Lift Span Bridge

[Sparky]

Prepared road base. Installed the necessary span and traffic lights wiring along bridge girders. Assembled road, towers and traffic lights in one go.

[ACL1504]

Peter,

This just gets better and better. WOW!

Tom

[donatode]

Peter,

This just gets better and better. WOW!

Tom

Can't argue with that....OUTSTANDING!!!

[Sparky]

Thanks Tom and Donato for your kind words. Glad to know you are enjoying the build.

to continue:
Took me a few days to add all the matchstick posts and split bamboo skewer railings.

[Jerry]

Peter that is just some excellent modeling.  The attention to detail and making your own parts outstanding.

Jerry

[Sparky]

Thank you Jerry for compliment.

____________________

Had to tie up the loose wiring under the table, mainly to log and keep track of the wiring. So they got terminated, and extra wires were added for connections to the Control Box.

[vinceg]

Beautiful wiring. I have always thought neat, organized wiring is its own art form.

[tct855]

Peter,
         Enough is enough!  All this perfect wiring, sharp cut wood edges, pristine painting, perfect focused pictures, proper lighting, blah, blah, blah...   I know you are human, so make a mistake or something.

At least leave a pile of debris in the shot on the floor in the background or show a scratch the bottom of the legs or something!  I bet all your records from the 70's don't even have a scratch.

You know what,  I'm going to sit here perusing your fabulous work a little while longer before I get back to my perfect modeling mistakes.   Thanx Thom...

[Sparky]

Beautiful wiring. I have always thought neat, organized wiring is its own art form.

Thanks vinceg.
You will be seeing some more from the console, but it may not look so arty 

[Sparky]

Peter,
         Enough is enough!  All this perfect wiring, sharp cut wood edges, pristine painting, perfect focused pictures, proper lighting, blah, blah, blah...   I know you are human, so make a mistake or something.

At least leave a pile of debris in the shot on the floor in the background or show a scratch the bottom of the legs or something!  I bet all your records from the 70's don't even have a scratch.

You know what,  I'm going to sit here perusing your fabulous work a little while longer before I get back to my perfect modeling mistakes.   Thanx Thom...

Ha ha ha. Thanks for kind words so humorously presented.

[Sparky]

Then I had the fiddly job of painting the railings.



I do not plan to paint the bridge to appear weathered, but as if brand new and unpolluted. It is something I learnt to appreciate from doing some architectural rendering in my youth. So, I gave the rest of the bridge a cement grey colour. The road will be painted to appear as concrete (with gravel).

[PRR Modeler]

Gorgeous.

[Sparky]

Thanks Curt.
_______________

Throughout this project I continue to do Internet research. A friend emailed me a photo taken of a computer screen by her iPhone. It revealed a few things I was still not clear about. There was the matter of what did the swing-gates look like. The scale of the cars is known, but how did they look in comparison to the whole bridge. Finally, what did the concrete road look like from above.



Decided to splatter dark grey paint onto the cement colour. It turned out horrendous. Originally I wanted to start again, but a part of me knew it could be turned to my advantages. So then I used the dry brush method to lighten up the dark patches. Afterwards, I kept alternating between dark and light paint with a fine brush until I was happy with the results.



Painting the span took longer than painting the rest of the road. It was difficult to get into the central areas. The edges of the span and bridge have a metal plate (silver painted area). The hole you see on edge of road is for the fine (0.7 mm) bridge cable which goes through the display table.

[tct855]

Peter,

     Whoa!  You dotted all that? (I must of missed something).  Anywho, I wonder if gluing down an appropriate rough sandpaper (rough side up) painting the correct base color and dry brushing the highlight grit with the darker color and finish up with dry pigments for the traffic flow marks?  I'm thinking would be less tedious than dotting?.  Nice job without question the way you did it.
Thanx Thom... 

[Sparky]

Peter,

     Whoa!  You dotted all that? (I must of missed something).  Anywho, I wonder if gluing down an appropriate rough sandpaper (rough side up) painting the correct base color and dry brushing the highlight grit with the darker color and finish up with dry pigments for the traffic flow marks?  I'm thinking would be less tedious than dotting?.  Nice job without question the way you did it.
Thanx Thom...

Thanks Thom... That is a great idea. Will try that method in future.