Lumsdonia R&D Dept Workbench

[TimberSurf]

Now finished the oil depot/tanks. Installed on layout ready for Guy, but I will go back and add a bit more weathering, dials, oil, etc later (as it is removable).

Also made some round pole barriers today, the ones that go around holes in the road. I have no idea if they are realistic (1950's) but to me they look appropriate (rule no.1). viewtopic.php?f=22&t=44849&p=638877#p638877

Now the buildings are back on the layout, although the 32 way switch box is ready to go viewtopic.php?f=7&t=49960, I have been making splitter boards to distribute the power to all the lights on the layout.

The 50 way D-Sub connects via two 20 way ribbon cables to a 'main' PCB. This splits the 32 channels into four 10 way header connectors. Each header feeds a 10 way ribbon cable. The ribbon cables have IDC connectors that can be placed anywhere along their length. Each connector plugs into a 'sub' PCB, that splits off into four sets of three pins. Each of the three pin connects accepts a servo cable. The servo cable carries two switched circuits to the building. Each building has a lead hanging out of the bottom that pokes through a hole in the layout, to connect to a servo lead. The middle two wires of the ribbon are the common, so eight wires are switched, any one can be picked up at any point along the ribbon. A diagram will be forth coming with appropriate accompanying pictures.

[TimberSurf]

I managed to find a horrible house I bought really cheap on Ebay (many years ago) in my stock boxes. I have in mind a diorama based around a key feature of another item I bought years ago. With Guys visit out of the way, the panic to get the layout into shape is behind me and although there are a number of issues to finish off, my mind has wandered to other things and a hankering to get down to my first real scratch build. So with the house in hand to strip down, repaint, divide into rooms, reglaze and fit out with backdrops and lighting, the core of my diorama has begun. Next is to use in earnest my scoring tool and test out a few more principles on some Wills plastic sheets. So far, the house is 70% there and the first of two flanking buildings has four walls. {I have cracked an easy way to cut windows in plastic}. Pics to follow in next post.

[TimberSurf]

So the left hand flank is a showroom, Wills plasticard for walls and slate for the back, with 30th floor, fancy barge boards at the top, to hold the removable roof. This is gonna take some time!
Also started the right flank, again not a simple building, with lots of detail and an extension, I really have bitten of more than I can chew......maybe

[Mountain]

I really have bitten of more than I can chew......maybe

You may need a blender?
Nice ideas. Keep going. I'm sire you can do it.

[TimberSurf]

I am sure that I wont be daunted and although there will be setbacks, its all a pleasant learning experience. I have done scratch building before, on big buildings, but it was always brick paper on cardboard and I was never happy with the results. Hence I spent £90 (a third of what its worth) on plasticard on Ebay a few months back, so I now have no excuses!

Next is the right flank, a two bay repair garage with see through roof (well how else will you see my delightfull lighting!) and eventually, I intend to have two car lifts that actually work!

Above is the four walls with a small office tagged on the right hand side. Below is the makings of the clear span portal roof.

[railwayjim]

This looks like it's going to be a lovely building, £90 on plasticard wow! thats
some supplies box you've got. Working car lifts too, book me in my exhausts blowing

Looking good so far.

Jim.

[Dad-1]

Great projects, I'm feeling withdrawl symptoms, not done a building
for a very long time ! This may inspire me.

Geoff T.

[Bufferstop]

Your road works barriers look ok for the fifties, when I started with PO Telephones in '62 my first placement was with an overhead construction gang and I met them at the depot as they had gone in to swap theirs for "Gates Gaurd Telescopic" otherwise know as ******* crackers. Took up less space on the wagon and far less time to set up.

expanding barrier.jpg (9.86 KiB) Viewed 1484 times

Less time turned out a bit ironic as one of the tasks I did just before leaving eight years later was to introduce them and their colleagues to the new regulations about protecting works on the street which if you followed them all took you most of the morning to set up all the signs and barriers just to dig one hole to put up a pole.

[TimberSurf]

book me in my exhausts blowing Jim.

I suggest you get it fixed elsewhere before you get pulled. The installation contractor said it'll be months to dig the pit for the 18" hydraulic piston!

This may inspire me.Geoff T.

I might make this as 'omage to some of your diorama's, there is no place for it on the layout, as yet, but the plan has always been to make removable buildings/structures. This will however be a big'un. I am planning on mounting on a 2ft long 6mm ply sheet, so I can glue everything down and get easy access to the lifts working. It will be 'slotted' into the layout at a much later date. If the the lifts move, is it still a diorama?
Progress is forward. My knee's are killing me after laying all the tiles, but at least the bricky's have finished the garage and given it a splash of whitewash!

Now experimenting how to make large glass doors with thin wooden frame

[brit-in-bama]

Now experimenting how to make large glass doors with thin wooden frame

try the fronts off new jewel cd cases, they are half the thickness of the old ones, dirt cheap, and perfectly clear perspex, all I do is cut the edges off on a table saw(slowly), which leaves you with a little filing to do, but its a nice big square 4" of window glass. and you can paint it too! I actually use this stuff a lot, as you can see below this Blackpool Atlantean is made from it,

so is the Ribble PD2 and the bus shelter

as is the greenhouse

I can get a box of 30 of them for around 5 bucks over here,
didnt meant to hi-jack your thread, just thought you might have uses for it.

[TimberSurf]

CD cases are certainly a cheap source of quality clear plastic, that might become a Lumsdonia tip thanks. It was the 'wood' I was experimenting with, trying to see if masking and painting works, quite obviously it does by, by seeing your bus! I am intrigued more by your green house, how did to get the very narrow white strips?

[mumbles]

I like those buses and the green house.. Nicely done

[brit-in-bama]

I am intrigued more by your green house, how did to get the very narrow white strips?

being broke most of the time, I took a leaf out of Andrews "grotlands"(sadly decimated by p-bucket) way of building stuff, I used what was available, as the greenhouse is only an inch and a quarter tall, the standard plastic I have is 20 thou thick, and it just looked like it was too thick when I did the first one, so I used a leaf from an old white mat Venetian blind, it was only 5 thou thick, and cut strips of half a millimeter along its length to minimize the curve, then simply used mek and a pin to dab it at the corners, I did all the verticals first, then cut the horizontals to be a friction fit between the verticals, and again let the mek capillary action glue them in place, I use mek, because it evaporates quickly, works on most forms of styrene, and doesnt fog the plastic like superglue,(and I had a gallon of it in the workshop, of which I have used only 2 oz in 7 years, it goes a long way ), and as for painting the cd cases, I found no problems as long as it was clean and finger grease free, I simply used white spirit, and a very soft cloth to wipe it before I painted it, paper towels scratch it too easily, but it does polish up again with t-cut, for minor marks. the wood I used to make the bench in the greenhouse is 1/16th square basswood, it still looks like its 4"X4" gate posts at this scale, bit its still half the size of matchsticks, which was the only other real wood available to me at the time.

thanks mumbles
these were my first model scratchbuilds in a gap of 25 years from modeling anything, and they are 7 years old now, but they have stood the test of sunlight and kittens!, and still look ok from normal viewing distance, but close up they start to look like the real ones did when they were when withdrawn from service, and to be honest the weathering I did then looks more even and realistic now the model is old and dirty in itself.

[TimberSurf]

Still pondering about the glass doors, open or closed or bifold or sliding......
Made slow progress on various bits tonight, bit more on the complex showroom roof (gluing one piece at a time), installed the garage roof (weathered it last night), developed a roof for the garage office, soldered the garage lights together (paint has taken ages as 3 layers) and sorted a light for the office.

[End2end]

Did you make those lights and shades or do you have a link if commercially available please Timbersurf?
Thanks
End2end