cteno4 Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 So Toni are you planning on having the layout break up on your foamcore sections and then have drop in sections of scenery for the rest? Looking nice! Jeff Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 5, 2015 Author Share Posted March 5, 2015 And additional turnouts??? Are you secretly going for a new all-time record points-to-track ratio? And if so, does the new acquisition count as one or four? :) Yes, I'd like to have lots of possibilities to stage rolling stock. The main reason is that I don't have to invest much in further scenery. Regarding the scenery by the way, I'm planning to create a new-town and old-town feeling. A bit like the place I live. Older small shōwa-styled centres By the way, if that is the new set of points in the photos, I think it’s called a “double crossover”. Aren’t the “double slip” points the Tomix 1245 and 1246? I wanted to give those a try myself, but I haven’t seen them available anywhere for ages. Yes, I changed that in my previous post, but due to family, I couldn't post this reply. It's a bit silly looking now! ^^ They are available everywhere (Popondetta, TamTam), so if you order them somewhere, I'm sure they'll be in stock soon again. Toni still has a lot of Dutch in him, the Dutch railroads love to use turnouts all over the place, just have a look at Utrecht central station ;) You can never have enough points. Ever. Sidings are ALWAYS useful. So Toni are you planning on having the layout break up on your foamcore sections and then have drop in sections of scenery for the rest? Yes, all should be quickly separable and easy to store. I'm even thinking of making parts of the scenery detachable to reduce storage space and reduce chances of damaging the parts. Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 (edited) Yes, all should be quickly separable and easy to store. I'm even thinking of making parts of the scenery detachable to reduce storage space and reduce chances of damaging the parts. Cool and if you get sick of some of the scenery just make a new module to fit in there then you can mix and match! Different looking at each setup! That's fun! We did quite a few small bit scenery pieces for that one time NYC layout and I was amazed how fast they came together and easy to detail a small bit rather richly. This dense richness then helps make the mind's eye skip over if there are bits not as sceniced as they set the minds eye up. Also lets you experiment a lot more with scene ideas than if you are modeling a large section at a time where you get wound up into lots of planning and time and materials and can get so bogged down easily. I can see the gears turning in Toni's creative mind now with lots of fun combinations to play with! Jeff Edited March 6, 2015 by cteno4 Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 6, 2015 Author Share Posted March 6, 2015 Yes, it's part of the plan to create different pieces of scenery for a few parts of the layout, but because the geometry and height are different, being able to exchange some parts is going to be a bit of a problem. I think a good solution is to have sections, like main roads and station buildings, as a standard form and have other lots (housing, fields, parks, etc.) on a separate layer, on top of a plateau, just 10mm -or so- below the final height. Maybe with possible simple electrical connections (slide-on plugs), so I can add lights and whatnot to these scenic modules. Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 Toni, Yeah will be fun to see what you come up with. Maybe you can make some foamcore sub structures that scenery blocks can rest on and then some can be a standard thickness and size that might fit elsewhere or just do multiples with time. Lights are easy if you use leds as you can power a led for like 24 hrs on a cheap 2032 coin cell or carve out a bit on the bottom of modules for 2x AAA battery pack and it will run for a long time! Jeff Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 11, 2015 Author Share Posted March 11, 2015 Lights are easy if you use leds as you can power a led for like 24 hrs on a cheap 2032 coin cell or carve out a bit on the bottom of modules for 2x AAA battery pack and it will run for a long time! Yes, that might be the easiest idea, but I'm not a fan of power cells. It might be the easiest solution, as it requires no wiring when setting up though. Regarding that, today I bought a few more rail power feeders and a Tomix Universal Switch Box to be able to operate the isolated tracks, as well as having the possibility of having two controllers operating this layout. The final electrical layout will be so that the stub track on the lower station can be operated by both controllers, but I will have to buy another Universal Switch Box for that. For the complete electrical operation package, at least 5 point switch boxes (both N-S and N-W) need to be bought. However, because there is no fragile scenery yet, this is not an issue. The most important electrical component needed now will be a Tomix power unit that can provide power to the point switch boxes and provide something more neatly looking than my current setup with my basic Cosmic CP-0505 power pack: When all is there, the wires will be a goddamn mess... I can already feel the frustration... Link to comment
kvp Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 Wires all over the place is ok if you like spagetti. On the other hand you could gather the cables from each module into a single batch tied together with tape and each connector labeled individually to make it easy to connect them. A more advanced solution is to connect everything to a ribbon cable by making breakout circuit boards on raster pcb-s. Then you can use the ribbon cables (for example old non twisted 40 wire pata hd cables) to chain these boards together. This gives one connector between each module and a nice way to route all turnout, traction and lighting power to anywhere. At the control stand you'll have a single connector and a breakout board towards the controls. This can also be left connected permanently. During pack/unpack you only have to connect the track joiners and a single ribbon cable between each module. The controls can be connected anywhere to the bus. The trick behind this is that tomix plugs and pata ribbon cables can both be connected to pins soldered onto prototyping raster pcb-s and these boards can be easily snapped to any desired size and even glued to the underside of a module, along with the coiled up and connected tomix wires. (even tomix uses this ribbon trick for their automatic crossing gate) Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 11, 2015 Author Share Posted March 11, 2015 I think I will be opting for marking each jack/plug with a designated colour so to make installing easy and quick. I don't really want to cut the wires on the Tomix cables (I did so here to be able to connect it to the Cosmic power pack), but in general, I want to keep this all in the most original state as possible for future projects and/or if I get bored with this layout. The batching of the cables with tape per module sounds good for that. Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 17, 2015 Author Share Posted March 17, 2015 On a different note from the usual layout building. Now some serious rolling stock modding going on. Today, I jumped out twice to find IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) at the DIY shop. I expected it to be labeled as IPA or イソプロピルアルコール, but I could only find it as 水抜き剤 (water drainer) in the car section. Ah well. I have it now and I have three two-car trains in the bath for the night now. IPA seems to be the best method of removing paint from Railway Collection trains. I don't know yet what livery I'll be painting these trains in, but I have quite a few spray cans laying around, so I'll come up with something eventually. The base will be white with a simple line-pattern on them. Something 80s, early 90s perhaps to match the dull concrete structures I'm planning to build :P 1 Link to comment
SantaFe1970 Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'm enjoying following your project, Toni -- particularly your freelance, what-if instincts. I look forward to seeing what paint scheme you come up with... Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Toni, hey if you can track down one of the little cheap ultrasonic baths (small one for jewelry, cds, glasses etc) they are great for this sort of stripping. i found that i could not get paint out of some of the cracks on shells and containers ive stripped even going at it with toothpicks and such. plopped them in the ultrasonic bath with ipa after a soak and BAM the whole crevasse bit of paint just popped right out! magic! i got mine for about $23 at a knock off tool store chain we have here (dont go for the little battery guys they are really just cell phone vibrator motors on a plastic cup). tiny about 25cmx15cmx15cm and perhaps you can get the better half behind the purchase with cleaning of the jewels and such! also magic if you need to clean out trucks, gears, etc. cheers jeff Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 17, 2015 Author Share Posted March 17, 2015 (edited) I'm enjoying following your project, Toni -- particularly your freelance, what-if instincts. I look forward to seeing what paint scheme you come up with... Thanks! I'm thinking of something on a white base. It has to look modern and tasteless xD hey if you can track down one of the little cheap ultrasonic baths (small one for jewelry, cds, glasses etc) they are great for this sort of stripping Awesome! Thanks for the idea! When I read it, I immediately thought of running down to the nearest optician and tossing my trains in the public cleaner there. Probably not appreciated xD I'll keep a look out for them, as I think I need to clean out my motors and bogies soon as well. EDIT: I've let the housings simmer over the night in IPA and scrubbed the main portion of the paint off: Yes, I don't like the smell of pure alcohol. It reminds me of that super cheap booze I used to chug down as a student. Edited March 18, 2015 by Toni Babelony Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 Ha they have public cleaners? never seen that here! probably some regulation against it... Ive loved mine and well worth the $23 over the years to clean everything from gears to jewelry. for small bits you can just float a little condiment container in the water bath with what ever cleaners and just fill the tank with water. you have to run it a bit longer as some is lost transferring into the floating container, but works well. I hope not IPA or you would be super super sick or dead! thats a serious fume mask there! jeff Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 18, 2015 Author Share Posted March 18, 2015 Ha they have public cleaners? never seen that here! probably some regulation against it... Ive loved mine and well worth the $23 over the years to clean everything from gears to jewelry. for small bits you can just float a little condiment container in the water bath with what ever cleaners and just fill the tank with water. you have to run it a bit longer as some is lost transferring into the floating container, but works well. I hope not IPA or you would be super super sick or dead! thats a serious fume mask there! jeff Yes, opticiens have them outside of the shop, but I don't want to bother them with my little paint particles :P And I also hope I didn't drink IPA-based wodka back then. I've had some serious hangovers, but I'm still alive! That mask is from a part of my 'profession' that comes in handy now (as in a real practical use), Chinese People's Liberation Army FMJ08 type. Don't research my job when you're at work... xD Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 I missed post 109 somehow and thought you were soaking things in India Pale Ale. 2 Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 18, 2015 Author Share Posted March 18, 2015 I missed post 109 somehow and thought you were soaking things in India Pale Ale. I only soak myself in true IPA ;) 1 Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 18, 2015 Author Share Posted March 18, 2015 A few colour studies, horribly horribly done in Photoshop Base: 1st variation: 2nd variation: The first variation is my favourite, as it's a bit playful, clearly shows the passenger doors and leaves room for advertisements that won't interfere with the livery. The second variation is very conservative, but strong, which I also like. I always have a hard time choosing this thing... Maybe I should experiment a bit more with 45˚ angles in the designs. 1 Link to comment
mrp Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 I expected it to be labeled as IPA or イソプロピルアルコール, but I could only find it as 水抜き剤 (water drainer) in the car section. I’d almost given up trying to find a source of Isopropyl here - I think it’s on a government restricted list or something - but then I stumbled across a company that supplies lab chemicals to schools where I can buy 2.5L bottles of 99.97% laboratory-grade Isopropyl for about $20 a bottle! 1 Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 18, 2015 Author Share Posted March 18, 2015 I’d almost given up trying to find a source of Isopropyl here - I think it’s on a government restricted list or something - but then I stumbled across a company that supplies lab chemicals to schools where I can buy 2.5L bottles of 99.97% laboratory-grade Isopropyl for about $20 a bottle! That's harsh. Here -I discovered later- you can get it everywhere. Supermarkets and pharmacies have it overpriced though... Your best bet is DIY shops for availability and a good price. Other than that, tank stations provide the stuff to clean the fuel system of petrol cars (it burns like crazy). Link to comment
JR 500系 Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 It's not that bad Toni, it's about 1000 times better than what I could do in Photo shop.... X_X I’d almost given up trying to find a source of Isopropyl here - I think it’s on a government restricted list or something - but then I stumbled across a company that supplies lab chemicals to schools where I can buy 2.5L bottles of 99.97% laboratory-grade Isopropyl for about $20 a bottle! isopropyl.JPG That's nice! I managed to get a 5L bottle of 70% through my chemical supplier. Not too concentrated, but it gets the job done ~ :) 1 Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 For most uses for track, truck and wheel cleaning 70% is great. It cleans well and is slow to attack paint. Going up to 90% or above can attack paints fast and some plastics! I use the 90% to strip paint. We get it here in the states at 50, 70, and 90%. Usually $1-2 per liter. Cheers, Jeff Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Finished spray painting the models. Halfway through, the aqua blue paint ran out and I was forced to switch to the aqua green paint for the older style EMU. In the end, I think this matches the older style a bit better. Since the masking tape didn't cover all parts, I had to do a lot of touch-ups, which makes the whole paint job look a bit messy. Later, I'm applying some stickers, like car numbers, destination signs, a company logo and whatnot. All in all, I really like this paint scheme, as it makes the square conservative look more interesting. The livery is heavily inspired, if not copied from these designs: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=445168&tag=%E6%9E%B6%E7%A9%BA%E9%89%84%E9%81%93 Now I have the Romance Car and a few classic EMU that I'll be stripping of their original livery later. Deciding the livery for the romance car will be HARD. 6 Link to comment
stevenh Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 They look great.... Don't know about watching car crashes whilst painting though... Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Tony, nice work! Did you use the tamya masking tape? Jeff Link to comment
Kabutoni Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Thanks you both. Don't know about watching car crashes whilst painting though... It's the only way to get motivated about the local traffic. xD Did you use the tamya masking tape? Nope, I used some cheap shit tier brand called 'NittoTape'. That serves me right for buying quantity over quality... Link to comment
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