Garden Railway Forum

I often get ideas for small details that I can make at a bench without venturing outside.
So I thought a topic on some of the small details that you modellers have made, might give me more ideas. Not sure of the definition of small, but to start the ball rolling, I’ll show you one of mine (there’s plenty more, if any interest is shown)…

Station barrows
I made a number of simple luggage trolleys for station platforms. They are made from styrene, a bit of steel wire bashed flat, with small drawing pins for wheels. It's 55mm long.
and a station trolley again – styrene and drawing pins for wheels. The suitcases are made from oven-hardening clay

Clever, Greg.

A couple of contributions from me.

Milk churns
I wanted quite a few old conical milk churns but didn't fancy shelling out for six packs of two resin cast ones from GRS at £9.41 each plus P&P ( https://www.grsuk.com/shop/Conical-Milk ... -off-M5354 ), so I bought two 4- packs of these party toys from the supermarket for £2.80 (and got another one free). .
I then used the base to make the churns. .
Blog post here of the build - https://riksrailway.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... hurns.html

Loco lamps
Also, I wanted working loco lamps, but didn't fancy the cost. Mine were based on 5mm LEDs and a few bits of Plastruct. .
On some locos, I use bi-colour red/white LEDs so they change colour depending on the direction the loco moves. .
Blog post here - https://riksrailway.blogspot.co.uk/2017 ... lamps.html

Rik

Fancy getting a milk churn out of a party toy.
Doesn't seem much interest here, but I'll add another one of mine anyhow...

hurricane lamp
While browsing in a craft shop with my wife I noticed some tear drop shaped beads that looked just the right size for the glass chimney of a hurricane lamp.
So I made a couple of types – one with the elec leads coming in from the base, for a lamp standing on a table, and one where the leads are at the top for a hanging lamp.
I ground the tops and bottom off the beads and drilled a hole in the base to take a LED.
Then I superglued some round tube on the top and bottom. For the top lead version, I bent the LED leads out and up.
For the table type, the leads come out the bottom and 2 pieces of wire form the ‘handles’.
here’s the hanging type in my traction engine

Wow! That looks so realistic, with the added bonus that it works!
I must admit that every time I go into The Works (a remaindered book shop which also sells cheap craft gear), I look out for things which might be adapted for the railway. Not sure I'd have made the connection between the beads and hurricane lamps. The best I could do was use wooden beads and cocktail sticks as finials for signals. Rik

ge_rik wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 7:55 am The best I could do was use wooden beads and cocktail sticks as finials for signals.

Yet another of your ideas that I pinched when I did my signal last year, thanks!

As for Hurricane Lamps ( Why do we all seem to be obsessed with lights?) I made one some years ago by simply filing an LED to shape, gluing it to a dead button cell as the base oil reservoir and bending the leads round and up to form the frame. This is a terrible picture but the best I've got atm.

Nice one, Philip.

Rik

ge_rik wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 7:55 am The best I could do was use wooden beads and cocktail sticks as finials for signals.

And to think I went to the trouble of turning mine from wood. Great idea

philipy wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 8:29 am As for Hurricane Lamps ( Why do we all seem to be obsessed with lights?) I made one some years ago by simply filing an LED to shape, gluing it to a dead button cell as the base oil reservoir and bending the leads round and up to form the frame. This is a terrible picture but the best I've got atm. DSC_0005.png

Now that is something. I want to try it. What size LED is it? and is it with leads pointing upwards?

When I detailed the interior of the coal merchant's office, I needed a chair for the clerk to sit at the desk. I checked on various dolls house websites, but they were either under or over scale. In the end, I made my own. It was a lot less fiddly than I expected. I might now mass produce some for the interior of the cafe at Beeston Castle.

Blog entry here - https://riksrailway.blogspot.com/2019/0 ... html#chair
.
Rik

gregh wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 11:45 pm
Now that is something. I want to try it. What size LED is it? and is it with leads pointing upwards?

Greg, it's an ordinary 5mm LED. I used 'bright white' because it was all I had at the time but probably warm white would give a better effect.
Just taken a close up in te sun. It's a bit cruel and shows the effects of 3 years in the garden, but you get the idea. The button cell seems to have lost its paint and I notice that the fine diagonal wires that were meant to simulate the glass retainer clips, seem to have a mind of their own now! The O/A height from hanging nail to base is about 22mm.

Wow Philip, you even modelled the glass holding wires!
Thanks for the idea. That's what i was hoping for.

A neat idea, Philip. The use of the button cell is a clever move. I think you can get 3v button cells, so might even be possible to make one self-contained - though incorporating a switch might prove to be a challenge.

Rik

ge_rik wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 1:25 pm .... though incorporating a switch might prove to be a challenge.

Reminds me - we went to a Burns Night do earlier this year and I was intrigued by the colour-changing tea lights on the table. Inevitably, I had to take one apart to see how it worked. Just a button cell and an LED - nothing more. They had arranged the leads from the LED so that one rested on the +ve terminal of the cell and the switch pushed the other lead against the -ve side of the cell. I really admired the ingenuity of the designer. Even incorporated a simple spring system on the switch slider so it would 'click' one way or the other. .
Rik

ge_rik wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 1:25 pm though incorporating a switch might prove to be a challenge.

One simple way to create a switch for a button cell is to put the cell in a metal tube. Tighten a threaded end cap on the tube so the cell is pushed up against a central contact at the other end, and the metal case acts as the other contact. Slacken off the thread so the top of the cell stops touching the central contact and the circuit is broken. Straightforward for anyone with a lathe, though not everyone has a tool like that to hand.

Rik, Do those tea lights use multi-coloured LEDs?
Tea lights are a good source of lights for carriages and buildings. I bought a dozen 'flickering' ones over 5 years ago. They have a 20mm dia 3V Li battery with a wire like you described. I only use them a few times a year and am amazed how those batteries still have charge.

gregh wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 5:41 am Rik, Do those tea lights use multi-coloured LEDs?
Tea lights are a good source of lights for carriages and buildings. I bought a dozen 'flickering' ones over 5 years ago. They have a 20mm dia 3V Li battery with a wire like you described. I only use them a few times a year and am amazed how those batteries still have charge.

Hi Greg
Yes - can't figure out how they do the colour changing. Looks like different anodes inside the clear plastic dome get energised in turn - there must be some sort of timing circuitry incorporated in the dome itself. I assume it's RGB colour mixing with three anodes - very cunning!

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

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.

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

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


Rik

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.