Kabuto Models; Details for your layout!

[cteno4]

Very cool Toni! Do they have the short, squat type propane can in japan for stuff like bbqs and stuff? Those might be festival cans.

 

SMd leds inside should not be an issue. They work fine in the kobaru ones and in the stryene tube ones you can make by hand. Only issue with lighting from below is that the smds are rectangular so harder to fit under a lantern. Would work with the lanterns that are on stone pillars.

 

Jeff

[Kabutoni]

Jeff, I have the 10kg tanks included as well, though it's not hard to make even smaller ones (5kg) if there is a demand. The propane tanks have all gone on sale already in N-gauge by the way!

• Propane tanks (16pc. x 2), 50kg (N-gauge) BETA;
• Propane tanks (16pc. x 2), 30kg (N-gauge) BETA;
• Propane tanks (32pc.), 20kg (N-gauge) BETA;
• Propane tanks (32pc.), 10kg (N-gauge) BETA;

Another idea with the lights is to have them printed and then moulded in a clear plastic to have a minimal loss of light strength. Kobaru however doesn't use UV-cured acrylic, but probably another type of spray-mould plastic with a higher temperature tolerance. First, let's do simple details before stepping onto the more prominent detail-wagon. ;)

 

P.s. Why wait when this is literally done in five minutes?

• Propane tanks (32pc.), 5kg (N-gauge) BETA;

Edited June 3, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[cteno4]

Yep those are the little guys! The 5kg.

 

No worries on the light transmission, you have to turn the suckers down actually. I fiddled with white stryene tube and sanded to lantern shape and it glowed at like 1/10 th the full current quote well. I dont think it would be an issue.

 

Hey how about a mix pack of tanks? Like 8 of each size?

 

Jeff

[Kabutoni]

Hey how about a mix pack of tanks? Like 8 of each size?

 

Like so? ;)

 

• Propane tank SUPER SET (56pc.), 5~50kg (N-gauge) BETA;

[cteno4]

You lettle devil You!

 

Jeff

[Kabutoni]

Heheheh.

 

And now for the next upcoming releases, community sign boards! I will release these in several gradations of detail. The one below is an example I found at a shrine in the neighbourhood (in Machida, Kanamori), which is a nice elaborate design, fitting for on religious grounds or somewhere in a touristy area.

 

 

Of course, I will also release simpler versions (steel versions) for roadside use. The basic colour for these will be a brownish woody colour with white details at the end of the struts and a dark tar roof.

[cteno4]

Ohh great! Yes these are all over the place! Now for those that don't want to cut out small bits of paper to go on them you could take photos of some of the boards and we could just print out a piece to paste on!

 

Other things would be more station elements like trash and recycle bins or small vendor stands, not much has been done down that direction to spice up kato, tomix and green max platforms! Maybe bundles of newspapers and magazines. Open plastic Crates of bento boxes! Platform signs and advertising sign holders.

 

Jeff

[Kabutoni]

As of this morning available! 5-types of announcement boards for on the layout! These are all based on examples only a few blocks from where I live, so if that is not Japanese enough, I don't know what is ;)

 

• Community signs, small set, N-scale BETA;

Today, I will start on more domestic details for the layout, such as public mail boxes, boilers, propane tank houses, gas meters, roadside mirrors, fire extinguisher boxes, flower pots, walls and trash bins. I'll probably release most of these in a big packaged sets for your convenience! :)

[cteno4]

Perfecto! These are the great bits not usually done! When our club president was living in Iwate for a couple of years a while back I asked him to snap pictures of the neighborhoods, sidewalks, gutters, etc, all the mundane things that are usually tuned out and rarely modeled but are really the filler to make things turn from model to real in the mind's eye!

 

Jeff

[Kabutoni]

Yes, these little things are always overseen by everybody, although they are omnipresent! How about the trash cans next to vending machines? There are quite a lot of designs out there. I've decided to do two of them I just photographed in front of the local doctor's office.

 

 

P.s. Aaaaand it's on sale: 

• Trash can set (6x2), N-scale BETA;

Edited June 4, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[Kabutoni]

A quick update on my second printed train, the Sneltram Utrecht 5000 type that arrived an hour ago.

 

 

The acrylic body and bogie details turned out great! I'm very surprised (again) to see so much detail come out and the material being so sturdy as well. It's fragile when you try to bend it too much, but because I have made the design to be both solid and easy to snap where the parts need to come off, it's well worth the test. I don't think it needs many adjustments before putting it up for sale. The bogie details slide perfectly in the Tomytec bogies as well and easily snap off the connection 'sprues'.

 

 

The nylon chassis is terrible however... I kind of expected this to happen, but that it would be this bad was not expected. It has been a good pilot on the connections with the bodyshell and the test with the radius, which turns out it can be even tighter than R140! This means the connections can stay where they are.

 

 

The outer bogies also slide perfectly from under the body to allow for tight corners.

 

 

Anyway, I'll be stepping off the idea of having a different type of material for the chassis and simply combine the body and chassis in the commercial version. The centre bogie also needs a redesign, as the wheels seem to be slipping and sliding all over the place, making the bogie derail. The motor also can't be mounted because of stupid miscalculations... The drive axle seems like it works and is in the correct length though!

 

So, back to the drawing board and prepare this baby for further development! It shouldn't take long before it is ready to go.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[Densha]

If you're combining the body and chassis, wouldn't it be difficult to install the windows and possibly interior?

[Kabutoni]

It's a combimed print, but the body and chassis are still separate. The only difference is an increase in quality and actually not in price in the end.

[Kabutoni]

Primed the model a bit (it's not perfect, I know), so the details (and print lines...) come out nicely. It is also on sale in Japan through DMM as well: http://make.dmm.com/item/282944/

 

 

 

I have revised the chassis design and it is now being prepped for printing at DMM. This time it should be near perfect; good enough for an amateur model train startup firm like me.

 

Anyway, continuing with designing those little details:

 

 

A bog standard mail box that is standing in front of the local ghetto convenience store. Will be about 1cm high.

 

And these things:

 

 

The mirrors. They are everywhere and come in all kinds of forms (size is usually the same). I want to make a single mirror, double with extended arms and an 90˚ corner, and maybe one with a crooked pole. If there are any other ideas, please let me know!

Edited June 5, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[Guest ___]

OMG - I have to order so many of those! If I ever start to build my new layout in Mertyl Beach, gonna need so many torii. My last two trips to Japan, was for shrine visits. I spent more time buying omamori than shooting trains with the camera

[Kabutoni]

Thanks Shashinka! Kabuto Models will be preparing for your visit (read: produce more shrine related stuff).

 

Also, here is a fun comparison image of a Modemo made Enoden 1000 type next to the freshly primed SUNIJ 5000 type. Even though it is in scale 1:160 instead of 1:150, it is pretty comparable in size and quality (ignoring the print lines).

 

[cteno4]

Dude good work again on both. Only mirror I've seen was a super simple one from kato if memory serves me right...

 

Tram she'll looks about there!

 

Jeff

Edited June 6, 2015 by cteno4

[kvp]

Everything looks good so far! For the tram, you'll have to make some kind of gangeway between the two cars, that closes most of the gap, but still allows movement through S curves. The usual solution (used by Piko from the 60ies) is to have a smaller one fixed to the bogie overlapping with the cars, with a gap between them. This allows curve running and the gap is not visible from any sides. (http://www.1zu160.net/umbau/piko-dosto-umlackierung.php)

[Kabutoni]

For the gangway, I wanted to develop a paper slide-in option. For this, I already have made slots at the ends of the bodies, so the paper gangway can just slide in and be fixed (optional). I'm not a fan of plastic gangways, as they are too static. Thin paper offers flexibility, as well as more realism IMO.

 

I have just released a (rather expensive, due to the volume) wall set by the way! These are a bit simplified designs from around the neighbourhood where I live:

• Wall set 1, N-gauge BETA;

I'm planning a 2nd wall set, as these are very simple designs. It's not like I live in an upper-class place (in fact an old ghetto), so I'll be looking around for some more fancy designs in the meantime.

Edited June 8, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[cteno4]

Toni,

 

Wonder if these might work in somemofmthemcheaper plastics due to the simpler detail and rectangular forms? Maybe hollow out in places for less volume or are they too thin for that?

 

Jeff

[Kabutoni]

Jeff,

 

I discovered that the problem with Shapeways, is that when it becomes a bit more volume, the price increases... The walls are about 1mm thick, so it's a bit hard to make them thinner. The walls have now been extruded to a point where it's not compromising the stability and the price has significantly dropped from the original, but it's still not the cheapest. Then again, it's quite a lot of walls you'll be getting.

 

Printing in a different material isn't an option, since the details are very fine on the walls. Maybe for these kind of things, lasercutting is a better option. Still, I keep them open for purchase, since there might be interested people.

 

Toni

[kvp]

You might try packing them in closer. That way they would take up less space in the printer, so it might result in a cheaper price. Also the direction they are printed results in different print qualities. For example, packing the tram chassis in 45 degrees can result in horizontal printing edges around the bogie holes that could result in more friction and problems with assembly. (i'm assuming that the original item packing direction is kept during printing and all models print with the Z axis up)

 

ps: The presence of printing lines is the reason why printing a shell flat and assembling it by hand can result in a better look than printing a fully assembled shell.

[Kabutoni]

Arrangement of the pieces doesn't make a difference in price. It's volume that is the perpetrator. I'm not very sure when printing in liquid uv-cured acrylic polymer the angle has any influence, but I've ordered a 2nd print of the same tram at 180 degrees, instead of 45. Let's see what the difference is there.

 

Although flat printing may give a better result im some cases, there is always some filing to do. I also don't like glueing.

[Kabutoni]

Another new product announced! This time it's flower pots:

• Flower pot SET 1, N-gauge;

Something for EVERY layout where your residents care about a little piece of nature closeby.

 

P.s. I have updated the wall set again and managed to reduce the price once more. Lowering the material volume seems the key at Shapeways. The corner walls however had to be removed to keep it reasonable. For this, I will develop a new extension set, which will also be available as a combined set later.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[westfalen]

I just discovered this thread, I've been busy the last few days and just been skimming over the forums.  A lot of useful stuff there that no one makes or you have to buy a Kato or Tomix detail set to get one of the item you want ten of and fifty other things you don't want.

 

I may have to try Shapeways out now they are offering USPS to Australia, last time I looked they only had UPS which was even more expensive and wouldn't ship to post office boxes.