Mini-Layout

I chose to build a portion of the fiddle yard, the yard hill, as a separate project. It meets the contest rules (maximum 0,75 square meter, train movement possible) and I found it to be quite original.
The layoput has some nice scenery features and the yard operations will provide some interesting challenges, too.

The available space before construction. Especially the left curb makes construction hard, as it passes under the mini-layout - and therefore through its supporting framework.

As the mini-layout should fit seemlessly in the larger project after the 2008 exhibition, a fitting edge-framework had to be constructed

The wooden frame gets its shape. A lot of measuring was required to get it right.

The layout's basic wood construction is finished. It is sturdy, not to heavy and it fits nicely.

Cork was glued on the entire sub-roadbed. the layout is ready for the home-build turnouts.

All turnouts are drawn together using CorelDraw and true-size printed on 3 sheets of paper. these are fixed to a piece of hardboard.

On this website I already have a page on home-built turnouts, but this page will soon be improved with more and better pictures and information. Nevertheless, I would like to show something already.

During turnout construction, I frequently test-fitted the proceedings on the real layout.

Making your own turnouts is a job requiring precision. A tool like this NMRA-gauge proves very useful.

For the non-soldered wooden sleepers, I used real nut tree wood, that I coloured using home-made chemicals.

Using matte medium, the turnout is glued tot the cork subroadbed. The cork was airbrushed before to get a matching colour. Simple wooxden clamps keep the turnout in place while the glue sets.

All turnouts where constructed together as one large piece. Using simple clamps, the tracks are alligned carefully and partially glued using dabs of matte medium. An important step in constructing the mini-layout is almost finsihed.

The electric power supply was built in a classic way: transormator, rectifier bridge, large condenser. A 5 Volts auxillary power supply for the electronics was added.
The unit supplies 3 amps total for the whole mini-layout. The auxillary power can deliver up to 2 amps. This should be sufficient.

The control panel was built following teh same principles as the Marche-en-Bières panels: compact, with asimplified layout schematic holding touch-switches and signal leds.

The panel backside holds among others the electronics for the touch-buttons and the led-drivers.

It 's time to attach my home-built drive mechanism to the turnouts. After this, I will be able to wheater and ballast the tracks.

It is getting pretty crowded under part of the mini-layout. The turnout drive mechanisms are doing well. I just need to tidy-up the wires.

The tracks and turnouts are ballasted. I used two mixtures: a course mixture for the main track and fine ballast for the spurs. These were glued with liquid natural rubber

Using an airbrush, the ballasted track was coloured a bit more. A real advantage while working on such a small layout is that one can tilt it over. This makes airbrushing a lot easier.

Underneath the mini-layout runs a portion of the main railroad. I mounted cattenaries, so the engine pantographs could freely pass the mini-layout.

The mini-layout needs a good viewing height on the upcoming exposition. Each leg should have an adjustable height to get a leveled construction.

I got this leg mounting system from a Modelspoormagazine issue. It will just need some bolts to achieve a stirdy layout base.

In one corner I had already mounted the power supply transformer. This needed to some make room for the new leg placeholder.

As this layout has te be "on the road", I needed some protection for the rolling stock. I used an ironing cussion to construct soft cradles in a drawer.

These drawers fit in a box, which I mounted between two layout legs. Now, I just need to add some locks to these drawers to keep my rolling stock safe during unattended moments on the upcoming show.

The next step was placing uncouplers. I wanted to make these myself, strating from a milled hollow core, on which I put an indiucton. My milling machine was very useful for this project.

A metal core and a styrene adapter completed the electromagnet. A chassis was made from styrene, which supported a power transistor.

Through a subroadbed hole, this pin mounts as the electromagnet gets power. A little plate on top will fit the car's coupling mechanisms.

The plates are camouflaged as a maintnance service path. The pictures shows the uncoupler in the upright position. When redrawn, no-one would suspect this path are really hidden uncouplers.

Something completely different: I want a large industry in the mini-layout, and this will be a brewery. To construct the brewing kettles, I started from a wooden shape, used for curtain suspension.

This shape was put in my milling machine. I wanted to mill wood, and this was a good opporunity. After milling one side, the shape was turned over in the mills' claws.

After lots of wood curls, this shape emerged: the upper part of the kettle and a part of the air shaft.

After sanding, I cut a shape to hold a strip of styrene sheet.

These tubes are part of a home-made lanternpost connecting system. This is a fairly long scratchbuilding story...

The lanterns foot, the part that will be hidden in the "ground". The middle tube recieves a small pin, the mantle is part of the other electrical connection.

I wanted a special lamp shape, the main reason for making my own lantern system. I middle the master models from brass and made a mould.

At the top of the lantern post, I mounted miniscule SMD-Leds. The photo shows a serial connection of two leds, but I made single ones, too.

The lantern post and the top of its foot was airbushed concrete gray. The layout can now be prepared for fitting the post.

Now the lanterns can "shine" one the layout. Some of them will have a second function, later on... to be continued.

Electricity wire and components are building up underneath the layout, and some errors have crept in. Finding them is not pleasant.

Building a brewery is a nice change. The factory's first, rough assembly gives a pretty nice view.

Some more electronics: this is a reciever for four light detectors. On the mini-ayout, these will only power a led-indicator on the control panel.

The sensor: a phototransistor, placed in a shielding brass tube. But what is it used for, you wonder?

... combined with the lanterns I made earlier, this makes a detection system to indicate a car is well placed above my home-made uncouplers.

Something completely different: at first sight, this is a chimney under construction. It is, but I have plans with these...

These chimneys are connected through air tubes with a central smoke generator. With the push of a buttton, the chosen chimneys will smoke "like real". This can become a pretty nice view.

The brewery itself is built further. Painting is a dull job, as I want the bricks in different shades of red and brown. On the picture, the right wall is ready for further assembly.

A measuring car protoype. I want to measure rolling speeds on my fiddling yard hill with this, to adjust the downhill breaking system. I still have to build this system, but I have a pretty goood idea how to do this.

The brewery's interior under construction. the walls are ready, some tubing is test-fitted... Through large windows, a lot of this will be viewable. Of course, I will construct some interior lighting.

I used a special type of "paint" for the brewery ketlles: "Alclad". This emulsion can be polished after its application.

The production hall's interior is ready to be placed inside the brewery. Through the large windows, it is a stunning sight.

The speed measuring prototype car wasn't reliable, reason for me to design and build a better one. The wheel movement is measured by a photocel, recycled from a broken CDROM-player

 

A cheap car gets a new top part, providing room for the measuring parts.

A battery, a switch and a led indicator are mounted on a PCB...

... that's - in a nutshell - how I built a simple but effective tool. It will help me fine-tune my fiddle yard's breaking system.

On the brewery's top floor, the manager has his office. According to this picture, he's about to have his lunch...

... but after some alterations with knife and putty, he is taking part in a "naughty" scene

Building an interior is a story I tell elsewhere. As this building is large, I chose to make an interior for each floor

After marking the window openings to a pre-assembled box, the window frames can be mounted in the brewery's brickwork.

The interior itself is made from scrap styrene, computer-printed wallpaper and floor tiling, and some Preiser attributes.

The "interior-box" gets some SMD's for lighting and is painted black to block any stray light. It's now ready to be placed in the brewery's inside.

The brewery's bottle filling room is almost ready to be placed inside. It's motorisation also drives another animated scene in the building...

What the heel is this, you might think. Well, it's a little tool to help me print cobblestones on foam board.
I really didn't feel like pressing individual cobblestones in some square feet of material, one at a time...

... and this little helper makes it quite pleasant to do. Using a ruler for straight two-rows at a time, or a mould or freehand to get bent shapes.

Within a few minutes, about fifteen, I had a nice cobblestone three square feet surface patern on foam, ready to be painted and wheatered.

With less than two months to go, I needed to start with landscape modeling. At the spot, there was just one big hole! Before starting thelandscape, I needed to make a railroad bridge ...

...and a passage for road traffic. These bridges connect to the landscape, so it's easier to place the bridges first and do the landscape modeling afterwards.

The hole can now be filled. This filling is done literaly by stuffing it. Some crumbled newsletter pages are helt together by masking tape to get a rough landscape form...

...on top of this, plaster cloths are draped and the landscape gets is shape. I used a sort of "Hard-Shell"-method, which I might explain thoroughly later on.

After the plaster has set and dried, It can be coloured. I used a deep brown earth color first. Next, rocks were painted, roughly for now. The riverbed is filled with small rocks.

A yard-long retaining wall separates the fiddleyard from the brewery. I uses resin-cast small towers as an ornament. I had the mould from earlier Boulroie-station work.

De start of the downhill fiddleyard needed a cabin for its supervisor. As this is a small yard, its cabin is quite simple. Nevertheless, it has a synoptic board, lit by glass fibers.

The yard's siding gets its wild grass vegetation, made from 6 different types of materials. The transitions between the patchwork still have to be blended. The white fence is made from a home-cast silicon mould.

A row of trees, there skeleton ready for the next step. For my little forest, I needed 22 of those.

I mainly used the information published in Modelspoormagazine 74. The left hand side trees got some texture.

Some steps further: twiggs, airbrushing, foliage,... I made a newwebsite page on the ubject of making trees.

After quite some time, the little forest was finished. On to the next steps...

The brewery is fixed to the layout. I still needed some small lanterns to illuminate its parking lot. I used a new method to build lanterns...

... which gave me removable street lights, thanks to a connector system. The building can be removed and repared without any hazard for the small lamps.

Five days before the exhibition, after several days of troubleshooting and detailing, the mini-layout is nearly finished.

Even when the lights (but not the power supply...) in the exposition hall should fail, my show can go on.

A rather empty corner of the layout, filled with liquid supplies now.

Details: breaking shoes arrived just in time.

A fence fot the brewery's entrance

An emergency stop for this Ford truck driver...