yet another o scale railroad camp build

kebmo

thanks karl. carl laskey gave me another idea: find a thin straw, paint it, glue it to the post and run the wires up through that. either way will work.

sdrees

Kevin, I used a wood dowel, but took a razor saw and cut a groove down one side of the dowel and embedded the wires in the groove. Also use the razor saw to add grain to the dowel.

kebmo

thanks for all the great ideas everyone.
meetings tonight and tomorrow night so i won't be able to get back to the bench until Friday night, but i'll probably give a few of these ideas a try.

KKarns

Roof has a wonderful warm blended but not uniform look and feel to it. Nicely done.

kebmo

thanks gents. that roof panel is (obviously) a small fraction of the whole roofs. lots of shingling in my future.

Joel

Great work Kevin, just catching up. Love the shingles. Gonna be one impressive building. I had another suggestion for the dowel. I have used a wooden dowel that I split in two after graining. Then I weather the halves and glue them together with a pair of magnetwires sandwiched inside. The wires are so thin the crack is not visible even in HO.

kebmo

thanks joel.

Dave_S

Kevin,
Another thought about the wires from the overhead light mounted on the telephone pole, I don't think that wires running down the outside of a phone pole are unusual at all. In general I believe that the wires making the electrical connection in reality would have run overhead or run exposed down the outside of the pole and underground to a structure. Nothing magical about that. Just an observation about what you see around you everyday.
Now if you'd prefer not to see two wires running down the side of the pole get an ultra thin brass tube to run them through. I make my goose neck lamp connections in O-Scale using very fine Special Shapes Company brass tubing (TT-61X), (Stock#06036).(1/32" x .006 Brass Tubing). The ultra fine lead wires from prewired LED's should pass through this tube very easily. They did for me.

Later, Dave S. Tucson, AZ

CarlLaskey

Well being a lineman for 38 years I have hooked up many street lights so here it goes the wire from the light would run through the pipe and be connected to the secondary wires the distance would be only a foot or so and the wire was in a wood or plastic shield.
The wire most of the time was never exposed so while climbing the pole they were not in the way.

kebmo

i've got one right outside my living room window and the wires run in a small pipe up the pole to about 8" from the top of the pole.

MuddyCreekRR

I was going to say the same.....you can run the wires up the outside of the pole if it's wooden....thin tubing and mag wire would worn good.....or if you have a power line drop from the pole to the structure...the battery can be inside the structure.....

kebmo

over the past couple of weeks, this:



became this:

Mountaingoat

Glad you got the photos before it was gone.

KKarns

Ooops.

Robert.G

Hope yours doesn't go the same way....

No, no I'm sure it will last..

kebmo

i got a bunch of ticky tack stuff done today, but not much to show for. i decided to give this a try: using copper tape to flash the valleys. first i cut about 12" from my 25 ft roll of the stuff, taped it down to a table top and sprayed it with matte finish. when that dried i hit it again. then i applied three coats of dark patina acrylic paint:


while that dried i applied 3/8" square stock to the "ceiling" of the veranda (I drilled a hole in it so i can add a light from above because the light i installed above the door doesn't light it up enough. i think it's because i diffused it with about 1/8" thick clear plastic) and trimmed and glued the gable i sided to the blocks and the edge of the floor.



then, getting back to the flashing, it dried and i applied it to the front valley on the gable roof.










i made a cutting jig for cutting the shingles to fit the valley. in the shingle sheet itself i had to cut out every other row and put it back in the sheet in the opposite postion so all the cuts would make sense. i will align the shingles in their carrier sheet and place this cutting jig over the shingles (after lining up the left edge), and butting a steel straight edge up against the jig, and then cutting all the shingles out with the valley angle cut in them so i'll need to align them according to the edge of the flashing. i hope that made sense. it only will if it works though....
i also measured and cut the ridge support for the main roof. i didn't have any wood left, so i cut it out of 1/4" square styrene. i'm not sure if it'll attach to wood though. gotta either reasearch that or just order some wood.
then i figured out a way to make sure the veranda supports were the same legth, and added two more.
it's a quarter to five and i think i'm gonna crack a beer and call it a day.

Mountaingoat

Actually great progress. Just because it isn't visible doesn't mean it wasn't important.

Rick

JayNSmith

I am impressed with your precision and careful planning

MuddyCreekRR

I like the idea on the copper flashing....that will be a great detail....

KKarns

Details, details, details...love it!

kebmo

i got one more part of the gable roof shingled today. here was my (supposed) dilemma: i was pretty sure the glue on these shingles wasn't going to come back up off the chipboard subroof if i needed it to, so i was pondering how to do the shingles and cut the valley line cleanly. i thought about cutting the backing paper off of the glue side of the shingles and leaving an inch of it on so it wouldn't adhere to the valley. that idea was a bust. i thought about cutting a roof panel in the shape of the side of the roof i was working on, shingling that, trimming it clean, then laminate it to the existing roof panel, and then adding a backing panel to the already shingled side of the roof. so i went downstairs to do exactly that. that turned out to be all bs. i shingled it, put a straight edge on it, cut it, and got all the shingles off the roof with very little effort. all that fretting, all that pondering.......
all that time i could have spent shingling.
by the way ed....i love these shingles.

JayNSmith

Your efforts will save other people time - you are a pioneer in this technique.

TomH

The shingles look great as does that outhouse. I’m thinking I might have to try some LEDs and some lighting now.

kebmo

Tom,
I have no affiliation with Evans Design but i can tell you that they have made so simple a nitwit like me can do it. I strongly suggest you order from them unless you know electronics, then it doesn't matter who you order from.

kebmo

ed,
ixnay on the charging double. i'd have to go back to dpm kits.....

kebmo

more ticky tack stuff today. i drilled a hole in the gable wall and another in the veranda ceiling so i can add another led to the veranda. i got it soldered in and works, but i haven't installed the end gable/veranda ceiling yet. that's for later.


and i finished shingling the gable roof and cut the valleys, but haven't done the ridge cap yet:





i still have alot of figuring to do for the main roof panels......

Mountaingoat

Good progress Kev. Keep it coming......Rick

ALCO

Your next project will be a power plant!

kebmo

ALCO said:

Your next project will be a power plant!

too complicated

CarlLaskey

Kevin.
What do you think a year or two to finish?