Small details ideas?

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gregh
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Re: Small details ideas?

Post by gregh » Fri May 10, 2019 9:36 am

ge_rik wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 9:06 am I've used the LEDs from flickering tea lights in my semaphore signals. When I posted on one forum about it, I was criticised by one contributor who said he'd never seen a signal lamp flickering. I explained that the signals on the PLR were made by the local blacksmith and joiner (Bodgit & Runn) whose technological skills are not up to the likes of McKenzie & Holland..... :? ;)
Rik
Love the explanation.
Greg from downunder.
The Sandstone & Termite's website: https://members.optusnet.com.au/satr/satr.htm

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Soar Valley Light
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Re: Small details ideas?

Post by Soar Valley Light » Fri May 10, 2019 7:37 pm

ge_rik wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 9:06 am I've used the LEDs from flickering tea lights in my semaphore signals. When I posted on one forum about it, I was criticised by one contributor who said he'd never seen a signal lamp flickering. I explained that the signals on the PLR were made by the local blacksmith and joiner (Bodgit & Runn) whose technological skills are not up to the likes of McKenzie & Holland..... :? ;)

Rik
Rik,

Whoever told you that hadn't had that much to do with oil lit signals. They're not supposed to flicker. Lampmen prided themselves on a stready even burn, but wicks at the end of their life, dirty lamp oil and pernicious drafts (never mind full blown gales!) could all contribute to a lamp starting to flicker. The explanation you gave was a beaut! Fllickering adds a bit of character and if we want out signal lamps to flicker, then flicker they shall! ;)

Andrew
"Smith! Why do you only come to work four days a week?
"'cause I can't manage on three gaffer!"

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ge_rik
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Re: Small details ideas?

Post by ge_rik » Sat May 11, 2019 7:43 am

Thanks Andrew - and flicker, they do ..... :lol: see 4:30 onwards


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Old Man Aaron
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Re: Small details ideas?

Post by Old Man Aaron » Thu Mar 19, 2020 8:26 am

Re-animating this thread a bit. Loving the ideas so far. Here's a couple I've used to good effect.

Spherical-headed sewing pins make decent doorknobs.
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Bar stools can be made from googly-eyes for the cushions, with matchstick legs. The beer tap (manifold?) was made by making a 90 degree bend in a piece of coat-hanger wire, threading a scrap of 5mm square styrene over the wire, then bending the wire's straight end down. The handles and nozzles are the shafts of dressmaker's pins - kept after cutting their heads off for use as rivets. The bar was knocked up from foamboard and corflute offcuts. It's all quite rough, in fact this interior was an afterthought. But it'll work.
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Interior staircases can be folded from thin cardboard - a frozen chicken box, in this case. The structure is again, corflute. Matchsticks and coffee stirrers for railings. Everything painted with old El-Cheapo craft acrylics.
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Palm trees (potted or fullsize) can be made from feathers. I used this method. The pot is a resin casting from a fish tank decoration. The lamp shades are very cheap, nasty plastic wheels removed from a secondhand wagon, drilled out and fitted with LEDs. Rainwater tank is a baked-bean tin.
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HO or OO scale oil drums make pretty good gauges for instrument panels - saw them in half and get two for each drum, paint, then insert from behind the panel. For a black gauge face, paint the face white or silver first. Then black. After drying, careful scoring with a blade should scratch the top layer of black away, leaving faint lines of your base-colour behind, to represent gauge markings and needles. I wish I'd have done it with the white-faced gauges.
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Regards,
Aaron - Scum Class Works

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tom_tom_go
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Re: Small details ideas?

Post by tom_tom_go » Thu Mar 19, 2020 10:04 am

Rik gave me the idea about using LEDs from cheap lights, I had a go a while back into them in an Accucraft IoM coach:



I suspect the purists would moan the lights did not look realistic, however, I wanted to add interest to evening running.

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