Introducing The PistonBroke Line

[OBJack]

Thanks for the info Tetters, it seems the more skin you burn off the quicker you learn.
And the panel you showed there, does the red led indicate the turnout is thrown and a green led indicate a thru route? or something completely different?
I think you are right about the lower resistance, since then I have also read different colours have different resistant values.
maybe back to the drawing board, and a whole new system.

Hey Jack, on that control panel question, here's how *I* would do it:
I would take a piece of that plexiglass you have there, and using thin tape, mask off your track schematic in reverse on the back side of your plexi, then paint the pack side of the plexi the dark blue. If you REALLY want to get trick, make that "Piston Broke Line" name on a decal and apply that (a reverse decal) before you paint the back side of the panel. That way, when you flip it over, it is nice and smooth, glossy, and will look sharp (once you remove the tape after the paint is dry). Then I would enclose it in a wood framed box with lighting behind it.
That is just how I dould do it.

Tom, thanks for the idea, I will take up the challenge and give your idea a crack on the next board, which I want to be bigger than the A4 paper of my last attempt.

Now....

A while back I needed to start building a few kits to enliven the layout.

As Laser cut kits are not a readily available item in our LHs here, (and I am to much of a novice to bash, or even kitbash a build) I was lucky enough when the Aussie dollar was near parity with the US dollar, to place an order for some kits from the US.
Here is one of my first attempts

O'Larys garage, it says, a kit by JL Innovative Design.

I thought it looked like a fairly typical 1950s type garage world wide.

So emptied the Box, and these are the goodies inside

Ooohhh I see they have snuck some of those dreadful instruction sheets inside too.

and a few castings

My first attempt at weathering went like this...

First an A/I wash

Then....... I have heard about this technique of applying rubber cement or something to the surface before painting then rubbing it off afterward to give a peeling paint effect

So lets give it a shot

I have painted some of this rubber/latex product onto the panels.......

Stop the laughing already..... its all I had that sounded like what the big boys were using, ....and it was tax free.

Then some Reefer white paint

The Result after rub

And

I think I will give it another wash of A/I or paint and see where we go from there. OK enough crappola for now, gotta get back to the sweatshop .....er that's O'Larys Garage.

So I repainted with a light white wash again & also another A/I wash to tone things down

... this is the result...

After painting the windows and doors red, I then experimented with the signs, and as you can see back in in the first few photos there are lots of them.
The first thing I did was photocopy the sheet so I had a few to play with, and started sticking a few to the walls and windows

With mixed results

The big sign at the bottom is of course the large one that sits atop the main building, and I have tried to age it in keeping with the rest of the building.
I have only just finished applying a wash to it and it is not stuck down to the board so it looks a bit wet and wavy at the moment ......
Maybe have a look tomorrow and see, or most likely leave it 'till the end and then decide, and I can always paste another over it

Some closeups for the gory details and mistakes

And

And

Went and found some glue and hooked a few walls together, ..
left them for a few days and came back and they had not fallen apart, So with that sort of luck on my side I decided to press on, gluing and tacking madly

Until I had a resemblance to the pictures on the cover of the box

Or so I thought

And

Then I started fiddling around with all the little tiny detail bits, and with my big fat fingers at their best working with objects over 1 ft long and about 2kgs in weight I started down struggle street.

I can now see, how ordinary adults, can all of a sudden breakdown cry ....... Just put in a few hours working with fiddly bits that you cant see or hold.

Anywho a couple of pics of the near enough finished Garage

And

And

And

And

Then I went to find somewhere on the RR to plant a garage,

Found a place at last, post a pic later


Jack