Neon Noir Designs

[cteno4]

Yep exactly as I had you pictured in my mind joe! The Willy wonka of etching!

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Might take a while before I can show anything. The fences I wanted to try to use on the platforms of my under-construction local station, but I don't actually have any platforms for that yet 🙂

 

I might just do some quick mockups of the platforms using some card stock.

[Kamome442]

Hi Martijn, I saw that your order arrived. I am looking forward to seeing what you come with.

[Kamome442]

New Arrivals!

 

Buses

The new style bus mirrors I have been working on are now up for sale. There are three versions to choose from:

 

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6581233

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1872221379

 

I am still working on the list of bus companies that use each variant of mirror. This seems like a slightly endless task. There are a lot of bus liveries in Japan!

I will probably work through Tomytec's back catalogue to make sure all the buses that are in model form are covered. For now here is the latest version:

    

 

 

I also updated the original design to make construction a little easier:

 

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/5280505

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1607901525

 

An additional variant is on order and will join the line up soon.

 

Fences

 

There are two new sets of fences added the first is Series 5 of the N-Scale Crossing Prevention fences:

 

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6578318

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1857638924

 

Finally I received the first 1:80 scale fences. I put the listing up on Booth last week but held off announcing them as I wanted to announce everything at the same time. Regardless it was picked up that they were available, I ended up selling all of all of style 2 and all but 1 of style 1. There are still plenty of fish available. I have ordered a reprint of the these so once they arrive I will create the Etsy listing. 

 

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6484394

 

Happy modelling

Joe

 

[cteno4]

Damn succumbed yet again to noir design…

 

thanks joe!

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Yeah, pretty sure I'll be ordering more in the not too distant future 😄

 

[maihama eki]

Your mirrors are an outstanding bargain compared to this new offering.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/11172511

[Kamome442]

6 hours ago, maihama eki said:

Your mirrors are an outstanding bargain compared to this new offering.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/11172511

 

 

Oh interesting, thank you for sharing. I can certainly win on value even if they have me beat on ease of assembly 🤭

I am surprised they are using UV resin on such delicate parts, the printer resins I use are very brittle.

That said I have seen some resins marketed as flexible, I have not experimented with any yet.

It would be very interesting to see them side by side with my etched mirrors to see how they compare.

 

 

[Kamome442]

Cheeky Midweek Items

 

I added 2 new Guard Rail fences today.

A rather pleasing design from Nagoya:

 

Also a more generic 5 bar design:

 

Both now available here:

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6105596

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1504780321

 

Joe

[Kamome442]

Squid Time

 

Hi, I just wanted to let you know I have added two new Guard Fences.

GR017 with a fish design:

 

GR018 with a squid and wave design:

 

Now available here:

Booth: https://neonnoirdesigns.booth.pm/items/6723590

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1891981265

 

Joe

[cteno4]

Cephalopods, must have cephlopods! Thanks joe!

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

Catenary System

 

I have been trying to work out a way to simplify the catenary gantries I drew up for Yurakucho and offer them for sale. Making a truss should be relatively simple with the 4 sides folding to make a tube. I am thinking for the brackets that connect the horizontal and vertical trusses of trying something like this:

The middle section will sit on top of the horizontal truss with the two sides folding down like a saddle and held with a dab of glue. The little back plate will fold around and be glued to the vertical truss. Other parts that I would still need to work out are the brackets that hold the wires, most of these should possible as etched pieces and I have a lot of them partially drawn up. It would also need a base and little pyramid caps at the tops of the vertical posts, I might be able to 3D print these.

 

I would like to try a 2 and 4 track option, for the 2 track I will probably offer a narrow or wide horizontal truss:

 

 

If these are popular I will then add a 1 and 3 track version.

 

 

Beyond that I have already drawn up a few alternative brackets that I need for Yurakucho, I could offer on a separate sheet to give a little variety.

A two way bracket for posts mounted between tracks:

 

An alternate version that switches between narrow and wide gantries:

 

 

A bracket that allows you to offset the vertical post to avoid obstacles:

 

 

I sure there are others that I could find if I follow the tracks a little further.

Additionally I could offer a sheet of just the trusses in lots of different lengths to allow for longer/shorter posts or gantries.

 

Seeing as I have most of the parts I need already drawn up it seems like nice and easy project to work on. I will order some sample brackets and trusses to make sure it all fits together nicely once folded. While I wait for those I can draw up the other gubbins that carries the wires.

 

Joe

 

Edit: I forgot to say I will need to check the spacing between tracks that would be needed as I am pretty sure the spacing I used on Yurakucho is smaller than on set track.

Edited March 29 by Kamome442

[cteno4]

Woo Hoo Joe! I’ve been hoping for so long someone would do this! I’m glad its you as it will be thought out so well! I see this a potentially a good market as the options are slim to none for etched metal girders like this.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[brill27mcb]

Are you thinking of the normal standard 33mm Kato spacing between tracks and the Tomix standard 37mm spacing?

 

Rich K.

[Kamome442]

That's great @brill27mcb exactly what I needed to know. I just want an idea of how wide a gantry needs to be span a given number of tracks. The actual placing of tracks within that space shouldn't be an issue as the placement of the brackets along gantry will be fully adjustable.

[Kamome442]

That Escalated Quickly 

 

A little preamble

I was contacted recently by a modeller in Japan, they had some laser cut paper pieces that were very delicate and wanted to know if I would consider making them in metal. 

They sent me lots of dimensions and information so I was more than happy to help them out. I am waiting of the test etch and I will forward it to them to look over. Once they are happy with the parts I will announce what it is and put it up for sale.

 

Quick as a Flash

After announcing the catenary he got in touch almost immediately asking if I would consider making other styles. I said I would only consider it if I could find enough information about the dimensions and some good reference pictures to be able to make faithful replicas of what he was looking for. It is probably best to describe what he sent me as a deluge of information. This including pictures, drawings and images of existing and no longer available catenary photographed on mm squared paper. I have just finished drawing up each of the designs he sent me and will be sending him the files today or tomorrow to check over. 

I just thought I would share a screen shot of each design as they stand. At the moment these are drawn using the real life dimensions scaled down. The next step will be to work out how to turn them into an actual kit. It will likely mean some compromises such as making some parts thicker or loosing some details in-order to simplify construction.  

I will also be working on one style at a time so it will be quite some time before they become available. Anyway enough waffle:

 

Design 1:

 

Design 2:

 

Design 3:

 

There are also a couple of variations on design 1, a version where the lower rail doesn't angle down to connect to the legs and a version with truss style legs.

Looks like a will be busy for a while.

Joe

[UnfinishedKit]

I was wondering how your booth store was going - clearly well if people are commissioning things. 
 

Have you ever contacted IMON or anyone else about stocking your stuff? You’ve got some truly unique stuff in the range. 
 

(might have to do some 1/87 products to get IMON Yoshihiro on board though)

[cteno4]

Yes and Sakatsu galleries! I expect they would love your stuff!

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

32 minutes ago, UnfinishedKit said:

I was wondering how your booth store was going - clearly well if people are commissioning things. 

 

Hi @UnfinishedKit, it was a slow start but since December I sell more on Booth than I do on Etsy. It took a long time to get noticed but I was very lucky that several diorama makers mentioned me on Twitter. I picked up a lot of followers and a few sales from that.

 

36 minutes ago, UnfinishedKit said:

Have you ever contacted IMON or anyone else about stocking your stuff? You’ve got some truly unique stuff in the range. 
 

(might have to do some 1/87 products to get IMON Yoshihiro on board though)

 

That's is a good idea, I did consider it a while ago but at the time I had quite a small range of items. I should probably try reaching out to couple of sellers now that I have a bigger range.

Yeah I really do need to start adding some 1/87 etches to the range!

 

16 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Yes and Sakatsu galleries! I expect they would love your stuff!

 

Thanks @cteno4 that is a good suggestion. Maybe I should make up a sample box of my best selling items and send them to a few shops.

[cteno4]

Great to hear some diorama folks picked you up, im sure that will lead to a lot of word of mouth, that has to be a sizable modeler community in Japan. I expect they will love how well done and thought out your products are!

 

Sakatsu would be perfect as thats all they really carry, diorama parts! The owner sounds like a nice chap from everyone that has stopped by the store.

 

cheers, 

 

jeff

 

btw love the squid and fish rails! Going to see if i can plant some on existing modules for the Sakuri matsuri! You can never have too many railings!

[Martijn Meerts]

I haven't done anything yet with the stuff I ordered so far, but just going by the look of it, I will definitely be interested in more things sooner or later. So it's good to see you getting a little more traction, and info sent to you from Japan for making new etches.

 

I will definitely be interested in the catenary at least 😄

 

And H0 stuff as well of course, eventually ...

[Kamome442]

@Martijn Meerts It is really nice to have people reach out and lovely to have some of the research done for me 🤭

It helps to have someone with experience making etches you can share the artwork with to make sure it accurate before ordering anything.

Regarding feedback, I have attached a .pdf of some progress. If anyone wants to print it out and have a look, I would love to hear your thoughts on anything that could be improved.

 

A4 version

Catenary Test A4.pdf

Letter version

Catenary Test Letter.pdf

 

Really looking forward to building up a range of catenary, hopefully it will be very popular. It will be nice to see it pop up on layouts in the future.

I will release it in HO scale too, If it all goes well I might release a couple designs in Z scale, to see how it does.

 

Regarding HO stuff, I working on scaling up Detail Pack 1 it is by far the best seller in N scale.

Joe

[Martijn Meerts]

I can definitely print out the catenary, although I don't think my layout (if you can call it that 🙂 ) is very representative. On the visible parts I don't use either Kato or Tomix track spacing, but rather the Peco spacing. I guess that could be partially solved by having single masts rather than a  multi-track gantry. Going from the pictures you posted earlier though, it looks like it might be possible to make the gantries fairly modular, so maybe making custom lengths would be doable.

 

 

[Kamome442]

18 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said:

I can definitely print out the catenary, although I don't think my layout (if you can call it that 🙂 ) is very representative. On the visible parts I don't use either Kato or Tomix track spacing, but rather the Peco spacing. I guess that could be partially solved by having single masts rather than a  multi-track gantry. Going from the pictures you posted earlier though, it looks like it might be possible to make the gantries fairly modular, so maybe making custom lengths would be doable.

 

There is going to be a lot to work out before I release them. The arches at Yurakucho originally had 2 tracks which was increased to 4, while it looks like it was designed to be expanded the tracks are still very close. Much less than with set track. You can actually see they had issues with clearances at the north end of the station when they extended the platform. The legs have been moved over slightly below the horizontal girders:

 

The tracks spacing on the .pdf are taken from measurements on Google Earth, they are also a closer spacing than set track. It will be a challenge to make a one size fits all design however like you say most of this stuff is modular so I am making up a set of pieces that can be swapped around to expand or reduce the dimensions. Here is one segment as an example (top taken from real life references, bottom adjusted for Tomix set track):

 

I am planning on offering different sizes of both legs and the horizontal gantry. There will be a height difference between set track and flexi track. I really don't want it to get too complicated as the majority of people won't want a massive list of options. I am considering making separate etches for legs and gantries to cover the different spacings. Then just listing them as 2 track (Kato), 2 track (Tomix) etc. I can then send out the two etches needed. 

I can then also list the parts separately for people who want to mix and match to make unique configurations. If it is popular enough I can add more girder sizes to make more interesting stuff like this:

 

Or some add ons for variety like this:

 

Right now I just need to focus on basic sets that is easy to assemble for most modellers.

I just want to make sure I design in some flexibility for easy modification for anyone wanting to create something weird and wonderful at a later date.

I have at least got the basic dimensions now so I can move onto working out how it will fold and fit together. 

[Kamome442]

I drew up a little section of one of the girders to get better idea of its construction. Basically it is just a bunch of I-beams and a couple of plates. Being able to move it around and view it from different angles is rather useful.

 

 

The simplest way to replicate it would be a top and two sides that fold down. I can half etch some detail to give it a little more texture:

 

 

This design will make the connection to the legs a little tricky as the lower supports branch off from the two back to back L-beams that from the bottom of the truss. With this design the base of the truss is wedge shaped so the supports might need to be separate parts.