Sankei's Miniatauart Kyoto Layout

[bill937ca]

Sankei has a blog that details the construction of a small Kyoto streetcar layout for display at trade shows. What is interesting about this is the detail shown during the layout's construction bySankei  which also produces displays for museums.

 

I started at the latest entry and have just moved down opening photos and checking out all the detail.  I found some ideas that I have never seen before like spray painting the base brown where ballasted track will go. The blog images are expandable and allow you to see all the detail.

 

http://blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/

 

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/imgs/7/b/7b1fe77c.JPG

 

There is a track plan which calls for several cuts in Tomix track and this process is shown. They also spray paint the paper streetcar models, so you can paint these models.

 

I like the look of the nearly completed models.  This is adding a traffic light at a corner with a lumber yard in the background.

 

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/imgs/8/7/877ed5c5.JPG

 

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/imgs/9/1/91dbfcee.JPG

 

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/imgs/1/7/1757b916.JPG

 

Edit Oops!! these weren't the intended photos for above, but they are still good.

 

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/imgs/e/e/ee03b1bc.JPG

 

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/imgs/0/3/0383bb01.JPG

 

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/sankei_miniatuart/imgs/1/8/18458345.JPG

 

The only drawback is I find this blog hard to machine translate or print.  Only Bing will translate it.

 

For those not comfortable with machine translators, HobbyLink Japan has translated the basic instructions into English.

 

http://www.hlj.com/howtosankei.html

[Martijn Meerts]

Most interesting is that they don't just spray the base brown, they're spraying the entire track brown. It's also not actually brown, but rust ;)

 

For our non-Japanese layout we're working on, we've hand painted each rail, trying to not hit the sleepers too much. After that, the sleepers get a darker shade of brown than the rust colored rail. Obviously it's a load of work, and spray painting would really save a lot of time.

 

I can't imagine spray painting is healthy for the turnouts though, if nothing else they'd need a good cleanup afterwards to clean up the polarized frog bit. Hmm.. I should try it sometime, I have a bunch of turnouts which need adjusting anyway, might as well experiment on them a bit more =)

 

Definitely a good blog though, even though I can't read a thing, the images are excellent. And those paper kits of theirs are incredible too. I'm normally not a big fan of paper kits, but they've got some great looking stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: Okay, so now I feel like making some tiny T-Trak like modules purely to run my trams ... (It doesn't help that I was running one of my Enoden trams earlier today at low speed, which looked real good.. Interestingly, the 16-part 500 series running alongside didn't get much of my attention......)

[KenS]

When I did my HO layout a few years back, I spray-painted the tracks rust (a mix of brown, red, and white if I recall correctly). I did it by using masking tape to cover the ties, and I did it before ballasting, so it didn't matter if the roadbed or subroadbed were hit by overspray.  I also masked off the points on the turnout (not the frog), and quickly swabbed the top of the rail with a cotton swab dampened with paint thinner after spraying, before it fully dried.  I later painted the points and any areas I'd missed due to tape with a small brush. It worked pretty well, and looked "reasonable" (not as good as I'd hoped, to be honest, the color was too brown once it dried; I should have done some tests in advance).

 

For my N-scale Kato track, I've been playing with the new Floquil paint markers.  They're a bit awkward to use, and best used before you put the track down (and it's probably a good idea not to paint the ends where the unijoiners go), but the results look pretty good.  Simply removing the shine from the side of the rail really changes the appearance.  I haven't done much yet, just a couple of tests to see how I feel about it.  And there are some other things I want to do that I've read about, like black ink washes on the ballast.

 

I don't think I'd want to try airbrushing Kato track.

[Bernard]

I had to find out how he make his tram track and this guy is an artist!! The details that he puts into his work, there isn't a word for it. The amount of patience he has to cut each tile in the track well.....

Another great find by Bill.

[Martijn Meerts]

I tried figuring out if there is a way to get Tomix track close together and still be modular. Problem is that you'll end up having to cut pieces, which isn't that much of a problem really.

 

The reason to go for Tomix track would be the tram turnouts, I don't think any other company (currently) has those. Of course (like in the Sankei diorama) you'll have to cut the turnouts to fit as well.

 

Now to figure out some module standard that would work with dcc, blocks and computer control =)

[bill937ca]

I had to find out how he make his tram track and this guy is an artist!! The details that he puts into his work, there isn't a word for it. The amount of patience he has to cut each tile in the track well.....

Another great find by Bill.

 

Well, they are professionals doing museum displays for the most part.  I think I'd like to see some of the museum displays.

[cteno4]

Martijn,

 

i have looked a few times about using tomix mini radius turnouts with kato track for standard 25mm spaced ttrak. you can cut them back quite a bit to do a cross over if you cut the rails staggered and cut the roadbed on the turnout area off some. should work as far as i can see. i have not had the time to start the hacking and whacking yet though to experiment!

 

cheers

 

jeff