Hi All, Quick update. I have not had a lot of time to work on the locomotive works, due to an illness in the family. I have been putting in 15 minutes here and there on my lunch break at work. While doing a little more research on tools used in erecting shops, I came across more info. regarding BLW in the Railroad And Engineer Journal. I used this cross section from 1891 to more accurately depict BLW. The object in the upper left is a MTL girder bridge. The pink lines are the actual size of the crane girder. I might be using the bridge as the girders. (thanks Rob for giving me the idea of using other Z scale parts) Scott
So...after finding more info on Baldwin Locomotive works, I ended up modifying my original Illustrator layout. My roof, wall, and window/door heights were off. Also one article gives rail center measurements. I was able to figure out door widths from a drawing of the "new" erecting shop, by flattening it in Photoshop and scaling it in Illustrator. The elevation and plan are in Z scale. I finished the upper window details, and will start the lower windows and doors. You can see the section I am modeling, in the 3/4 drawing, it is the seven arches to the left and includes the two doors. Scott
Those upper window panes (muntins) would best be done by having a front and back pane cut the same, and then have an ultra thin piece of acrylic sandwiched between them. Another way to skin this cat is to cut the window panes in four sections and then behind the front section use window screen material to mimic the inner panes. Home Depot or any major hardware store sells that plastic material in a roll that is used for making window screens. It’s generally gray in color and if you look closely it’s made up of a bunch of small squares. Perfect for window panes.
Scott, I was thinking about your little project here and recalled a material I got samples of called TASKBOARD. It’s like a densely compressed paper, pulp material. It does not have the density or rigidness of POLYBAK, but it may suffice for your lower walls. I think for a couple of bucks they send you a sample packet of eight or so different thicknesses. Boston Jim or John B. directed me to these guys. There’s a sheet of .125 and another sheet of .116 in this batch. The sheet of .116 has a much more dense or appearing surface. In other words I would be more interested in working with it on my laser. Needless to say this looks to force my hand to have to do some experimental cuts on this stuff and see what happens. I’ll report back with my findings in a few days. As you can see in this pic, the material being held by the mic is not a very dense layer of material, however the .116 is much more so, dense that is
I have tested Taskboard with my Laser, and while it does give good results you want to keep water and water based paints away from it because it tends to warp easily. I found best results were achieved by spraying the cut sheets with Marine Spar or Urethane before assembly and painting. It does use less power to cut than Polybak. If you have control over PPI on your laser, 150-200 works best giving the cleanest cuts.
I figured it would cut well and noted on the suggestion of setting the PPI at 150-200. Indeed, I can see this material not working well with waterbased paints, although the .116 thick material does look denser than the .125, it still looks like it would easily warp. Urethane sprayed is a good suggestion, then airbrush it with an enamel Navajo or Linen white color in order to simulate the weathered color. I will be attempting some cuts possibly this weekend.....
Lance, Using screen for muntins sounds interesting, I'll check it out. I remember seeing Taskboard mentioned on this site before. Nice suggestion. Look forward to seeing your Taskboard tests! Rob, I reread your Lester module thread, to see how you did the brick work. It sounds like all that scribing must have been tedious! Is it possible for the laser to etch them in? Scott
Scott, yes the laser is essential to cutting the brick lines. Note the docks brickwork for the sawtooth warehouse. All done via my trusty ORTUR “poor mans” laser. Took a while to draw the lines via the program, but I got smarter and downloaded a brick pattern for future use. For your little project, a laser will be your friend.
I draw a horizontal line, and copy, then set the shift to a scale 4" in Y axis and paste, flip horizontal. Paste and flip horizontal till the height of the building wall is completed, and I have a serpentine scribe for all the bricks. (Draws all the mortar horizontal mortar lines for the walls) Next I draw a vertical dash from top to bottom, and copy it. I change the shift to a scale 8" Y axis (draws brick mortar lines ever other course of bricks) and hold down the paste button till the dashes reach the bottom of the wall. Then I select the line of dashes and combine. Then I change the shift to scale 8" X and -4" Y, copy and paste. Select all those dashes with the previous line of dashes and combine. (now I have a meander pattern of offset vertical mortar lines) I set the shift to a scale 16" X axis, and paste to fill the wall of brick mortar lines, that the laser draws very fast in a serpentine pattern, then a Y axis serpentine pattern. This is Vector Mode control of brick patterns. Sometimes I want to use Raster Mode, so I select the whole brick wall pattern, then change the line from hairline to 2 point , and the laser will raster the whole wall's brick pattern, then come back afterwards and vector cut all the doors and window openings. Obviously, there is touchup around each door and window, but all I wrote above, I can do in under 5 minutes per wall drawing in Corel Draw. It's not just thinking about how the overall look of the brick pattern will be, but how fast and efficient will the laser do the job. Copy, Paste, Shift in X and Y, Flip Horizontal and Vertical, and the Combine and Break Apart commands are the skills you need to master to both draw fast, and in order to command the laser to cut the fastest and most efficiently.
And Corel’s Hairline is not the thinnest line. You can actually enter a smaller dimensional line (but limited to your laser’s focus). Just in case you want to cut faster, as the Hairline is Raster.
Rob, Thanks for the detailed instructions. I use Illustrator, and I will try to translate your instructions. What do you do for the brick arch details? Scott
On my laser's Windows 7 driver, it simple treats any line 2 point or thicker as a raster drawing, burning a series of dots, where any line smaller than 2 point as a vector drawing, burning lines with a start and stop point. I can use ANY windows paint or drawing program with these results. All bitmap drawings are Raster mode. Vector drawings have a start and stop point for every line, but if the line is 2 point or thicker, the laser driver will raster engrave. In Corel Draw, you can type in line thickness as a point number or Hairline, which is what most people use when they want t be sure the line is treated as a vector drawing. Those are usually hand drawn in for the first window, then copy pasted over all the others, and I just add nodes and break apart any part of lines that were in the way. The result looks just like your wall above, it's just the way I draw the brick pattern for speed.
In the interest of keeping things moving along and you guys updated, I will add some activity. Most of my activity will be confined to drawing on the computer to create patterns for the Cricut. I will try to hand cut some walls this weekend. I finished drawing up the lower windows and doors. The two doors are large sliding ones with human sized double doors. Scott
Scott, As promised here are my test cuts using my ORTUR laser cutter and the .116 TASK BOARD material. The results were good, but not super precise in some regards. Overall I’m not real happy with this TASK BOARD material to be honest. Due to its high paper pulp content, it tends to continue burning after the laser passes over it. I had to set my laser power at 100%, and the speed of the cuts faster than I would if using POLYBAK (laserboard), in order to get the cuts I did. I only had one sheet of this TASK BOARD material, and ran several single line test cuts prior to this final one. I’d say with additional time and adjustment I might be able to get better results. As you can see by this picture, the cuts were not completely through. The ORTUR laser is not exceptionally powerful and again not a top end unit. I am sure a more pricier and higher quality laser cutter would do better with this material. I found it better to complete the lines from the backside of the material using my X-Acto. Here is what I was not real pleased with, and that was one of the laser did not fully cut through and even when using my X-Acto some “fraying” was eminent. In fact this was evident in several areas on the back of the panel. More evidence of fraying and continued burning during the laser cut process.
The question is whether this TASK BOARD material is usable for the project at hand. It is but with some additional work and touch up. Something to consider would be to cut secondary panels for the outer skin, which would have the brick highlights. This would be done in thinner POLYBAK. Same with the inside walls. These could then be glued the TASK BOARD. Just a note: Using my poor man’s laser cutter, it took an hour and four minutes just to cut this piece. Again the results are mixed in my opinion. I’ll let you be the judge.
Lance, Thanks for the update and taking the time to document every thing! Yes, the TASKBOARD looks kinda rough. That is an interesting idea about sandwiching the TASKBOARD between the Polybak though. Scott
This was a good test though for my laser cutter. It gave me an understanding of what it can and cannot do. TASK BOARD I am sure has some uses on a laser cutter, but when it comes to model railroad buildings, I am convinced POLYBAK is more viable option.
So, I just want to throw something out there... You don't need to use thick material even if you need a thick wall! If you use 2 sheets of thinner material to make a wall, it will cut cleaner, and then just glue them together. Additionally, you can get relief that will hold window and door pieces if you make the bottom layer's door and window openings slightly smaller. Think layers.
