10-21-2010, 11:19 PM
The structures that I was measuring were up to four stories tall.
There didn't seem to be any discrepancy over that distance. Of course, once you have measurements of certain things like a window for instance, at lower levels, you already know theat dimension for each time i ist repeated on the way up. The possible exception would be in some architecure, especially that of the 1800's and very early 1900's, windows on the top floor were often not as tall as the windows on the lower floors, but since all that stuff had been measured from the inside.
I never used the Measuring Stick on a trestle or a stone viaduct, mostly just on buildings. A friend (since childhood) modeled the DL&W. One summer up at the summer cottage in the Pocono Mountains, he and I drove down to the DL&W Cresco station (a "tall" one-story structure) and photgraphed it with the Stick from every possible direction and also a few "detail shots' with the Stick (doors, etc.) and then I drew up a set of elevations when back home and mailed them to him. A fine little Cresco Station lives on his layout, as does a model of his family's summer cottage.
It just a basic tool that's helpful to use when gathering info for a scratchbuild project.
Don't forget a few other tricks when "taking measurements" from photographs -- yours or those from books. Certain architectural elements remain basically constant and have over time. The basic building brick has been basically the same size for a century or two. Architectural Standards dictate the height of many standard components as standard doors (6'-8"), ornamental doors notwithstanding. It can be a tedious task, but I have counted brick courses up the face of a building to determine its height before when the Stick had not been available.
Have fun ... keep building structures!
There didn't seem to be any discrepancy over that distance. Of course, once you have measurements of certain things like a window for instance, at lower levels, you already know theat dimension for each time i ist repeated on the way up. The possible exception would be in some architecure, especially that of the 1800's and very early 1900's, windows on the top floor were often not as tall as the windows on the lower floors, but since all that stuff had been measured from the inside.
I never used the Measuring Stick on a trestle or a stone viaduct, mostly just on buildings. A friend (since childhood) modeled the DL&W. One summer up at the summer cottage in the Pocono Mountains, he and I drove down to the DL&W Cresco station (a "tall" one-story structure) and photgraphed it with the Stick from every possible direction and also a few "detail shots' with the Stick (doors, etc.) and then I drew up a set of elevations when back home and mailed them to him. A fine little Cresco Station lives on his layout, as does a model of his family's summer cottage.
It just a basic tool that's helpful to use when gathering info for a scratchbuild project.
Don't forget a few other tricks when "taking measurements" from photographs -- yours or those from books. Certain architectural elements remain basically constant and have over time. The basic building brick has been basically the same size for a century or two. Architectural Standards dictate the height of many standard components as standard doors (6'-8"), ornamental doors notwithstanding. It can be a tedious task, but I have counted brick courses up the face of a building to determine its height before when the Stick had not been available.
Have fun ... keep building structures!
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln