Micro Projects

tillsbury

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Jul 18, 2004
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I've been working recently on some tiny projects I can do at my desk in the house, while dull stuff is on TV...

First, I saw a commercial DPM add-on of an access door on to the roof, which looked like a good bit of roofing detail (although it appeared a bit rough). So, working on 2mm to 1foot (which I find easier than thousands of an inch)...

Seven feet high equates to 14mm, so cut two 14mm squares of thin styrene, chop off the corners and glue them to the side, getting this:


micro1.jpg


A bit of offcut wood for the door, and some laser printer labels cut into strips and stuck on the side for battens, then a whack of brown paint. I think I'll put corrugated iron on the roof section before weathering it...

Charles
 

tillsbury

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Micro project 2

Ok while we've got the thin styrene out, I cut four strips (about 2-3mm wide) and glued them into a rectangular tube:

micro2_524988.jpg


Sand down the edges, and cut alternately straight and 45 degree cuts through it with a fine saw (the above is the 'offcut'), which give you...

micro3_504464.jpg


Spotlights for the sign on the roof! I previously drilled 3mm holes in the roof and inserted warm white LED's at 45 degrees, then once the styrene 'tubes' were superglued on paint them black on the outside and silver inside, not forgetting to paint a lot of silver on the inside of the roof to reflect the light out of the top of the LED (and then black over that to prevent light leakage below)...

Lo and behold they work!

micro4_413200.jpg


Charles
 

tillsbury

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Jul 18, 2004
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And while I was playing with LEDs, I needed something inside my buildings. So a simple photo of walls of the house, printed out and folded inside come out surprisingly well...

lights1.jpg


Maybe a bit too much chalk on the windows here... it looks better in real life but I was interested to see that net curtains, pictures, light fittings, and even brass light switches show up remarkably well in N-scale... the piano is easy to see too...

Charles