of the workshop flourescent tubes have ben replaced with LED tubes and I have a couple of double 60cm fittings that I can move around to boost the light levels. There is no substitute for F Stops when you want to get the depth of field on your pictures so the more light the better. I have a couple of small, really powerful magnetic  angle poise inspection lamps. I can use these to highlight darker areas like the sides of steam locos if they are black

 

 

A sturdy tripod locked solid helps and at 100 ASA I'm giving it 1 to 3 second exposures at around F22.

 

 

Although the color is not bad as is I'll usually autocorrect the levels in Photoshop

 

the town so far

 

 

 

Kev

[Martijn Meerts]

It's looking really good. If I didn't know any better I'd even think that was N-scale rather than Z-scale.

 

Really cool going back to your first few posts and seeing how far the scenery has come form the brown blobs to actual mountains 😄

 

[kevsmiththai]

So before another round of running and testing I stood the layout up on its edge on a pair of steel trestles to do the overhead shot. Continental Modeller magazine get their artwork department to generate the trackplan off this. You can see the undeveloped rear of the layout in this shot as well.

 

 

Kev