N Gauge Model Railway - Episode 12 - A Heljan Meat Packing Planet and LED Circuits

Back in March I was busy buying secondhand buildings on eBay to fill out the center of the layout.  I also bought a few brand new (old stock) kits from Heljan and Gaugemaster (Kestrel) to satisfy my need to get this layout moving forward.

Heljan Meat Packing Plant -  N673

I don't know anything about Heljan other than Sam's Trains on YouTube regularly gives them hell about their OO locomotives.  The kit came in a slightly squashed box with a few sprues inside.

Initial assembly was relatively easy once you have worked out that the letters on the instructions relate to the the letters on the parts which must join together.  The basic structure went together very easily but the configuration of the highest roof is a bit odd and leaves an unsightly gap.  Furthermore, my intention was to light this top most area and it is essentially sealed off once you add the roof.

Painting with Jason Jensen

I'm a big fan of the work of YouTuber Jason Jensen, his densely packed urban layouts in OO and N Gauge are just a sight to behold.  However, I'm no ex comicbook artist with all those thousands of hours worth of drawing and inking to fall back on.  The beauty of Jason's channel is that he shows you how you can easily add character and weathering to a structure just with some paint and a bit of sponge.

The building was primed in black and given a white zenithal highlight.  This is a fancy way of saying I sprayed the building with white paint from above to highlight the bits which would be hit by the sun at it's zenith.

I then proceeded to sponge on a few different shades of brown to simulate the varied coulour of the brickwork.  There's no secret sauce to this recipe and you can pretty much use whatever paints you have at your disposal.  Just remember to dab on less and less as you go from dark to light. 

I did not bother to follow the spackle mortar step as I was really happy with how this turned out and I have no idea what spackle is 🤣.

All the woodwork, doors and trim came seperate on the sprue so this was painted before assembly with a quick zenithal prime and then a base coat of two of my least used D&D acrylics from a Nolzur's starter set by Gale Force Nine.  These were specifically Putrid Slime and Xanathar Blue.  Honestly these are crap paints and I do not recommend that you buy them, but they do produce a nice sea green colour when used together.

Palethorpes Signage

I have 3 Lima Siphon-G wagons in my fleet, one of which is branded with Palethorpes Sausages.  I naturally thought that this meat packing plant should be a Palethorpes factory serving the local community of Upper Carrom.  Grabbing some suitable images from the internet and resizing for printing using GIMP was a trivial exercise.

I followed Jason Jensen's weathered sign technique.  This involves sanding the back of your printed paper sign until it becomes almost transparent.  I cannot believe that I spent half an hour of my Saturday morning carefully sanding paper to make it even more paper thin.  We do what we must in the pursuit of happiness. 

This was then stippled onto the textured brick work with diluted white glue and I have to say I was impressed at how well this technique works.  You can see the ghosted image of the underlying brickwork on the lighter coloured backgrounds and it is quite convincing.  Now that I know what I am doing, I am going to be braver and go for even thinner more realistic signs in the future.

Lighting the model and adding a circuit board

My intention with the majority of the buildings on the layout is for them to be removable so that I can work on them off the layout.  This lends itself to the "plug and play" mentality where each building has a single connection to 5V power and is then distributed to each LED from a circuit board.

This model has a sum total of 6 lights.  Three are 5mm bright white LEDs for the building lights and then there are 3 bright white streetlights.  To be honest I have long since lost the packaging that the lights came in and it was all Chinese to me as it came from Aliexpress.

Following the excellent tutorial on How to Wire Multiple LEDs: Series vs Parallel by Rachel de Barros I built a small circuit board to accommodate all the lights.

The circuit diagram is as follows

This worked wonderfully for about 30 minutes of continuous use until one of the street lights failed, then another and then the third until this went pop but as I had encased it in photosensitive resin it smoldered for a while and stank!!.  Why did this happen?

Because I am a dumbass!!  

The eagle eyed of you will have spotted that I had wired the positive leg of the Street light LEDs in at points A, B and C and then soldered all the building lights in at D.  This completely by-passed all the resistors and sent each one 5V from supply. 

I initially blamed Chinese fake LEDs, but no wonder they failed, nothing can withstand that much power and survive.  

It is only by writing this blog that I spent the time to dissect the circuit and recording what I actually did and compared it to the circuit diagram (what I thought I'd done) that I discovered my catastrophic mistake.  This is called learning through failure boys and girls and is the best type of learning their is.

However, I do have photographic evidence that, however briefly, it did work.

Obligatory Running Video

This week's video is a bit on the short side but it does illustrate the 

 

N Gauge Model Railway - Episode 11 - Can you actually 3D Print an N Gauge Locomotive?

My fleet of N Gauge Locomotives has been slowly growing ever since I began this Coffee Table Layout project but I have been somewhat dissapointed in the affordability of most locos.  

This has meant scouting for old Minitrix, Graham Farish and Lima Locos on eBay which can be picked up at budget prices.  Reliability and running is less than stellar as you can imagine for toy trains which can be around 30 to 40 years old.  

However, being an avid follower Mike and Douglas at the YouTube channel Budget Model Railways and I noticed their affection for the Kato Pocketline locos used on their tiny layouts and was amazed at the effortless slow running of these tiny little marvels.  I subsequently purchased a couple of the very cheap Kato 11-105 powered chassis to experiment with.

Kasugar.Japan

A big shout out goes to eBay seller Kasugar.Japan who furnished me with two chassis for the princely sum of £46.52.  If you are looking for some Kato items or maybe you want those rare JDM Pokemon cards then this is the store for you.  SPOILER ALERT... I enjoyed this experience so much I bought two 11-109 chassis.

Which Kato Chassis do you choose

The main differnce between the two Kato powered chassis is that the 11-105 has two 4 wheel bogies (one powered and driving but both pickup power from the rails) and the 11-109 just has 4 wheels but is all wheel drive and all wheel pickup.

3D Printed Bodies Galore

If you are into your Narrowgage / 009 model railways, you have a plethora of options available for both the Kato 11-105 and Kato 11-109 chassis.  If you want to stick to N Gauge then you will have to do a bit of searching on Cults3D or Thingiverse, but they are out there.

Freestyle Shunters - £1.50 (6 models)

This file is amazing value for mone, I struggle to price up my own downloads and there is always the fear that if you price it too high you end pricing yourself out of the market.  At this price it comes highly recommended.  

I printed off a couple of Model 6, a warship class looking body which the designer recommends for the 11-105 chassis and a couple of model 5 which looks a bit like a class 04.  Printing took an hour and a half and they came out looking great.

Once the tedious task of clipping off the supports was done, Model 6 fit on the chassis perfectly.  Model 5 required some trimming with the dremel and it is a bit of a squeeze but it can be made to fit.  

Sadly when painting I used an untested rattlecan of "white" paint which ended up being gloss and having a really bad reaction to the black primer underneath.  I soldiered on and managed to get a passable attempt at a little BR Green paintjob.  I was only mildly pissed off by the painting disaster because these are 3D printed bodies and I can just reprint them.

 

But what do they run like?

The Kato chassis are very light and they have a tiny motor which is ideal for their intended purpose which is low speed shunting operations and as a result they have very little pulling power.  Anything more than a couple of small wagons and the wheels start to slip.  This can be overcome with the addition of a little weight. 

I added two 5g self adhesive weights to the top of the motor housing and this proved more than enough additional traction to comfortably pull everything in my fleet of wagons and coaches including my Canadian Pacific grain wagons, BR Mk1 Coaches and Siphon G wagons.

 

The incline on my layout was no problem for the tiny little Kato on its own, but it struggled when coupled to anything but the lightest of my wagons.

Other Locomotive Body Options 

Whilst hunting around on Cults 3D I encountered a few options together in my N Gauge Train Stuff collection so you don't have to trawl through pages and pages of train stuff.  I also found quite a few of the odd looking chibi style "Caricature" 009 locomotives which are essentially condensed versions of regular OO/HO loco bodies for the 11-109 chassis type.  Most peculiar. 

On Thingiverse I found the Alsthom 1000 which looks like a fairly authentic reproduction of its prototype.

If you don't have access to a 3D printer Budget Model Railways has you covered one with a range of N Scale Loco Bodies to purchase from their website.

Let me know what you think, and if you have tried printing out your own N Gauge bodies for the Kato chassis please share.

N Gauge Model Railway - Episode 10 - Adding some Low Profile Buildings

It's been a while since I blogged about the N Scale Coffee Table Layout what with the minutae of life having taking center stage.  Whilst there has been a huge amount of progress on the layout I just did not have the motivation to record it.

Cardstock Low Profile Buildings 

Before Christmas I chanced on a joblot of low profile cardboard building kits for a bargain price.  These were all from the scale model buildings N gauge range and are semi photo realistic and obviously taken from photographs of prototypical buildings which have then been photoshopped.  

These were perfect to line the edges of my layout and I developed a technique of cutting out the buildings in layers to add a little depth and visual interest to these already great kits.

Doors and Windows

Using a fresh blade in the trusty craft knife and a steel rule, laboriously cut out each of the windows and doors and put them to one side.  It is important to store these in the same order and orientation in which they were removed for when you want to put the windows back.  

This will leave you with your base layer. 

Add Depth with a Second Layer

Take your base layer and stick this to a second piece of card of a similar thickness using a glue stick.  The buildings are generally small enough that there is enough excess unprinted card to let you do this without needing to break out anymore card stock but following in the footsteps of Michael from the fantastic Chandwell YouTube channel, you can resort to your favourite brand of cereal packet.

Now repeat the exercise cutting out all the window and door apertures.  This will leave you with a double thickness layer.  

Abutments and Protruding Structures

Some of the buildings feature various protruding structures which can be cut out and carefully peeled away from the second layer.  Glue stick is pretty weak stuff so you should have no problem removing these elements.  Stick these to similar thickness card and cut around them.

Glazing Windows

There are a couple of ways you can glaze the windows either by adding a layer of acetate to the whole base layer or by covering the window with cellotape.  I prefer the second method as it does not add a lot of thickness and it is easy to cut through the tape if you are simulating broken glass.  

Using the cellotape technique you could go the extra mile and remove any tape from the mullions and transoms of panelled windows for that matt look.

Using the acetate technique you can simulate larger moder multipanel windows by scoring the acetate gently.  You can then rub these with coloured pencils which will colour in the scratches to form the mullions.  This does tend to warp the acetate creating a sort of bubbled shape to the windows and lots of reflections.  If this is not to your taste then you could just draw the mullions on using a permenant fineliner. 

Edging with Watercolour Pencil

The edges of your building (and window apertures) will now have clean white edges which need to be coloured with paint or my favourite water colour pencils.  This does not need to be a perfect colour match and in fact my dark grey pencil seems to get the most use.

Reconstruction

Any abutments that you created can now be reglued back into their rightful places giving you a solid wall again. 

Rebuilding and Reinforcement

Adding all these extra layers of card that they weren't originally designed into the kit can make them a challenge to keep square when you finally come to fold them together and rebuild the low profile type structures.  I found that adding an interior skeleton of 5mm foamboard was more than enough to produce a rigid structure.  This also gives you a much better surface to attach your roof panels to. 

Replacing Windows and Doors.

You can now refit your windows in their relevant recesses simply fixing them in place with tape.  For particularly deep recesses you can repeat the earlier step adding additional layers to the window apertures to suit your tastes.  If you are gluing these to your backboard as I was then I recommend keeping the final number of layers to a minimum.

Roofs

The roofs included in the kit are the worst aspect.  Typically using just patterned textures as these are likely to be completely unuseable from the prototype photograps, they are a little lack lustre and can either be replaced by better textures from other companies or weathered using the watercolour pencils.

If you are making a silhouette style building the included roof textures are more than acceptable.  however, if you are going more for the low profile look intended by the kit then a stage of artistic weathering is definitely required.

Accessories and lighting

How far down the rabbit hole you go is dependant on your tastes and skill level.  Adding some gutters and drain pipes with strips of card or styrene is an easy way to add that extra layer of detail.

Some of the buildings clearly include security lights and adding these to your building is trivial.  Simply drill through the relevant spot with a small drill bit and fish through an appropriate voltage prewired SMD LED.  These can be affixed with the modellers friend photoreactive resin glue or even white glue.  

Signs and Names

Some of these kit buildings come with signs printed on the buildings.  Whilst the maority are simulating painted on signs some would benefit from being raised from the surface.  You could scan the building sheet into the computer before you start cutting out and reprint the signs onto card to make them a bit more three dimensional.  

If you have access to a 3D Printer you could also model these letterforms and print them out.  This is much easier than it sounds and I have a tried and tested technique for making signs which can be used to great effect here.

Weathering Cardstock Buildings

This is an area of modelling relatively new to me but using a set of cheap artists pastels and watercolour pencils I managed to dirty up some of my buildings.  This is an entirely subjective exercise and is probably best done when you have selected spots on your layout for the buildings to go and then you can weather them into place and achieve a realistic and consistent tonality to your scene. 

Cardstock Buildings at Upper Carrom

Bowerings Animal Feeds - LR-I-009

The Bowerings compsny sign was scanned in and then 3D printed using the technique I menetioned above.  LED lights were added alongside 3D printed drainpipes.

Modern N-Gauge Warehouse - LR-I-011

This building is located on the upward slope of the layout and is a sillhouette building.  It uses the acetate windows technique.

Wood Brothers Ltd - LR-I-001

This buildings roof texture was okay but I needed to heavily weather it to make it look like rusted tin.  The aperture for the sliding door is currently masked with some black card whilst I decide on a suitable interior.

Lion Brewery - LR-I-006

This two storey structure features a loading bay with protective steel posts which I modelled using styrene rod.  Drainpipes were added using the same styrene rod.  The roof is a little lacking in detail and I think could do with a replacement slate tile texture.  Sometimes you are never really happy.

Obligatory Running Video

I recently invested in a tiny action camera measuring no more than 2cm cubed.  After some messing about I managed to get a semi decent bit of footage.  I highly recommend playing this back at half speed.

 
  

Probably the Strangest Book I own - The Life and Times of Saddam Hussein

I was having a tidy up the other day and came across the oddest little book I own...

The Life and Times of Saddam Hussein

Part of the Parragon Life and Times series which includes all the major dictators of the 20th Century, plus notable celebrities and all round good eggs, including.

Adolph Hitler Al Capone Albert Einstein Anne Frank Benito Mussolini Castro Che Guevara Frank Sinatra Grace Kelly Henry VIII J F K Jackie Onassis Josef Stalin Julius Caesar King Arthur

Laurel & Hardy Lawrence of Arabia Mahatma Gandhi Mao Tse-Tung Martin Luther King Mary Queen of Scots Mother Teresa Napoleon Bonapart Pol Pot Queen Elizabeth II Rasputin Saddam Hussein The Busby Babes William Shakespeare Winston Churchill

How I came by this book

For a time I worked in the MOD intranet and internet teams which were located withing the MOD Library at 3-5 Great Scotland Yard, London.  During one of their clearouts I came across this little book and as it was going to otherwise be disposed of it came home with me out of morbid curiosity.

Isn't life odd sometimes

Cheap Chinese Soldering Irons - Are they worth the money?

Embarking on the odd electronics project over the last few months has had me sucking at the teat of Aliexpress.  As my previous solder station (a Lidl Parkside special) was almost impossible to find tips for at a reasonable price. I dipped my toes into the water and bought a cheap chinese soldering iron.

80W Chinese Digital Soldering Iron - Under £10

At an almost ludicrous price I was not expecting much.  It came loosely packed with a set of tips a sponge and a pressed metal stand.  Sadly it was equipped with a two prong Euro style cord rather than the far superior UK 3 pin plug but I could not find any UK plug variants at similar prices.

The iron has a small digital display and two buttons marked + and - .  The instructions did not cover basic operation but after a bit of trial and error I worked out that:

• 1 short press of the + or - button allows you to set a target temperature 1 degree at a time
  
• 1 long press of  the + or - button allows you to change target temperature quickly
  
• 2 rapid presses of the + button switches between Centigrade and Farenheit temperature measurement.

Light as a Feather 

As with a lot of mains powered hot tools such as pyrograves, soldering irons and hot glue guns they are extremely light.  They are often lighter than the mains cable they are attached to and so are constantly making a bid to throw themselves off the table.  

The stand provided does an excellent job of preventing this from being a major problem.  However, there is nowhere to place the provided sponge. 

Easy to Overheat

As a relative newbie I found it was too easy to casually or accidentally change the temperature as I was soldering leading to oxidation building up on the tip and then a lengthy cleaning exercise.

What is the best temperature to solder at?

I found that 350 degrees C is the best temperature for soldering.  However, due to the design of these irons it is so easy to accidentally change the temperature that constant monitoring is essential.

Invest in a Brass Wire Cleaner

This is where I chose to supplement my meagre little collection of soldering accessories with a brass wire cleaning pot.

A Simple Solder Station - Thingiverse: Thing 6809777 

I designed a simple soldering station baseplate to organise the supplied stand and sponge and to accomodate a tin of brass cleaning wire.  Your stand and wire pot dimensions may differ so please feel free to remix this model.