My Z gauge 42x180cm layout

[ianlaw]

oh no ... I'm out of aircos.   I'll have to print some more..

Thanks for the alley link Jeff.

 

Ian

[cteno4]

tiny beads and a bit of green foam makes great potted plants.

 

i turned some flower pots from toothpicks really easily by just putting the tooth pick into the end of the rotary tool and using it as a lathe. just used hobby knifes for the chisel. easy to turn a 9-12" dia flower pot with a saucer in a minute or two! of course a bit harder for z acale! perhaps beads would be easier!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[ianlaw]

Added some small details to bring some life to the standard sankei buildings...

I hope the small shrine next to the refuse collection point doesn't anger any gods...

 

@Jeff, I used 1.5mm high small pieces of electricity wire insulation (diam 1mm) as plant pots, but the ally is to dark to see them.

[cteno4]

Ian,

 

Nice! wire insulation, great idea.

 

i guess they dont call them dark alleyways for nothing! one tough thing on layouts is getting the flood lighting that the sun can give with more reflected indirect lighting. harder to do on models. When i was young i did a bunch of exhibit model work on a large project and i was amazed how many lights, baffles, reflectors, etc we had to use to light the simplest of model scenes at 3/4" scale to get something that looked like it was lit in a more regular room. lighting does not scale directly in any way and each aspect has its own curves and nuances.

 

perhaps one little light in the alley way then in the evening it can get lit up a little.

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

Firstly, thanks Ian for psoting all these delicious pictures! Didn't know Z scale can be that detailed!

 

Very nice diorama! I like the castle especially! Did all these kits come from Sankei, or did you scratch built yourself? If you scratch build, i think you can start doing a business for it! They look really good!

 

Looking forward to more pictures of a very nice Z layout! Cheers! 

[Bernard]

Ian - really nice details on your street scene...liked the bicycle parked on the side of the store.

[ianlaw]

JR500,

 

I have 5 Sankei kits, the castle and large temple are from the Canon papercraft site, two buildings are from Scalescenes (one as is, one altered), the other buildings (just counted 14) are scratch built.

Selling model buildings might be more relaxing, but I doubt it'll pay as much as my day job.

[ianlaw]

Two scratch built buildings. I turned a märklin mercedes into a police car, but the paint job isn't a good as I wanted. I had a problem with paint running under the maskingtape.

The loco is a candy toy which was advertised as 1:220, but is actually 1:280 so I couldn't use it in my depot.

I still have to paint a policeman to go in front of the Koban.

The buildings are still not attached to the baseboard, that's why there are still some ugly gaps under the buildings.

 

(The brick building is a copy of a real building I found on internet. It's a fuel sales office.)

[cteno4]

very impressive scratch builds!

 

is the roof of the brick building styrene stock?

 

jeff

[ianlaw]

Jeff,

 

Yes, I made it from slaters plasticard corrugated steel roofing... I scoured the horizontal lines into the sheet. I still am not sure if it's worth the extra work compared to using printed textures. In this scale it's very hard to get a "paint job" looking as good a a printed texture.. An uniform colour isn't as good, and painting separate tiles is too much work. I did my best to weather it with pigment powder.

To the naked eye there is really no difference, only when you blow up photos like this can you see it. On the second photo it clearly wins.

 

Ian

[cteno4]

Ian,

 

i think it came out quite nice and gives a good tile feel. i think for something like this odder building doing a bit of 3D on something like that is worth it and makes it pop a bit more. you are right many things are not seen by the eye at all even close up that you get in the camera. really is a question of if you want it to be able to be camera close up perfect as thats a totally different game than to the naked eye at >12". the eye doesnt scale as size does for the close to intermediate distances.

 

the brick work came out wonderfully. z really is perfect for printing like this! details are just big enough to resolve to the eye and printing, but small enough that any relief would really be a dozen or so microns anyway!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Impressive stuff...you don't see too many Z gauge layouts; especially with this amount of scratch building.

[Hobby Dreamer]

Ian,

 

You're making a strong case for Z scale! 

 

Cheers

Rick

[ianlaw]

You're making a strong case for Z scale!

:grin

 

Z gauge means a choice between either German (very expensive), USA or Japan (cheap, but at the moment less rolling stock, but more is on the way) or else you have to scratch build the rolling stock as well.

If you want to build a serious layout and don't want to use the same buildings as the next person, you have to be prepared to do some kit bashing or scratch building (but that's true for any scale). At first it seems daunting certainly when you are coming from larger scales, but soon you'll start to think HO buildings are monstrous in size and wonder how you ever thought you had space for HO.

Also you can't just walk into any hobby shop and buy eveything you need. You have to scan the internet to find the various small suppliers that cater for Z gauge.

The largest problem you will have is finding suitable characteristic cars, buses and lorries.

 

If you enjoy seeing trains running and want to be able to buy any model that you fancy, then don't choose Z gauge. If you have limited space but still want to run long trains and are satisfied with the rolling stock on offer (look into this first!) or if you are more into building than simply running trains then you might try Z gauge. You can easily try a small layout alongside your large scale layout to see if you like it. A spare bookshelf is all you need.

 

Ian

[Bernard]

Ian - like the Steam engine monument, great idea...could use for engines in my roster that don't run anymore.

 

This is a big problem for me.....how did you make your traffic lines on your roads? Yours came out excellent.

[ianlaw]

Bernard,

 

The lines were drawn on the printed asphalt before I glued it down on the layout. After trying various methods I used a 0.8mm white ink marker (from an artists supply shop). The type of pen you have to shake and it rattles. If I had more time I'd draw the lines onto the road before printing, because I cannot make other traffic signs this way...

 

I just added a Shapeways crossing gate to this scene. This is the side entrance to the station (there is no main entrance). The three wheeler is from Shapeways too.

The second photo shows the main problem with shapeways 3D prints... The sides are not smooth. I spray painted these two models (white), but the roughness shows up on photos and even to the naked eye. (It looks like a brush paint job  ) I don't really know how I could smooth the sides because then you lose the details...

[cteno4]

Ian,

 

are you printing your asphalt streets on white paper? if so why not just print the lines by not printing there?

 

was that model the ultra frosted detail from shapeways?

 

jeff

[ianlaw]

Jeff,

 

I simply printed sheets and cut them to size. I didn't want to spend the time measuring and using a cad programme... My time is limited as I first would have to look for a suitable programme.

 

Yes, but the printer has a certain resolution like any 2D printer. So some sides can be smooth and others rough. This wouldn't be a problem for larger scales or large surfaces where you can sand without losing details. The flat sides of the three-wheeler are smooth.

 

Ian

[ianlaw]

I haven't spent much time on my layout the last months.

Here 2 shots of my museum steam depot. The locos are candy toys which I bought of ebay (without the candy ) for a few pound.

They are 1:220 and are a cheap way to stock up a depot. When I buy more rolling stock next year when I visit Japan again the plan is to convert them to rusting hulks...

Buildings are scratch built, a mixture of card and plastic. The coal platform was part of one of the candy sets. The JCB is from shapeways. The staff are el cheapo chinese Z gauge figures repainted.

 

Ian

[cteno4]

Ian,

 

great stuff! like the use of the futura trains, perfect for a museum area! ive collected a bunch of old bandai star trains (same thing in N scale as kits you assemble of single cars) to do a train museum eventually.

 

nice job on the figure repainting!

 

jeff

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Nice progress. I like the store building with the apartment on top.

[KenS]

This is an impressive layout.  The detail would look amazing on a larger scale, but to have it in Z simply boggles my mind.

[ianlaw]

Here is a small scene near a retaining wall. Workers waiting until the train has passed.

The retaining wall was made with foam board used for architectural modelling. It's easy to scratch with a needle or fingernail to simulate damage and cracks. 

 

Ian

[ianlaw]

I have been busy making a short tunnel. I took a few pictures to show the process.

I made the structure with the tunnel portals using tempex a few months ago.

Yesterday I added the rock faces using Noch rock paste, but most types of wall filler will do the job. As the paste sets you can create the required surface structure.

This morning I painted the rocks and added foliage using Polak naturex. It's the finest type I can find; all other brands are coarser and less suitable for Z gauge. 

 

Ian 

[KenS]

Very nice!