Revamping the Tomix Gas Station

[gavino200]

The Tomix Gas Station has a lot of potential. I think maybe it's the best one on the market. But still it looks plasticky and lacking in detail. I've had mine a long time and it has some sun fading from a previous layout that received direct sunlight. Many of the paper parts are peeling off. A few plastic parts are bent, and the road markings were never convincing to begin with. I may be wrong but the lines look to wide. 

 

It's been on my shelf as a to-do project for a long time. But now is the right time. There are a couple of learning objectives for skills that I need soon that I can play with in this project. 

 

The specific experience I'm hoping to get out to this are the following

1. Making my own base and adding borders

2. Concrete painting and shading technique

3. Road markings. 

4. Learning to design and print decals or stickers for script/logos/details.

5. Fixing or replacing warped parts. 

 

I'll also be painting, detailing, and lighting structures, which I already have some experience with but have a lot of improvement to achieve on.

 

The stock base. It definitely needs to be painted at very least. I may replace it altogether. Not so much because It absolutely needs to go. More because I want to start doing that in general, and no time like the present. I haven't researched these white markings. It's possible they are prototypical for Japan, but they look too wide to me. 

 

 

 

The shop structure is very plasticky. The details also needmore detail. The sign is bent. I may have to remake it. 

 

 

The shop interior is pitiful. Though I may be able to re-use the back wall sticker. 

 

 

Approximately how it looks all together.

 

 

I bought these gas trucks for the project. The company name is in Japanese script, but I think it's the same company. 

 

[gavino200]

Place holder for Prototype inspiration

 

Not cosmo but some good Japanese Gas station Footage

 

 

 

Photos of specific details

 

The Cosmo shop color is definitely more of an orange than a red as in the stock Tomix model. Please correct me if you've ever seen one of these in person. 

Orange  Orangy-red. Can't tell if it's just my screen. The Tomix structure also looks quite orange on my screen

 

Overall view and colors

 

____________________________________________________________

 

Great night time photo of a gas station in Taiwan for lighting inspiration

 

another

 

 

____________________________________________________________

 

Similar stations for overall look

 

Store with various nick-nacks and doo-dads

 

______________________________________________________________

 

Gas pump closeup and another, one more ,another

 

______________________________________________________________

 

Logo and Name close up with minimal distortion and here

 

 

______________________________________________________________

 

Concrete and white lines and here here

 

painted box with car in it 

 

 

________________________________________________________________

 

Roof signs

 

________________________________________________________________

 

Main sign

 

________________________________________________________________

 

car wash

 

 

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

 

Google earth views of rooftops and footprints

1  

This one in sendai has very ordinary grey roofs

 

Excellent resolution shot to show concrete color and roof color also a similar footprint to the Tomix version. The Cosmos in Tokyo tend to be squished and irregularly shaped. This is the same station on street view

 

Nice roof detail and color

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by gavino200

[gavino200]

Placeholder for related modeling inspiration 

 

 

 

A still shot from the video. Learning to design and print something like this at the right size will be a project in itself. But it will be a skill that I'll use over and over again!

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by gavino200

[katoftw]

Not a fan of the base design also. My place is to cut away the bits I want and rebase it with regular used base material.

 

Really just keeping the shop floor layout and concrete bases of the pumps/bowsers.

[gavino200]

1 minute ago, katoftw said:

Not a fan of the base design also. My place is to cut away the bits I want and rebase it with regular used base material.

 

Really just keeping the shop floor layout and concrete bases of the pumps/bowsers.

 

Yes, I was just looking at the shop floor. It's not bad. I was just considering cutting it out and reusing it. On the other hand there's nothing in it that can't be easily remade with bits of styrene. The same goes for the pump bases. 

 

Feel free to post your project here too!

[gavino200]

There's not much to the store. It's a basic plastic shell. I'll just prime it and then paint it and detail it according to the best prototype images I can find online. I'll try to paint window frames with masking tape and give it something of an interior. 

 

The canopy is a different matter. The "Cosmo" name and the blue band are the only decorated parts of the station that are printed/painted rather than places on with stickers. They're still in good condition, though the white plastic has yellowed a bit. The only bad thing is that it doesn't have the two color banner that many Cosmo stations have. I could cover the sign and paint the rest or print a new one. I'll try to print a new one, as it's a skill I want to learn, but likely I'll cover and keep the blue banner as is. 

 

The hard part will be lighting this. I'll use four tiny LEDs on the underside, but it's routing the wires that will be the hard part. As I see it, I have three options. 

 

1. Guide the wires down the poles. I think this will loo terrible. It's not my favored route.

2. Hollow the poles, make a hole near the top and try to to feed the wires through. Very tough but maybe possible.

3. The poles and remake them with hollow styrene. Feed the wires through the poles before attaching them. 

 

I'm still not really sure what  color or material the canopy top and underside should be. On Google earth they look grey, but they may be dull metal color. I'll have to pay attention when I pump gas next and look carefully at some YouTube videos. 

 

 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Gavin,

 

would probably look fine running two lines of the 0.25mm wrapping wire up one of the poles, it looks just like conduiting you see on pillars like this all the time and works out to about 1.5” dia scale. Many times they want the wire more accessible than running down pillars. If you look at the video above you’ll see them at about 2min in looks to be 2  1.5” conduits running down the column. You can also use the wrapping wire in the roof as usually it’s just run in conduit in places like that. Just make it run straight and do right angle bends. 

 

Just bringing back in the details that they left out!

 

another alternative is to use lead wire, it’s just tinned solid core copper wire (like the leads on a resistor) and run it sup the pole or around to your leds and just glue it so it doesn’t touch and then paint it to insulate.

 

great leds for lights like this are 1210 leds. They look like one of those light fixtures like 18” square you see on roofs like this, even platforms. You can just solder them between two runs of uninsulared lead wire.

 

I can pop a couple of gauges of lead wire and some 1210s in e mail momday.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[gavino200]

10 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

 

 

I can pop a couple of gauges of lead wire and some 1210s in e mail momday.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

 

Let me check first. I bet I have some.

[Madsing]

2 hours ago, gavino200 said:

 

 

 

Do you intent to light up the Cosmo sign? Any idea? Backlight or small front spotlight?

I have the same Tomix model (the Eneos one) and have been scratching my head about that for a while.

[gavino200]

2 minutes ago, Madsing said:

 

Do you intent to light up the Cosmo sign? Any idea? Backlight or small front spotlight?

I have the same Tomix model (the Eneos one) and have been scratching my head about that for a while.

 

Wow! I didn't even think of that. Awesome. Definitely a scratchbuild or kitbash for the canopy.

 

My first thought. 

Dismantle the canopy.

Keep the existing roof to be the "top part of the roof" but remove the edge. 

Make a second sheet to be the lower part of the roof. 

Basically two layers together or almost together. 

 

(conveniently LEDs for the underside lights can be inset into the lower lamina)

 

Place LEDs on the edge of the entire roof. Wires going inside between the two lamina and eventually down the replace column which will be a hollow styrene pipe. 

 

Now make an outside part for the roof out of light conducting material. ie clear plastic. Print the Cosmo or Eneos pattern and place over this. Maybe white paint first for light diffusion. 

 

The result, a backlit canopy sign with hidden wires. 

 

I think it could work. 

[Madsing]

Yes, this should work.

On another hand, when I see the nice rooftop that @OdakyuModel has made, I am tempted to do the same

 

[gavino200]

That looks amazing. And doable too. It has a much more modern and interesting look. I love the angles. And the coffee shop is great. That cup is the cherry on the cake.

 

It may be possible to combine both ideas. Definitely worth trying a few mockups.

[cteno4]

This is cool as so many roofs like this have all these hidden details you never see from the street, but on our layouts we see so much of these roofs from a perspective we don’t in real life usually.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

5 hours ago, gavino200 said:

My first thought. 

Dismantle the canopy.

Keep the existing roof to be the "top part of the roof" but remove the edge. 

Make a second sheet to be the lower part of the roof. 

Basically two layers together or almost together.

My first thought is: wouldn’t be easier to scratch built the whole roof? It’s a simple shape and it should be easy enough to to make from scratch. And maybe easier. Even more if you were planning to anyway repaint it.

[gavino200]

6 hours ago, disturbman said:

My first thought is: wouldn’t be easier to scratch built the whole roof? It’s a simple shape and it should be easy enough to to make from scratch. And maybe easier. Even more if you were planning to anyway repaint it.

 

Yes, you're right. I was thinking really of salvaging the corrugated plastic texture to use for the top. But I bet Evergreen have some styrene like that available. After seeing what @OdakyuModel has achieved, that seems like a lame concern, and is needlessly limiting. 

 

With a scratch build it would also be easier to build in a back lit sign and hide the wires. The canopy roof is shallow, and the gas station is a detail that tends to draw people in. It's probably better that it doesn't look a total mess on the underside. 

 

I'll probably have a different perspective on this later, but at the moment the new skill that I'm most unsure of is how to design and print the decals/stickers. But I can't put that off any longer. It's time to learn it. 

[disturbman]

It's an easy thing to do. You just need indesign (though that sounds like the nuclear option) and to find a shop that can print good quality decals/stickers.

Edited May 23, 2021 by disturbman

[gavino200]

2 minutes ago, disturbman said:

It's an easy thing to do. You just need indesign (though that sounds like the nuclear option) and to find a shop that can print good quality decals/stickers.

 

At $20.99 a month it may be a bit steep as I don't know how much I'll use it. I could use a free trial. But I may look for some freeware first. I won't be doing any design work apart from the trains. 

[disturbman]

All Adobe program should come with a free trial period.

[gavino200]

1 minute ago, disturbman said:

All Adobe program should come with a free trial period.

 

Ah, that's good. But there's a good chance I might like it. I'm guessing it's not possible to just continually uninstall and reinstall, to continually use trial periods. I'd rather find something either free or that I could buy at a decent price. I don't much like the "subscription" system as it really adds up for something I won't use a ton. 

[disturbman]

Yes, it's expensive. You can pay month here and there, when the need arise. But it's not worth it for a repeated hobby usage. These are professional tools. I'm not sure what more reasonable alternatives exist. It would take about 2 minutes to design what you intend to do. The annoying part is to find the correct typeface - for which I recommend WhatTheFont app.

[gavino200]

23 minutes ago, disturbman said:

 It would take about 2 minutes to design what you intend to do. 

 

For you! I will probably take me weeks. 

[cteno4]

Gavin,

 

take a look at some of the open source vector and bitmap drawing programs out there. To make signs like this you don’t need much in the way of features. Do a search of open source drawing programs for your OS and you’ll find many reviews out there of options to try. Tons of free fonts out there that can be close to what you want or look at the inexpensive download collections.

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

I get a lot of logo artwork from Wikipedia. For Cosmo Oil, they have the basic logo in png (various sizes) and svg formats. You can drop these into even MS Word and stretch or shrink them to the size you want to create a sheet of logos that can be used to print labels or decals. I use Visio a lot to do this, but that's only because I have it and am familiar with it. I prefer to use svg files because they scale and print without getting pixel-y/grainy.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cosmo_Oil_company_logo.svg

 

I can't see "Cosmo" without thinking of Kramer from Seinfeld.

[disturbman]

That's because a svg file is a vector image, they are made to be scaled up or down.

[tossedman]

Inkscape is now out of beta and is an excellent vector graphics editor. Does the same thing as Adobe Illustrator and it's open source, therefore free. Lots of online tutorials as to how to use it. You can use it to open and edit svg files.