Kudo's MR Mag August 2010 Issue

[John]

A good looking NScale double deck track plan -
Track side Photos - TWO Nscale submissions - the featured picture is N

plus several good industry modeling articles

[Philip H]

Crap! Mine is waiting for me at home . . .

Alright Vollmer, get to work writing while the iron is hot!

[train1]

I'm not too keen on the 'overly green' diagram. It does distract from the great plan. It is however nice to see N Scale in forefront for a change - it's long overdue.

[tom mann]

I agree  - I enjoyed this issue.

My beef was that Lance's cinderblock and graffiti graphics are not available for download.  It takes a long time to process and scale images, so it would have been a nice "extra".

[conrail98]

I know I'm going to be in the minority here, but I actually didn't like the plan at all. You can't follow your train around. The transitions go to the other side of the peninsulas, one even having the end of the siding. You'd have operators walking down the aisle then running back to the end to follow the train. I know there is only the mountain "view block" and people may be able to see over it, but I think, even at my 5' 10", I'd lose sight of the train on the other side. The concept is great, the yard, spurs, distance between sidings is very well thought out, I just can't get past that one thing though. It's the only article I've read so far so I haven't gotten to the other N-scale related ones yet,

Phil

[wm3798]

Geez, that sounds like my layout!

Lee

[inkaneer]

I agree  - I enjoyed this issue.

My beef was that Lance's cinderblock and graffiti graphics are not available for download.  It takes a long time to process and scale images, so it would have been a nice "extra".

I was happy with the issue.  It was one of MR's better ones, especially of late.  Regarding Lance's cinderblock he referred indirectly to something that has been a pet peeve of mine for a while and that has to do with brick or block work with over exaggerated mortar lines.  Sure you can fill in the mortar lines with something and make the bricks more obvious but the bricks themselves are usually oversized and making them more obvious is only compounding the problem.  But Lance correctly points out that typical mortar lines are recessedin real life by 1/8 of an inch which in N scale is .0001 [actually the math works out to .0007812.  Still that is about 8/10,000 of an inch.  My eyeballs aren't calibrated to that fine a difference.

When I model a brick structure I use plain smoth styrene and cover it with my own brick paper.  I use a sheet of plastic O scale brick work that I first prepare with mortar and weathering then take it to Kinko's to copy and reduce to 1:160 scale.   O scale is 1:48 and brick work in this scale doesn't suffer from being oversized or with rounded corners.  N is 30% of O.  So reducing the image 30% shrinks the bricks down to N scale and I can then glue the copies onto buildings.  It also shrinks the size of the brick sheet also and so matching pieces together is the tricky part.  But once done you can't tell that the mortar is not recessed.

One could probably do this on a home computer by scanning in the O scale original then doing the reduction and printing.

[AlkemScaleModels]

One could probably do this on a home computer by scanning in the O scale original then doing the reduction and printing.

Yes you could. That way you can stitch together pieces once and make multiple copies. While you're at it, there are several websites that offer free textures. Some are designed for tiling. Just do a search on brick textures and try them out. You can make some very realistic walls this way.This s good site to try  http://cgtextures.com/

[DKS]

One could probably do this on a home computer by scanning in the O scale original then doing the reduction and printing.

Yes you could. That way you can stitch together pieces once and make multiple copies. While you're at it, there are several websites that offer free textures. Some are designed for tiling. Just do a search on brick textures and try them out. You can make some very realistic walls this way.This s good site to try  http://cgtextures.com/

One needs to be mindful, however, of the effects of tiling. It can become altogether too easy to spot a repeating pattern. It's more work, but what I do is, after tiling a sample to the final size, I randomize it by cloning chunks and relocating them to break up the patterns.

[Chris333]

Couldn't you just e-mail Lance and see if he will share files with you?
lmindheim@shelflayouts.com
http://www.lancemindheim.com/

[asciibaron]

Geez, that sounds like my layout!

yes it does, but you don't have to run around your peninsula - you can stand at the top and watch everything come back around.  if you predominantly operate solo, you it's not really a big issue.

[wm3798]

Yes... you'll also note that I put all the switching on one side of it...  Lots of room for oggling scenery on the other side.

[wcfn100]

4% grades, #4 turnouts, less than 9" between decks and 24" isles...

Pass.

Jason

[Mr. G]

4% grades, #4 turnouts, less than 9" between decks and 24" isles...

Pass.

Jason

True, but it was better than that Midwestern transition era design Dick Christianson did back in the August '07 issue.  18" aisles, point-to-point branchline switching with switchbacks on 2% grades and no turnarounds, utilizing a Model Power 2-6-0 as the primary engine.  My favorite line from that article was "This plan would also work in HO, in roughly twice the amount of space." 

[inkaneer]

Is it possible using a desktop printer to print directly on a sheet of very thin, say .005" styrene?  The stock is thin enough to be used in at least some printers but I'm concerned about possible heat and whether the image will be permanent or if it would be susceptible to smudging.