2mm Distillery: Dail-uaine

[justin1985]

Latest procrastination: I decided that now I've got the laser cutter, I'd try replacing the 160gsm card slates with 80gsm paper. 

 

I didn't have any black paper, so they're cut from terracotta coloured paper and painted with Vallejo "German Grey". No weathering yet, but I'll definitely give them some dry brushing.

 

I just stuck them onto new roof panels, cut with 2mm spaced lines etched on, by dragging them through plain old cheap PVA. The alignment of the rows isn't perfect by any means, but good enough, I think.

 

 

Pretty pleased with the result - the amount of relief looks much better than the 160gsm card. And the slight rounding off of the corners by the laser feels a bit more natural.

[bécasse]

The real things are around 3 millimetres thick, so 80 gm paper is still about five times thicker than (2FS) scale. Slate roofs actually look flat, even viewed more or less edge on, so, to my mind, you would produce a more realistic effect using the laser cutter to cut the slate outlines in card. The laser cuts will, of course, be too coarse, but paint tends to fill them and I have found that, even in 4mm scale, one can get a very realistic roof.

 

The 80 gm paper technique would produce clay tiles of about the right thickness though.

[justin1985]

1 hour ago, bécasse said:

The real things are around 3 millimetres thick, so 80 gm paper is still about five times thicker than (2FS) scale. Slate roofs actually look flat, even viewed more or less edge on, so, to my mind, you would produce a more realistic effect using the laser cutter to cut the slate outlines in card. The laser cuts will, of course, be too coarse, but paint tends to fill them and I have found that, even in 4mm scale, one can get a very realistic roof.

 

The 80 gm paper technique would produce clay tiles of about the right thickness though.

 

You're definitely correct. But, for me, I can't get away from wanting there to be *some* relief to a roof, even if it is over scale. Whether you include texture over scale to be able to include any texture at all, or leave it out for sake of scale fidelity, is definitely where modelling is a question of art rather than science - for me, at least. 

 

Flat might be closer to scale, but I can't help finding the way light reflects off a sheet of slate brick paper, or similar, spoils the illusion totally. I think roof surfaces have to be multi-faceted, if that makes sense? Slate roofs might look flat from a distance, but I've never noticed them reflecting light in a totally uniform way. 

 

Engraving a greyscale raster image of slates, rather than just lines, might be a go-er, if that is what you're getting at? i.e. engraving a very slight "shadow" just below each overlap, rather than a trench type line. I think this is the way MBZ produce their kits, including pantiles etc. Might be worth a try!

 

J

[Yorkshire Square]

14 hours ago, justin1985 said:

Latest procrastination: I decided that now I've got the laser cutter, I'd try replacing the 160gsm card slates with 80gsm paper. 

 

I didn't have any black paper, so they're cut from terracotta coloured paper and painted with Vallejo "German Grey". No weathering yet, but I'll definitely give them some dry brushing.

 

I just stuck them onto new roof panels, cut with 2mm spaced lines etched on, by dragging them through plain old cheap PVA. The alignment of the rows isn't perfect by any means, but good enough, I think.

 

Pretty pleased with the result - the amount of relief looks much better than the 160gsm card. And the slight rounding off of the corners by the laser feels a bit more natural.

 

You'll ruin those chassis, putting a big heavy building on them... 

[Caley Jim]

When building the warehouse for Kirkallanmuir I did some measuring and came to the conclusion that newsprint was just about the right thickness for slates. 

 

Jim 

[garethashenden]

I think this thread should be renamed to "2ml Distillery: Dail-uaine" 

 

Excellent work as always Justin!

[Bennachie]

great work , I am in the progress of doing a N scale layout based in the area around Keith in Scotland and want to have a distillery , although I have not decided on its size as yet , ours is an inspiration , where did you get the pagoda from ? I have been looking but can not find anything and not sure if I am up to building one from scratch.

 

[justin1985]

On 14/07/2020 at 03:35, Bennachie said:

great work , I am in the progress of doing a N scale layout based in the area around Keith in Scotland and want to have a distillery , although I have not decided on its size as yet , ours is an inspiration , where did you get the pagoda from ? I have been looking but can not find anything and not sure if I am up to building one from scratch.

 

 

Hi there - I 3D printed the top part of the pagoda myself. I wrote this up in a thread on the "Railways of Scotland" forum here:

 

 

I actually have a few spare from my experiments with different proportions, but they're very delicate, and the shape would make them disproportionately expensive to post to Melbourne! I'd be happy to share the STL file so you could have it printed by someone with a 3D printer locally to you though?

 

 

[Bennachie]

Thanks Justin, the file would be great , I will arrange with someone here to print for me. My email is keith.niven@bigpond.com , regards and once again great modelling

[Bennachie]

Hi Justin , I will let you know when I receive the file so you know I received it .

[justin1985]

This little layout has always unashamedly been a testbed more than anything else. As I've got further along, a few aspects of the recycled mainly 3mm ply board have proven to be a problem: the improvised "fiddle shelf" which was just an overshoot of the board to rest cassettes on, and the lack of proper lighting.

 

So over the last week or so I did some major surgery and cut off the little shelf bit at the end and fitted a new more substantial end "wall", with dowels and insert nuts to bolt on a more substantial shelf for cassettes (not built that yet, but I did clamp its end piece to the end of the layout when drilling the holes, so it shoukd definitely fit!)

 

The other big improvement has been to create a "lid", and with it , lighting. More thin and prone to warping 3.2mm ply, but braced with thin hardwood strips, and with the aluminium extrusions that hold the LED strip diffusers. I'll add some thin strips of ply across the top and as wings at the side for a full "tank slit" look.

 

There is one strip of 12v "natural white" LEDs set in a 45 degree extrusion at the front, and another strip of "pure white" in the middle. Perhaps even a bit too bright now!

 

 

This is also pretty much the first time I've actually operated the layout as a shunting puzzle rather than testing. People might deride "inglenook sidings" - but it is genuinely fun to operate! Especially when the challenge is your own skill in operating, rather than avoiding the loco stalling and making the couplings work!

 

 

Next steps will be putting in some stout white card as a curved backscene, and building up ground level between trackbed and buildings etc.

 

Now I've been operating the layout a bit properly, I have hit a bit of a quandary. I had planned to model the distillery office / managers house dead central to break up the scene, and create a bit of interest when trains pass behind it, rather than always passing in front of all the other buildings.

 

 

However, the location I had in mind is directly in front of the uncoupler location, so it was totally in the way! Shifting it slightly left or right puts it in front of one or other of the turnouts. Less than ideal, maybe, but less critical to see clearly at all times than the uncoupler! I really can't decide whether it adds enough to be worth it, or not? Any thoughts?

 

Proposed new location to left:

 

Thoughts appreciated!

 

J

Edited September 6, 2020 by justin1985

[Caley Jim]

Seeing the uncoupling position is more important than seeing the turnout. Also, putting  the building at an angle adds visual interest and takes away the 'regimented' look of having all the buildings parallel to the front of the baseboard. 

 

Jim 

[Coal Tank]

Superb project, its looking very good indeed 

John 

[Lacathedrale]

I like the location to the left and at the angle, for sure - as Jim says - can you mirror the location of the office/house across the centre-line with maybe a bothy or shed of some sort to maintain the 'bisection' of the layout?

[justin1985]

So, I FINALLY got my Farish 4F conversion working after scratch building a new tender chassis frame. Really pleased - this is my first scratch built part of a loco!

 

 

However, running an even longer wheelbase loco through this little layout has exposed more of a problem with the central turnout. I've tweaked this several times already after each larger loco I tried revealed problems I hadn't noticed with short wheelbase wagons.

 

I suspect I've reached the limit of bodgery. I seem to remember I built this turnout with salvaged / recycled bits, and I suspect that's coming back to haunt me.

 

 

Looking at it afresh, I think the gap through the common crossing is too big ... and it seems like that is because the vee is set too far back (it should be aligned to the front of the sleeper, right?). With the knuckle supported on the next sleeper, the gap is too big - and to make it "work" with shorter wagons I'd clearly bodged the angle of the knuckle so it's quite a way off if I compare with a fresh knuckle bent in a 1:6 jig. 

 

I suspect I could repair by replacing the knuckles with fresh ones bent to an accurate angle, and spacing them accurately from the vee as it is. That would mean the knuckle floating in the gap between sleepers.

 

But I wonder if I should do it properly, and rebuild the vee too, so both can be lined up and supported on sleepers. It also seems like the rail height of the vee itself is a touch lower than the knuckles (perhaps because it was salvaged and had already been polished down quite a bit in its previous incarnation?). Frustrating, but I think I'm talking myself into doing a bigger job?

 

Any thoughts?

 

Cheers

 

Justin

Edited October 6, 2020 by justin1985

[Lacathedrale]

I'm not sure that the vee being silghtly lower than the surrounding rails (within reason obviously) should be much of an issue with regard to alignment, isn't that being governed with the check rail on the opposite side?

 

The bend of the knuckle should AFAIK be on the next timber across:

 

 

Do you have a birds-eye view?

[justin1985]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

Do you have a birds-eye view?

 

There is definitely something out about the knuckles, although the distance can only be tiny ...

 

 

The 4F, and other long wheelbase things, jump up as they hit the vee, then get pulled back by the checkrail. Whereas short wheelbase things pass through fine.

 

J

[nick_bastable]

6 minutes ago, justin1985 said:

 

There is definitely something out about the knuckles, although the distance can only be tiny ...

 

 

The 4F, and other long wheelbase things, jump up as they hit the vee, then get pulled back by the checkrail. Whereas short wheelbase things pass through fine.

 

J

just a thought is the drawbar of the 4f  long enough ?  

 

Nick B

[justin1985]

10 minutes ago, nick_bastable said:

just a thought is the drawbar of the 4f  long enough ?  

 

Nick B

 

Hi Nick,

 

The drawbar is the original Farish one and pivots on the screw between 1st and 2nd axles, although the pick up wipers do constrain it a bit.

 

It is the leading driving axle that jumps up when hitting the vee going forward. Looking very carefully the Jinty does the same very slightly, but I suspect being heavier, it isn't anywhere near as noticeable. 

 

J

[Roger.s]

24 minutes ago, justin1985 said:

 

There is definitely something out about the knuckles, although the distance can only be tiny ...

 

 

The 4F, and other long wheelbase things, jump up as they hit the vee, then get pulled back by the checkrail. Whereas short wheelbase things pass through fine.

 

J

The flangeway on the lower wing rail is less than that on the upper one and the knukkle end is narrower than the flaired. This means its knuckle  is nearer to the vee to line up the running edge with the vee. It is possible that this has made the distance over checks greater than the back to back and the loco is riding up at the knuckle not the vee.

 

Regards Roger 

[bécasse]

It looks to me as if the most likely problem is that the rail forming the upper (in the photo) part of the knuckle hasn't been bent to a sharp enough angle and consequently stands proud of where it should be as part of the knuckle formation.

[Roger.s]

36 minutes ago, bécasse said:

It looks to me as if the most likely problem is that the rail forming the upper (in the photo) part of the knuckle hasn't been bent to a sharp enough angle and consequently stands proud of where it should be as part of the knuckle formation.

As well as the wrong angle to the knuckle, bécasse's picture shows up the difference in flangeway widths. This posses two questions:-

1,   Which flangeway is correct.

2,   What marvel of technology was used to draw the yellow lines!

 

Regards Roger

[Ian Morgan]

Get down to rail level and look along the rails (a mobile phone camera can get pretty low if held upside down) then you can see where the bits of rail do not align, or where check rails are not parallel.

 

 

[Ian Morgan]

Some of my not-so-perfect trackwork showing the view along the rails, first the straight route:

 

 

then the diverging route:

 

 

[2mm Andy]

1 hour ago, Ian Morgan said:

Get down to rail level and look along the rails (a mobile phone camera can get pretty low if held upside down) then you can see where the bits of rail do not align, or where check rails are not parallel.

 

 

 

A small square mirror (eg. a makeup mirror) is quite useful for this - if you set the bottom edge on the rails and angle it back, you can sight along the rails without having to get down low near the track.

 

Andy