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  1. Today
  2. Im back again with some more Koki and containers, You cant see them but I got two Kato cases one for the Koki and one for locomotives.
  3. Yesterday
  4. 1/150 was specifically chosen to make n gauge track look a bit smaller for cape gauge and why shinkansens are 1/160 on N gauge for standard gauge track. works as 1/160 shinkansens and the rest of the 1/150 trains are not on the same tracks usually and thus not right next to each other. Shinkansens also tend to be big looking as well so cover up the difference some visually. The legend is many Japanese steamers work out more like 1/140 to help enhance their size on n gauge track as cape gauge. I’ve always assumed they did a similar thing in HO, but never specifically heard that called out. Yes the high end mostly hand made brass producers can put out a small number of models in non standard scales for very small niche markets to those that can afford them. Difference in them making brass 1/80 or 1/87 is just resizing the etching. Probably some work for any detail castings to be redone, but I expect they may cheat on some of those. But that’s not a Hornby type roll out. For that they need injection moulding and as you note it is a big upfront cost and larger production runs to make profitable, thus a certain sized market to sell enough to pay off the ROI. The good thing about the Japanese model train market is its huge, the biggest in the world by far. That means a niche could get some numbers. The bad news with that huge market is once a standard is entrenched it’s really hard to get users and manufacturers to change on that big of a scale, so it forces any change to come from a niche market and probably a niche manufacturer that proves popular and growing market, and even then it will need to get huge before the major manufacturers would probably shift to a different or dual standards. jeff
  5. https://www.imon.co.jp/models/goods468.MBR/oyubari vs https://www.imon.co.jp/models/goods426.mbr/oyubari Correlation is not causation. One of these sets is 1/87, one is 1/80. Both sets have the same cars, the same manufacturer, the same material/technology and the same price. These models aren't expensive due to scale being niche or due to being hard to produce in this specific scale, these models are expensive, because they are top-end brass models. In case of injection molding, the tooling (mold) is very expensive to design and manufacture (around 100k Euro for a basic mold), but the cost of one production cycle is extremely low. That's why mass-produced models are cheap - production cost per item has been reduced to minimum, and high cost of starting production is split between thousands of items of the same type. 3D printing isn't as cheap per item as injection molding, but there is no item-specific tooling. That's why it's good for prototyping and small scale manufacturing. @Kamome no idea where did you get 1/118 from, but "two-in-one" scales are a no-go for me, and 1/118 would make TT scale unusable (see containers). Tillig already makes 12mm gauge TT track with concrete sleepers, but I haven't seen slab track track in TT yet. @Modellbahn JP do you happen to know why there is 1/150 and 1/80 instead of 1/160 and 1/87?
  6. Martijn Meerts

    BNFL Loco 2. I've saved it for preservation

    Now that's a detailed model train 😄
  7. railsquid

    Takahachikawa

    And that time was today: takahachikawa-2024-03-18_02 by Rail Squid, on Flickr It was worth trimming the circular bits which stop the supporting poles sinking too far into the platform, as they look a little oversize when viewed through the cruel lens of the camera.
  8. Kamome

    Tomix - New Releases

    Also if anyone fancies DF200-201 in Ai Mi livery in HO, the first run already ran out. Sales resume this coming Friday. https://www.tec-station.jp/shop/g/g4543736969419/
  9. New Episode! #142 Riding in Style: Exploring Japan's Tourist Trains March 29, 2024 In 2023, Japan Railway Journal showcased 10 tourist trains running throughout the country. Join us as we examine the results of an online poll about these trains. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/japanrailway/20240328/2049141/
  10. Ummmmmmmmmmmm, About twice yeah Im a brut.
  11. You have been unlucky this past year. This has gotta be for 3rd or 4th I've-broken-something thread.
  12. ROI (return on investment)is the main concern. Why Japan has chosen 1/80 as opposed to 1/87 I don't know. I'm sure someone on this forum knows why the scale was chosen, but like most things in Japan, I would assume adopted from pre-existing technology. As Japan is slightly unique in using different track gauges for mainstream traffic, they have obviously found a happy medium to create scale-ish models to run on existing 16mm track. The main manufacturers have already invested large amounts of cash into tooling their track, train and scenery items so a new product would unlikely attract a swathe of new customers, but perhaps only make some modellers change scales. (zero ROI - you sell more of something, but less of another) There are some benefits to creating a new scale, you can undo the scale choice mistakes that were made in the early stages of model railway history but it is difficult to compete with the huge ranges from multiple well-established manufacturers. Starting again you can create trains, track and scenery with appropriate scaling as Hornby have been doing with TT:120. It's still too early to tell whether Hornby's risk will pay off. If it does, you may see other manufacturers trying something in the future. They'll probably be watching the progress closely. As an idea only, it makes a lot of sense, and the models look to the same detail level as 00, all are DCC compatible and you can fit more into a smaller space without the same dexterity challenges you face with N. It's really only the speed at which Hornby can put new products into the range to grow the interest and justification to choose TT:120 over the wealth of options in the mainstream alternatives. Time will tell, but as a company that again seems to be facing financial challenges, they may not have enough cash flow to keep the project alive. In Japan, Imon found a niche market so that you can have 1/87 scale trains on 12mm track alongside 1/87 scale shinkansen on 16mm track. No one else has deemed in commercially viable to enter this market as model prices are at the upper end of the hobby. Shinkansen are made in 1/87 and regular trains are generally made in 1/80 across all other manufacturers in brass and plastic to run on 16mm. I would also argue that culturally, Japan doesn't change things very often. This can be true across many areas of Japanese life. Not to say that is wrong, but any reform ideas are usually a very long drawn out process. With 3D printing becoming cheaper and more accessible who knows what competition will appear. One idea might be to produce something like 1/118 or 1/120 scale trains that run on 9mm track, but then you'd have to consider what to do about shinkansen that would need something like 12mm track.
  13. Last week
  14. b.nice2000

    Twisted Tower.. N-scale

    Twisted building, printed in black/gold two-colour PLA silk.. Yellow transparent windows Next to the base is an N-scale boxcar I made to give a size comparison.
  15. Martijn Meerts

    H0e forest railways with H0 branch line

    In between the cleaning of the attic after the AC installation causing a bit of a mess and a lot of dust, I've been working on the EF66. All the air vents are soldering in place, and the doors on 1 end of the loco are also in place. The doors are actually the door itself, as well as the recessed bit to the left of the door. Eventually some grab bars will be installed here. I've also temporarily installed the cab roof and nose, so it already looks a little like an EF66 🙂 Filming is also continuing. I'm probably close to 3 hours of video already. Video could be better, but I'll leave the camera in the position where it's out, so at least for 'part 1' the camera angle will be the same throughout. I did come across a major annoyance with using the phone as camera. I back up all my photos to my Google drive, but the Photos app also backs up all video. This takes up a rather large amount of space, and takes a long time to sync. There is also no way of telling the app to only do photos and skip videos. On top of that, the phone's USB connection to transfer files is rather slow. I might have a look at something like a GoPro at some point, maybe when there's a sale on them. Would probably make things a bit easier.
  16. Martijn Meerts

    Project party 2023 voting

    Just a quick bit of info. Due to life and work and the attic being a bit of a mess after the AC installation work (I had to clear lots of space and the attic was the obvious room to temporarily place furniture and other things ...), I've not quite had the ability to go through my collection and decide which ones you get to pick from. It will happen though, sooner or later 😄 @MeTheSwede Feel free to send me a PM with what kinda stuff you're interested in 🙂
  17. Manufacturers need to see a potential market to think about jumping in. The smaller the market, the higher the production cost and retail price and thus that diminishes the already small potential market. Basic economics. Something has to show them there is a potential market big enough to take the risk. Small companies don’t have the reserves for testing a market or having a product not sell. Asking a small company to blindly dive in hope a market appears is not good business, it’s complete gambling in a bad way (ie not knowing the odds on the hand you are playing). jeff
  18. I expect to print something affordable soon. If only single manufacturer tried to hop on the bandwagon. ホキ800 / 936形 and DD12 / 912形 are examples of rolling stock used on both 1067mm and Shinkansen network, so 1/87 is be the optimum.
  19. cteno4

    New layout project: Sakuragi no yu sen

    Yeah the bits are insidious once they get statically charged with the sanding process (even metal knife cutting gets some charge on the bits). Vacuuming every few minutes really helps! A dust mask couldn’t hurt, but the dust doesn’t really float up into the air (unless you are using a power tool to cut or sand), it just kind of sticks to your hands and then everything else! Dust mask just keeps you from rubbing your nose. Like sir Maddog at times I will pull a partial sheet of plywood or plastic tub out and find one side coated with foam dust where it found a good charged surface to settle on and the sharp little edges of the foam then make it hang on! But do watch your eyes and nose as we touch our faces so much not being aware of it at all! After rubbing my eyes and nose once I learned! But I do enjoy using sand paper and small rasps to shape foam a lot, nice feeling to it and I like the effects I get over a hot knife and just put up with the foam dust and vacuum a lot. hot knifes get rid of the dust problem, but then it’s avoiding the nasty fumes. Main issue in working with hot knives is it’s harder to sculpt things as cleanly as you can with a few bits of rough sandpaper. Also once you make a cut it melts a bit of the foam onto the surface like a skin and can leave a thicker line of melted material at the try and exit points and any hesitation points. Sanding through this skin is a lot harder than sanding the foam so you have to be much more careful not to gouge into the soft foam. Most get around this by using hot knife to get a close shape then apply plaster cloth or a lot of plaster to create the final form/shapes. I did tons of full scale rock forms for some exhibit mockups and rock mould forms and I cut tons of xps foam this way, and it worked well for big full scale stuff, but for small stuff I never liked it much and much preferred sandpaper, steak knife, and vacuum method, then much less or no plaster. But scenery methods like this are very much an art that you need to judge in your own hands to see what works best with your hands and gets the results you want! if you do go hot cutter I would suggest a rod or stiff wire cutter as they are the most versatile. Bow hot wire cutters melt a lot less but are hard to do much past cutting the initial shape due to getting the wire where you want it. Hot knife cutters as well are more limited in where you can poke them. Again YouTube is your friend, tons of Hotwire foam videos out there. There are tons of cheap Hotwire cutter sets now. You don’t need a fancy one, they are pretty simple. Variable temp ones of course are nicer to dial in your cutting needs. again this is a tool to take some scrap foam and play with to get the hang of it before diving in on your scenery pieces. again really need to do this outdoors and with a little fan or wind if you can as those fumes are super noxious. cheers jeff
  20. Tony Galiani

    How did you improve your rolling stock?

    Tomytec JR Shikoku 1500 - This turned out to be much more of a challenge and a struggle than I expected but I finally completed (or almost completed it) this weekend. Story of how I ended up with some JR Shikoku rolling stock deleted! I purchased a Tomytec power unit for it and expected a relatively easy conversion - which it wasn't though part of that is due to my doing some extra detailing. Some was due to a tough fit for some of the parts. Using a web site that purports to have a picture of every JR DMU I went through the pictures and noted the weathering and relevant details. I like the modern with retro elements color scheme but it turns out that the air dams and light green color don't weather all that well so I scaled back my weathering plans to make it look like a relatively new unit. In looking at the second batch of 1500 series, the lower air dams were painted dark green which works much better. So ... I drilled out the holes to place the two roof pods and installed them, painted the couplers and underfloor equipment to get rid of the plastic look, added curtains to hide the mechanism (and should have added more), painted the shiny metal weights of the Tomytec power unit grimy black so that they stand out less, used Tamiya panel accent of the fan housing, painted the bogie dampers grimy black, added just a tough of black paint and chalk by the exhaust and added some brown weathering chalk to the bogies and underfloor gear. Photos show that axle boxes and springs get pretty dirty while the central portion of the bogie does not seem to pick up as much dirt. The rooftop housing should not be as shiny as it is but my first trip with clear flat did not work well. Have some ideas to improve that but want to take a break from the model for a bit before I try them. Also, there is a diaphragm piece at one end - I have trimmed it per the instructions and painted it but it is not installed yet. The front air dams fit will on the static model but not so much on the powered chassis so after installing them - multiple times as they no longer fit well - I decided to call the model done for now. From other posts on the forum I see that going back to add more touches to a model is common so maybe a touch more work in the future. But for now, I have plenty of projects in the queue. Ciao, Tony
  21. Kamome

    New layout project: Sakuragi no yu sen

    Kato/Woodland Scenics sell a hot cutter too. https://www.imon.co.jp/webshop/product/167762
  22. SL58654号

    New layout project: Sakuragi no yu sen

    @cteno4 Many thanks. I hope I don't wind up inhaling this stuff and polluting my home with it! But I'm sure I'll be getting the desired result I want with this foam for my layout in no time.
  23. The Assy part replaces the light housing but there’s no parts to replace the damaged deck or light channels so I’d say you chalk this one up as a lesson. Will be a pain to try and rebuild this. Its only snowy areas that use these so other modelled areas use the red reflectors as @disturbman suggested.
  24. Repair it to look like a normal Koki and get a new one with a tail light. That would be the less headache inducing solution. L As a side note, you don’t need one with a tail light to make a prototypical consist. You can just use those reflective red panels 🙂
  25. Sir Madog

    New layout project: Sakuragi no yu sen

    When I built my mini-modular layout more than a decade ago, I used foam to shape the landscape. When we moved to our new home last yea, I still found bits and pieces of that foam hidden behind and underneath the furniture, and even in a closet.
  26. So with my limited knowledge of Koki I accidentally messed up the rear light on my Kato Koki. The way I did that was by filing off the housing that holds the light tubes because I couldn't get a container to fit flush on the Koki. The LEDs still work and there is a replacement Z08-0724 (Koki 107 tail hand pickpocket/handle) that replaces the light tube. I've included a pic of the carnage for your viewing pleasure. I've ordered some fiberoptic filament that I'm planning to run from the light source to the railing to project light. My only qualm is how to replicate the housing that holds the tube. I've been thinking about making a 3D-printed housing but that's going to be tough. Got any suggestions to make this Koki functional once again as a rear car?
  27. Zeether

    Japanese Music

    My work playlist is all T-Square and Casiopea, they make some really nice fusion tunes.
  28. I basically approach it as "it's your world, you make it how you want", as long as you enjoy it then there's no reason to fret over things looking prototypical.
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