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outcastjack

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  1. outcastjack
    I haven't done any modelling for a while so decided to ease back in with something small.
    Concept 2 have produced a fantastic machine with which all rowers have a complex and dysfunctional relationship. It essentially reproduces perfectly all of the unpleasant parts of rowing a boat. it is however essential for training and amazingly good exercise for non rowers normal people.
    I realised that I could justify a rest day to myself and do that tiny bit of modelling I wanted by making a mini one.
     
     
    it was really fun to make and took three episodes of murder in paradise, I am now wondering if I can fit a rowing club in one of my layouts with a row of these and a few racks of boats.
     
    so:
    the main parts are two beams, one an I-beam 18mm long and the other square section 15mm long (both are just less than 2mm x 2mm in section)

     
    basic foot plates attached

     
    The two halves joined and legs made up from bits of styrene.

     
    Starting to actually look like a rowing machine (the fan case is a small section of paint brush handle)

     
    Closer still, coloured with Humbrol #33 and a silver sharpy yet more styrene strip added.

     
    Finished

     

     

     

  2. outcastjack
    I have continued the gardening with the bulk of the focus being slabs and the flowerbed in the centre.
    This bed contains Delphiniums, lavender and will contain something else once i think of something to make, I am tempted by a Hydrangea bush but any suggestions would be great.
    The bed soil is made from a pile of ballast and then painted a dark brown.
    The delphiniums are made using a 0.1mm copper wire, painted and coated with a foam scatter, painted light blue, leaves were cut from painted tissue attached to more copper wire which was entwined with the central stem.
     
     
    The lavender was made using a similar technique but with colours and leaf shapes changed accordingly.


    Another major step is in finishing the roof of the shed, it was my first experience with making a slated/tiled roof properly rather than a scalescenes type printed jobbie, slates used are Viscountess (9"x 18") and cut individually from 220 gsm card.
     
    The cardbord base

     
     
    I couldn't think what to use for ridge tiles until I had a yoghurt and realised the corners from side to top could do a pretty good job.

     
    Some areas were painted with glue and yellow weathering powder and talk were used to make some lichen, a few dots of foam scatter and black paint were used for moss, this is the finished article

    and again from the front.

  3. outcastjack
    After much more cutting and a surprising amount of faff trying to assemble and insert the windows (the open one in the top left hand corner was amazingly hard) the building looks like this, I have something slightly different planned for the remaining front window which is proving to be a bit more trouble than I thought.

     
    I am really looking forwards to trying to do the front it shall be an assortment of Warwickshire sandstone, cobbles and a few harder stone slabs which sit in a line immediately below the edge of the overhanging first floor, two small trees in pots will also sit on the front. (I have never modelled cobbles before so any hints would be very gratefully received.
    Around the back I have started to think about the garden, The 8 foot wall around the edge has stayed but inside I am moving away from my initial plan and more towards this:
    Against the back of the house will be a patio about 3' wide made from slabs, along the wall at the top of the picture will be a raised ornamental pond with roses behind up the wall and a shed which has been converted from the old out door toilet. along the wall at the right of the picture will be either more roses or an apple tree grown as shown below.
    A path will run along side the bottom wall, whilst another may run alongside the pond (this one may just be grass instead though.
    In the middle will be a large bed of herbs and ornamental plants. a bench will probably sit on the patio at the bottom of this picture.
     
    If anyone has any ideas or comments about this (especially if you know about gardening and can tell me which plants would work best in which locations that would be great.

     
    My idea for the Apple tree

     
    The shed will be converted from this a version of this Privy of Pendon fame ( book Copyright Malcom Smith, if anyone objects please let me know and I will remove it etc.)

  4. outcastjack

    Howdy

    By outcastjack,

    This will be a dump for all of the modelling I do, some of which may pop up on my rolling stock or layout threads, but this will mostly be a place for projects which dont fit into other places.
     
    A quick summery about me, my modelling is all in 4mm scale in 009, 00 and P4 encompassing 20-30s GWR and modern day London Underground.
     
    My real passion within modelling is for scenery and buildings so most of what appears here will be of that ilk.
    Here is a quick example of a few pieces to show what to expect, hopefully the standard will improve as I get more into it.
     

     

     

     

  5. outcastjack

    Tudor house

    By outcastjack,

    As some of you may know Allan Downes suggested a Tudor building challange,on this thread.
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85293-how-about-a-little-tudor-competition/
    Being in exam season I was keen for the opportunity for extra procrastination... so this is the first of a number of entries which will detail my progress.
     
    It is a very simple layout sort of beer mat sized with a 2 up 1 down and a small walled back garden. The house is broadly based on a number of houses in Dunchurch (near Rugby)
    Principally the "Guy Fawkes House" and a number of charmingly wonky examples just around the corner.

    The garden is totally unplanned and I shall just play about with bits of cereal packet until I work it out.
     
    SO...
     
    It started by sketching a few ideas on the back of an envelope which were then transferred to a Cornflake packet, after i bit of hacking about the house started to emerge

     
    The shape of upstairs happened by accident and some roughly cut strips of black painted card filled in for timbers.

     
    The side wall was 20th century addition, so I painted up some Southeastern Finecast pain-bond embossed plasticard which went well until I coated it in a varnish which it turns out dissolves Humbrol acrylics...

     
    I as the house is already nothing like the Guy Fawkes House I decided to dispense with accuracy even further and have leaded windows, After much experimenting I found that scribing the sheet and then giving it a wash of black paint which was promptly rubbed off gave a passable effect.

     
    and then even better I found my idea of filling in the gaps between timbers with white painted card strips also worked rather well, which brings us to:

  6. outcastjack
    I still haven't decided what to do with the rear elevation of the house so have been slowly working on the garden,
     
    The shed as discussed in the last post is getting there,

     
    small raised pond and flowbed sit between the house and the shed, the ensemble is made from laminated card to build up the hight with a skin of bricks around the edges, painted ballast was used to make a mound of compost for the flower bed, the plan is for roses to be in this bed.

     
    The walls are in and two of them have been fully painted, they need a lot more work around the gate and will be bedded in to the garden properly when the rest of the garden is done, the main news however the espalier tree which sits btween the shed and gate has been done.
    It is supposed to represent an apple which helpfully at the time of year this diorama is set (June) has no blossom or discernible fruit! =D It is only my second tree using multistrand wire and choosing an espalier took the effort out of making a convincing shape, not totally convinced by the foliage but I am happy enough with it.


     
    and just because I can, a shot through the gate

  7. outcastjack
    The saga continues very slowly and this entry covers the completion of the windows, doors and the creation of the rear wall.
     
    I realised that I couldn't really put off making the rear wall of the house any longer so sat down with an envelope and designed it, once that was done I cut out the windows and doors required for the project.
     
    The top and bottom storys are flush and constructed in much the same way as described for the front wall in part one.

     
    The doors are made from 2-4 laminations of 10 thou plasticard, in this case gate is made from 4. The latch and bolt details should be pretty fun to make when I get around to it.

    strictly speaking the bracing should probably be the other way round with the diagonal going up from the hinge side but I shall blame an inexperienced DIYer.
     
    The biggest bit of progress however is that the shed exterior is now finished.
    The door is made from a planked centre with a raised edge.

     
    The door and window fitted

     
    Using scraps of plasticard I made the door handles, door and padlock details, when it was unpainted I was unsure if it would work.

     
    Painted up I am really pleased with how it looks

  8. outcastjack

    Minion Cake

    By outcastjack,

    So for something a little out of the ordinary!
     
    My girlfriend wanted to get a Minion (From the film Despicable Me) for her sister's 18th but no one seemed to sell them so we decided to make one
     
    These are the chaps in question:

     
     
    The first step was to make a small test minion.

     
     
    With dimensions sorted it was on to the big one! The cake is a standard equal quantities recipe and the fondant Icing is made from marshmallow and icing sugar. to give an idea of size, the cakes alone weigh 4kg
     

     
    Butter icing on and fondant covering the top

     
    A close up of some of the detail on the Coveralls

     
    The finished article

     
    In addition the the very big one it was decided to add a load of mini minions, including "Be-Doo" (youtube it if you: A) care and B) don't already know.
     
    Unfortunately the white icing had started to go hard so his load haler is a bit rubbish, but by this point I had lost the ability to care.

     
    Arranged:

     
    The cake including Icing weighed about 7kg about one stone for those working in old money and unfortunately crushed the fondant feet during transport but all in all great success
  9. outcastjack
    I have started to build a fairly large new layout which has points too widely distributed to make manual operation easy, but upon looking at off the shelf point motors I couldn't really justify the price.
    After playing around with a number of options I decided the most cost effective solution was a servo modified to work as a DC motor with stop switches.
     
    The components are dead simple, just two micro switches, a power supply, the servo and a double pole double throw (DPDT) switch to control it.
    total cost is somewhere in the region of £1.50 if bits are sourced from ebay. Servo £1, toggle about 20p, 10p each for micro switches and another 10p ish for other bits, wires plastic etc.
     
    The first thing to do is modify the servo:
    bypass the electronics so it is simply a DC motor with a gear box, this is just a case of chopping off the power and signal leads and soldering the power leads straight to the motor.
    The other thing I did to make thing a little more simple was to remove the lugs on the bottom of the gear which prevent the servo from rotating continuously.

    This isn't really needed but it means you don't have to worry about alignment later.
     
    I then whipped up a proof of concept.

     
    This worked nicely so I started mocking up the structure for an integrated design.

     
    And put together a prototype, as per usual with me the plastic bits were made on silhouette,
     
    The motor is arranged vertically immediately below the point, with a pivot and a 0.5mm brass rod as the lever, there is a plastic tube over the section between the servo control arm and pivot to stiffen the arrangement, the tube is deliberately oversized to allow the rod to bend along more of its length which should hopefully improve it's life.
     


     
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