Creating Hydraulics using Styrene tubes

This is a short video describing the process of creating hydraulics using styrene tubes. Starts of explaining about the tools and the materails needed to create a hydraulic system.

A Treasure Trove of Works by John Allen

John Allen will go in the annals of history, with the likes of E. L. Moore and Earl Smallshaw as those master craftsmen who did their best to further the hobby of model railroading. The other day I uncovered a vast treasure trove of Allen’s articles where he went on to describe dozens of his projects.

Allen built and wrote for several decades for the HO Monthly, Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman, NMRA Bulletin, Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette, TMS (Japanese magazine), and several other miscellaneous publications. His first recorded article was back in 1948 for the HO Monthly.

To say that he was a prolific writer would be an understatement. If he was gifted, there is no doubt. I would say John Allen was passionate about the craft and also getting the word out to his fellow model railroaders.

The Ghost in the Shell 2017

I watched the Ghost in the Shell, the 2017 movie staring Scarlett Johansson and I was struck with the similarities of scenes in the Ghost in the Shell.

There is an opening scene in West World, where they are pulling their replicants out of the vat. I don't know how they refer to this process in West World, but they refer to it as shelling in Ghost in the Shell. It is the process where the mechanincal unit recieves life like shell.

Holograms are employed in Blade Runner 2049 some being very provocative. In Ghost in the Shell holograms are all over the place. There are an over abundence of holograms. Pedestrians even display them above themselves. A walking bill board if you will. The holograms don't interact with pedesrions in the Ghost in the Shell like they do in Blade Runner 2049 though.

Plastics & Plastic Suppliers for the Hobbyist

Since I started working with plastic I have always been a bit curious about its properties and its many forms. The following two videos will enlighten you on the differnces and their uses. You will find a list of plastic supplers below.

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Plastic Suppliers

• Evergreen Scale Models
Evergreen Scale Models is usually the first stop for polystyrene products for the model hobbyist. Evergreen features an extensive line of products, plain and scribed sheet, plastic strips in multiple scales, and a verity architectural shapes.

• United States Plastic Corp
Although the prices here are lower than Professional Plastics and ePlastics their products are cut in slightly small dimensions. A 040" x 40" x 72" High Impact Styrene sheet will cost you $15.56.

• Plastruct
Plastruct is geared toward the hobbyist and architectural firms and carry a full line of products in a variety of plastic types. Since they do provide wide range of products you can expect to pay a little more for their products.

• Professional Plastics
For extra-large sheets of all types of plastic. .040" x 48 x 96 inch sheet of polystyrene can purchased for $27.47 plus postage.

• ePlastics
Another source for large projects. The prices are comparable to Professional Plastics.

Another source is the Siber Plastic Supply company, which supplies sheets of polystyrene. Polystyrene sheet and some strips can also be found on eBay. Some good deals can be found from time -to-time.

Speed Built Spaceship from Styrene

Womp Rat Creations scratch builds a space ship from polystyrene. In the last phases of construction greebles are added to the model adding the overall effect.

Miscellaneous Materials for Scale Modeling

The Spruce Crafts site has a page that describes different materials that can be used for modeling scales models. I have either heard or used most of the materials described on the page, however there is one product I have never heard of and another, although I have heard of it I never really gave it too much thought.

After reading the article two types of materials stuck out to me: Taskboard and Creative Paperclay, both sound like they might be fun to experiment with. I could use either for fashioning structures or terrain.

1. Taskboard:taskboardis a lightweight board made from non-aligned wood fibers that can be fashioned into 3d shapes just by adding water. The only draw back to taskboard is its cost. It will cost me $20 for 2- 1/32 x 10 x 20" sheets.
2. Creative Paperclay: a 8oz brick will cost me around $10. Paperclay has the conistancy of fine clay. The benefits of using Paperclay is that it can re-wetted faster than clay and there is less cracking or warping with Paperclay.
1. I don't know about its yield so I cannot do a proper cost analysis between the two products, however I am guessing I might get better yield from taskboard.

The Spring House (an update)

At the beginning of this month I posted the Plans for a Spring House. As you can see I have completed the structure.

I like building out-buildings. Whether it be an outhouse, a tool shed, a smoke house, a hobo shack, or a pump house. I feel these small structures add to overall scene especially when they are coupled with other small buildings. They are easy to build and are quickly constructed.

I made a few adjustments to my build. I had wanted to add the lintel above the door during construction. It would have been easy enough to cut away a little of sub-walling and add the lintel, however I got to thinking. I might not have enough head room for the plank door. So I added a smaller lintel above the door once I affixed the embossed paper to the sub-wall.

Instead of using the piece of styrene iron roofing material I decided to use corrugated material from the inner layer of a cardboard box lid. After doing the measurements for the roof, the plastic piece was a few scale inches short. The corrugation may not be to exact scale, but is close enough for me. So, what I have left is a structure built mostly from paper. This is what I had originally imagined for this structure in the first place.

I have been experiment with paper for some time and have had mixed results. Most of my other structures look okay, but there were errors during the construction process and even though you may not notice I know things didn’t go so well. This structure is square and well braced from within. With its sub-walling and roof it has a fair amount of bulk and feels sturdy.

Satisfaction Scale: 3 out of 5.

Luggabeast with its Teedo

A Teedo riding a Luggabeast, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This hard plasic miniature measures 33 Long x 30 mm High and depicts a Luggabeast and a Teedo handler. Luggabeasts are the primary means of transportation for the Teedo on Jakku.

Luggabeast are a non-sentient quadruped species in which the Teedo have mechanically enhanced to make them more durable and functional for their purposes.

This particular specimen holds a lot of detail. After studying the piece it is hard to imagine that there is living creature in there somewhere.

Changing the Perspective with Mirrors

I was paging through my Model Railroad Handbook # 35: “Detailing Tips and Techniques” and I came across two articles that mentioned making use of mirrors on one’s layout. The first article is “Mirror Magic” by Charles Laman. The author uses two first-surface mirrors from Edmund Scientific ¹ set at 90’ angles of one another at the end of a street to force the perspective of a street continuing off in the distance.

The author found that he had to experiment with the placement of his vehicle’s and signs in order to avoid the typical signs that read backwards or his vehicles seeming to be on the wrong side of the street.

In the second article, Urban Scenery, by Earl Smallshaw, which is a rather extensive article, there is a paragraph describing how the author used the same mirror type on several locations on his layout. He built them to his backgrounds extending the view of the scene.

Smallshaw references two other Model Railroader authors use of mirrors:

• John Allen: “The Art of Using Mirrors”, December 1981, Model Railroader
• Malcolm Furlow: “Sheridan Colorado: 1927”, July 1981, Model Railroader

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¹ These mirrors are still available from Edmunds.

Reys Speeder

This Speeder adaptation is made from hard plastic and only measures 40 x 25mm. The figure is faceless and like the actress Daisy Ridley when she plays Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, expressionless. Reys speeder is approximately 12 feet long in "real" life amd might make an interesting project someday.

"I designed my speeder to carry heavy loads back and forth between the Graveyard and Niima. But when it's lightly loaded it goes really fast-- and pretty high."

―Rey

A very interesting vehicle. "It is built from parts from the starship graveyard on Jakku, the Niima Outpost, or from parts acquired from Teedo traders."

"My custom speeder. There's nothing like it in the whole galaxy."

―Rey

Screen shots are from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Greebles: How Tiny Details Make a Huge Star Wars Universe

I just found this informative article on greebling. My curiosity has been perked and I am starting to think on ways one could build there own greeble. Its not all of us you can afford to take-in dozens of model kits just for the greeble. It might make an interesting series?

Blade Runner Blimp Replica

Interesting conversation on the creation of a Blade Runner Blimp Replica.

Adam Savage's Set Tour of the Blade Runner Universe!

Did you realize that some of the scenes of Blade Runner were filmed in a cave? The filming location helped protray the "other worlds" feel of the street scenes. Although this is a short video it provides an interesting prospective into the making of this film. In addition, the video includes a nice music track.

Although I haven't had a chance to watch this one yet, this is another installment to my Blade Runner Series. You got to love all things about Blade Runner.

Plans for a Spring House

You might remmber my post from the 15th of March "A Random Set of Bits." I cannot say that I am any closer in finding out why this bag of bits was started. However, I have been wanting to build a small spring house for my Bath River Railway, a stucture to complete a scene, so I grabbed a small zip-lock bag and started stuffing it with what I thought I might need.

I chose just a fraction of the available materials from the bag. Four pieces of strip wood for bracing, the slab of wood for my heavy boarded door, the larger piece of embossed stone paper, the larger and wider piece of primed stripwood, and the retangler piece of styrene roofing. To that I added a piece of card for my subwalls, a wooded match stick for the lintel and two plastic hinges for the door. I am also planing on creating some form of handle and maybe even a latch for the door.

I made a in-scale drawing of the supposed strucuture and took a picture of the drawing, but I didn't like how the the picture turned out, so I will attmept to describe the demensions and featrues of the structure.

• The structue will measure eight feet sqaure and stand ten feet high at its peak and is constructed of stone
• The roof is of some sort of corregated material(it looks like iron)
• The door is constructed from 4 x 12 inch boards
• A large stone lintel will be placed above the door

The structue will be planted in a small indention in the ground and will take a few steps to step down into. The steps will be natural stones, those that are close at hand and fit for the purpose.

Hopefully the structure will have been completed by the time of this post is made.

Vacume Formed Scratch-Built Spaceship

Adam Savage creates a scratch / kit-bashed space ship starting off with a vacume formed components and then practices some greebling. This video is part of Savage's One Day Builds series.

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