Yūrakuchō

[Kamome442]

Thank you jeff,

You are spot on, the front face is etched metal painted black. The case that covers the wires is 3D printed in resin:

 

The 3D print has to be very fine to create enough room inside for the wires. the back wall is 0.2mm To stop light bleed I lined the case with tinfoil. 

I wanted to keep the depth of the finished light under 1mm. I had to use 0201 LED's however they only make them in white or warm white. 

Therefore I painted strips of paper clear red and clear green as a mask. Then I used a drop of resin to secure a white LED behind each opening. 

Finally I filled the case with a 2 part epoxy and pressed it on the back.

[cteno4]

Excellent as always Joe. I like the old red and green paper bits! 
 

going to sell some kits?
 

jeff

[Kamome442]

3 hours ago, cteno4 said:

going to sell some kits?

 

I am happy to sell the bits if there is demand. They are not exactly easy, I will take some step by step pictures the next time I make one.

Hopefully when I have made a few more it will get easier. If so I am considering making a small batch of completed lights to sell.

 

I did get around to printing the 7-eleven store:

 

How it looks in position:

 

I also had a chance to print the club next door:

 

Finally I made up another simple little jig for this weeks project:

[Kamome442]

 

More Lights 

 

I am going to be working on these lights this week.

 

 

They will be made using different diameters of brass tube. The jig above was for making the lights. 

Edited July 29 by Kamome442

[Kamome442]

Taking on a Side Quest

 

I didn't get as much done this week as I had planned. This was mostly because I volunteered to build a 1:24 scale kit of my uncles car.

It was a nice change to build something that didn't have to design first! I have to say it was an interesting experience to work in a larger scale, it is much easier to put parts together however much harder to get a perfect finish when you are painting. 

Sadly he arrived a day earlier than I expected to collect it so I only managed to take a quick snap of the finished model:

 

I did get around to building the next set of lights:

 

Testing they still work after poking wires through little holes:

 

I just need to paint and install them.

The next project will be some stubby lights to fit under the bridges and building a bunch of traffic lights.

 

Joe

Edited August 10 by Kamome442

[Junech]

Looking really nice! Good job!

 

There is a small thing before you finish your lamps. the is a small attachment to the lamps that you didn't model. I don't know if you missed it or did it on purpose, just wanted to point it out before it is too late to change. Maybe gluing some thin paper around the top as well to get that bump where the top lamp is attached?

 

 

 

[Kamome442]

Lovely attention to detail @Junech you are welcome back anytime 🤣

All the lights along the street have these, I am not sure what they are maybe a light sensor. Fear not, I will be including them, I am not 100% sure how to attach them at the moment the little bar that sticks out is going to be under 0.2mm. I might try using a little piece of rigging elastic.

[Junech]

My guess would be a light sensor too. And I just mentioned it because you said only the paint job is left xD

 

For the attachment:

How about a single wire of a stranded wire? I think some of those could be around 0.15mm and you may have it left from wiring your layout. The bonus is that you could soder that to the mast as well.

[Kamome442]

10 hours ago, Junech said:

And I just mentioned it because you said only the paint job is left xD

Too right! I would rather someone pointed out something I missing than didn't. 

 

10 hours ago, Junech said:

For the attachment:

How about a single wire of a stranded wire? I think some of those could be around 0.15mm and you may have it left from wiring your layout. The bonus is that you could soder that to the mast as well.

 

0.15mm would be pretty much spot on. I hadn't considered soldering it to the mast, it would be very secure. I would need to practice my soldering skills I haven't done it for a while. 

[cteno4]

Joe,

 

hey you might like this stuff. Super fine 0.1mm stainless wire! It’s nice as it’s stiff for any longer stretches and holds a bend well. I can pop some in an envelope for you to play with.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

2 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Joe,

 

hey you might like this stuff. Super fine 0.1mm stainless wire! It’s nice as it’s stiff for any longer stretches and holds a bend well. I can pop some in an envelope for you to play with.

 

jeff

Ooh that looks interesting! I could certainly fins some uses for that. Thank you jeff

 

[Kamome442]

Another week and another hole cut into the baseboard! Cut into the side this time, just to keep thing fresh 🙃

This was to install the housing for lights along the street. Once done I was able to test fit the new lights.

 

I had to wait till the evening to get the full effect.

 

A little progress on the lights under the bridges

 

[Kamome442]

A little process on the 7-Eleven, I have been playing around with printed brick work but I haven't yet found a finish that I like.

I did however receive the etched parts need to make the windows, doors and sign. 

 

The sign is etched to make sure there is no light bleed from the LED's. It is pretty simple, the front with three open segments that will light up and sides that fold to form the final shape of the enclosure.

 

The lit elements appear to protrude out from the frame slightly. To do this I 3D printed a light bar in white resin. This is a push fit into the frame, I actually got my tolerances right on the first try for once! 

 

I drilled three recesses into the back of the resin, one behind each segment ready to install the LED's.

This is the after the first LED was installed:

 

All three LED's are now in place I still need to paint the frame and add the 7-Eleven branding.

[Kamome442]

Any ideas?

 

Well I am about to begin work on this arch:

 

The surface is covered in thousands of little coloured glass tiles. If I am honest it has left me a little bamboozled on how to scale it down.

I have two ideas that I think could work.

 

The first is to use metallic paints starting by applying the first colour as a base coat. Then layering different colours using a speckle pass with an airbrush.

 

The second idea is to recreate a section of the pattern like this:

Printing the design onto clear waterslide transfer paper and applying it over silver background.

 

If anyone knows a better way that I am completely missing please do let me know.

[cteno4]

Wow that’s an ambitious one Joe! Those metallic effects don’t scale down well, probably physics and size and distance viewed prototypically and model wise. It’s been interesting to see on some trains how well they have scaled down metallic paint schemes. Some give a nice effect at scale and some don’t give much of a metallic feel.

 

Your plan sounds like a good approach of clear decal over metallic surface and experiment with various sparkle overcoat. Probably be a bit of trial and error.

 

Looking forward to your results!

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Thanks jeff, it is going to be a challenge for sure.

I will post updates as I go.

[Kamome442]

I have just thought of a third option. Using fine glitter set in resin. 

It might need a coat of matt varnish so that it isn't too shiny.

I have plenty of glitter in my cupboard at work. 

[Madsing]

Mmm, from the above photo, it doesn’t seem that any particular tile reflects the light more than the others. It’s just a bit glossy, maybe satin. The reflections are large, not limited to particular tiles. The tiles have probably not been applied one by one and the surface looks very flat. I would not try to create to much sparkle…

 

Marc

[kami_illy]

15 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

 

...

The surface is covered in thousands of little coloured glass tiles. If I am honest it has left me a little bamboozled on how to scale it down.

I have two ideas that I think could work.

 

The first is to use metallic paints starting by applying the first colour as a base coat. Then layering different colours using a speckle pass with an airbrush.

 

The second idea is to recreate a section of the pattern like this:

Printing the design onto clear waterslide transfer paper and applying it over silver background.

 

If anyone knows a better way that I am completely missing please do let me know.

 

Wow, can't wait to follow the process, thats a tricky detail. Maybe the most "simple" solution might bring a convincing result... I think I'd try to print the color pattern an put it behind a transparent acrylic sheet which has a grid carved into it. Obviously it won't be in scale but if you can manage to put the grid lines pretty close, it might look real enough. That also could help with the scattered reflections which create the metallic effect. 

 

[Kamome442]

7 hours ago, Madsing said:

Mmm, from the above photo, it doesn’t seem that any particular tile reflects the light more than the others. It’s just a bit glossy, maybe satin. The reflections are large, not limited to particular tiles. The tiles have probably not been applied one by one and the surface looks very flat. I would not try to create to much sparkle…

 

Marc

 

I totally agree about not wanting the effect to sparkle. What ever method works it will likely be getting a coat of matt varnish.

It is hard to see from the picture above but they do seem to be individual tiles. Hopefully this still from a Video Street View Japan shows it more clearly:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO86iyV4Ggw

 

From memory the surface was quite bumpy, stupidly this was one thing I didn't take any reference pictures of while I was there. That said what is bumpy full size is still going to be pretty much smooth at 1:150.

 

4 hours ago, kami_illy said:

Wow, can't wait to follow the process, thats a tricky detail. Maybe the most "simple" solution might bring a convincing result... I think I'd try to print the color pattern an put it behind a transparent acrylic sheet which has a grid carved into it. Obviously it won't be in scale but if you can manage to put the grid lines pretty close, it might look real enough. That also could help with the scattered reflections which create the metallic effect. 

 

 

Thanks @kami_illy that is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of. I will certainly give it a go if the first couple of techniques fail.

It is going to be a fun project.

Edited September 25 by Kamome442

[Kamome442]

Who am I?

 

Well this has been a fun 2 days. I managed to kill my computer, I think popped another graphics card but it didn't go with the usual bang just froze and crashed. After trying several attempts at restarting it I had to grudgingly come to the conclusion it was having none of it. At 12 years old it has served me well but it was easier to get a new computer at this point. I was a little worried that I had lost about a 1 years worth of work since I last backed everything up fully, but thankfully the hard drive was still responding so I able to transfer all the files across.

 

The downside is having to reinstall a bunch of software and try to remember the passwords for each. I've had to verify who I am so many times today I could be on the brink of an existential crisis 🤣  I still need to install my printer but that will have to wait until another day (what even is my canon password?! Ugh). Until I have done that I won't be able to print out the test tiles for the disco arch.

 

I did however get hold of some glitter so I was able to make a quick sample:

 

It actually came out better than I was expecting. I made it by mixing glitter with UV resin on a piece of card. I placed some cellophane over the mix as it does not stick to resin. On top of that placed a piece of glass and used that flatten resin into a thin sheet, from testing I found it needs to be at least 1mm thick or the card can become visible. I was then able to cure the resin with a UV light through the glass. 

 

[cteno4]

Joe I expected you to be there with the micro tipped tweezers placing each individual glitter squares in the grid pattern!

 

looks nice and gives a good effect at scale and I expect even better from 2’+ distance!

 

jeff

 

ps Benny is now picture of you in my head with the clerk giving you a funny look as you purchase various body glitters to try out, err, on your model trains!

[Kamome442]

11 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Joe I expected you to be there with the micro tipped tweezers placing each individual glitter squares in the grid pattern!

 

looks nice and gives a good effect at scale and I expect even better from 2’+ distance!

 

Funny you should say that I have just spent the last 20 minutes trying to arrange glitter on a piece of sellotape 🫣

Not easy let me tell you!

 

13 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

ps Benny is now picture of you in my head with the clerk giving you a funny look as you purchase various body glitters to try out, err, on your model trains!

 

My friend Mel finds it endlessly amusing that I brought a ring light to take pictures of models. Maybe I could start my own beauty channel for trains.

[kami_illy]

22 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

Who am I?

 

Well this has been a fun 2 days. I managed to kill my computer, I think popped another graphics card but it didn't go with the usual bang just froze and crashed. After trying several attempts at restarting it I had to grudgingly come to the conclusion it was having none of it. At 12 years old it has served me well but it was easier to get a new computer at this point. I was a little worried that I had lost about a 1 years worth of work since I last backed everything up fully, but thankfully the hard drive was still responding so I able to transfer all the files across.

 

The downside is having to reinstall a bunch of software and try to remember the passwords for each. I've had to verify who I am so many times today I could be on the brink of an existential crisis 🤣  I still need to install my printer but that will have to wait until another day (what even is my canon password?! Ugh). Until I have done that I won't be able to print out the test tiles for the disco arch.

 

I did however get hold of some glitter so I was able to make a quick sample:

 

It actually came out better than I was expecting. I made it by mixing glitter with UV resin on a piece of card. I placed some cellophane over the mix as it does not stick to resin. On top of that placed a piece of glass and used that flatten resin into a thin sheet, from testing I found it needs to be at least 1mm thick or the card can become visible. I was then able to cure the resin with a UV light through the glass. 

 

Wow, nice. 

Great idea to use coloured glitter. Throw some more purple in the mix and you are pretty much there...! 👍

 

Maybe a finish with clear satin (think matte would be too much) so the surface is not too shiny and the glitter still has a chance to sparkle/reflect through. 

Edited September 28 by kami_illy

[cteno4]

21 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

Funny you should say that I have just spent the last 20 minutes trying to arrange glitter on a piece of sellotape 🫣

Not easy let me tell you!

Now why did I guess that one?! 😜

a miniaturist friend was trying to make 5”x8”x3” bricks to lay a 1/144 scale brick floor in a colonial bakery she was doing. Almost drove her mad!

 

jeff