Men At Work: an animated diorama

[MK]

No "trick." Just places dedicated to certain stuff. Tiny things go in these:



Medium-sized things go in here:



And big stuff here:



Been doing it this way for decades. This is from 1999 or thereabouts:

Thanks for the Kick In the A$$!!!!!!!  I had the idea to do this for the past 5+ years.  Using the EXACT same system that you have shown here (using different size organizers instead of just one size) but I never could imagine the "Big Picture" when it all comes together.  With your visual, it's an A HA! moment for me! 

It's not just for my MRR but for all my R/C airplane parts.

Thank you sir!

[Chris333]

If you pulled all those drawers out and dumped them onto a table you'd have my level of organization    Sometimes I cuddle parts into project piles and push them off to the side to be forever forgotten.

[DKS]

If you pulled all those drawers out and dumped them onto a table you'd have my level of organization    Sometimes I cuddle parts into project piles and push them off to the side to be forever forgotten.

That reminds me of something I also do: create "project drawers." For certain projects I'll start collecting materials I need in a drawer so I'm not rooting through bunches of drawers. Then, when the project is done, I redistribute the leftovers back where they came. But sometimes I leave the drawer the way it was and recategorize it for a new purpose. Example: I had a drawer for a gas station. When the station was done, the drawer became "gas station details."

[DKS]

Scenery is under way.

[DKS]

Streets are being "paved." Streets have an important job: the more realistic they are, the better everything else nearby will look. My technique for making streets is to start with the streets, and assemble the curbs, sidewalks, and other details around them. I begin by bonding strip styrene to the layout base along the street edges, with thicker strips along the middle to create a crown (below).



I make a precise paper template for the largest portion of roadway possible by rubbing the paper along the styrene strips. After cutting out the template (below), I tape it to 0.020" black sheet styrene, then carefully cut it to match. I'll test-fit it and make adjustments as necessary. I also cut openings for storm drains and other in-street details at this time.



Next I spend some quality time with medium and fine sandpaper giving the street surface a nice even "tooth," and I'll use a dull X-Acto blade to carve major cracks and potholes. Stripes are made with white and yellow transfer paper: I lightly sketch out the marks on the transfer paper itself, place it in position on the street, and trace over the marks with a dull pencil. In this case, I was after the look of very old, barely visible lines, so I pressed lightly on the transfer paper (below).



Finally, I applied coloring: an overall coat of pale grey powdered chalk to lighten the whole street, then faint stripes of black for oil stains. I placed the finished street in position on the layout, then used MEK to bold the edges to the strip styrene. After this, I glued the storm drains in place (below). The street is now ready for curbs and sidewalks.



To simulate the road construction area, I heavily sanded the sheet styrene with coarse sandpaper to simulate a milled road surface, followed by a wash of pale grey stain to bring out the texture. This strip was installed next to, and slightly lower than, the fresh new road surface being smoothed by the road compactor.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

It ocured to me that you build layouts like Disney builds parks.
What you think is the ground is actually the second floor.

Dave at Thunder Mesa Studio does the same thing.

Which isn't surprising, given that saying about great minds.

BTW, if you're not familiar, I think you'll really enjoy him: https://thundermesa.studio/

His main thing is a model of the railroad that was the imagined prototype for the Big Thunder Mesa railroad at Disney World.

Generally I don't go in for this type of thing, but his work is absolutely phenomenal and I really love it.

[DKS]

The curious thing, I almost wound up working for Disney back in the 80s. They put out a national call for modelers, and I was very sorely tempted to answer the ad. But... I just couldn't psyche myself into moving to California. Who knows? I might have gone on to work for Industrial Light and Magic (very close to a "dream job" for me), but such was not to be.

[DKS]

Well, the flaws of the portable message sign finally got to me: I knew I could do better, so I bit the bullet and ordered new mesh and fiber optic. But I was met with a speed bump right out of the gate, because the first sheet of photoetched metal mesh was defective: the front and back artwork were not in registration, resulting in an unusable product (below left). I waited long enough to get this hard-to-find item; I had to wait even longer to get one that I could use. But, true to form, the replacement was exactly like the the first; I suspect they were from the same defective batch, and no one at KA-Models bothers to QC these things. And the seller had no more. After a week of searching, I finally found another domestic seller with the mesh in stock; fingers crossed, I ordered it. (At $12 a pop, this little project has already set me back almost $50! Not to mention $30 in fiber optics...)

   

Once I finally had proper mesh (above right), I got to work. I changed several aspects of assembly. First, instead of layering three pieces of mesh together, I used two layers separated with strip styrene (below); this held the fibers more perpendicular than before. Then, I worked backwards and upside down, whereas before I just worked backwards. This solved a problem I was having with fiber curvature: before, I had to force the fibers to bend opposite of their natural curvature, which made it difficult to install as well as to fuse the fibers together for the LED couplings.



Next, rather than bond the fibers to the mesh after completing each letter, I bonded each fiber individually by applying a tiny amount of CA to the fiber itself, then slipping it down into the mesh. This greatly enhanced neatness as well as accuracy. Plus, it made the finished sign more flexible and easier to handle and install. Also, I improved the process of fusing the fibers for the LED couplings by using shrink wrap to pinch the fibers together into a neat round bundle (below left), rather than just brushing them with CA to make an irregular wad; this resulted in much more even illumination. And finally, I trimmed the mesh with a Dremel and ultra-thin cutoff disc, which avoided the tendency for the mesh to curl when cut with shears.

   

Yet another lesson learned was to build the fiber sleeve as a total enclosure that's part of the sign structure (above right). This made installation much easier and safer, as the fibers were totally protected from snags and breakage. The face of the finished assembly is bright stainless (below left), and to knock this back, I placed a piece of grey tinted acetate over the display; it's held in place with the sign frame (below right).

   

Compare the still from the video at the top of the post with the pics below. The previous exercise was not a waste by any stretch of the imagination; without it, I'd never have been able to make an improved model. This has allowed me to complete a longstanding bucket list item, and to see it look and work better than I'd imagined it might.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Can it do the "Zombie attack ahead" warnings?
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2470834/digital-graffiti--zombie-loving-hackers-hack-road-sign.html

[DKS]

Can it do the "Zombie attack ahead" warnings?
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2470834/digital-graffiti--zombie-loving-hackers-hack-road-sign.html

No, but I did think about it...

[DKS]

Started making the concrete overpass: