Black River & Western

[wm3798]

Wonderfully crafted, as ever.  Now about  those animated sliding doors...  I see a gear head running off a Tortoise machine, either that or a stepped down motor from a blender and a rubber band.  What say you?

Lee

[Point353]

... either that or a stepped down motor from a blender and a rubber band. 

Is that like an old Athearn Hi-Fi drive?

[DKS]

The steel shop is steadily nearing completion. Next up were the additions on the side of the building. These were made from a variety of scrap box parts: the concrete block walls came from the "brick" control house included with Pola's rolling lift bridge; the shingle roofs were swiped from one of Atlas' classic house kit series; the wooden bits under the roof were cut from a Grandt Line shack; and the vent is from a Cornerstone industry kit. (The insides of the additions reveal a little of their crazy heritage.)









With the structure more or less complete, I started adding details, beginning with the soffits on the long sides. I added protective covers over the door tracks on both ends, plus the patch on the angled door (above). Then came the lights, of which there are four. The ones by the man-door are raw 0402 SMDs (the faces will be painted white later); the incandescent floodlight at the roof peak is an 0201 SMD fitted into an HO Scale diesel bell (below left); and the big security light is an 0804 chip with the body simply colored with a sharpie (below right).

     



Not much left to do except add a couple more details, and then weather it.

[peteski]

Nice!  Especially the lighting (would be nice to see the night photo).

[DKS]

Nice!  Especially the lighting (would be nice to see the night photo).

I'll post a photo once I've finished the wiring.

[DKS]

Weathering was, for the most part, fairly subtle, and consisted almost entirely of a thinned grey acrylic wash. Rust washes were applied to the steel H-beams at the doors and the door frames with a small spotting brush. The shingles and wooden parts of the additions were hit with an India ink wash, and powdered chalk was used for the stains around the vent and the weathering on the concrete block.





The building still needs the electrical service line, a couple of small fixtures, and a door knob. Otherwise, this brings the model to the 99.98% mark.

[DKS]

Subsequent to the weathering, I made a new security light. The original one was too small, so I used the largest white SMD LED I had, and then assembled a styrene box around it to better approximate the size and shape of the real one.





I'm also tempted to replace the shade on the middle light with a smaller one. We'll see.

[DKS]

I've just finished wiring the building. First, I used my handy-dandy LED tester/evaluator to determine the appropriate resistors to use for each of the three types of LEDs. Since my preference is to make buildings removable, I fabricated a simple slide-on connector out of PC board scraps and bits of etched brass fret. The brass fingers are sprung to maintain contact with the double-sided bar that sticks up from the base.

   

The connector parts also serve as terminals for the resistors and wiring.

   

Here ya go, @peteski !



Kind of wacky to see how much variation there is with "warm white" LEDs...

[peteski]

Very nice!

And yes, "warm" while is a very nebulous term when it comes to LEDs.  In the past the white LED specs used to include their "X,Y" chromacity information, but nowadays they often specify the color temperature in degrees Kelvin (warm white is usually between 2600-3500K).  Still, some LEDs can have light with yellow cast.  Depends on the phosphor mixture they use.  But I'm sure you already know all that.

Hey, in 1:1 scale there are also light fixtures using different color temperature light sources, so you model does not look unrealistic.

The electrical connector is also very clever!

[Bob]

Super-impressive modeling!  Thanks for including such a detailed description of how you put this together - this kind of narrative (with photos) is invaluable for us beginners.

[davefoxx]

I like the variation in light color on your model.  Since the variation in color appears to be between different types of modeled light fixtures, I think it works fine.

DFF

[CRL]

Excellent!

[jpec]

This calls for a "Peteski Approves" banner...hell, for that matter an "Everyone Approves" banner. Outstanding work!

[LIRR]

Very nicely done

[DKS]

Thanks, everyone! Nice to know I haven't lost my touch (entirely), despite age and illness. It was telling (and a little sad) a project that, at one time, I could have knocked out in 1-2 evenings took a full week...

BTW, here's my handy-dandy LED tester/evaluator, in case anyone not familiar with it was curious: http://davidksmith.com/modeling/project-3.htm