It is going nowhere fast, but progress is quite steady on the warehouse slash aerial tram terminal.
All but two windows are glazed and mounted.

This is what it looks like at the moment.

Slightly photoshopped image. The building is all for real, but the “scenery is just a fill” of pixels.

Closeup of the front

More progress on the big red one

Some progress have been made during the christmas holiday. All the boards and battens are in place, and all walls have received a proper dusting of ground Conte crayons.(Number 64 if you like the color!).

First thing in the next year is to get started on the scenery around the building. I really look forward to see the building surrounded by scenery. But I must admit that I quite like it as a free-standing building.

Here are some images taken just prior to the last coloring session:

The whole complex

The “annex”

Closeup of one of the etched windows

More modelling than blogging

My ambition to update this blog on a regular basis have failed miserably. Those few people that have visited from time to time have probably given up a long time ago.

Fortunately, at least some of the time not spent on the blog have been spent on modelling.

Since finishing my Om engines (see below) I have focused more on H0 scale. I am  a member of the local model railroad club here in Trondheim (Norway), and we are in the process off building a fairly large layout. My main interest is the buildings, and this autumn I have been working on a modl of large warehouse/tramway terminal.

As usual, I underestimated the amount of work it would take to finish this building. The model has a substructure of lasercut plywood clad with board-by-board panelling.

And it is of course the panelling that takes time… I have used more than 150 12″ lengths of Kappler 2″X6″ so far, and in additon some walls have a board and batten cladding made from scribed siding with 1″X4″ battens.  But I am quite happy with the results, and hope to find some time during the holidays to finish the woodwork, at least. A photographic essay follows.

Lasercut plywood substructure

Etched windows with lasercut framing. (Later substituted with stripwood framing)

Finished window

Bored by battens…

Main facade, temporarily erected for the photo.

The whole complex

Double vision

As the Thamshavn Railway had three engines of this class I built another one in parallell with the first one.

In time there will probably also be a third one, but there are quite a few projects lined up before that.

Bob B vs. Bob B

There seems to be an awful lot of Bobs in the field of model railroad publishing. Today we will compare the efforts of Bob the American editor and Bob the English. Bob Brown is the grand old man of Narrow gauge and Shortline Gazette, and probably the longest serving editor of a model railroading publication. Bob Barlow of the Narrow Gauge & Industrial Modelling Review is probably better known for his work as an editor for the Model Railway Journal. The current isse of NG&IMR is only hos second as an editor.

I have been reading NG&SLG on and off since the early eighties, and I have a lot of respect for the effort Bob Brown has put into creating this very beautiful magazine.
But as my interest in actual modelling drifted from American prototypes to Norwegian ones, I expanded my search for good modelling information.
Only a couple of months ago I discovered the NG&IMR. I really do not understand how I could have missed this magazine for so long. As I have said, I am a magazine junkie, and I discovered the Model Railway Journal years ago. I have also been mostly interest in Narrow Gauge modelling, so the NG&IMR is really up my alley. But better late than never, I have now been a subscriber for the last two issues, and I have also bought all the issues back to no. 70.

So how do those magazines compare?
Both are high quality publications with excellent print and paper quality. Maybe NG&SLG is a notch better, even if they have compromised a little bit on the paper quality lately.

I might be a bit unfair in comparing the two magazines. Reading the NG&SLG for so many years have given me an overdose of everything Colorado related, but I have not seen enough of the NG&IMR to feel the same about the Welsh slate haulers. But I have a sneaking feeling that if I get my hands on all the back issues, that could happen!

But the magazines are quite different in important aspects.
Bob the American Editor is very hesistant to print any “foreign” material, while Bob the English Editor is quite interested in printing material on non-GB material.

I think this say more about the readership of NG&SLG than Bob Brown. I think that Bob personally would have loved to print more material based on non-US railroads. But for me as a reader, the reason is not important.

To me, the prototype for the modelling is of far less importance than the quality of the modelling. And a magazine that is open to all kinds of prototypes has a much richer vein to tap into.
Not only does the NG&IMR embrace a wider variety of prototypes, it is very clear that the editors look to other fields of modelling than just model railways for inspiration. A lot of the techniques are clearly inspired by the military modellers. This is a type of cross-pollination that very probably will propel NG&IMR even more ahead of the NG&SLG in the future.

But don’t take my word for it. Pick up both the magazines and head for the armchair. And then let us know what you think!

A tribute to Bob Hegge

I think that most of us can point to quite concrete influences for our choices in modelling. To me, starting to read Model Railroader in 1979 changed everything.
Especially the september issue that year is a major mileestone for me as a modeller. The coverstory in that issue was a big, rugged boxcab electric in 0-scale built by the late Bob Hegge. This model had a tremendous heft and precence that really hit home. Bob´s no-nonsense modelling techniques both in brass and wood made his work look exciting even in the construction phase.
I may have failed to keep things as simple as Bob did, but I still regard him as maybe my biggest influence.

Even if it is more than 30 years between that MR cover and the finishing date for my own boxcab!

Mission accomplished

Failure was definately an option, but this easter I managed to finish the Westinghouse boxcab electric I have been working on and off on for almost ten years.

I will not even try to hide that I am happy to the point of gloating. After all it is not that often I finish something this complicated.

Some statistics on the model:

Scale: 1:45 (0-scale)

Gauge: 22,2 mm

Weight: 540 g.

Length (coupler to coupler) 184 mm

Tip of the hat to Erik Olsen that made those beautiful spoked wheels, and respect to the people at Chempix that did the etchings from my artwork. Credit is also due to the fine craftsmen at the company formerly known as Korea Brass. They did a fine job on journalbox/leaf spring castings (master by yours truly). They also did the wheel center castings from Erik Olsens masters.

So bring on that ASEA engine!

Gone, but not forgotten

As 2012 is fast approching, I got the inspiration for a post on a favourite modelling related topic: Documentation. And my message regarding documentation is simple: Things change. Do it now. Tomorrow it can be too late.

The images might be a bit melodramtic, but these are all buildings that were measured and photographed in time. A couple of them has already been built as models in 0 and H0 scale, and another is well under way (stay tuned for another blogpost!).

If you find something worth documentation I suggest that you at least take pictures from all sides of the object. If you dont have time to measure it in detail, at least take a few key dimensions horisontal and vertical. Or include a yardstick or something similiar in the pictures. If you have images taken from all sides straight at the object, you should be able to make pretty precise scale drawings from the images.

And share your information. Documentation like this has a big cultural value, but most often the commercial value is zero. What goes around comes around. Sharing information might inspire others to do the same.

So how´s that for a new years resolution?

Enough with the 3D-printing, let´s do a classic build!

I had great hopes for my 3D printed ore car, but due to some disappointing results I have put it on the backburner.
Instead I have been toiling away on the local MR-club layout. Mostly carpentery, but also some real modelling. You might remember the wooden bridge presented in an earlier post, and belive it or not, I have completed a H0 model based on it! It is slated for a *very* prominent spot on the club layout, so I had to make an as detailed a model as I was capable of. The fun thing is that it was built entirely with basic handtools. All the cutting was done freehand with a single edge razorblade. The holes for the NBW´s were drilled with a pin wise. I used Kappler wood and Grandt Line NBWs.

A full write up will be published in the Norwegian magazine “MJ-bladet”. Maybe I will translate the full article to english in the future, but this is all you get for now. And some images of course!

Closeup of one end of the bridge

The full Monty

All the tools used

Second part of the 3D-printing saga

The most convinient 3D-printing service is without doubt Printapart .
They have a very good model checking feature, easy quoting and fast, reliable service. But unfortunately, the quality of the parts is not state of the art. The picture above is the same part as the brass casting, this time from PAP.