ICE/Shinkansen Portal prototype

[inobu]

I got the entrance completed. Here is the core piece. I am trying to get the surface texture to have a concrete look. I used black ABS and it does not show the contours in this photo.

 

I will post a finished piece next.

 

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I though I would take the pic outside so you can see what I was referring to "concrete look".

 

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Hopefully the detail will carryover giving a concrete poured sectional look.

 

 

 

Inobu  

[linkey]

Now the question is Inobu, will you be making a mass production of these portals and be selling them :)

[inobu]

Now the question is Inobu, will you be making a mass production of these portals and be selling them :)

 

Yes,

 

As soon as I can get a finished piece I will know where to set the pricing.....this thing has been a challenge and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.........I just hope its not a train........

 

Inobu 

 

What's really neat is this is the only one in the world.

[Guest Closed Account 1]

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Beautiful!

[keitaro]

Mate i love that portal.

 

May i make a suggestion though ?

 

I would preffer it to be either longer at the rear maybe 5cm more in length as you will see the detail of the tunnel change with that short length.

 

Or have an extension tube for straight and curved of say 10 - 15 cm in length to sell as well. The inside would look awesome if it extended more and would be awesome to drill small holes in for small leds inside along the tube.

 

Curve i guess would be suitable to match the rear of the portal but maybe extend wider at the other end to accomodate for shinkansen size curves. eg. widens enough to accomdate say tomix 280-45 through to 465-45 track or kato's equivalent.

 

maybe not so wide as 465 as it is in a tunnel and looks don't matter for curves.

 

just my two cents otherwise that tunnel is looking like a beauty

[Guest Closed Account 1]

I would preffer it to be either longer at the rear maybe 5cm more in length as you will see the detail of the tunnel change with that short length.

 

That's the beauty of his design. It's a portal.

 

The modeler creates the tunnel tube.

[Bernard]

Really great portal, all your work in designing/making it was worth it.

[inobu]

Mate i love that portal.

 

May i make a suggestion though ?

 

I would preffer it to be either longer at the rear maybe 5cm more in length as you will see the detail of the tunnel change with that short length.

 

Or have an extension tube for straight and curved of say 10 - 15 cm in length to sell as well. The inside would look awesome if it extended more and would be awesome to drill small holes in for small leds inside along the tube.

 

Curve i guess would be suitable to match the rear of the portal but maybe extend wider at the other end to accomodate for shinkansen size curves. eg. widens enough to accomdate say tomix 280-45 through to 465-45 track or kato's equivalent.

 

maybe not so wide as 465 as it is in a tunnel and looks don't matter for curves.

 

just my two cents otherwise that tunnel is looking like a beauty

 

Keitaro,

 

I'm with you....that's why it took so long....trying to cover the issues you speak of.

 

You can extend the portal to 21 cm or so. On the back side of the portal is a .74mm grove that's 4.2 mm deep. It allows you to slide a styrene sheet or thick card stock into the back of the portal to extend the walls.

 

Also lights can be installed on the styrene sheets as you indicated.

 

As WebSkip stated the modeler can build to wall out to his needs . 

 

I have a rear extension designed that add 40mm but its not cost effective. In essence its a portal without a crown. One would be better off using styrene to extend the portal and getting another portal for a few dollars more. So I may not produce it.

 

The short tunnel wall is for layouts with space constrain as a curve can be placed at the entrance. Under these conditions you have to paint/black out the walls to create a quick shadow transition in order to give/skew the tunnel depth.

 

I'm going to build a portal scene as to show what the final product will looks like. With that I can create a best practice and build recommendation.

 

Inobu

[inobu]

Really great portal, all your work in designing/making it was worth it.

 

Thanks......also your subtle cough's helped me along too...lol.

 

Inobu

[cteno4]

inobu,

 

really stunning work! i think you are right keep it to the basic portal and let the rest up to the modeler for the tunnel. trying to take this out too far will just make it complicated and harder to get out or even modify by the user.

 

i need to do a mock up to see if we can use this on the jrm layout as our portals are on unitrak double viaduct curves. it think your portal will be just at the kato wall up near where the car body ends would be poking out on the curves so i think safe. i know its not prototypical to have a portal for shinkansens on a curve, but it was the only place we could locate the mountain. i might now think of using your portals and extend them out to the straight areas and just cover the track up to the mountain with tunnel roof, but doing that on a curve with the oval cross section will be a challenge!

 

jeff

[inobu]

Jeff,

 

The portal is the same width as the double viaduct wall. If you were to trim the first wall block the portal would sit right on the edge. Its pretty much lines up with the wall at the arcs.

 

Inobu

[cteno4]

inobu,

 

thanks thats pretty much what it looked like when i was placing my piece of paper cut out to your foot print. could i bother you to shoot me a pdf of a head on outline of the inside of the tunnel so i can do a quick cut out to make sure it will function on the curve? i just want to make uber sure it will work well in this odd situation before i get these and tearing up the mountain is going to be a little wince for curt!

 

i think the portals will look fantastic on the layout as ours now are just temporary bits of greenmax tunnels that are not proper shinkansen portals.

 

thanks

 

jeff

[inobu]

Jeff,

 

I guess from a customer service perspective I should have done this long time ago....sorry....A picture is a 1000 words.

 

The clearance does not matter as the wall stops at the end of the track. You build the wall along the via duct 

 

Notice in the second pic. The via duct is narrower than the portal.

 

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Inobu

[cteno4]

Inobu,

 

thanks so much for doing this! you are right it is worth a 1000 works!

 

it looks like it might work. my only concern is that it will be a tad inside kato walls and i need to put some shinkansen cars on one to make sure that there are a few mm clearance on the current wall on a curve.

 

with the current mountain set up i would need to mount one in the middle of a curve, but with some tunnel extension and adding a bit more mountain on one side we could bring that portal over to the junction of a straight to the curve.

 

are you going to move forward to producing some?

 

thanks again for the picts and the profile pdf. its really a slick portal!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[inobu]

OK Jeff,

Seeing is believing....lol....

I did this so you can sleep well to night. Here is what I did. I disconnected the track from the viaduct and slid it a part just before the tabs so everything is flush. I dropped the portal in between and placed a 500 on the track. No problem.

You see the viaduct is inside of the portal. There is a lot of room to play with.






Here is the head room shot....also this is the grove where you can slide the styrene into to extend the wall.



I'm trying to get the mold setup now....Hopefully I can get it going soon.

Inobu

Foot note.
While I had everything out I tested a Gunderson Maxi

and the portal needed to be lifted a mm higher in order for it to clear it . So the US container can run through it with a tiny shim.

Edited July 28, 2014 by inobu

[Martijn Meerts]

The question is, why would a Gunderson Maxi want to go through an ICE/Shinkansen portal? :)

[cteno4]

Inobu,

 

thanks mucho, now i can sleep! although now ive started to think moving the portals out some more might be nice anyway thats part of the mountain that curt and i sort of left dangling when we shaped it and curt mocked up with some chopped up green max portal bits. im thinking this will be a good summer project to fiddle with. one corner of the mountain at the yard was waiting to be detailed depending on what was done with the yard end detailing.

 

let us know when its going into production!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[inobu]

The question is, why would a Gunderson Maxi want to go through an ICE/Shinkansen portal? :)

 

LOL.........well........I just put a portal in between and viaduct on a curve so testing the height of a Gunderson Maxi did not seem to far fetched at the time......lol

 

It proves the height clearance for sure.

 

Inobu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rintintin]

Hello inobu,

 

Congratulations on your ICE/Shinkansen tunnel portal project, it's running great! 

 

I want to use these kind of tunnels in my future layout, and I bought some of Faller and Noch, but they do not convince me too.

 

And I also happened to do some "real" tunnel, ie a kind of tube through which trains pass, and not just imitate the tunnel from the beginning. I know it may seem silly, but hey, it's an idea! 

 

Thanks for sharing your ideas with us!

 

Cheers,

RiNtiNtiN.

[nik_n_dad]

The question is, why would a Gunderson Maxi want to go through an ICE/Shinkansen portal? :)

 

Nik runs just about everything everywhere, so this is pretty cool.  Yeah, not much prototypical here.....

[inobu]

Update:

 

 

I'm building a scene using the portal to verify everything (My biggest problem is squeezing in time for it). I want to be able to compete an install and display it. I wish I could dedicate more time to it but I have to eat....

 

I have half of the prework done on the terrain. I'm finding that there is a slope angle threshold that you need to adhere to in order for it to look natural. 

 

Inobu

[gavino200]

On 11/24/2010 at 10:26 PM, inobu said:

Ok,

I got the first article and its ok, I have a few issues I want to address but over all its good.

I have extensions that can be added to the tunnels depth, it brings a added perspective for the viewer. This is only the mouth.

The walk way supposed to be proportioned but the size is deceiving hard to gauge..  Check out the video below. Look at the people at the top and the guy walking down to the left. I think I got it right.

I mixed a few of the other portals features to create something different. Elevated walkway with ramp. 






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWu4yDgfW34?fs=1&hl=en_US

Inobu

 

Inobu,. I know this is a very old project but it relates somewhat to a tunnel project that I'm in the early stages of planning.

 

Firstly, your work here is awesome. I'm very impressed. I have a few questions if you don't mind.

 

People here refer to 'casting'. But you show your CAD designs and refer to ABS prototyping. What was the process for making the mock-up pictured above? What material is that?

 

I'm planning a tunnel project. I'm hoping to make a cut-away with visible insides. I like how you created the walkway here. BTW do you have any pictures of the painted final project, or tips for creating a realistic concrete look?

[inobu]

Gavino,

 

Thanks.

 

Typically the CAD file is used to create the first article/prototype. If the design is OK a mold is created and the part is cast via the mold. This way it can be replicated a number of times.

In the piece above I machined the part out of ABS but I had another iteration and the part was simplified. There is a continuation of this project posted. I think the walkway change the viual

look of the portal so I redesigned it.  

 

Here is the sample Dio I made. I made it into two pieces to emulate concrete joints. 

 

 

 

 

 

. 

 

This is the same piece held up the the sunlight outside.

 

Inobu

 

 

[gavino200]

4 minutes ago, inobu said:

Gavino,

 

Thanks.

 

Typically the CAD file is used to create the first article/prototype. If the design is OK a mold is created and the part is cast via the mold. This way it can be replicated a number of times.

In the piece above I machined the part out of ABS but I had another iteration and the part was simplified. There is a continuation of this project posted. I think the walkway change the viual

look of the portal so I redesigned it.  

 

Here is the sample Dio I made. I made it into two pieces to emulate concrete joints. 

 

 

 

 

 

. 

 

This is the same piece held up the the sunlight outside.

 

Inobu

 

 

 

That diorama looks amazing. If you made any extra copies of that portal, I'd be interested in buying one from you.

 

I'm working on a tunnel project. Still planning at this stage. I'm going to draw some sketches of the goal and issues I'm having. I hope to have them posted Saturday-ish. Would you be able to check in over the weekend and give your two cents?

 

This is the thread:

Btw, what do you use for the concrete finish?

[inobu]

Gavino,

 

I'll have to check and see if I have any and yeah I'll heck it out.

 

Its Tamia primer base with Acrylic dusting but the key is the Airbrush that you were thinking about getting.

 

Inobu

 

 

Edited December 8, 2017 by inobu