Yūrakuchō

[cteno4]

How about just paint little blocks of stryene and then put a custom decal on the top for lettering and detail indents, may show up as closer from 6” or more away. 

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Jeff, that is a great idea, it would be a lot easier than trying to paint the details. I have some waterslide transfer paper. I will give it a go!

I am happy with the etch apart from the cross in the middle, it seemed like a good idea to etch that detail at the time (hindsight is a wonderful thing) however in such a small scale it is completely out of scale. 

I will cut some styrene once I have drawn up the details on the top.

Joe

 

[Kamome442]

I have finally finished the trunking on the first board.

There is a simple row along the front that sits against the catwalk and a slightly more interesting row between the Keihin Tohoku and Tokaido Main lines.

That latter has to wiggle a little to miss the catenary supports.

 

I am now working out the road along the front of the layout. For this I am mainly relying on Streetview to get the details correct. I cut lots of different width styrene strips to practice getting the proportions correct. This is the version I settled on working from back to front: The pavement is made of 3 layers of 10 thou styrene, sanded to be 2 layers at the front edge. The curb is made from 30 thou square rod. The gutter is 1 layer 10 thou, this still needs to be sanded flush to the baseboard on the back edge. The road is 1 layer 10 thou styrene. 

 

I have also marked the positions of all the drains and and manhole covers on the baseboard ( just visible in the picture above either side of the styrene ).

 

These are etched details that I will paint separately and add later. I included a couple of holes on the road surface test to make sure these etches fit flush. 

 

Here is a sample of the artwork for some of the etches I will be using. I still have a few more to draw up. I did take some reference pictures while I was there for others I am using Streetview to work out the dimensions and details.

 

Now that I am happy with the proportions of the road I will be working of getting pavement and curb in first. I will start by making sure I get the bases for the catenary in the right place as these will pass through a hole in the middle of the catwalk.

Joe

 

 

[cteno4]

Joe,

 

nice work, thought of doing this with the printer.

 

if you want I can get you some scans of interesting Japanese manhole covers, I have a book of them!

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Jeff,

 

I did consider using a printer, I think it would give a very good level of detail. I decided against it in the end because the depth of a printed version would need to be somewhere close to 1mm with an etch I was able to get the same detail on 0.25mm thick metal. As is often the case I had to make a compromise because I didn't leave myself any wiggle room when designing the baseboards.

As for scans, thank you, that is very kind and I have to say I am really very tempted! I have most of the designs I need for phase 1 however I quite enjoy drawing them up. I may have to run a little side project of local designs for each city or prefecture maybe. They would look really good in HO, though I imagine someone already makes them.

 

Joe

[Kamome442]

Work on the pavement has started. I am using the Silhouette cutter to cut out all the styrene parts. Then it is just a case of building up the layers to get the right heights. 

 

I started with the base for the catenary mast in the middle of the board. This is actually made up of 8 little pieces interlocking at the corners. 

I am marking the pattern of any cracks or damaged sections of concrete in pencil than using a knife to score chip away the styrene.

 

I am using a small hand drill with a 1.2mm drill bit to locate the drainpipes. I will paint these separately before gluing them in place.

     

 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Kamome442