tossedman Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 Ever since I saw some pictures of Ochanomizu Station in Tokyo I've can't get the idea out of my head that it ought to be modelled on an 18" wide shelf module. Here's my inspiration. And from the other end. Has anyone seen an N scale bridge resembling that green one. And the little bit of space and track that is presently at hand. Just need another 10 feet of space to lay it all out and then the rest of the basement to build something on either side of it. Got a whole mess of B Train Shorties that might look pretty good on something like this. Cheers eh, Todd 5 Link to comment
katoftw Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 I smell a big pile of awesome in this. Please keep us updated. 1 Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 14, 2015 Author Share Posted March 14, 2015 It's going to be slow. But I'm hoping to make it happen bit by bit. I've got about 15 feet (4.57 m) of space now, just gotta get on it. Might have to make it a bit wider too. Don't want too much though. Can't afford all the buildings! Cheers eh, Todd Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 15, 2015 Author Share Posted March 15, 2015 At the west end of Ochanomizu station is the Hijiri Bashi bridge. It's quite unique as you can see here. If I build this station I'm going to have to model the bridge as well, so I started messing around in Adobe Illustrator and drew up a quick sketch of the bridge. I then used my wife's Silhouette Cameo CNC cutter/plotter to cut it out. This is just a preliminary cut to see how it looks. Still need to scale it properly. I should be able to plot the lines in the concrete with a pen first and then cut out the outline of the bridge. I'll have to see how I can weather it ant then build a styrene base to put it all together with. I had a quick look around the local craft shops for some chipboard like that used in the Sankei buildings but had no luck. I'll look around at some of the art supply stores and see if they have anything similar later this week. Here's what I came up with. I'l love to have a CNC router and a laser cutter to play with for this kind of stuff. Cheers eh, Todd 3 Link to comment
JR 500系 Posted March 15, 2015 Share Posted March 15, 2015 Wow this project will be interesting to see! I like the Ochanomizu station, it sorts of is another iconic Japanese station after the Tokyo station building. Will definitely be nice to see with B-shorties running around! 1 Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 15, 2015 Share Posted March 15, 2015 Great stuff todd! Layout scene idea is quite nice and sounds like you have the room to do it in well. I've often wondered how well the craft cutter could tackle stuff like this. How thick was the material you used here? The high density chipboard that sankei uses is tough stuff to source. It's not something carried at craft and art stores. It's usally specially made for laser cutting to not burn and keep its pre dyed color. Some of it is dyed so that if you set the laser on lower powers it will make different density dark lines for doing etching details. There is a potential issue on using the high density laser cutting chipboard in your plotter cutter is that the stuff is really tough to cut with a knife! I know this is usually an issue with the craft plotter cutters. You might check the art stores for the higher weight artist papers like 120-160 pound weight papers. There are usually a few different surface textures you can buy and they are better quality/densities than the usual card stocks. Some can be had in colors as well. Those should work ok I the plotter cutter I think as I have found them relatively easy to cut with an xacto. Ken's layout has an homage to ochanomazu as well http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/1950-sumida-crossing/ Cheers Jeff 1 Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 15, 2015 Author Share Posted March 15, 2015 (edited) Thanks for the encouragement JR and Jeff. I just used the craft cutter to cut a card stock cutout of the bridge but as I've been doing more research I've found that people have had success in cutting .010", .015", and .020" styrene with the Silhouette Cameo. I plan to give it a try and see what comes of it. Styrene might actually be easier to use than the chipboard with the plotter/cutter setup I have. Even scoring the styrene allows you to snap it along a line but it sounds like the Silhouette Cameo is able to cut right through. You can score lines for detail as well and not cut all the way through the styrene as you make a shallow cut. The styrene is easy to glue up. I love the way it welds itself together with the right solvent. I've seen Ken's layout. It's always been an inspiration and his documentation is second to none. A great source that I've looked upon many times. Thanks for the reminder. Cheers eh, Todd Edited March 15, 2015 by tossedman Link to comment
Claude_Dreyfus Posted March 15, 2015 Share Posted March 15, 2015 Our club has a silhouette cutter - a great piece of kit! I do like the gentle flow of your trackwork, I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops...an iconic location with lots of interest. 1 Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 15, 2015 Author Share Posted March 15, 2015 Thanks Claude. I've spent a bit more time messing around in Adobe Illustrator with the bridge and here's what I've come up with. I'll have to go buy a pen for the Silhouette and some styrene and then see what happens. Cheers eh, Todd Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 15, 2015 Share Posted March 15, 2015 todd, i will be really curious to see your styrene results with the Silhouette Cameo CNC or even just art board as ive thought of getting one of these but most are pc only, these silhouette is also mac (although finding that in their website is not easy!). This one might do the trick! can you also score with the knife, only going partway thru the material? ive wanted to cut medium building walls with windows and this might do the trick at a decent price. ive thought of just doing vinyl cutting and slapping that onto clear acetate as usually the relief in n scale is tiny, but 020 styrene or 120# or so art paper on top of acetate would be nicer and cheaper. layering then could take care of deeper stuff. laser cutters are just not really coming down in price like 3D printers (more limited market and laser is always an issue) -- few new little ones that might be cheaper coming up here, but still not really affordable! Plus there is the issue of exhaust when cutting styrene with a laser cutter, even with chipboard its best to exhaust the smoke. ive always wanted to do the Nakagin Capsule Tower, but all the various ways i came up with for making the capsules from various stock materials was just too damn fiddly for the 140 capsules to be made. my best way was to do them from paper craft, but cutting them well was just going to be a pain, especially if i wanted the circular window (punch will work but would be a tough one to do well consistently). this unit sounds great as it seems to have the ability to trace patterns so a printed sheet could then be cut out or just use gray art paper and then come back with the pen in the unit to do the few detail lines. ive used big plotter vinyl cutters in the past on museum stuff but that was just for text letters and some big back drop patterns and on big industrial vinyl cutters, not something that you could buy from home. so many of the cheap vinyl cutters seemed to only want to use the dedicated pattern cartridges so that they could keep you buying them! this one looks very versatile. sorry to get off on a tangent here but its really got me excited at getting a plotter cutter again! Thanks! cheers jeff Link to comment
Densha Posted March 15, 2015 Share Posted March 15, 2015 If you're going for Ochanomizu station, then you should watch these videos for inspiration: 2 Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 15, 2015 Author Share Posted March 15, 2015 todd, i will be really curious to see your styrene results with the Silhouette Cameo CNC or even just art board as ive thought of getting one of these but most are pc only, these silhouette is also mac (although finding that in their website is not easy!). This one might do the trick! can you also score with the knife, only going partway thru the material? ive wanted to cut medium building walls with windows and this might do the trick at a decent price. ive thought of just doing vinyl cutting and slapping that onto clear acetate as usually the relief in n scale is tiny, but 020 styrene or 120# or so art paper on top of acetate would be nicer and cheaper. layering then could take care of deeper stuff. laser cutters are just not really coming down in price like 3D printers (more limited market and laser is always an issue) -- few new little ones that might be cheaper coming up here, but still not really affordable! Plus there is the issue of exhaust when cutting styrene with a laser cutter, even with chipboard its best to exhaust the smoke. ive always wanted to do the Nakagin Capsule Tower, but all the various ways i came up with for making the capsules from various stock materials was just too damn fiddly for the 140 capsules to be made. my best way was to do them from paper craft, but cutting them well was just going to be a pain, especially if i wanted the circular window (punch will work but would be a tough one to do well consistently). this unit sounds great as it seems to have the ability to trace patterns so a printed sheet could then be cut out or just use gray art paper and then come back with the pen in the unit to do the few detail lines. ive used big plotter vinyl cutters in the past on museum stuff but that was just for text letters and some big back drop patterns and on big industrial vinyl cutters, not something that you could buy from home. so many of the cheap vinyl cutters seemed to only want to use the dedicated pattern cartridges so that they could keep you buying them! this one looks very versatile. sorry to get off on a tangent here but its really got me excited at getting a plotter cutter again! Thanks! cheers jeff Jeff, I've never used anything but a Mac and the Silhouette Studio software and cutter work just fine. The laser cutter is just a pipe dream. No money to be had for that. New hardwood floors seem to take a precedent around here this year. I'm going to see if I get a chance to cut some styrene tonight. I'll post the results ASAP. If you're going for Ochanomizu station, then you should watch these videos for inspiration: Densha, those are great, thanks for sharing. I need to be able to paint concrete like that fella. I've seen lots of YouTube videos of real trains coming and going from Ochanomizu station but these are the first modelled ones I've seen other than Ken's. Cheers eh, Todd Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 LOL, i know the math! yep ive had to walk in both world for development for many years and finally shed the pc side here at home! dont plan on going backwards... great love to hear your results, this may be a semi-affordable new toy! laser cutter is a pipe dream here until they can get down to the sub $500 range! I have a friend in California that does architectural models and has a very nice 24" bed one and actually shutting down that side of the biz lately and wondered if i was interested, but even used that sucker was way out of my price league! i like the fact that its mac based and the software lets you cut what you want and not hem you into only their patterns which many do. also the pattern tracing option looked interesting. there were a few last year that were cheap chinese knockoffs that looked pretty hearty, but had reports of horrid manuals and software and only pc software. getting parts also would be an issue with these. cheers jeff Link to comment
kvp Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Some people successfully built laser cutters out of old plotters by changing the pen to a laser head and mapping the pen down-up motion to laser on-off. No software modification is required, anything that works with a computer in pen mode will work with a laser too. Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 16, 2015 Author Share Posted March 16, 2015 I'm not sure that the Missus would let me chop up her cutter. Good idea though. Cheers eh, Todd Link to comment
mrp Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 (edited) The guy who made those YouTube videos also has a blog where he shows some of his techniques. I bookmarked it a while ago for future inspiration: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/e533 The posts showing the Ochanomizu work are under the “御茶ノ水駅 製作記(29)” link. Edited March 16, 2015 by mrp Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 16, 2015 Author Share Posted March 16, 2015 Excellent! Thank you sir! Link to comment
E6系 Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Why not do three intersecting loops? A "live" running Ochanomizu Station would be a sight !!! Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 16, 2015 Author Share Posted March 16, 2015 Why not do three intersecting loops? A "live" running Ochanomizu Station would be a sight !!! I've been thinking along those lines already. Need to add something so it's not just round and round though. Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 16, 2015 Author Share Posted March 16, 2015 Didn't get a chance to try the styrene last night. Birthday cake and whatnot for the Missus took precedent. I found this site that has lots of info about cutting styrene with the Silhouette Cameo. Lots of great info and it's about trains to boot! Cheers eh, Todd Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Todd, damn you, damn you, damn you! that blog lead to others and now im convinced this is what i need (well want)! the CB09 blade holder allows you to use much more inexpensive blades and looks to be better ones! I am thinking of going for the portrait now and start playing. if i feel like ill be wanting to do larger stuff in the future i can always scale up if and when i get that into it to that level. other interesting thing is the pens have white and silver inks! that means you can do window mullions on acetate (if the pen works on acetate) and also do road markings on printed roads! damn for $140 this is a great toy, err tool! I can see it really doing some great stuff with some heavier colored art papers, styrene, acetate! I stopped looking at these just before this sucker hit the market a couple of years ago or so. at the time there was not a simple and robust choice like this out there. i love the fact its mac compatible and there are alternatives out there for blades and such. this just looks too damn easy and will do most all i ever wanted to do from a lasercutter at a fraction of the price! I started a new thread on the silhouette cutter chatter as to not muck up your current thread here with basic cutter stuff. thanks, errr damn you very much again! cheers jeff Link to comment
velotrain Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Has anyone seen an N scale bridge resembling that green one. Is this close enough? http://tinyurl.com/lwzxgs3 An image search for "Kibri 37669" finds much better photos. Unless you really want to scratchbuild your own Hijiri Bashi bridge, there's a perfect bashing candidate here: http://tinyurl.com/k26jxgn Granted that the outer surface is wrong, but you could use something like DAS modeling clay on the outside, or laminate thin styrene over this. I use Lippe whenever I want stuff from Europe, as they have the best stock, best prices, and best service - in fact, I have a big box on the way right now. The VAT savings (for non-EU customers) often cover the shipping (or more!), and I'd much rather go to the source than pay the outrageous prices U.S. - Euro dealers - like Reynaulds - charge. One caution - I trust that your mock-up is just that. If you want to model a prototype scene, you really need to use flex track, and ballast it - like the fellow who did the other model of Ochanomizu. Also - I can't see the point of making the effort to build something like this only to run B Train Shorties on it ;- To me, that only makes sense if you're going to compress the hell out of the scene so the whole thing becomes a caricature - say like this: Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 17, 2015 Author Share Posted March 17, 2015 Got a chance to try some styrene this afternoon after getting home from work. I'd forgotten how this 0.010" styrene really is. It's not much more rigid than some card stock. I used the same bridge file that I drew up in Adobe Illustrator and exported as a .dxl file. I imported that in the Silhouette Studio software on my Mac and there I created two more files from the original, a cut file and a score file. The cut file was the outside edges and the arches as in the card stock model I cut in post #4. The score file was all of the internal lines that I added as in post #9. I deleted the cut lines on this file. Then I ran the score file, left the styrene in the cutter so the alignment wouldn't change and then switched to the cut file. You can see the results below. Here's a bit of a closer view. I played with the levels a bit on these pictures so you could see the scoring a little better. One would have to build a fairly substantial structure for the bridge and use the thin styrene to face the outside if one were to use 0.010" styrene. I can see it being excellent for smaller details like window frames and the like. I'll have to do some experimenting to see how small of an opening I can cut. You need to be careful when taking the cut bits out as it's easy to tear the styrene along the score lines if you bend the plastic too much. I've got some 0.020" styrene to test as well. That's for another evening though. Cheers eh, Todd 1 Link to comment
tossedman Posted March 17, 2015 Author Share Posted March 17, 2015 To see how it'd look with a bit of colour it gave a quick brush with some grey acrylic paint and then wiped it off. It's pretty delicate, I tore it in half as I was rubbing it off. I'll have to see if I can make the scoring cuts a little shallower. At least it tears along a score line. This one's black and white. 1 Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Todd, wow looks great. yes the fragility of 010 is tough. in reading thru blogs this evening it looks like 020 cutting will be at the outer limits. you may have to go to a 60 degree blade to do that and definitely 2 passes. wonder can it do 3? could make another (or even a couple) thats just 010 or 020 smaller glue it to the back and then use the appropriate thickness strips to create the depth. and glue on the other side then with the same smaller form backing. I pulled the trigger on a portrait tonight! this is going to be fun. also going to order one of the CB09U blade holders as those blades look much better and cheaper and easier to clean. i think the silhouette blade is only a 45. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Graphtec-CB09U-silhouette-cameo-craftrobo-cutting-plotter-blade-holder-10-knife-/181413605762 http://paperpulse.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-better-and-less-expensive-blade.html new world, new world! jeff Link to comment
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