Workshop shadowbox diorama

[Hawk]

On 18/10/2022 at 19:17, Mikkel said:

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!

Thanks again, Mikkel! The rafters was one of the features that made me want to build a model of the workshop, and it was the first thing I built for the project.

[Hawk]

Well, just a couple of images to bump the thread. 

Have been working  on details like machines, doors, tools etc. 

A lot of time was spent at the doors to be places in the back of the shop. I probably spent far too much time and effort on them, but i really enjoy making stuff in metal. And it was good practice, too. I need to practice my soldering for sure!

 

The door is primed with Tamiya primer, an excellent primer that mercilessly brings out all flaws in your work!

 

The lathe is an old US white metal kit by CHB models, I think better white metal castings have never been spun neither before or after these kits. Only gripe I have with them is that they are *very* delicate. That tailstock handwheel bugs me quite a lot...

 

The anvil is an white metal casting with a wooden stand I now have been told is rather unprototypical. The lengths of sleepers should be standing on edges. So I maight make another one. 

 

Well, no dramatic progress, just a little update to convince myself that the project is still alive!

[Sweet pea]

Fantastic modelling Hauk👍

[Hawk]

19 minutes ago, Kevin Johnson said:

Fantastic modelling Hauk👍

Thanks, Kevin!

[Middlepeak]

Great to see progress, however small! It doesn't take much to get back in the swing of things. Keep it up!

 

Best wishes,

 

Geraint

[john new]

Any chance of reinstating the images into the earlier posts in the thread? The posts are fairly meaningless without the pictures and the quality of your work is worth revisiting.

[The Bandit]

A great concept fabulously modelled.

[Hawk]

14 hours ago, john new said:

Any chance of reinstating the images into the earlier posts in the thread? The posts are fairly meaningless without the pictures and the quality of your work is worth revisiting.

 

I think all images should be reinstated now, let me know if there still are images missing. 

[Hawk]

Progress is not exactly overwhelming, but some work has been done on a pair of cosmetic bogies for the scene. 

I am struggling a bit to accept the "Multi media" kit og brass, steel and 3D printed resin parts...

 

[Mikkel]

Håvard, it doesn't matter if progress is slow when the results look like this! 

 

It's very crisp, what is the kit please? 

[Hawk]

4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

It's very crisp, what is the kit please? 

I should have put "Kit" inside the quotes, as it isn´t really a commercial kit. 

The bogies are made from my own etchings with some castings produced by Korea brass from my own handmade master. There are also some brass parts milled on a High-Z router. The 3D printed gears are printed on a friends Anycubic Photon Mono2 resin printer. Some of the parts are exclusively made for the cosmetic bogies for thisworkshop scene. 

 

 

Here is a photo of the engine:

 

 

[Mikkel]

Impressive. Your work is so unique for the Scandinavian model railway scene, which - in my limited experience at least - has not had much of a tradition for advanced stuff like this.

[Hawk]

4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Impressive. Your work is so unique for the Scandinavian model railway scene, which - in my limited experience at least - has not had much of a tradition for advanced stuff like this.

 

In fact, my modelling is strongly influenced by several fine Scandinavian modellers.

 

One of them, Erik Olsen, even made the wheels for the electric engine above!  In fact,  he developed a set of standards for 0m based on his own Proto:45 standards.  Unfortunately, he is no longer modelling in finescale, but his webpage is still accessible. This is miniature enginering at its finest:

http://www.modelbaneteknik.dk/model/index.htm

 

I must also mention a couple of Swedish modelers and the society Smalspårsfrämjandet ( The society for the advancement of narrow gauge). The late Erik Walde was a central member of this society, and he  developed standards for 0e gauge (Comparable to 0n30, it is 1/45 scale, 16,5mm gauge) and produced wheelsets, detail castings and etched kits for narrow gauge models with Swedish prototypes. Among his castings is a working "Norwegian" central coupling that I use on my own rolling stock.

 

Tobias Ljung was sort of an "Wizard's Apprentice" to Walde, and he has built a lot of very nice 0e models from his own custom kits. Unfortunately, his website is no longer available. The concept of developing your own kits is a concept I learned from these gentlemen.

 

"Smalspårsfrämjandet " publishes a society magazine called "Smalspårigt", but for me the meetings arranged by the society has been the biggest influence and inspiration.

 

Last, but not least I have to mention the late Krister Brandt. Krister was the driving force in Skövde Modellsällskap that built the legendary Westergötland-Nerikes Järnvägar H0-scale layout. He was an excellent modeller with architectural models as his speciality. But he was also an great writer and communicator, and his book about WNJ is the only text on model building that I would classify as literature. 

 

He was the editor for a series of annual model railway compendiums that was published between 1990 and 1999. I think it is fair to say that without those compendiums, I would not have been a modeller today. It was through these books that I first learned about the work of Walde, Ljung,  Brandt and several other Scandinavian modellers.

 

The Skövde Society also hosts an annual modellers meet that is THE place to attend in Scandinavia if you are interested in  fine modelling. The main attraction is the layout itself, but you also meet an awful lot of serious modellers. It is customary that all attendes brin along some of their own modelling. Unfortunately I have been able to attend only once, but I plan to go this year.  Hopefully I will be able to bring along the workshop diorama. The meeting takes place on Saturday 15 june. As you are located fairly close, maybe I will see you there?

[Mikkel]

Thanks Håvard, a fine list of craftsmen. 

 

Skövde sounds good! Do you know the Ribe Club in Denmark? Good stuff. They have an English website here, with some quirky videos captioned in English. The style is deliberately slow-paced, not your usual social media chop-chop 🙂

 

https://vibefilm.dk/rhjms-english/

 

 

[Hawk]

11 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Thanks Håvard, a fine list of craftsmen. 

 

Skövde sounds good! Do you know the Ribe Club in Denmark? Good stuff. They have an English website here, with some quirky videos captioned in English. The style is deliberately slow-paced, not your usual social media chop-chop 🙂

 

https://vibefilm.dk/rhjms-english/

 

 

 

Yep, I know about the Ribe Club. When I was one of the editors for the Norwegian magazine "MJ-bladet" (The Model Railway  Gazette) I tried to get get them to write an article on their fine layout.   Like the Skövde layout the ratio of trains vs. scenery  is stongly in favour of the latter. As the late Krister Brandt used to say: Det ska inte va så mycket tåg at det stör! (It shouldn't be so many trains that it disturbs!)

 

 

[Middlepeak]

Hi Haavard & Mikkel,

 

I really echo your views on the activities of the Ribe club. Because of my connections with the town, I made contact with them back in 2006 and have been a regular visitor to their clubroom ever since. They have been a constant source of inspiration and help for me during the construction of Obbekaer, and on a couple of occasions they have travelled, to England for Scaleforum 2013 and to Holland for Rail 2016, where they helped me operate the layout. They also arranged for Obbekaer to appear at the DMJU exhibition in Bramdrupdam, near Kolding, in 2014.

 

It struck me at the time that they were successfully progressing a sort of finescale modelling that wasn't the norm for Denmark. They have always been content with their own company and with progressing their model of Ribe as it was in the late 1920's, without taking it to exhibitions. With a combined age of just over 240 between the three of them, I can understand why, but it's shame that their excellent work hasn't been seen by a larger audience.

 

A few photos of them 'in action' at Scaleforum 2013.

 

 

 

 

Best wishes to you both,

 

Geraint

 

 

[Hawk]

1 hour ago, Middlepeak said:

 

I really echo your views on the activities of the Ribe club. Because of my connections with the town, I made contact with them back in 2006 and have been a regular visitor to their clubroom ever since. They have been a constant source of inspiration and help for me during the construction of Obbekaer, and on a couple of occasions they have travelled, to England for Scaleforum 2013 and to Holland for Rail 2016, where they helped me operate the layout. They also arranged for Obbekaer to appear at the DMJU exhibition in Bramdrupdam, near Kolding, in 2014.

 

 

It´s been a while since your article appeared in MJ-Bladet, but I think your layout is one of the finest we published on our watch.

 

Memory might be failing me, but I think it might have been you that introduced me to the Ribe Club.

Edited February 2 by Hawk

[Middlepeak]

Many thanks Haavard. Thinking of the Skovde event, would they welcome a visit from an Englishman with an interest in Denmark? I'm not promising, but it sounds like an interesting thing to visit. Is there a website with more information?

 

Regards,

 

G

[Hawk]

On 02/02/2024 at 19:48, Middlepeak said:

Many thanks Haavard. Thinking of the Skovde event, would they welcome a visit from an Englishman with an interest in Denmark? I'm not promising, but it sounds like an interesting thing to visit. Is there a website with more information?

 

Regards,

 

G

 

I think they most certainly they would welcome a modeller of your calibre! It is customary to bring a sample of your own work, usually people bring some rolling stock or a small diorama. Layouts are unusual, maybe because space is not unlimitied. If you concider bringing Obbekaer, I would contact them in advance.

They have a homepage: http://wnj.se/  Not a lot of information in English, unfortunately.

I am unsure about what email adress to use for contacting them, but I will see  what I can find.

 

[marc smith]

What an amazing project! How on earth have I missed this? Superb work sir. Really like the whole concept of this.
BTW I am known (by some) for using mirrors on small layouts, and I think in this instance, perhaps it did look a bit "contrived" - however, it is possible to use them in a more subtle way too.... which could work on a micro / diorama like this.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to seeing this one progress.

[Middlepeak]

12 hours ago, Hawk said:

think they most certainly they would welcome a modeller of your calibre! It is customary to bring a sample of your own work, usually people bring some rolling stock or a small diorama. Layouts are unusual, maybe because space is not unlimitied. If you concider bringing Obbekaer, I would contact them in advance.

They have a homepage: http://wnj.se/  Not a lot of information in English, unfortunately.

I am unsure about what email adress to use for contacting them, but I will see  what I can find.

 

Hi Haavard,

 

That's a nice idea, but there's still a lot of uncertainty around the customs issues with taking models outside of the UK after Brexit. Better to start small with a model or two in a case, I think!

 

 

[Hawk]

1 hour ago, Middlepeak said:

 

Hi Haavard,

 

That's a nice idea, but there's still a lot of uncertainty around the customs issues with taking models outside of the UK after Brexit. Better to start small with a model or two in a case, I think!

 

 

 

There really isn`t a strict rult that you have to bring a model,  but the models people bring along is a big part of the attraction.   

Would be great to see you there!

[Hawk]

23 hours ago, marc smith said:

What an amazing project! How on earth have I missed this? Superb work sir. Really like the whole concept of this.
BTW I am known (by some) for using mirrors on small layouts, and I think in this instance, perhaps it did look a bit "contrived" - however, it is possible to use them in a more subtle way too.... which could work on a micro / diorama like this.

 

Thanks a lot for the kind works! Even if i gave up on the idea of mirrors on this diorama, I have a future project were I will try to use mirrors.  It is an interior scene in a very long building where the mineral wagons were emptied. 

 

 

 

The idea is to make an diagonal cut, and have an mirror at the end of the scene to increase the depth of the scene. I will have to make a mockup to find out how deep the modeled scene must be to work. It will sort of break the illusion if you suddenly see your own  face at the bottom of the rabbit-hole!

 

But I really should concentrate on finishing the diorama at hand!

 

Edited February 14 by Hawk