Tin shed and friends - 2016 build challenge

Started by Mark Dalrymple, September 15, 2016, 04:50:23 AM

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Mark Dalrymple

Hi guys.

Here is my entry into the 2016 build challenge. 

It is half of a diorama I am working on for a demonstration at our Pioneer train show next month.  I wanted to show how I went about finding inspiration from prototypes and manipulated and spliced these inspirations into a design for my model railroad - Tellynott.  'Tin shed and friends' is a block of four different New Zealand prototype structures spliced together to make a pleasing group of shops on a sloping street.  This group of shops will be balanced by a larger industry nearby, and part of the same diorama.

More soon, cheers, Mark.

NEMMRRC

I like it when structures are built up a grade. I'll be following along.

Jaime
Narrow Gauge Convention photos

ACL1504

"If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed."
Thomas Jefferson

Tom Langford
telsr1@aol.com

GPdemayo

Looks great Mark.....I'll be watching.  :)


Pegi asked me to ask you to bring some cases of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from Marboro to the next expo for her.  ;D
Gregory P. DeMayo
General Construction Superintendent Emeritus
St. Louis & Denver Railroad
Longwood, FL

Janbouli

All these build threads, feels like Christmas  ;D
I love photo's, don't we all.

Mark Dalrymple

Hi guys.

Good to have you along for the ride!  Thanks for your comments Jamie, Gregory, Tom and Janbouli, they are much appreciated.  Gregory - I'll see what i can do - but there might be a bit of a wait!

OK - so below are four photos of scans from various books and magazines. 

Photo one shows the tin shed at Okains bay on banks peninsular.  I have flipped this structure horizontally and placed it on the steepest part of the street.  It will be clad in Campbell's corrugated iron.

Photo 2 shows a small block of shops on a steep street in Dunedin.  It is still there and looks just the same as when this photo was taken.  The small structure in the center will be the structure to the right of the tin shed.

Photo three shows an early movie house.  This structure is spliced with the structure to the left in photo 4.  I wanted a tower of sorts, and this little top notch is perfect.

Photo four also shows a small structure to the right of the structure with the tower, and this will be the last building in my block of shops. 

The back side of my 'tin shed and friends' will be based on the back view of photo four, with horizontal flipping, positional juggling and various other manipulations employed as necessary.

Dimensions were calculated using a standard door size.  Adjustments can be made at the next stage if required.  I'll draw up a 1:87 scale drawing and place appropriate Tichy Train Group and Grandt Line doors and windows and see how things look.

More soon, cheers, Mark.


Mark Dalrymple

Hi guys.

Well I have decided to include a little of the other half of the diorama in this thread to help put things in perspective, and to share some other techniques that come up when working as I often do from old photos.

First up below is a sketch of my larger structure which will balance my block of shops.  I'm not yet fully happy with my design, and am considering steepening the roof pitch and adding a tower at the front as in ...

... the second photo.

The third photo shows the main inspiration with the nice unusual angle.  Several other prototype pictures have been used for the other downhill additions.

So - for the techniques. 

Basically I was trying to find somewhere near the correct dimensions for the second photo.  In this particular photo there was very little to go by.  So in the end I sat a box of Tichy 6/6 windows in front of me and compared their height with the men in the photo.  I measured the height of the Tichy window and converted that to prototype feet and inches.  I gathered that the men in this photo would typically be around 5' 8" in height and tried various windows until I found one that scaled off in the photo to somewhere near this measurement.  The window looked to have the same proportions as the ones in the photo, so that gave me something to scale the lengths to.  I then drew diagonal lines from the top right on the side of the structure to the bottom left and from the bottom right to the top left.  Where they cross is the half way point.  I then drew a vertical line at this half way point and continued in this manner, splitting the half into quarters, the quarters into eights, and the eights into sixteenths.  If you enlarge the photo and look closely you should hopefully be able to see this.  At the point of 16ths I had one vertical line very close to the left of one of the windows, and one vertical line close to the right.  I then put a ruler horizontally on the photo and measured the distance between the two lines, and the width of the window.

The Tichy window was 11mm in width.
The window in the photo was 7mm in width

7x=11
  x=11/7
  x=1.57

The width of the 16th of the side of the building at the same place was 9.5mm

9.5 by 1.57 = 14.92mm

That's close enough to 15mm for me!

15 by 16 = 240mm

And for you imperial people 240/25.4 = 9.45"
So the length of the side of the structure (not including the tower) is 240mm or just under 9 1/2 inches.

The height of the structure can be worked out the same way.
In this manner you can work your way around the photo finding the required measurements, and they should be in proportion and fairly close to the prototype.

I know for many of you (especially the scratch-builders) this will be old hat, but I thought it was a simple technique to share - an it is my impression that, apart from getting everybody motivated, this was the point of this build challenge.

More soon, cheers, Mark.

barrymk

I look forward to this scene developing, your models always look as if they grew out of the local topography.
Modelling my version of Colorado Narrow Gauge here in the UK.  Any resemblance to reality is purely accidental.

S&S RR

Mark


This sounds like a great project.  I will be following along.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

ACL1504

Quote from: S&S RR on September 16, 2016, 07:44:51 AM
Mark


This sounds like a great project.  I will be following along.


Me too, looking forward to how it goes.

Tom ;D
"If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed."
Thomas Jefferson

Tom Langford
telsr1@aol.com

Mark Dalrymple

Hi guys.

Its great to have you along for the ride Barry, John and Tom!

I must say, it is most excellent to have this many build threads going along at once!  I'd like to add that personally I like it better if everybody has their own thread.  It means you can follow and comment on those you are most interested in without feeling guilty about not commenting on everyone's work, and basically just not get overwhelmed.  Sometimes you get busy for a week and when you get back to the modelling there are pages and pages of posts, and the thought of trying to catch up on everyone's work can just be too much - and so you stop.

So - I did a little more searching for prototype pictures and found a few with some interesting shapes and additions I can see working with my larger structure.  Hopefully I will find time this evening to record my new ideas with a few sketches.

While they were fresh in my head a drew up a 1:100 scale plan of the two complexes and cut them out.  I then drew up three circles - 3'4", 3' and 2'8" in diameter, in 1:100.  I placed the cutouts of the two complexes in the circles and moved them around trying various positions.  This is a technique I use often to help me visualize the finished product with very little effort.  The next stage is making mock-ups, which is much more time consuming.  In this way you can check your ideas work with minimal effort and make alterations if needed before committing to the next stage.

The picture below shows the cutouts in the circles.  2'8" may be big enough, but I think 3'4" is bigger than I require.

For the train show the weekend after next I have been asked to sit at a table and do some modelling.  My thought was to try and show people how I work from prototype inspiration through to a diorama (or chunk of my layout).  I will have a notice board behind me with various inspirational pictures and some of my own working sketches, and then build up the landscape out of polystyrene pre-cut blocks on the round base I will have on the table into roads, railway, building sites and landscape, and then place scale mock-ups on the building sites.  I should be able to put things together (if I label everything well) in five or so minutes, then take it to pieces and build it up again for the next group of people.  After the show I will start on the building of the block of shops.

More soon, cheers, Mark.