Small B-Train Layout - Building it

[kami_illy]

Sooo, 

this will be a slow one i think. Lets see how it goes! 

After building the first Sankei kit I decided to get started with some kind of module or inlay that i can build individually and later place on the layout once that will be ready. 

I started with the the small Toilet house and then worked my way up with the small shrine. Some prints as some kind of simulation for the later landscape are always helpful for motivation. 

 

 

 

 

 

[kami_illy]

I realised that I need to put the shrine on some kind of elevated level. Otherwise it would be too low next to the trains (note how high the are even without the tracks...). 

So i built a mock-up of it and put some home printed walls. They actually look quite good, just a little flat. Maybe i add some brown carton for more physical depth. 

And boy, are those shrine buildings hard to fiddle around... so tiny and intricate. 

 

 

 

 

In the meantime some of the tomytec houses for the traditional part of town arrived. 

 

[kami_illy]

Had a fitting with the tracks. Gave me the final idea on how to go on and build the base plate for the module/inlay with the elevated shrine, the road and crossing and the toilet house. Will also put some bamboo trees behind the main shrine building. 

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by kami_illy

[kami_illy]

Tried to figure out a nice and easy way to do the level crossings. And define some heights.

I think I'll go with the general street level being 5mm above the baseboard. So the street needs to go up by 2mm only to cross the tracks. Also it would fit the bases of the tomytec buildings. 

 

[Cat]

That looks great!

What are you using for the roadway material?

[cteno4]

Nice! Did you print the roadway?

 

jeff

[kami_illy]

Yeah, it is made of 2mm finn cardboard and the surface is a simple inkjet print that I glued on top and painted the sides of the Card board after. Towards the rails i had to cut it with a slant so it'll sit nicely tight. I'll change to a 1mm card board for the normal road pieces though so it will be a bit easier to fit and bend up and down. The part between the tracks is perfect in 2mm thickness.

I'm a bit afraid the colors of the print will fade with the time... Maybe doing the markings with laser gravure and painting them afterwards could be a better solution. 

[Martijn Meerts]

That's just printed? Really looks like there actual texture on there. Do you print on regular paper and then glue that to the cardboard?

 

[kami_illy]

I used a normal HP ink jet on normal A4 / A3 inkjet paper with 80grams (with a certain percentage of recycled material). And then glued with a normal household paper glue / normal wood glue. 

I think the "texture" comes from data reduction. I exported the pdf with a lower resolution, so the files weren't too big. And then the grainy effect might have washed down a bit by the printing itself, thus leaving some kind of "uncleanliness" in the colors. 

Edited April 2, 2020 by kami_illy

[Martijn Meerts]

It looks really convincing. You get the idea there's some actual physical texture as well rather than it being just a sheet of paper.

 

[cteno4]

Excellent!
 

I remember years ago stumbling across a photoshop filter technique that did color texture like this. I’ll have to go see if I can find it,mama zing how well it works on the colors. I’ve done gray, concrete roads using a concrete texture that I downsized a lot to just give a tad of texture to the print. I’ve also inkjet printed onto some walther’s sketching papers to give the roads some more visual texture. It comes out larger than it would be scale, but the eye registers the texture and it helps the mind’s eye just fill in road textures. Laser printing does not do this as the fuser roller gives a total flat, non textured surface where the toner is and even irons out the paper surface where toner isn’t.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[kami_illy]

Just had another look at the printed road surface.

It actually seems the "texture" is a result of the rather bad/outdated color composing technology of the pretty old CAD program in which i drew the print files. Data compression might have added to it though. 

 

Here is a shot through the magnifier (8x)

 

 

also, the effect appears stronger on the photos than in reality tbh. 😁

[kami_illy]

BTW. I am looking for the Tomytec 127-2 corner building..!

Couldn't find it on the common sites (eBay, Rakuten, Amiami, Hobbysearch, Yahoo/Buyee, ...) Seemed available on a taiwanese site but there was no english version, so I have no idea what was going on there. So, maybe someone of you guys has a tip where to check or even has a spare one to sell/trade ?!?

 

[Cat]

I went to the Hobby Search page for that item, switched to Japanese, and cut the name.

Go to Buyee N Gauge listings, paste this in the search bar, and save the search with email notifications: 土産物屋

I have a few key searches lined up that way.

[kami_illy]

Sooo, its been a while again... but there was some progress.

Some more buildings arrived and it also gave me a chance to compare my place holders to the actual models. Some were pretty accurate...

 

 

 

Some not so much...

 

 

[kami_illy]

Had another test fitting and found out two things. I need to "squeeze" more buildings in the block that i planned to give it a typical feel. Also the angled corner building and the station tower didn't fit. So i had to replan the roads a little bit.

 

 

 

 

seems to work now

 

 

[kami_illy]

 

 

[Tonytramman]

great work, love this layout

[Bernard]

Beautiful detailed work on your layout!

[Dinosbacsi]

Just found this thread, really nice layout going on there my man. Looking forward to seeing futher progress!

[tossedman]

I too just found this thread. Looks great! Nice job on the roads. I used textures from Scalescenes when I printed mine but your's look fantastic as is. Any progress lately?

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

[kami_illy]

On 3/31/2021 at 6:23 PM, Dinosbacsi said:

Just found this thread, really nice layout going on there my man. Looking forward to seeing futher progress!

 

On 4/1/2021 at 12:34 AM, tossedman said:

I too just found this thread. Looks great! Nice job on the roads. I used textures from Scalescenes when I printed mine but your's look fantastic as is. Any progress lately?

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

 

Thanks guys,

well emmm... yeah, not much progress so far. Turns out that with all the pandemic situation I spend all my time between kids/family and work and barely have a moment for myself, or the hobby! And moving to a new house didn't make it better. 

But i did some small detailing, ordered some more buildings and trains... and hopefully i can post some new things soon. Most probably i will change my plans to build up the proper layout from scratch and continue to build on the mock-up. So i'll beef up the support structure and frame, adjust the gradients on the inclines and so on..

[kami_illy]

On 3/31/2021 at 6:23 PM, Dinosbacsi said:

Just found this thread

 Btw. just in case you didn't see the planing phase, here it is. 

Edited April 5, 2021 by kami_illy

[tossedman]

Cool! Thanks for the heads up. I like your use of SketchUp to plan. I use SketchUp all the time but haven't used it yet for trains. Guess that's something I ought to explore. Love what you've done in a small space though. Looking forward to seeing where this goes, whenever it goes. No hurry though.

Edited April 7, 2021 by tossedman

[kami_illy]

So, like I said, progress will come little by little.

Did a fast trial on converting the office tower into a station building. Actually just changing the entry with ticket machines and bigger canopy roof and signage. 

Printed on normal paper to try out. I am pretty pleased with the result. Now i'll do some small changes and then comes the fine print on stiff paper. 

 

 

And a quick test with paper to find the right size of the roof. 

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by kami_illy