Really looks nice! Is any of this animated?
bobhwalker Really looks nice! Is any of this animated?
Thanks! So far only the Monorail and Lionel train move, but I'd love to get more movement. I may be getting a carousel soon.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Remember this picture when I tell you that it's time to retire the Astro Orbitor:
Nice touch Becky, the Astro-Orbiter perched on top of a film reel!
Very Hollywood!
Always has been. The second reel is my "temporary stand" to plant the tower on while I'm installing the base structure on the layout. Down at the bottom:
...the central core hides the extension cord that lights the model. The Orbitor was built around a dowell the same length as the height of the base structure. It's also identical in diameter to the hole in the center of the reel. The reels were a good choice (not only because they were cheap) because the "Rocket Tower" was supposed to have a representation of the Peoplemover on the middle deck:
And therin lies my plans for the future. Take it back to the Apollo inspired Rocket Jets of 1967:
The trick is going to be finding a turntable with a motor and gearbox that can run either off the 14 volt AC grid or a 110v extension cord. Either way, somewhere between 15 and 20 RPM lies my ideal turning speed. If successful, the Orbitor will be retired and replaced with a model that I don't have to turn with a bamboo pole!
Oh, and the second 35mm film reel was supposed to be for the Carousel of Progress:
A slow-moving turntable? Maybe you can find a old record player in a thrift or second-hand shop somewhere. Some were built to rotate as slow as 16rpm if I remember correctly, specifically for language course records or spoken-word records for the blind where hi-fidelity playback wasn't critical. And of course it would run off 110 volt AC house current.
I'll set up a saved search on ebay for one. Now that you mention it, I think I had one that ran from 16 to 78rpm at one time. The only other thing I could think of is a commercial display or maybe MicroMark would have something I could use. Well, I have time.
Model is moving along....
Looks like something NASA wished they had!
Well I checked out Micro-Mark and they have a 110v motor but it's geared for 2.5rpm which is a bit slow. I have a few plasic gears from things I salvaged over the years including one that's about 6 inches in diameter. If I can get a motor that can run slow enough I might be able to cobble up a drive system that could be mounted under the top deck of the tower. From these pics you can see the ceiling is sort of bowl shaped:
They're next:
This is going to be the biggest, most complicated paper model I've designed in years. Too bad I can't make these work!
deleted
After another day's design session:
Added the tower today:
Just about done with the 3d model:
Time for an update! First of all, here's "the gadget":
Any suggestions on how to deaden the noise? It will be housed in the "restaurant" below the jets and will have a central shaft to spin the ride. It's a Promax 180 motor by the way.
Concurrently, the last of the "originals" has been getting a facelift.
On the left is a photo from 2011 when the treehose was new and the image on the right shows the enhancements I always wanted it to have.
Most important to me was finding a way to add the water scooping system to the wheel:
Here's the real deal:
And my impression of it:
The trick was finding a "ladder-like" material that would be rigid enough to span the distance yet flexible enough to curve around the wheels of the "motor" if you will. I settled on plastic canvas. I cut out several rows of unwanted squares and was able to carve away the little nubs that remained well enough to be convincing. The bamboo scoops are just skinny plastic drinking straws with holes punched up top for attaching to the "rope ladder" and circles of cardstock glued to their bottoms. Painted a nice shade of banana they mimic bamboo well enough. The top ends are glued directly to the tree branches and there's actually a sort of mast hidden on the roof of the house that let me pull the tree limb taught with piano wire.
For water I stuck with hot glue spread over a painted surface. For an area this size it's fairly convincing and not as messy as the polyeurethane I used in 2011 (which soaked into the landscaping and left me with only damp sand rather than a shallow stream).
The bridge was originally a pale green but I decided to update it too.
But watch out!
Yes, that's a cannon peering out at you!
The other big "planned but never built" improvement I finally tackled involved a bit of cooking:
Ever wonder what happens when you overbake Sculpey clay?
It swells up a bit and starts smoking! Or maybe it was steam, at any rate, it stunk up the joint! This is WHITE clay by the way.
Oh well, the stove came out looking pretty good after I carved it back a bit!
The table is toothpicks, popsicle sticks and a tounge depressor but the china is dollhouse miniatures.
Finally, the kitchen floor is real shale rock. I laid it on a bed of Elmer's Glue-All and brushed the same glue over the surface of the flakes to give it a wet look. Then I went back and painted in the grout.
So there you go. A new and improved look for the last of the unenhanced or unreplaced original models of 2011.
Spectacular modeling Becky, as always!
Quieting that motor unit? I'd try greasing the gears, I see there's a worm gear plus a large conventional one. A light greasing of both may serve to quiet that rattling noise a bit. Try a bit of oil on the bearings/bushings as well.
You could also try boxing the unit. A dense box material around it should muffle the noise a bit.
Beyond that, I'm stumped.
Wayne
What a great job! I had forgotten about the buckets on the treehouse until now, but it is all coming back !
As for quieting the mechanis, I have 2 thoughts:
1. Gear mesh. You don't want the teeth bottomed out, but too much play would generate noise. If you can adjust the motor's position, it could help.
2. It may be inherent to the type of gear box, in which case not much can be done.
Try experimenting with the gear mesh. And a little grease
Just thought of something else, that brass support bar for the gear assembly looks a bit light. Try pressing your finger on it while the motor's operating and see if that deadens the noise a bit. Vibration of that brass could be causing some of the noise as well, if it is try "beefing" it up a bit.
Howdy Penny-- Wayne mentioned to me how impressive your latest project is that I thought "better check it out and see".
Love the floor, the chimney, the tree, the Everything!
Superb craftmanship and imagination.
Flintlock76that brass support bar
Yeah, it definitely needs some reinforcement. It wobbles!
Part of my problem is that my 3D modeling program doesn't allow me real world measurements. I can only guess at them when I unfold the model from 3D to 2D. And even then there's a lot of test printing and building to find out if what I have is really buildable. My last test gave me a first story structure (see image below) the right size to fit both the motor assy. and the scale the surrounding buildings were made in.
I want that big white rectangle to be about 6 cm tall. If I go with a 40cm diameter for the lower deck (round part), which is about the size of the 35mm film reel this will be replacing, then I end up with a total height of 58cm, which is taller than the castle. Worse, the ride vehicles end up closer to HO, which I'd like to avoid. So, I have to rescale the rocket cars and maybe the restaurant (The Lunching Pad) and try again.
Oh, and that gives me a total length of 127.3 cm for the Peoplemover. That's bigger than Big Thunder Mountain!
MiningmanSuperb craftmanship and imagination.
Thanks! I have a lot of fun!
Time to get back to work!
During disassembly back in January I took some key measurements. The old fashioned way!
This one is the key:
There's just no room to play with in this area since buildings are practically on top of one another already. So I had to know the exact diameter of the base of the original Astro Orbitor. It proved to be slightly less than 400mm.
Why do it in metric? Because most of the software I use was developed in Japan. Here's what the most critical component, Pepakura Designer 4, looks like:
I used 350mm wide for the lower level when I created the paper parts pages, which you can see in their basic form on the right. I wasn't 100% positive that my measurements were correct last fall. That coupled with time running out fast was why I stopped developing this model in October. Getting out that wood yardstick was essential. Now I can move forward knowing I'm 50mm inside the space previously occupied.
You'll notice that the 3-D model here isn't complete nor is it highly detailed. Well, each face, a space enclosed between vertices, adds another facet to what Pepakura has to do. So, why should I keep all 8 Astro Jet ride vehicles plus all of their associated ride hardware when I can copy the one finished (textured) model 7 times. Silmilarly the elevator tower will be drawn elsewhere, I just needed the dimensions.
Here's another neat trick Pepakura can do:
The dialog box is giving me the precise length of the long side of what appears here as a red rectangle. In actuality it's a box with two smaller boxes in the bottom and it will serve as the passenger compartment of the ride. The measurement, distance between two vertices in a 3-D environment, is 31.311mm, or just a hair over 3 cm, which should be ample space for 2 riders.
This is the path the Peoplemover will take:
It will head straight for the Monorail station then turn (split?) and head toward the wall:
Now I can get back to work on making it pretty:
Looks like it's coming along beautifully!
Oh, the metric system? While I believe that God in His wisdom put the Atlantic Ocean where it is to keep Europe's problems like Napoleon, Hitler, and the metric system far away from us, I have to admit the metric system does have it's uses from time to time.
Speaking of Disney, guess what I found?
Anyone remember this classic? Scared the hell out of me as a kid but I couldn't keep my eyes off him!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDYId2Ab1o8
A personal favorite:
See the show!
PS. This is the one that always scared me:
I live in an area with woods across the street and when I was a kid there was a bridal trail in there. So there were horses back in the 70's and it was very spooky at night.
Oh yeah, I don't know who's got the more frightening laugh, the Scarecrow or the Headless Horseman, both go through you like a knife!
Disney and his people were geniuses all right, not only could they make you happy and make you laugh, they could darn near give you a heart attack at times.
Great seeing Zorro again! Tyrone Power was the best Zorro, but Guy Williams came awful close.
Go get 'im Ty!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB8tiSMCwRE
It is with heavy heart I must announce that paper Disneyland has closed forever. However. It can avoid the trash compactor if one of you adopts it. So, I'm offering the entire layout to anyone who can come to Ohio and save it. But be aware, I won't have very long in this house and I won't have the ability to store it for very long. I'd much rather see it survive than have to destroy it.
Disneyland in storage:
Same me, different spelling!
Noooooooooo........
Sad news. I won't pry into the circumstances, they're none of my business, but this is sad to hear.
Nothing I can do, I'm 900 miles away. Anyone else? Kalmbach folks, are you looking in?
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