When you get to a point where you can make 30's-50's vehicles, campers, and trailers, I have plenty of stuff to trade.
.025" Polybak, since I am representing steel it has both a smooth finish and rasters evenly, which I needed to do to make the roof.
Robert, is this material available in end user (IE small) quantaties from some retailer? And who is Walt and what is his OVS Office Warehouse..? Matt
Walter Smith is Trainboard member Southernnscale. Walt is also excellent at 3D, and is responsible for the detail parts I needed to build my NP W3 Class loco, as well as he has a Shapeways store with hundreds of Z Scale items ranging from cranes, forklifts, garbage trucks, Genie lifts, etc. Walt's Trainz and Things Unfortunately, some of the larger structures have risen in cost at Shapeways to the point that it is prohibitively expensive, and that's where I fit in. I am able to Laser Cut equivalent structures as a much cheaper cost, and have been trading my skill set, for Walt's. The Polybak AKA Laserboard material I am using is available from Hobarts or 4D Model Making Materials in Europe, Encompass Media or the manufacturer Richwood Industries in the US, as well as other places. And, here is today's progress:
Regarding Polybak. I’ve visited Little-canada in Toronto this summer, (They are HO scale, mostly like Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg but in a much smaller area). Their representation of Niagara falls (not my video) and whirlpool is out of this world, by using projections technics. They have an area showing their workshop behind glass windows, and an open area where they can answer questions and show all of the little extras they need to build. Imagine my surprise when I saw that they were using Polybak boards for a lot of their furniture and griblies in the streets. That was very cool because we were just a few handfuls of people experimenting with this material back in 2009. If you are in the Toronto area, I highly recommend visiting this place, less expensive than flying to Hamburg (which I hope I can visit again one day).
It's all a matter of perspective... Hamburg, for me, is a 3 hours trainride, Toronto a 6 hours flight But Little Canada sure seems a great place to visit. It's been added to my BL. Thanks for the info and update, Robert and Ben. I liked working with polybak material in Ben's kits, it seems to me it would be nice material for scratchbuilding by hand as well (I don't have a lasercutter etc.). Matt
To be honest, I don't think Polybak is good if you don't have a laser. It's much harder to cut with a hobby knife than Styrene, Cardstock, or Basswood.
Okay... well, good to know. I liked it for being thin and dense and not fuzzying (is that a word?) like cardboard sometimes can do. I''l have to reconsider, thanks for this notion. Love the warehouse, by the way. Matt
I got my Silk Thread in today, and decided to rig my NP Ditcher 13. It's an American RR Ditcher built in 1914 by American Hoist & Derrick Company. NP had only 1 Ditcher, #13, and I can find no photos of it, just the drawing: They ride on a flatcar that has rails on the deck, so I still have to build a flatcar for it, and the Ditcher I found on Walter Smith's Shapeways store. Here is the rigging I did: So you know what a ditcher does, here is a SOO Line ditcher getting down to business:
Actually I am really pleased at how the pole and wires turned out. It's really nice Eye Candy to look at! I keep looking at the model, and think I have to do more power poles and wires, it's something I used to ignore in my modeling, but now with that super fine wire, you can actually light up the pole and run real power wires as needed.
I’m liking the pole and wires too. I have always ignored them but wow! Once you see them I do believe pop is indeed the right word to describe it.
Brilliant. I think why we overlook poles and wires is we don't like the idea of stringing them and maintaining them. This is a brilliant solution: Just represent them in select situations. Warehouse, industries and towers would all be enhanced by this. Great little detail, Robert. Jim
Trying my hand at Security Fence, made from black Vect-O-Board Polybak. Chris Tatarian named it when he bought a pallet of it and wanted to compete with Laserboard. It's .01" Black Polybak, I don't know if they still make it, but I have about thirty 12" x 24" sheets, so I'm set for life. Anyways, it rasters great. I just shot it with a quick pass of Tamiya Fine Surface Primer, as gray looks better than silver on this, as it don't shine so much and looks oxidized: I think I rather like the security fence after all!
It looks very good! I’d have to agree. Too shinny or too rusty is often what you get. That grey gives a nice dull look. Which is what you see most often in life.