Wardell Bridge

J

Jens Andrée

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YES! I love everything!!!
I also love the old-school point to point electronics and etched pcb's! :smiling3:
I still do that from time to time with some of my home projects for fun, although most of my electronics I design and build are surface mount stuff but it'll never look as good as a hand drawn pcb with a wire loom!

One question though. The bridge control panel. Is it a real one you've refurbished or is it a replica?
Whichever it is it looks stunning and very cool - and accurate!!!
 
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Thank you @kpnuts, @rickoshea52, @Polux, and @papa 695 for your :thumb2:
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Peter
YES! I love everything!!!
I also love the old-school point to point electronics and etched pcb's! :smiling3:
I still do that from time to time with some of my hope projects for fun, although most of my electronics I design and build are surface mount stuff but it'll never look as good as a hand drawn pcb with a wire loom!

One question though. The bridge control panel. Is it a real one you've refurbished or is it a replica?
Whichever it is it looks stunning and very cool - and accurate!!!
Thanks Jens Anfree for your response and compliments.
The console is a disused real one that has been converted to operate a model of the bridge from which it came from. So in affect, the console will still be in use.
 
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Late last year the council put in a new pathway along Bridge Street. Even though the console is for a bridge pre 1995, I decided to add the 2017 addition to the landscape. A sort of bridge across the times project.

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Measured this pathway, made notes, and took many photographs. Then proceeded to make a model of it.

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Thank you @papa 695 and @Jens Andrée for your :thumb2:
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Added some paint to the walkway. The council added a chrome rail barrier to an old boat ramp, now sealed and closed off.

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J

Jens Andrée

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Fantastic work!

You're not an architectural modeller by trade by any chance?
You're certainly more than qualified!
 
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Fantastic work!

You're not an architectural modeller by trade by any chance?
You're certainly more than qualified!
Now that is a great compliment. Thank you very much Jens Andree.
No, I am just a first time modeller that seems to have some transferable skills to this new creative genre.
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There is a house partly within the display area. I took some photographs and figured out its dimensions.

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Building the house from scrap timber, Masonite, Perspex, and matchsticks.

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Snowman

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Simply awesome!! Keep up the effort!:thumb2:
 
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Thank you @Snowman for your :thumb2:
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Had a bit of a challenge with the roof, especially since the house is cut off at a diagonal.
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Painted some figurines and added one to the house. She is watching her world slowly come together. Hope she will be pleased with it :smiling4:
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Built a five LED sequencer, one light per room. One light gets swapped for another every 20 seconds, as if someone is moving from one room to the next.
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J

Jens Andrée

Guest
The mighty 555 timer and a 4017 decade counter - my dear old friends! :smiling:
It's funny how old CMOS technology is still being used today despite all modern microcontrollers and SMD technology.
I've mostly gone over to pure SMD designs with microcontrollers and FPGA today but every now and then a project calls for through hole components and CMOS technology!

I'm soon (-ish) going to build (I hope) a U.S.S Enterprise 1/500 (the Star Trek one) and I'm pulling out all the bells and whistles for that one. It's going to be driven by custom electronics and possibly also remote controlled via Bluetooth and an Android app, just for the fun of it.
Hand soldering 0402 leds and resistors is a tricky business but they can be hidden in very small objects and I don't want the leds to stick out on the model.

I really love your approach to diorama modelling and I really appreciate you taking the time to document the whole process for us to enjoy! :thumb2:

In a few months I'm also starting to build my large Schwerer Gustav diorama and I wasn't going to do any electronics simply because they had a strict no light discipline in order not to be bombed by the Russians, but it would be cool to add at least some light elements? Needs a lot of thinking this...
 
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Hello @Jens Andrée. Yes I am old school, mainly because I gave electronics away in the late 1980's. It is only this project which has me back to it. I am just using my old knowledge (it's all I got). I am not that interested in electronics anymore. Though I will be updating myself sometime this year with the Raspberry Pi for another interactive display for the museum.

I have a question:
I am about to start filling in the spaces of land fill with foam board. What is a good material to use to seal the foam so I can paint it, glue grass, and insert trees?
I have experimented with water-based wood filler. it dries hard, but seems a bit fragile.
 
J

Jens Andrée

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If you need some Raspberry Pi support then just ask when it's time!

Ordinary PVA, or a bit watered down PVA, is a great and cheap sealer for foam. If you want a specific texture you can use air drying clay like DAS or similar.
 
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Thank you @Jens Andrée for that invite for Raspberry Pi support (when it's time). Also for the information about sealing the foam. I am experimenting with that at the moment and will report in later.
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I painted Bridge St.
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...Ordinary PVA, or a bit watered down PVA, is a great and cheap sealer for foam. If you want a specific texture you can use air drying clay like DAS or similar.
I had already covered some foam with water-based wood putty, which attached itself to to the foam quite well, but seemed a bit fragile. As suggested, I added water to PVA glue (50-50) and applied two coats to the putty. The first coat soaked into the putty with a slight glaze. The second coat was definitely a glazing coat. It is no longer fragile.

Thanks.

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While I am preparing to do some landscaping, I bought a few cork sanding blocks and, with a pair of pliers, broke them up into smae pieces. These pieces will serve as rocks. Got this idea from a railway scenery website. I placed the pieces in a sieve and roughed the pieces up a bit to get fid of the smaller fragments of cork. I discovered that these look like gravel. So I plan to use that too.
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I plan to glue the cork rocks into place first before pianting them to look more like basalt/igneous type rocks.
 
J

Jens Andrée

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PVA is a fantastic - and cheap - resource for modelling!
I'd like to try Modge Podge at some stage when I can find it because it seems to be a PVA-type glue but dries totally clear and is somewhat elastic (i.e. non cracking) when dry?
Over here it's way more expensive than ordinary PVA but railroad modellers swear by it so perhaps it's worth the extra money? For some applications perhaps...

I've seen many modellers use cork for just about everything but it's getting harder and harder to find nowadays since the French bought up, in advance, all the cork in the world for the next 100 years or so... (to secure wine production since Bordeaux wines, per definition, must use real cork stoppers and not plastic or composite materials)
10 years ago I just went to IKEA and bought a 10-pack of cork trivets whenever I needed cork for something but the ones they have today are really bad ones, thin and just glued together by small waste pieces of cork... Not the same as larger chunks.

Your posts are truly inspirational and it makes me want to dig deeper and build bigger and better dioramas! :smiling:
 
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Found same difficulty to find cork for my purpose. Then remembered that my hand sanding block is made from cork. Went to hardware store and bought a few blocks at about $1.50 each.

Long time ago I watched a friend of family draw (pyrography) on light coloured cork, using a wire-nib burner. Then painted the cork with cloured inks. She done beautiful Australian landscapes, and made a good living from it.
 
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