Building a 26 x 75 cm N-scale layout for IKEA Billy

[MeTheSwede]

Some people might say there isn't space for multiple stations on a layout of this size, but I'd say that depends upon the size of the stations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easier to navigate than Shinjuku.

 

 

[MeTheSwede]

As one of the buildings I had put at the harbour was nicked for the project build and another one didn't really fit there, I went about kitbashing a Greenmax house kit to add a garage on the lower floor and after that decided to take the plunge and do my first completely scratch built house. I wanted to reproduce the feel of a workshop with a home on the second floor.

 

 

This is a styrene build using a pencil, a ruler and a craft knife. Cutting out windows was a bit tedious. Some filing was done whenever a window wheren't straight enough for my taste. No windows were added on the sidewalls as they would be close up to adjacent buildings anyway. On the top can be seen the roof tile sheet from Greenmax that I was using for the roof. Once all the pieces had been cut and spraypainted, assembling them was quick and very straight forward.

 

 

 

The Sankei kits taught me the technique of using double walls for making recessed windows. Styrene L-profiles from Evergreen (seen cut to lenght on the right hand side of the photo) was used in the corners of the buildings to put the walls together.

 

 

 

Mostly done. Roof, some detailing and weathering left to do. All in all the building took me about 4 hours to complete.

 

Pictures of the finished result is coming soon.

 

[MeTheSwede]

Here is the final result of the build.

 

(And my little kit bash on the left.)

 

 

I'm probably a bit too careful when whethering, but then also my phone camera has a tendency to not pick it up on photos.

 

 

 

There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

 

On the other side of the houses a girl is looking for her bicycle key.

 

 

 

I made potted plants to add some small details.

 

 

 

A lake suddenly appeared on the table to serve as a photo background.

 

 

 

The old rail tracks are still being used.

 

 

 

 

A human bumper stop prevents rolling stock from ending up in the water. 😄

 

 

 

It's time to go on a fishing expedition.

 

I hope you enjoyed your brief visit to this little harbour.

 

[FSHBWL]

3 hours ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

I hope you enjoyed your brief visit to this little harbour.

 

 

Very much so! Wonderfully arranged and great composition on the shots. I also love how all the colours go together so well - very harmonious!

[Beaver]

Did you paint the building? Bare white plastic sheet can discolour over time, especially with UV exposure.

[cteno4]

Nice job swede! 
 

jeff

[tossedman]

I've enjoyed visiting this little harbour! Nicely done!

[MeTheSwede]

On 11/30/2023 at 5:02 PM, FSHBWL said:

 

Very much so! Wonderfully arranged and great composition on the shots. I also love how all the colours go together so well - very harmonious!

 

Thanks!

 

Maybe the lighting conditions helped a bit, daylight reflected in newly fallen snow.

 

Many products for layouts tend to be a bit too colourful I think. I prefer to tone it down a bit, both for realism and for not having different colours clash to much with eachother. There are still a couple of things in this scene that I think stands out a bit much, like the blue car.

[MeTheSwede]

On 11/30/2023 at 6:16 PM, Beaver said:

Did you paint the building? Bare white plastic sheet can discolour over time, especially with UV exposure.

 

It's painted with white spray can primer and then a wash to make it less white and a bit weathered. My camera is bad at picking up the later though... The grey is also spray can primer. Perfect for a lazy guy like me. 😀

Edited December 2, 2023 by MeTheSwede

[Tony Galiani]

Really enjoying all your pictures.  Lots of inspiration.  Thanks for posting all of them.

Ciao,

Tony

[MeTheSwede]

After my recent acquisition of an electric coffee grinder and some sponges (as mentioned in my recent thread in the scenery techniques section of the forum) Machinaka got a tree upgrade.

 

 

 

There is now more shade on the local idol scene. That doesn't seem to have cooled down the fans though.

 

 

 

Some signaling was also installed on the railway.
 

 

 

From this angle, the town got a lot greener.

 

 

 

A look at the two large trees.

 

 

 

Having packed away the temporary scenic surroundings, it was time to hand the dining table over to the cats again, as I put the layout back to it's pet and dust free home.

 

[tossedman]

Wow! Those trees look spectacular! Looks like I need to get myself an electric coffee grinder and some sponges. What did you use for the tree trunks?

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

[MeTheSwede]

Thanks tossedman!

 

These trees were my first attempt at making twisted wire trees. It turned out to be both easier and quicker than I had anticipated. There are lots of tutorials out there, but I didn't watch any of them for this little project, I just started twisting some wire while watching Youtube and it turned out well. I took a few photos of the construction process:

 

 

 

These are the two large trees from the layout. After having poured sand over the left one to finish the trunk I knew it had been a success. The thing about the twisting is that there is little precision required. I started with three wires and then I just cut pieces of wire and added them one at a time to the tree. The lenght of the wire is not important, because you trim them all afterwards.

 

Here are two more moderately sized trees during the glueing part of the trunk making process:

 

 

 

I just "painted" the twisted wire with PVA glue using a paintbrush and the glue mostly stayed in place without issuses. Then I poured fine sand over them. You will want very fine sand. I used leftovers from when I sifted sand to make ballast. This is the material that was to small to be part of my ballast.

 

 

 

The branches are "seafoam trees" which is a sold by various companies. The seafoam is a bit yellow, so I've used a spraycan with brown paint to darken them.

 

Gluing seafoam branches to the trunk structure is the fiddly part. I presume there is some glue out there that is more tacky, that I don't own, which I should use for this. If anyone has a recomendation, please let me know. I just kept going regluing fallen off pieces until I was finished.

 

Pouring sand after having added seafoam branches to the wires is probably the best as it makes it easier to make the branches seamlessly attach to the trunk structure, but I found it even harder to get the seafoam to stick directly to the metal using the glues I had around.

 

After adding branches I did a quick final patching up of the trees with a second minor sand pour targeting some places where the seafoam attachments looked a bit iffy or places where the trunk looked a bit strange.

 

Adding my sponge foliage was simply a matter of dipping the branches in diluted PVA-glue and then pouring foliage over the tree. The tree was sprayed with spray glue and then a second more controlled pour was made adding foliage where it didn't stuck the first place and adding slightly lighter green shades on top.  Finally I gave it another spray to fix everything in place.

[tossedman]

Thanks for the detailed response. 

[MeTheSwede]

You never know what might be hiding around the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7 by MeTheSwede

[mwagner]

Wow, that is looking awesome. I love this scenery. Great modelling!

[MeTheSwede]

On 1/7/2024 at 7:50 PM, mwagner said:

Wow, that is looking awesome. I love this scenery. Great modelling!

 

Thank you very much. It's the feedback from people here that keeps inspiring me to try new things.

[MeTheSwede]

Being back at work after the holidays means the energy for modelling is falling a bit. Here's a picture of another area that is starting to look pretty much finished.

 

 

I'm sure most of you have read or listen to discussions about what is the smallest curve radius that will look good on a layout. I was never expecting to say this, but...  I think in some places 103mm looks fine.

 

 

And here, a look down the back alley:

 

[MeTheSwede]

 

A Tora 145000 made itself into my latest shipment from Japan. Maybe I'll make a load of my own for it at some point.

 

 

 

Some mixed freight passing by Nakamachi Station.

 

 

A roof top view from the roof of the corner restaurant.

 

 

 

- Wait dear! I don't think this is the right train.

 

 

I've regained some inspiration to do some modelling for Yamahama, so maybe my next update will be from there.

 

 

[Beaver]

I must admit that an advantage of the 1067mm gauge local railway for modellers is all those varied wagons of through freight from the JNR. However you would probably find the brake van was one of the railway's own - something from the Aru Model simple kits range perhaps?

[MeTheSwede]

Today I got back to working on this layout for the first time in a long time. Something I've been wanting to tackle, but been putting off, was redoing the streets. The area with street running clearly needed to get marked and I decided to go with the yellow as on the Enoden Line. I also wanted to get rid of the gaps that were between the track track pieces and the road surface, something that was solved by using concrete imitation tapestry.

 

 

 

Just as on the Enoden Line, cars and other traffic has to scramble to leave the yellow areas when the train announces it's presence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up will be the tedious work of replacing other paved areas. Removing everything and measuring and fitting, isn't exactly the most exciting thing to do, but atleast the end result looks good, doesn't it?

[cteno4]

I agree total pain in the butt to do street track curves but does give a really nice scene integration when done! Makes it worth the pain. 
 

kudos,

 

jeff

[Beaver]

On 6/6/2024 at 5:30 PM, MeTheSwede said:

The area with street running clearly needed to get marked

 

It depends on the period. Unmarked street track remained legal well into the 20th century - after all, for much of that time the streets were unsurfaced, bare earth or possibly gravel, so there was no surface to put markings on anyway.

 

However given your use of modern road vehicles you appear to be doing a pseudo-heritage sort of railway like the Enoden so it makes sense.

[MeTheSwede]

I'm aiming to get this layout "finished" before the end of the summer, already making plans for the next one. The biggest piece of unfinishedness has long been this part of the layout.

 

 

For a long time I had the tiny police box from one of the Tomytec stations placed next to the purple building, but it never looked quite right. What I really needed was a building that would fit the space better, that is wider in the front than in the back. That meant scratch building something out of styrene plastics.

 

 

 

These are the tools and materials I use (minus the paints and paint brushes). TGW has a product line with styrene to model common Japanese wall cladding patterns. The plastic is pretty soft and seems it could easily be used for curved walls, but at the same time it's pretty thick, so I presume it shouldn't be prone to warping. On the right is some standard thin styrene that I'm using for an inside wall layer. An inside layer with slightly smaller window openings allows me to make windows the same way it's done in the Sankei paper kits.

 

Once I had the wall pieces cut out I assembled them with blue tack to make sure everything fit. Some minor adjustments were needed. The building plot not having any right angles certainly added to the complexity.

 

Once everything seemed right, openings for windows and doors were cut before it was time for painting. Here are most of the pieces before the final assembly.

 

 

Tomorrow I'll post the finished result!

[MeTheSwede]

 

It turned out the little building houses a tempura restaurant. Atleast the sign I found says so.

 

 

The other side of the street got deliniated with a scratchbuilt fence.

 

 

 

 

A bird's view from the back. The little apartment on top of the restaurant clearly houses a resident who enjoys growing plants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In front of the station entrance there's a baked potatoes stall and an information board telling about the history of the railway. Unfortunately my eyes are a bit too bad to make out the kanji so I can't tell you what it says. ☺️