Modular Station Project

[gavino200]

I did some work on the bypass walkway today. That's the narrow walkway that takes people across the tracks without entering the station proper. At least that's what it has to be in the kit-bashed version. I was originally going to leave the patchwork of small roof pieces, but I notices while searching "Kato station kit-bash" that Kato have done the exact same modification on their show room layout in Tokyo. They replaced these small pieces with a single piece, so I figured I might as well do the same. 

 

This is the new roof piece. The hard part was tapering and notching the edges so it would fit the grooves in the side of the walkway. I went too deep with one set of notches so you can see some untrimmed putty where I did that. After fitting the roof I converted the walkway sections into one piece. I'll use a bit of putty to seal the tiny gaps. 

 

The next step will be to add the detailing decals to the new structure, and to add as many of the LEDs as I can. After I splice the two structures together it will be much more difficult to do that. 

 

I'm going to use a combination of permanent and non-traumatically seperable glues. For example, the individual parts of the bypass walkway are permanently joined. But I'll fix the roof piece with a separable glue. Likewise, I'll fix the bypass walkway to the two main structures with E6000. It will be well adhesed but seperable if necessary.

 

For the main internal station overpass/walkway I'm planning on making the new (kit-bash pieces) permanetly fixed to one structure, but separably fixed to the second. That way it will be possible to disassemble it if I want to ad something fundamental later on. Likewise the roof will be in place with E6000

 

I'm thinking of adding a sheet of thin Styrene to span from one platform edge to the other. It would go under the Kato double track in the picture below. The idea would be to "complete the ring" and give some strength to the composite structure. I'm not sure about that yet. 

 

Also I haven't decide whether to pass all the wires through one platform. It would be more work for minimal gains. I'm leading toward a power supply to each platform. For the bypass walkway I'll rout the wires to one of the platforms. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by gavino200

[cteno4]

You can never have too many clamps!

 

jeff

[Cat]

11 hours ago, cteno4 said:

You can never have too many clamps!

 

Truth.  I have a small toolbag entirely filled with those cheap cute clamps from Harbor Freight and a pile of spreader clamps.  It's a lifestyle choice.
: 3

[cteno4]

I have a huge range of clamps, from huge parallel and bar clamps in the wood shop, to all sorts of small clamps for the smaller hobbies from hair clips to alligator clips to mini bar snd parallel calls. always finding new ones! It’s the one tool where a huge variety is great as so many different ways and materials need clamps!

 

jeff

[gavino200]

I added some windows in the walkway and stairways yesterday, for no particular reason. Looking at the Kato decals, I see there's no option for "platform 3". I'll have to see if I can find a tiny "3" somewhere. If not I'll have to leave the sign blank and print something up later. 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

6 hours ago, gavino200 said:

 

I thought you were putting on some big Calatrava art roof to your station there for a second!

[gavino200]

A little bit of progress. I glued and clamped this last night and just unclamped it. This is with a safety resister only, I'm going to chose final resistance after getting the rest of the lights in. Hopefully one resistor for the whole structure. I'm fitting it all with the same LEDs at pretty much the same intervals. I'll install more LEDs after dinner if work doesn't bother me. 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by gavino200

[gavino200]

The LEDs are all in except for the ones on the roof of the main walkway. I also placed magnets on the platforms and puttied up the extra holes in the platforms. I still have to add the detail pieces such as the platform signs and signal lights. After that I'll be ready to tackle the actual scratch-build part of the assembly. 

 

 

[gavino200]

I'm heading into unchartered waters now. I have a hunch this won't work but for now I'm steaming forward. I glued the bridging floor piece in place. I'm hoping this will be just strong enough to allow me to gently turn the structure upside down so I can reinforce it with thicker styrene underneath. Fingers crossed. 

 

[gavino200]

This went better than I dared to hope. What you'll see here is ugly though. It's the super ghetto appearance of the Non-viewable part of the structure. The thin plastic bridge was easily strong enough to hold up when turning the structure over. In fact it got a stress test as I had to scrape the paint off it's underside. I painted it before I realized I'd have to reinforce it. Adding thin layers and sanding I was able to build up the bridging segment to a sturdy thickness of 9mm. I also glued the bypass walkway in place for extra integrity. 

 

I had made and painted side panels but I sanded them just a bit too much. I could probably make them work, but well fitted pieces would be better. Styrene is so soft one sanding can make the difference between to big and too small. I'll score the center line, and paint the replacement pieces after they've had their final fitting. 

 

I also fixed some broken drop rails while I had the thing upside down (not shown)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by gavino200

[gavino200]

I put in the second walkway floor. There's a bit more 'eyeballing' this step than I'd like. That's why it's currently on the kitchen table, so I can keep tabs on it. I don't really trust it. I'll be happy when this dries. 

 

 

[gavino200]

I put in some roof and wall supports. The beams and end pillars are repurposed sprues. Tomorrow, I'll work on shaping the roof and four walls. 

 

[gavino200]

The roof piece is shaped and painted (drying now). The side walls are in. I was able to use the first set I cut and painted. They fit quite well now that the structure is stabilized. A few little people are added. And the first coat of light proofing is under way for the new walls. The paint color match isn't perfect but I think it's close enough. Accepting the mismatch would be better than hand painting the whole side of the walkway. 

 

I had a little stroke of luck. On the Kato pieces there's an iron 'girder' beneath the wall piece. That would be possible but difficult to make from styrene. I've actually been holding onto the perfect piece for years. The Hobby store guy in my last city was an expert scratch builder. He used to make test models for Union Pacific. He had a habit of sitting at the counter building small items, and we talked about it quite a bit. I remember being amazed that you could buy tiny lumber and styrene girders etc. He gave me this one strip of styrene "I beam". I've been holding onto it for years in my random plastic pieces bin. It turns out its exactly the right size for this job. Just gave it a coat of primer. 

 

I'm getting closer to finished the kit-bash. I'm starting to feel some impatience and a desire to rush to the finish. I know that would be a mistake, so I'm leaving it here for a while. Off to play video games with the boy.

 

 

The unpainted but shaped roof and two walls provisionally placed. I overshot the length of the walkway support pieces by a couple of mm. I was going to sand it down, but it may actually be useful to anchor the walkway to the future building that will connect to it. 

 

 

 

 

First two walls glued in

 

 

Second two walls glued in place

 

 

The styrene "I beams/girders"

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by gavino200

[gavino200]

The little I-beam pieces worked well. The roof is on and glued. The LEDs are all fed by two power wires. Magnets are attached but not electrically connected. I'll wait until the board that it will sit on is prepared. The first board (seen below) was made from paper covered foamboard and warped badly when painted. 

 

The kit-bash is basically finished. I'm fully expecting some light leaks when the clamps come off (tomorrow). I didn't use plastic cement for the roofs. Instead I used E6000 so I can get back in if there's a problem with the LEDs. There's also a light leak between the Kato main building and the accessary station building. That looks easy to fix but I'll wait until the structures are on their final base. 

 

I still don't know what buildings I'll use as the station front (the Tomytec hopital and police station are place holders). I'm leaning toward using the lower level stores from the Tomix overhead station and bashing something on top as a second (or more) story. 

 

This was my first kit-bash and I'm quite happy with it. It's far from perfect. But I learned a lot, and it went better than I had hoped. I'm actually a bit exhausted by it and need to switch gears for a while. 

 

For the time being I'm going to work on my automation practice layout, and slowly finish repainting Kato unitrack for the station. I'll also decide on a material for the baseboard and source some for the station. 

 

 

 

I-beams in place

 

 

Building in place - Looking for light leaks

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by gavino200

[Martijn Meerts]

Starting to look like a really nice station there 🙂

 

[gavino200]

Just a few final pics without the clamps for completeness  🙂

 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Nice job Gavin! Lighting is subdued with some good pools and not glowing! 
 

cheers,

 

jeff

[MeTheSwede]

Looks good!

[inobu]

Yep, Good Job

 

Inobu

[JR 500系]

Looks Great! Certainly does remind me of a busy Japanese train station! That walkway through the platforms is a great idea!

 

You need a beautiful massive station front building for that lovely station, something like this  or this 

 

I saw a massively huge and beautiful 'Seiko' building made out of arcylic, but the bidding had ended now and i couldnt find it.... The bid price was up till 50k + yen when i saw it.... 

[gavino200]

Wow! Thanks JR. That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to find!

[gavino200]

I really like this Station/Cinema building. https://zenmarket.jp/auction.aspx?itemCode=g489198459

 

At the moment it's blocked for shipping to the US, but I sent an "unblock request". 

 

I was disappointed at first that it was a paper model. But...I was thinking about it. I'd love to scratch-build someday. At the moment I don't have the experience or skill to make anything complex. I bet I could use this paper-kit as a template to make a kind of "guided-scratch-build". I think that would be tough but doable for me. I'd change it slightly to model it on a real cinema brand. Likely I'd use some of the surface printing such as the ticket machines but replace others, like the ads and brands. It would be a long but fun project. 

 

The seller has a lot of other interesting buildings too. 

Edited March 17, 2021 by gavino200

[disturbman]

This announcement is sponsored by the Friendship Circle of Japanese N-Gauge.

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by disturbman

[cteno4]

so this nagged at me and i realized its from this chap's stuff

 

https://paperstructure.jimdofree.com/ショップ-ダウンロード版/

 

they have it for 3000 yen for the printed one. unfortunately they only have it for download of the pdf to print your own if you buy the big collection for 5000 yen.

 

printing onto some good heavier stock sulfite paper may be a lot cheaper than shipping printed ones these days. also lets you keep modifying and reprinting if you want to mess around some.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

I agree to the max. Much better idea!!