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BEIJIAO - a large Chinese HO exhibition layout set in the 21st century


TEAMYAKIMA
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Building any successful layout (especially an exhibition one) requires different mindsets at different times ...... 'modelling' is an obvious one, but there are also logistics, planning  and what my friend Colin calls 'imagineering'.

 

Well this morning it was modelling - modelling for the sake of modelling!  I saw this brass detailing kit at Stevenage - it's 4mm, but I simply had to have it. had to try to make it (I have NEVER made a brass kit of any description before!!) and then will have to find somewhere to put it on the layout.

 

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Can you guess what it is yet?

 

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Half way!

 

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Really pleased with myself!

 

Now finished with 'modelling' - off to the shed for some imagineering!

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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So, layout building in two areas today ...................

 

Modelling ............... the latest interior ............... a garage which will is set out as one open interior space but also in a sense as 3 bays

 

post-4476-0-36974100-1486327586_thumb.jpg

 

Imagineering .............. the first two scenic boards now have a backscene .................. photo # 1 shows how the left hand tenements (furthest from the hotel) have no shops underneath. As the tenements get closer to the hotel the tenements will gradually get posher and the shops will get more 'up market'.

 

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Photo # 2 has slightly different buildings (as a mock up) but shows (for the first time) the building that will hide the industrial line disappearing into the backscene....

 

post-4476-0-03325700-1486328241_thumb.jpg

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I've been watching your topic for a while, lots of recognizable scenes.

 

I am wanting to see how you handle the road traffic, though of course stationary cars, truck, buses, motorbike, mopeds and cyclists will be quite typical, just need a sound track of beeping horns....

 

Here's a ladder I saw in Kunming, Yunnan last July. I didn't get a photo of the long lengths of timber on another moped.....

 

 

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Roger

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Have had a VERY frustrating day off - not helped by the fact that my cold from 2 weeks ago has made a re-appearance.

 

Have decided to completely re-do all the pavements - for me they look too much like NE England rather than NE China.

 

Have been thinking about a street market ............. I found some 'bits' salvaged from an old club layout that was being scrapped.

 

I wish I had taken 'before' photo to compare with the finished article -. but I didn't!  So this will have to do ...... I found two market tables in my scrap box ..... originally both looked (roughly) like the one on the left ..... the one on the right has been painted and had many new bits added.

 

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Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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More progress on the market stalls...........

 

An unpainted  kibri or Vollmer item recycled from an old club layout .... legs broken off ... separate 'bits' glued on

 

post-4476-0-92686500-1486925947.jpg

 

One hour later ..... the (extremely well) glued on bits have been cut off and the whole thing narrowed by one plank....

 

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A further two hours later...............

 

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Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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Now some decisions need to be made!  I have said before that I am now unhappy with the pavements which have spent many hours on fitting to the tenements.....

 

post-4476-0-67902000-1486935724_thumb.jpg

 

It's partly the colours - too Yorkshire for my liking! And partly that they are 4mm scale which accentuates the fact that the buildings are quite small ie the eye compares the size of the paving slabs to the size(width) of the rooms in the tenements.

 

So I tried some other paving papers. I chose two styles and set up a trial. And then set up a mock up of the pavements against a couple of other paving papers I might use for the pedestrian area used for the market. The idea being to see how the various combinations of colours gel. I have shown some photos I took today but it is difficult to give you a true feel of the colours as they change so much depending on lighting conditions - photos taken under flourescents and without camera flash.

 

Here are the two paving papers - both styles shown as 'natural' and weathered by me using weathering powder. Please don't woory tto much about the way the pavement looks - this is only a mock up and I'm only considering the colours not the modelling.

 

The first opion is grey paving stones which are actually sold as N gauge and I much prefer the weathered version on the left.

 

The second option is actually OO and sold as 'Staffordshire Blue' - I'm not sure if I prefer the natural or weathered version (shown on the right), but I feel the weathering hides the subtle colour variations in the natural version.

 

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And again

 

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What is your view of the best version - concrete paving or Staffordshire Blue? Weathered or natural? Let me have your view - please send me a PM rather than fill up this thread with different views.

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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I've made a decision!  I'm going with the weathered Staffordshire Blue - the version on the extreme right.

 

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Not sure what texture paper I'll use for the pedestrian are yet - but that's another problem, for another day.

 

And the first tenement get fixed permanently to the layout tomorrow - my day off!!

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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So here is the first ever photo of a building permanently fixed down on the layout!

 

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Now someting I have always planned to have is a plain BLACK back scene and you can see the first signs of that in this picture.

 

Now I do NOT want this thread to be taken over with a long drawn out discussion on the pros and cons of such an idea and so I have just started a separate thread on RMweb in the scenery section to explore peoples reactions to such an idea. If you have any thoughts please post them there and not on this layout thread - thanks!

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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You got me thinking!  I found this photo I took in 2015 ..................

 

attachicon.gif20150227_090843.jpg

Well that's clear enough. They lay their paviours lengthwise - a mistake as it makes it more likely that people will trip over any raised edges. But then people probably don't sue the local council  in China!

 

So you have got yours right on the layout for direction but they probably need to be a lot smaller if to be to scale.

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Well that's clear enough. They lay their paviours lengthwise - a mistake as it makes it more likely that people will trip over any raised edges. But then people probably don't sue the local council  in China!

 

So you have got yours right on the layout for direction but they probably need to be a lot smaller if to be to scale.

I've seen them in various sizes from about 12" x 4" up to around 2' x 1'. Square tiles laid at 45 degrees to the edge of the road can also be found.

 

What you do need though, Paul, are some deep holes that the utility authorities have excavated - with the excavated soil piled next to them and without any form of protection of course!

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Another reason that my layout is behind schedule is my clumsiness/stupidity .......... constantly damaging things and having to spend time repairing/replacing.

 

My shed is relatively small and so two boards are the most I can set up on the workbench. Moving a board with the backscene and building in place is VERY awkward and in moving board # 1 yesterday I caught a rail on board # 2...

 

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An hour's work this moring at 7am and some superglue repaired the damage....

 

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But I could have been doing something more productive with that hour!

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I have been wasting more time fiddling with tenement # 2.

 

I have finalised my thoughts on the pavements ..................

 

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I have also added more lighting and one problem I have discovered is getting the lighting 'balance' right. As all bulbs will be connected to the same 0-12v source I needed to make sure all were 'balanced'.

 

Originally (earlier today) I found that I wanted the ground level interiors very well lit so that viewers could see all the detail I've added, but, at that level, the lit windows in the rooms above looked as if some kind of nuclear reaction was happening behind then curtains. So several hours later I have managed to adjust things so the ground level buildings are well lit and the rooms above are obviously lit but the lighting is more subtle.

 

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More obsessive behaviour today ... or why this layout is taking so long ...

 

I went to upgrade another tenement (#3) by replacing the original 4mm paving stones with some HO ones ..... only to discover that the pavemnet here was some 3mm narrower than the others. It was my fault because on #3 I had glued the pavement strip under the walls of the building whereas on # 1 & # 2 I had butted the pavement up to the sides of the building.

 

So # 3 also sits 80 thou taller than # 1 & #2 !

 

So in order to make the pavements similar I decided to add a strip of 3mm wide plasticard to the front .....

 

post-4476-0-66431700-1487775797_thumb.jpg

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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More obcessive behaviour today ... or why this layout is taking so long ...

 

I went to upgrade another tenement (#3) by replacing the original 4mm paving stones with some HO ones ..... only to discover that the pavemnet here was some 3mm narrower than the others. It was my fault because on #3 I had glued the pavement strip under the walls of the building whereas on # 1 & # 2 I had butted the pavement up to the sides of the building.

 

So # 3 also sits 80 thou taller than # 1 & #2 !

 

So in order to make the pavements similar I decided to add a strip of 3mm wide plasticard to the front .....

 

attachicon.gifDSC_0213.JPG

 

You realise Adele released a song about all this I presume :-)

 

Steve

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With your paper pavement can I suggest leaving a sample on the windowsill as they can fade or discolour quite a lot. As the less stable inks fade you can get a strong blue/ purple tinge quite quickly if it's always in a room lit by daylight. I found it on an old shed layout.

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