TimberSurf
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Posts posted by TimberSurf
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Still waiting on some feedback as to if theses are any use?
Has anyone printed any? Found them useful?
I would be happy to configure more if you feed back what you want!
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Layout has taken a slight backseat, while I do two projects as a competition (it's justs a bit of fun, mostly a good spur on to get something finished) on another forum. I have chosen to make two special load wagons. Totally freelance scratch build, Lumsdonia style (no prototype to follow). Project 1 is still in pieces, so will show later, Project 2 is nearly complete except for the load, it's loosely based on a schnabel principle, as the load forms the middle connecting section.
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Thanks Kev
Nice to know the site layout is working well
I originally created a spreadsheet many moons ago to store all the collected useful weblinks I had found, not trusting the favourites of a webbrowser program, as I have gone through half a dozen PC's over the years and things like that tend to get lost.
I recently 'shared' my list as a webpage on my website for the benefit of others. I had to tidy up the contents and formalise the content so it made sense and was factual and up to date before I went live. Thus only those I had verified and fully expanded, made it to the site. Prompted by a forum member, I noticed signage was not a category in the links page and on checking my spreadsheet, I noticed there was a category but with only one lonely link! So, I have done some research and compiled a more realistic list, which I can now share with you.
When I originally did my research, I noted that none of those available, are 're-sizable', therefore those modelling Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch may have a problem fitting the name in
, plus the top and bottom areas are not populatable!Thus I produced my own excel spreadsheet that overcomes these problems, I may yet tidy it up and publish it one day
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Two more "How to's" added, the list is growing and there are a lot more that need writing up that will come soon.
Buffers
Coach Lighting
Gate crossing (New)
Industrial Lamp shades
Lamp post base (New)
Post spike
UTP
How to clicky -
Cheers SHMD
I have bit the bullet and started a new thread in "Websites" http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/133256-lumsdonia-website/
Hopefully might get some feedback this time!
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I am an Electrical Design Engineer with a large house and a departed family, heading toward my twilight years, I am re-invoking my long lost hobbies of electronics and model railways. I built my first layout in the 70’s in a shed in the garden, a 6ft x 4ft effort that started the ball rolling while i was at school. The second incarnation was an end to end affair some 15ft long by 18ins wide in my friends loft. The third was a rehash of the seconds boards in my siblings house. There was then a pause for the fairer sex, marriage and a family. Next came the resurgence in the form of a new layout at my current abode, with some influence that it was for “the little ones”, a 16ft long by 30in wide board was erected. The little ones became big, and I was persuaded to relinquish the spare room for teenager “personal space”. Eventually they wanted “personal space” and moved out! The room once again became the train room and soon a new 10ft 6in by 4ft layout was constructed, on the premise it was for the “little one”, a later addition!
That was 8 years ago!
Work away from home has given me little time to indulge my hobbies at home, but has been a means of giving spare time to buy huge quantities of stock and materials to create a monster layout!
Recent events have allowed me time to design phase 2 and I have started documenting it in my website
HOWEVER, my involvement in another forum and my unusual (for my age) dexterity with PC's and the web (I have had a website for 20 years) has led to the development of a website for my musings and general spasmodic updates about my layout. But over the last year or two, it has rapidly become a Model Railways resource of info! I also have a complimentary Youtube channel, mostly about investigating new animated features for my layout.
Sections include my layout, guides for beginners, ever expanding "How to's", tips, glossary and guides and even a shop section of FREE downloadable pdf's
Happy to field any questions comments good or bad.
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I now have a 'How to' section , on my website Lumsdonia. with 3 more pages for your delectation.
I am beginning to to think it's not worth posting on this thread, as I have got no response from anyone for 3 years!
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I now have a tips section 700 of Scratch building, on my website.
Having got my head around the Arduino language and written a fairly sophisticated program for a 4 barrier level crossing, I was so pleased with my attempt at programming, that I thought I would share the functionality as a video in the form of a simulator on my PC.
The actual barrier is well under way in construction and will soon debut as video in the near future.
Don't forget to give me some feedback and any tips or nuggets of inspiration are always well received and may well make it onto the Lumsdonia website. -
Finally got round to writing up all the data on coach lighting. When I finally get round to making my own (DCC anti-flicker with LDR), I will document the process, release the circuit and maybe make a video. I have a few more experimentations to do to the final circuit, before I start the mass conversion of my stock!
New webpage in guides called Coach lighting
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Not sure how to progress on the forum?
Should I start a thread in "Layouts"? or can mods move this out of "New members"?
Also noticed there is a "website" category, would it be OK to start a new thread on there, to plug my website Lumsdonia? (I don't sell anything)
I am not sure how many "New modellers" use this forum, but my website was originally for my musings, but has rapidly progressed into a repository of reference data and useful stuff for beginners and old hands alike!
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There is now a snazzy new picture slide on the Lumsdonia front page, with some never before seen piccies to wet your appetite!
Have I not mentioned my YouTube channel until now? I have recently added an intro vid, hopefully displaying my humorous side and dont skip the credits if you hate missing out on all the treats!
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Another update done to the Lumsdonia website and now have most of the links page populated
Transfers, Turntables,Tutorials,Video/DVD, Wagon kits, Weathering Links now all live
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What a superb thread, even if I haven't the slightest clue about its content and superbly written by TimberSurf.
Great read for when the wife's watching Eastenders !
Cheers.
Allan.
That's very gracious of you Allen, thank you, but i dont think "Printing tarps" will become a best selling thriller novel!
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- whatever colour they started, tarps seem to have become dark/mid grey. In B&W photos they definitely don't show is dark enough to be 'hard' black
The blue ones on clay hoods I think are 'modern' plastic versions, rather than real tarpaulins.
I believe canvas is off white/beige if undyed. My research shows that soot is involved with oil to make them black/waterproof!
I can print any RGB colour! What shade of grey would you like Sir?
I will maybe add a complete set later that are dark grey
The ECC tarps really were light blue, way back before the invention of plastic ones!
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Excellent idea - they look good. Can you please advise what printer you used. Standard ink-jet or something a bit more commercial. Also what paper - anything special?
Using a laser printer is a nono! They come out shiney and when scrunched, the ink cracks and shows white!
I use a standard (home) colour inkjet printer (HP) and ordinary paper.
Use best print quality, it will put more ink on, so will make the paper '"wet", but it then sinks in, and when scrunched hardly shows any white.
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I have updated the Lumsdonia website and now have three quarters of the links page populated
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The vast majority of tarps where black, just two exceptions of yellow and light blue for china clay.
The point of the three samples in first post, was to demonstrate that I can achieve any design and colour.
My main reference is Goods & Not So Goods
If you go to the webpage Lumsdonia pdf download shop page, and click on any tarp, you can see/download the actual pdf's
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Were the GWR tarps Black?
You are correct, they probably were not blue! Those 3 are are just experiments, to demonstrate what is possible. I might change Lumsdonia ones to mauve! lol. I do not know what GWR looked like or if they ever existed, I think they were just GW as seen here
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The concept
It was mentioned on another forum about making Tarps available, that may not be in the range of the current commercially available, like "Roger Smiths Tarps"
The request was aimed at those that have some skills in desktop publishing, assuming that a graphics or visio type software would be able to reproduce the image and print to a pdf, for distribution to the masses.
I considered that it would involve some work for that individual to create each design as a one off and would require similar effort to produce a second design and so on.
It struck me (being that Excel is my strongpoint) that this could not only be created in a spread sheet just as easily, but could also be programmed to create all the variables that could be specified and automatically update size, proportions, colour, shape, font, etc ,etc by simply typing in instructions
This means that one Excel spreadsheet could be made, that any individual could use to make any variety of different tarps at will.
Having the skills and a website that it could be downloaded from and a need for some special "Lumsdonia" sheets, it seemed obvious that I would have to have a go!
The design
Initial population of repeating text was easy. Then a bit of research was needed to learn how to programmatically change the variables with VBA. Most were straight forward and the basic shape and manipulation were done. The biggest problem was to make the 'North' (top) bunch of text to be "upside down". There are sites that can do it as a one off, but I needed it entirely in the spreadsheet. There is no way to do it Excel and no font available either. More by fluke than anything else, as my research on google basically said it was not possible, I remembered a clever trick I had used before (a long time ago when making xmas place cards for the dinner table) and managed to get it to work.
The Basic version
The program now works, it is only basic, but can alter all dimensions, text content, font type, font size and overall colour.
Excel is quite querky when it comes to printing and as such is not good at printing to real scale dimensions, it's designed more easily to fit to a page by scaling. Plotters are equiped with scale correction so that acurate plots can be made at 1:1, but printers usually don't have that feature. This means that although I have set up the spread sheet to be configured in millimeters, the actual print tends not to come out at the same size.
To compensate for this issue and the fact that every printer has different attributes, I have put in a width and height factor in,so that if prints are measured, the error in size can be adjusted by tweaking the factors.
The Result
So obviously it works..... and having printed a few off, duly scrunched and fitted, they look remarkably good! (far better than I had hoped for)
I obviously have a good printer, because even the black (although a bit soggy) has full coverage with no lines like you used to get on printers years ago.
Conclusion
The VB is a little unstable, so I have decided not to release the excel file, its probably beyond most to manipulate it anyway, so I am simply creating tarps as pdf's and releasing those to my website. Its a small range at the momment and still needs a lot of development, as I have little info to go on and the the correct sizes and fonts are unknown.
Please please give me feedback, if like them, think they are rubbish or just plain wrong (in which case let me know why so I can fix them.
Or am I just wasting my time?
Does anyone want them/find use?
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That's quite some railway you are building there. (Quite a nice web site too.)
Anyway, enjoy your stay in RMweb land and don't forget to post piccies here too - we like them.
Kev.
Never thanked you about your comment on the website before, but have now and if you revisit, there's even more to read through!
I was loathe to posts pics nearly 3 years ago, as the layout had been ripped up and there was little to photograph, now there is 2ft x 12ft's worth, it seems appropriate to post. Larger set are on my site gallery, but here are a few:-
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10 months have passed and the two boards are more or less finished (see Gallery). I have run out of space, so I am developing some idea's about animation (see Video) and making dioramas that can be placed on the layout once built.
I have also updated the Lumsdonia website and now have a links page and several Tips pages. I have created a program to automate the creation of wagon load tarpaulins, once designed, they can printed as a pdf. I will add a new Shop webpage in the next few weeks were they can be downloaded. You can see the samples here
Web page is now live for some sample tarpaulins
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10 months have passed and the two boards are more or less finished (see Gallery). I have run out of space, so I am developing some idea's about animation (see Video) and making dioramas that can be placed on the layout once built.
I have also updated the Lumsdonia website and now have a links page and several Tips pages. I have created a program to automate the creation of wagon load tarpaulins, once designed, they can printed as a pdf. I will add a new Shop webpage in the next few weeks were they can be downloaded. You can see the samples here
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Under development:-
Static smoke - done
PC controlled static lighting - done
Servo bracket with two microswitches - done
MP3 player local sound - done
Frame construction, underlay is EPDM, Code 100 electrofrog trackwork, bus power with block sections for DCC and block detection, servo motor driven points mounted on home designed pro bracket, control by Megapoints, - done
Fit led's to 40 buffers - 20 done
Buy and fit Heljan turntable - done
7 track road bridge in Linka - begun
Two 6ft long platform - not started
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Been a while since last post, a lot has happened . Mostly not good news!
I have abandoned the grand scheme, temporarily. I have come to the conclusion that my retirement plan to build a huge railway, simply wont happen in my current abode. So pointless continuing to build as designed (as in, to fit a particular room). So I do not know what shape the final room will be (in a house we have yet to buy in the not near future) so cannot commit to a fixed design. In aid of selling the house, the railway room has not been decorated for 20 years, bit overdue and needs to be fresh to enable sale. So I ripped up phase 1 and dumped it at the skip (it had a flaw of steep inclines anyway). Completely refurbished and decorated the room (I know have plush carpet to drop solder on!)
Revision 2 of Lumsdonia is theoretically the same, except it will now be re-designed in stages and built in (manageable) disconnect able modules (like an exhibition layout). Thus I have taken the main station and shunting yard as the starter and begun construction of two 6ft 6in x 2ft boards.
Years of research and development can now be deployed, Frame construction is deep and lightweight, underlay is EPDM, Code 100 electrofrog trackwork, bus power with block sections for DCC and block detection, servo motor driven points mounted on home designed pro bracket, control by Megapoints, NCE controller,
Under development:-
Static smoke
PC controlled static lighting
Servo bracket with two microswitches
Lumsdonia - Wagon Load Tarpaulin pdf Sheet Prints
in Scenery, Structures & Transport
Posted
Thanks for pointing out the broken links! I have added packing cases and thus have made a new page called shop for future additions and in the process the page names had changed.
Let me know how you get on.