Neon Noir Designs

[Kamome442]

I hope this is okay.

 

[arkh]

Honestly definitely better than expected! I love the ones colored border ones as that'd be a cool not only for accuracy but for other fictional lines to throw some color in there, haha.  Is the "O" still going to get thrown in there also?

[Kamome442]

 

Sorry @arkh yes I will include the 'O' and I will add these two as well.

 

I was looking at the product catalog again it is actually only the yellow sign above that is 40cm it seems the stopping point numbers are on a 25cm sign so they would be tiny at 1.7mm if I would up. I can add some of each size to the sheet so you can choose accuracy or being able to read the signs 😂 

It only showed one sign number 3, I have drawn this up to show just how unique the font is:

I can try and find pictures of the other numbers but that will most likely take a while. To be honest it would probably make sense to do a sheet of rail related signs at some point. There lots of different signs that could add some extra detail to a layout, a couple of examples above. I can get on to that a some point if people are interested but I would need to do a ton of research.

For now I need a little break from making signs as it has taken 2 months of work to get the road signs done. My next project is going to be getting the lanterns sorted then after that I can look at making more signs. It was also pay day yesterday so I can afford to test etch some more parts.

 

[Kamome442]

Road Signs

I have finished a test sheet of road signs, it has most of the signs I have drawn jammed on one sheet.

 

I am going to split the designs across multiple sheets and in multiple scales to sell on through the Etsy store. This will likely be a main sheet with the most common signs followed by additional sheets with the more obscure or region spacific designs. 

For now I have attached the completed sheet as a .pdf please feel free to download and use. 

Road Signs N Scale Test.pdf

 

If you have any feedback about the layout or quality, it would be really good to hear your thoughts.

As a bit of fun I scaled up a couple of the designs to turn into keyrings. I just need to stress test the prototype as long as it doesn't fall apart I will probably add some of those the shop in the future.

 

Joe

[maihama eki]

Thank you! What an outstanding contribution you are making to our hobby!

 

I intend to print these as water slide decals. Unfortunately, we Yanks generally only have "letter" size paper, including my decal paper. When I printed your sheet to scale on letter, it cuts off your nicely designed title/legend at the bottom. It still works, but I feel bad about cutting this off.

 

[Kamome442]

Thank you @maihama eki it great to know that I am making items that are useful.

 

23 hours ago, maihama eki said:

we Yanks generally only have "letter" size paper, including my decal paper

 

That is really useful to know, I will keep that in mind going forward.

 

23 hours ago, maihama eki said:

When I printed your sheet to scale on letter, it cuts off your nicely designed title/legend at the bottom. It still works, but I feel bad about cutting this off.

 

I am glad to hear that you didn't loose any of the actual signs. I tried to keep the title/legend small as it would use up printer ink but not actually be a usable part. I don't mind if that is the only part that is lost when printing. 

[Kamome442]

Lantern Update

 

This weekend I will be drawing up an etch to send off next week. It will contain a bunch of test pieces, for the next set of manhole covers and possible surprise item. Seeing as it will take around a month to get this etch produced I figured I could spend that time working on the lanterns. I have been playing around with adding the little caps on the top and bottom. Here is one of the lanterns testing ∅1mm styrene, I am happy with this for a first attempt.

 

I have been trying to work out which sizes to make as there are so many to choose from. I was looking at an online store that sells lanterns (www.chochin-kojo.com)

It has this rather handy section showing which size is used in different scenarios:

Source: https://www.chochin-kojo.com

 

It seems that two sizes (9 and 15) are very common. I am thinking that starting with these two would keep things simple. Adding different sizes at a later date if the demand is there. The No.15 would fit a larger 0402 LED so would be cheaper (pack of 20 for around £10) to produce. The No.9 uses the smaller 0201 LED so would be more expensive (pack of 10 for around £10). Having looked at the sales handbook on Etsy the expectation is for items over £10 to be sent recorded delivery. This would mean a postage price of around £9-£10 pounds for US and Japan. If I sold them in sets of 10 it would mean a price of around £20 for the No.9 so around £2 each. 

 

It occurred to me that selling them in sets of 20 would spread the cost of postage and reduce the cost per lantern offering slightly better value.

 

I have drawn up both the washi paper and vinyl versions they are different shapes and sizes so that I can offer the paper version with a warm white LED and the vinyl version with bright white. I am thinking of starting with the No.15 a medium size lantern (roughly 5mm high) sold for £20 (£1 per lantern)

 

Then I could offer packs the small No.9 lantern (3.7mm high) also in two versions for £30 (£1:50 per lantern)

To split the difference and bring the price down a little for anyone wanting the smaller lantern I was thinking a split pack with 10 of each size for £25 (£1:25 per lantern)

 

Please do let me know your thoughts on this as a way of offering them.

Joe

[cteno4]

Joe,

 

nice! What about selling them sans leds as well? 
 

jeff

[Wolf]

Lanterns are something I am really looking foreward to. Thinking about possible usages, I personally will probably use more small ones than medium ones. If others think similar, I guess the mixed package as well as the small only ones will be what I would eye on, as 20 medium ones strike me personally as a tad many (and even if I would need 20, I probably need tons of small as well so would just get 2 mixed bags).

 

At least thats my personal opinion. Looking foreward to again immideately order once you are ready 🙂

 

Love the effort you put into this!

[Kamome442]

@cteno4 I could sell them without LED for sure. Here is an image of the 3D drawings for the lanterns I am planning to make up. The row at the back is how I print them with caps removed and holes in the top for adding LEDs, the front front row is how the lanterns actually look with the caps in place.

The ones on the front would be ready for placement after a quick dab of black paint. 

 

Thanks @Wolf I have just placed an order for a few hundred LED's so that should give me a about a 2 weeks to perfect making the little caps.

 

I figured I would change the title of the thread too seeing as things are expanding away from just etches.

 

 

[Dave K]

22 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

Lantern Update

 

This weekend I will be drawing up an etch to send off next week. It will contain a bunch of test pieces, for the next set of manhole covers and possible surprise item. Seeing as it will take around a month to get this etch produced I figured I could spend that time working on the lanterns. I have been playing around with adding the little caps on the top and bottom. Here is one of the lanterns testing ∅1mm styrene, I am happy with this for a first attempt.

 

I have been trying to work out which sizes to make as there are so many to choose from. I was looking at an online store that sells lanterns (www.chochin-kojo.com)

It has this rather handy section showing which size is used in different scenarios:

Source: https://www.chochin-kojo.com

 

It seems that two sizes (9 and 15) are very common. I am thinking that starting with these two would keep things simple. Adding different sizes at a later date if the demand is there. The No.15 would fit a larger 0402 LED so would be cheaper (pack of 20 for around £10) to produce. The No.9 uses the smaller 0201 LED so would be more expensive (pack of 10 for around £10). Having looked at the sales handbook on Etsy the expectation is for items over £10 to be sent recorded delivery. This would mean a postage price of around £9-£10 pounds for US and Japan. If I sold them in sets of 10 it would mean a price of around £20 for the No.9 so around £2 each. 

 

It occurred to me that selling them in sets of 20 would spread the cost of postage and reduce the cost per lantern offering slightly better value.

 

I have drawn up both the washi paper and vinyl versions they are different shapes and sizes so that I can offer the paper version with a warm white LED and the vinyl version with bright white. I am thinking of starting with the No.15 a medium size lantern (roughly 5mm high) sold for £20 (£1 per lantern)

 

Then I could offer packs the small No.9 lantern (3.7mm high) also in two versions for £30 (£1:50 per lantern)

To split the difference and bring the price down a little for anyone wanting the smaller lantern I was thinking a split pack with 10 of each size for £25 (£1:25 per lantern)

 

Please do let me know your thoughts on this as a way of offering them.

Joe

Joe,

 

I am definitely interested in the medium washi paper with the warm white LED.

 

Dave

[Kamome442]

On 10/2/2022 at 10:15 PM, maihama eki said:

Unfortunately, we Yanks generally only have "letter" size paper, including my decal paper.

 

Here is a US version formatted for Letter sized paper.

Japanese N Scale Road Signs Letter.pdf

 

I did a search for paper sizes used in Japan. From what I could tell A4 is readily available. If there is a better size to use could you please let me know.

 

[railsquid]

35 minutes ago, Kamome442 said:

I did a search for paper sizes used in Japan. From what I could tell A4 is readily available. If there is a better size to use could you please let me know.

 

Japan uses DIN paper sizes just like pretty much everywhere else, and A4 is the default format. (Veering down memory lane slightly I recall DIN Bx paper sizes being very common in the 1990s for some reason, but that seems to have died away).

Edited October 9, 2022 by railsquid

[maihama eki]

Thank you, @Kamome442  

 

I think the US may be one of a very few lands stuck in the past with inches and miles and pounds. 

[Kamome442]

Don't worry @maihama eki I am in the UK we started converting to metric then I think we just got bored halfway through.

 

I had a go at putting an LED in the number 9 lantern yesterday. It put up a bit of fight, these things are stupidly small but I got there in the end.

 

I even managed to do it with out burning out the LED 🎉

 

Hard to tell from the image but the light distribution is a little uneven (brighter at the top near the LED). Looking at reference pictures this is actually quite realistic. Once I am closer to a finished product I might see about sending out a couple of samples to willing volunteers. It would be good to get a little feedback before charging people money for them.

 

I have also started drawing up some of the fences:

 

This is roughly the layout I want to go with, I am happy with the amounts of each size. I do want to add a jig to frame to help with drilling holes in the correct position. 

Joe

[cteno4]

I actually have a pack of A4 photo paper I bought just to print Japanese papercraft stuff!

 

nice lantern Joe. Have you tried turning the led down with a higher resistor? I’m guessing turning it way down should give a nice glow with out being a mini sun. 2k pots are great for this as it’s usually the range to get any desired level and it has enough to tune to where you want. You can put a full limiting resistor on series with the pot so that when the pot is turned to no resistance you won’t blow the led. Once you find the level you want you can read the resistance across the pot and use a static resistor then so if you have a lot of lanterns they are all the same brightness. Remember to add the value of the limiting resistor to the total if you have one in the circuit.

 

Really nice fences! These are needed as outside of sankei’s offerings there are not a lot of options and their lasercut laserboard is a bit chunky for some of the fences and etched metal is more svelte and better to scale. Plus the silver doesn’t even need to be painted!

dude, you are going to have quite a store at this rate!
 

cheers

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

On 10/17/2022 at 12:07 AM, cteno4 said:

Have you tried turning the led down with a higher resistor? I’m guessing turning it way down should give a nice glow with out being a mini sun.

 

Oh Sorry @cteno4 my photo of the lantern lit was really just to show it works and not actually very accurate. I used may hand to block out the surrounding light. I think my phone camera has ambitions to be the next JWST so in low light it turns any light source in to a star. Here is a picture without the surrounding light blocked out.

 

The camera still over exposes where the LED is in side the lantern. It is actually a more even fade from top to bottom.

 

On 10/17/2022 at 12:07 AM, cteno4 said:

Really nice fences! These are needed as outside of sankei’s offerings there are not a lot of options

 

I did look at sankei's offerings, they are beautiful and they have set a very high bar indeed. There is some overlap with what I have drawn up however as far as I can see they offer in each design in one size (what looks like a 2 meter section to me). To try and offer something different I am going to include 3, 2, 1.5 and 1 meter sections, if I can find evidence of their existence.

 

The other thing that the sankei sets I've seen come as a strip of fences joined together. I was planning to do exactly same however having scrolled through images to work out different designs one thing that stood out very quickly is how random sections of fence are. Here are a couple of examples:

There are not many sections that use the same length fences in a continuous row. Also it seem quite common for adjacent fences to have their own posts (not shared) highlighted by the green arrows above. Therefore I have drawn them up as separate sections that can be overlapped. I am not 100% happy with this as a solution but I haven't really thought of a good alternative. I could make the posts a half etch but this would weaken them where they attach to the etches frame. I have also considered creating an interlocking post something like this:

 

Considering the posts are 0.4mm wide I think this might be far too fiddly for a lot of people.

 

On 10/17/2022 at 12:07 AM, cteno4 said:

dude, you are going to have quite a store at this rate!

 

🤣 It's getting there!

 

Joe

Edited October 18, 2022 by Kamome442

[cteno4]

Yeah camera and eye are really different on lights like that! LED’s blessing and curse packing so many lumens into such a tiny space. While really convenient for model lighting they take some fiddling with with levels and light baffles to get them to look prototypical to the eye. 
 

I made a few lanterns (lurking somewhere in a little box somewhere in the workspace) out of styrene tubing that I put on a pin in the rototool and lathed down to lantern profile. I think it was about 4-5mm long so a larger one. It was just big enough with some reaming to get a 0402 into, but so tight it mainly glowed on one side when I turned it down to a decent light level. I also didn’t come up with a good cap solution other than some putty and seal the led in. Kind of shelved the project as bit fiddly and just then kobaru (like so many times I fiddle with something like thus) came out with their set! While I love fiddling and making things by hand a lot, at times I try to measure out thst time to things I can’t easily buy and save fiddly time for those.

 

ohh cool idea of having alternating half uprights to interlock. This is always a challenge with fencing/railing bits like this to attach them together. Either it’s double uprights or clip off an upright and it’s a fiddly attachment of cross pieces on one to the upright of the other. Maybe have the whole face of the upright be only half thickness on alternating sides and upright face the full width of the upright. Don’t know if the attachments to the cross pieces would be too thin then though. The half uprights glued together would give a really good joint and be easy to do. You could put some single uprights on the edge of the etch to fill in for an open fence end that needs the other half of the upright.

 

how about a little fold over feet? These could alternate direction so the rails could be set down and even be free standing w.o gluing or just a tiny bit to hold in place or to just play with in a scene to see how it would look and position before gluing down. Could always just nip off if not wanted for gluing.
 

Or maybe add some to the leg length in case folks want to embed in holes and you can just clip uprights to desired length. I guess you could get both in one by putting an etch bend like at the designed height were folks could easily nip off for direct gluing down and the 2 or 3mm more leg below etch fold like for foot if bent over or the bit that could get sunk in a hole and the etch line is a good guide to level it.

 

the set of sizes also is great as decorative pieces like this don’t really chop up well. These are different beasts than the sankei which really are quite beefie looking at scale. It’s almost like a very heavy wood fencing or even masonry.

 

excellent work as alway Joe!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

I volunteer to be in a beta test of lanterns! I have LEDs to put in them, so I would just need the lantern shell.

 

I will be an early customer for those fences as well. I like the assorted lengths and really like the ginko shape fences.

[Kamome442]

12 hours ago, cteno4 said:

I made a few lanterns (lurking somewhere in a little box somewhere in the workspace) out of styrene tubing that I put on a pin in the rototool and lathed down to lantern profile.

 

Impressive jeff, I can imagine that took a very steady hand.

 

12 hours ago, cteno4 said:

It was just big enough with some reaming to get a 0402 into, but so tight it mainly glowed on one side when I turned it down to a decent light level.

 

Space is certainly tight, I can just about get a 0201 in the small lantern. With the original set I made for Yurakucho placed the LED face down in the top of the lantern. This worked really well as the LED was facing down so the light is projected through the resin giving a nice glow. It makes the installation really quick and easy. The problem with that is the wires come out at a 90 degree angle to lantern (on the left in the image below). I don't have a problem with that for me, I am just going to feed them through a little hole in the wall of the building to hide them. For the ones to sell I want to have the wires coming straight up to look like the wires that hang the lantern while still having the LED face directly down. This is proving to be pretty challenging as it means putting two bends in the wire without damaging the contacts. It also pushes the LED deeper into the lantern leaving a dimmer spot at the top of the lantern (image on the right). 

 

12 hours ago, cteno4 said:

I also didn’t come up with a good cap solution other than some putty and seal the led in.

 

I am still working on the caps too, I will need to make 40 of them for each pack so I want something very quick and easy. This is my current solution it is a bunch of razorblades with styrene spacers held together by mini bulldog clips (the legs on the clips are up so I don't accidentally cut myself with not using it!). I put this (sharp side down) on top of styrene rod and press down.

 

The results are a little hit and miss here is some cut 0.6mm styrene in the bag and a couple of 1mm at the top. As the styrene pushed between the blades it forces them to deform creates and uneven cut. 

Going forward I am going to try a V shaped recess with a single blade on top. I can then place the styrene in the recess and slide it along the blade, using a block. Perhaps the most impressive thing about my experiments is that I haven't cut myself yet! Give it time 😁

 

12 hours ago, cteno4 said:

ohh cool idea of having alternating half uprights to interlock. This is always a challenge with fencing/railing bits like this to attach them together.

 

It certainly seems like good solution. It would also allow you to adjust levels slightly for placing fences on inclines. I don't have much experience with etched steel so I will be sending off a test etch to see if interlocking legs work. A lot of it comes down to the minimum thickness of metal that can be half etched, with the brass and nickel silver I think the thinest metal that can be half etches is 0.25mm. I am hoping for stainless they go thinner as the minimum thickness of each piece cannot be lower than the thickness of the metal and most of the patterns on the fences are 0.2mm. I don't want to compromise on the fine details.

 

12 hours ago, cteno4 said:

how about a little fold over feet?

 

I had not considered that, I am a little worried about adding a fold line as the legs are going to be so thin and I don't want to weaken them too much. I am going to make the legs longer so they can be dropped into holes. I will include a set of holes on the etch for drilling holes precisely, you could easily drop the fence post through one of these holes to the desired height and bend it over.

Joe

[Kamome442]

11 hours ago, maihama eki said:

I volunteer to be in a beta test of lanterns!

 

Awesome, thank you @maihama eki when I have some working prototypes I will pass them over. 

 

11 hours ago, maihama eki said:

I have LEDs to put in them, so I would just need the lantern shell.

 

By all means I can send you some shells, that is the easy part for me. I have printed up a few batches already so I can send some over if you like.

 

I am focusing on the No.9 and No.15 to keep things simple but I am drawing up other sizes and shapes for future expansion of the range. I am happy to forward you others shells to play around with. This is what I have drawn up so far:

 

11 hours ago, maihama eki said:

I like the assorted lengths and really like the ginko shape fences.

 

That is my favourite design too, if anyone is interested I can offer it with a snail in the middle.

 

The original is apparently on the Meguro Street not far from the Meguro Parasite Museum. I know where I am going on my next trip to Tokyo!

[Madsing]

Early this year, I purchased these two types of fences, the Morin P1001 and P1002 (https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10168175 and https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10243744). The poles are a bit longer and they have small holes at the side of the sheet to help drilling the holes at the right locations. This seems like a good idea.

 

This summer, I was looking for more "standard" (less fancy) fences, for the city but also around the tracks. I decided to make my own and I have just received the photo etched sheet (pdf available for download below)

 

 

I have made the poles longer than necessary, the red lines show the ground level. The city fences are inspired by the models in this catalog: https://www.hokusei-kogyo.co.jp/catalog/ They have dozens of nice designs. I really liked this one so I have included it in the sheet (bottom right).

 

 

Maybe some ideas for more products ... 😀

Etching sheet 3 2022-08-17.pdf

[Kamome442]

Woah! @Madsing these are amazing 🤩 thank you so much for sharing.

 

That is a beautifully organised etch. With this your tower crane and the inspection gantry I would have some intense competition if you ever decided to make etches for sale! 

Thank you for sharing the product catalog that is an amazing resource. I am quite tempted to make some grates to go around trees now!

[cteno4]

5 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

I will include a set of holes on the etch for drilling holes precisely, you could easily drop the fence post through one of these holes to the desired height and bend it over.

Excellent idea Joe!

 

jeff

[cteno4]

@Madsing excellent rails!

 

jeff