Workshop shadowbox diorama

[Hawk]

For a long time, one of the projects on my bucket list have been a shadow box diorama of  an engine house/workshop at the terminal of “my” railroad, Thamshavnbanen. Thamshavnbanen was a metergauge shortline in Norway with a length of only around 30 km. It did not have more than 5 electric engines, so their rolling stock workshop was of an managable size for a modelling project in 0-scale.  Earlier, I have modelled  one of the engines and a couple of the mineral wagons operated by this railway. 

 

The main inspiration for the project were these two images taken in the period that I try to model, around 1935: 

 

 

The building is still standing, and even if all the machinery is removed (it is used as a warehouse), it still got a lot of character:

 

Before starting the actual work, I made a couple of mock-ups: 

 

 

 

 

As the workshop is quite symmetrical with doors at both ends I also made a mock-up with a mirror. A half-model of the gantry crane could be used for hiding  the edge of the mirror:

 

I have concluded that the first design with the side view was a bit too static.  And the mirror concept is perhaps a bit too contrived. 

The design with the diagonal cut has some drawbacks as well.  What I find most troubling is that the floor area on the left in the mockup has a triangular shape that  dissolves the clear separation between the inside of the shadow box and the outside world. I dont know if I make sense, but to me the space of the shadowbox "leaks" out due to this. I want the shadowbox to be an enclosed universe, separated from the viewers universe in the same way a framed painting is.

 

After visiting the Lyon Museum of Miniatures it struck me that the most dramatic of their shadowbox dioramas was of the "missing wall" type, and with a depth larger than the width: 

 

 

 

 

Another feature that also really adds to the drama are the light sources placed way back in the scenes. 

 

So I decided to use the old black and white images as guides for the design. The viewing aperture of the diorama will be an cross-section right in the middle of the building  I feel quite confident that this is a good approach, but I should probably make an mockup before progressing too far with the actual construction.  

 

Next: Construction of the roof rafters

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hawk
Reinstating images

[Hawk]

The first part of the model that I decided to tackle was the roof rafters. 

I was fortunate enough to find scale drawings of these. Based on the drawings I first CNC-milled a bending jig for the curved beams: 

 

 

The slots have a smaller radius than the finished beams, because even if the stripwood was steamed well before being placed in the jig, they flexed back quite a bit after drying. 

 

Another jiq was made for the assembly: 

 

 

The milled jig might seem a bit overkill, but I like to fool around with the CNC router at our local model railroad club. The main frames were built in the milled jig, then rest of  parts were added using the drawing on a soft particle board as an underlay: 

 

The milled jig was just too tight for adding all the parts. I Should have allowed for a little more slop in the milled channels. It is also a good idea to mill double-wide channels and use filler bits to hold the parts tight. You can see that I did this for the long, straight beams.

The jig also really paid off when I drilled the holes for the nut bolt washer castings for the curved, laminated beam. The holes were drilled using the CNC-router. 

 

To sand all the angles, a disk sander is almost essential: 

 

A 12" sander might seem large for modelling, but I really hate the small hobby-sanders. I had a yellow and green disk sander from a German company, and it really sucked.  I feel it is easier to do precision work on heftier machines, and the size is no drawback at all. I use double-sided tape to fasten aluminium profile guides on the table. The small piece of MDF is for supporting small parts while sanding. I often work with really small parts on the sander, and at times my nails get a little shorter in the process. This might seem like a dangerous practice, and maybe I should not advocate it... But a sander is an entirely different beast than for instance a table saw. I have by accident touched the sanding disk while the machine is running, but no blood has ever been drawn.

 

Nut-bolt-washer castings from Grandt Line were installed in the curved beams: 

 

 

Another time consuming task was to install all the iron rods between the woodwork: 

 

 

The rods are chemically blackened 0.6mm nickel-silver wire. 

 

Some images of the drilling process for the rods: 

 

 

A mockup with the semi-finished trusses: 

 

The finished trusses: 

 

Next up: Etchings for windos and the gantry crane

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hawk
Reinstating images

[Sweet pea]

Hauk this is looking an interesting diorama to build. I like your modelling work on the wooden roofing joists. Very nicely done and I look forward to seeing more.

[Hawk]

The windows in the building are cast iron, and they are well suited for etching. The large rectangular windows are for the skylights. 

In addition the artwork includes the parts for the overhead travelling crane: 

 

 

I drew the artwork in VectorWorks, an professional CAD package. It is totally overkill for a simple drawing like this, any vector based drawing/illustrator will work. 

 

It was etched by PPD Ltd. in Scotland, and as usually the service and quality of the etches were excellent. 

The material is 0.3mm nickel-silver. I find that NS takes paint and solder better than brass. And If the model (God forbid!) gets scratched, NS looks more like the steel of the prototype than brass. 

 

When I received the etches, I immediately blackened the window etchings. For chemically blackening it is essential the the metal is absolutely clean, and I reckon that I will never get the metal as clean as PPD could.  

 

Next: Building the travelling overhead crane

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hawk

[Marly51]

Wow! What a great project!! 

[Hawk]

The biggest subproject in this diorama is the overhead traveling crane. An object worth modelling all in itself. Riveted constructions are far more pleasing than stuff that has been welded tighter! 

 

I do not use real riveted joints  for this model, I just insert machined brass rivets (from either Old Pullman in Switzerland or Hassler-Profile in Lichtenstein) in predrilled holes in the nickel-silver parts and solder them on the backside.  Besides looking good, the rivets aligns everything up nicely and keep things in its proper place. 

 

For the steel trusses I milled another assembly jig. The connecting plates were soldered in place, and all the holes were drilled into the brass profiles using the connecting plates as templates. 

 

 

All the rivets inserted and ready to be soldered into place from the back: 

 

 

The massive beams have been made up from etched parts, and the subassemblies has been test fitted (alert readers will of course notice that this test was made before fitting all the rivets!): 

 

 

 

The shape of things tonight: 

 

 

 

 

I was a little over-eager when I machined the wheels for the cross slide, so I did not check was type of wheels the prototype have. There is absolutely no reason to believe that these wheels are single flanged, it is not like they are going to run through any paintwork! So I will probably replace them with double-flanged wheels. 

 

But I will hold back until I have some more pictures of the prototype. I will make a trip to the workshop early next year, so there will probably be no more updates until late January. 

 

NEXT: More work on the overhead traveling crane.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hawk

[Spotlc]

Nice to see such careful attention to detail, combined with fine craftsmanship - Chapeau !!

 

Mike

[Nearholmer]

Brilliant stuff, as always!

[Sweet pea]

Brilliant modelling with the excellent attention to detail.

[Hawk]

Long time no post, but some progress has been made. The roof subassembly has been completed, walls have been milled from Forex,  and the whole thing now looks like this:

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hawk
Adding an image

[The Bandit]

Absolutely superb! Being a fan of micro layouts I just love this concept you are working on!

[Hawk]

46 minutes ago, The Bandit said:

Absolutely superb! Being a fan of micro layouts I just love this concept you are working on!

Thanks! I think the Shadowbox  approach works for both interior and exterior scenes, but maybe especially for interior ones. 

[PaternosterRow]

Hi, very inspiring stuff.  I’ve tried something similar in 4mm - see the rest of my stuff here at RMweb on my blog.

 

Above - shadow box roundhouse.  A 20 inch by 20 inch display using a mirror to the right to double the scene.  Lighting was achieved using car headlight bulbs shining through slits.

 

The station - 6ft long with a mirror again to double the length.

 

 

A depiction of Barrow Hill Roundhouse.  This model is 3 ft x 3 ft model with a working turntable. 

 

You May also want to look at Mikkel’s fantastic Farthing Layouts - particularly his warehouse which is both an external and internal display model.  His work is also in 4mm scale and is much more detailed and exacting than my stuff.  

He also tells great stories on his blog.

 

I look forward to seeing your workshop develop.

 

Regards Mike.

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by PaternosterRow

[Hawk]

Sorry for not posting a reply before, Pater!

 

I am indeed familier with your and Mikkels work, and a while back when I worked for the Norwegian Model railroad magazine “Mj-Bladet “ we ran articles from both of you. It did indeed inspire me a lot! 
 

I am a painfully slow modeler, but there have been a little progress on the diorama:

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hawk

[Hawk]

Did some work on the box that houses the diorama. It looks rather ridiculous when the box is unpainted and the there are no lights inside the workshop, but  at least there is some progress.

 

[Mikkel]

I have completely missed this thread, and now I can't see most of the photos (although if I right-click the ones stored off-site and open them in a new window they turn up). 

 

But that one image from February 17 says it all really. Extraordinary work Hawk, to a standard that makes my head spin.

[Hawk]

18 hours ago, Mikkel said:

I have completely missed this thread, and now I can't see most of the photos (although if I right-click the ones stored off-site and open them in a new window they turn up). 

 

But that one image from February 17 says it all really. Extraordinary work Hawk, to a standard that makes my head spin.

Thanks a lot, Mikkel! And let me return the compliment, I have found a lot of inspiration in your fine work.

 

I am truly sorry for the non-showing images! Most of my images

are hosted on a non-secure server, and nowadays browsers by default doesn’t accept unsecured content. I would love to move all my images to a secure server, but this would most likely break the links to literally thousands of images that I have included in forum posts during the last 18 years. You could of course argue that the links are already broken, but there are proven workarounds. I have to be certain that the situation will not be worsened by moving to a secure server. 
 

 

[Mikkel]

Don't worry, not seeing the images wasn't meant as a criticism, as we know all too well storing images on the web involves uncertainties as things change. 

 

I enjoyed the reference to Folk & Roevere in the old URL by the way, not many people on here will know what that means or the excellent story behind it 🙂

 

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Mikkel

[MarshLane]

14 hours ago, Hawk said:

Thanks a lot, Mikkel! And let me return the compliment, I have found a lot of inspiration in your fine work.

 

I am truly sorry for the non-showing images! Most of my images

are hosted on a non-secure server, and nowadays browsers by default doesn’t accept unsecured content. I would love to move all my images to a secure server, but this would most likely break the links to literally thousands of images that I have included in forum posts during the last 18 years. You could of course argue that the links are already broken, but there are proven workarounds. I have to be certain that the situation will not be worsened by moving to a secure server. 
 

 

 

Hawk,

Not wishing to deviate from the modelling topic (which is superb btw!) but there would be nothing stopping you adding an SSL certificate to your current server and using a .htaccess file to redirect any http requests to https - thereby providing a secure link, not breaking any existing links and not needing to change server.

[Hawk]

4 hours ago, MarshLane said:

 

Hawk,

Not wishing to deviate from the modelling topic (which is superb btw!) but there would be nothing stopping you adding an SSL certificate to your current server and using a .htaccess file to redirect any http requests to https - thereby providing a secure link, not breaking any existing links and not needing to change server.

I will definitely look into it. There are few things more frustrating than finding and old forum thread with broken image links. Old forum threads are often a great resource, but not if the images are gone!

[PaternosterRow]

On 17/02/2022 at 21:52, Hawk said:

Sorry for not posting a reply before, Pater!

 

I am indeed familier with your and Mikkels work, and a while back when I worked for the Norwegian Model railroad magazine “Mj-Bladet “ we ran articles from both of you. It did indeed inspire me a lot! 
 

I am a painfully slow modeler, but there have been a little progress on the diorama:

 

 

Gosh, hi Hawk.  Yes of course you did and what a splendid job you did as editor - sorry I never made the connection before.  This diorama of yours is superb and the attention to detail is absolutely amazing.  I’m not a patient modeler like you or Mikkel and this shows - for example, the painstaking research before you painted the walls and floor has given your scene such a sense of realism that a casual observer would be convinced that they are looking at a real location.  This museum quality work, my friend.  Sorry for not getting back sooner, but I just recently recovered from a long stint of illness.  What are you doing now if you have moved on from MJ Bladet and how does the magazine fares now that you’ve left?  

Regards Mike.  

[Hawk]

It’s starting to come together now. The “black box” that is so central to the concept is finally black!

 

[Mikkel]

Hi Haavard, that looks tantalizing! I almost turned my laptop to see if I could look inside 😃

 

I like the design, and how the opening has the shape of the roof. Is there a light source inside the box?

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Mikkel

[Hawk]

On 15/10/2022 at 08:17, Mikkel said:

Hi Haavard, that looks tantalizing! I almost turned my laptop to see if I could look inside 😃

 

I like the design, and how the opening has the shape of the roof. Is there a light source inside the box?

 

Thanks a lot for the kind words!

I am especially happy that you like the house shaped opening. I argued back and forth with myself if it looked good or a bit contrived. One of the reasons for choosing the “house” was that I really wanted to show of the rafters I put so much work into.

 

It is indeed a light source inside the box; a standard 600mmX600mm LED-panel is placed right under the roof of the box. The inside of the box is painted glossy white so that light is reflected into the workshop through the windows. There are also prototypical skylights in the roof of the building.

 

 

 

I think that LED panels are an excellent  source of light for dioramas and small layouts. They come in many sizes. 600X600 is the most common, but I have also seen 1200X600 , 1200X300, 600X300 and even some smaller one. Make sure that you find a panel with a good color index. And be sure to get the correct voltage for the panel! Some panels are 220V and can be plugged straight in. Others are for use with transformers. Don’t ask me how I found this out…

 

The panel I ended up with is a 45W panel with a fairly good color index. Since the light is supposed to be daylight coming in through the windows, I chose a panel with a cold light. 
 

I was a bit concerned about heat buildup inside the box, but I left the lights on for a couple of days without any heat problems.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Hawk

[Mikkel]

Thanks for that Hawk. My approach to lighting is still a bit haphazard, so it's useful to have these pointers. 

 

Those rafters were worth every minute that you spent on them!