Colour help & Furniture

[Lawrence]

My daughter bought me Greenmax No 17 kit, the over rail covered walkway (old wooden style), as my layout will be generic and not any particular line, could anyone recommend a colour scheme for painting it.

Also, do any of you guys happen to know of anyone who produces office or hotel furniture, had a look on HW & HS without any success.

Thanks

[bikkuri bahn]

If you are modeling the modern era, an off white or grey color would be the most prototypical.  Earlier eras would likely be greenish grey, or "natural" color (faded weatherstained brown?), as anything light colored would be stained by steam locomotive soot.

[quinntopia]

Hi Lawrence,

N Scale furniture - beyond picnic tables, benches, and luggage handling equipment has been almost non-existent.  I've had to resort to scratch-building most of mine in the past.  I did recently find and order some furniture from an outfit in Germany.  Here's the link if your interested:

http://www.luetke-modellbahn.de/shop/index.php?cPath=92_142

[Lawrence]

Hi Lawrence,

N Scale furniture - beyond picnic tables, benches, and luggage handling equipment has been almost non-existent.  I've had to resort to scratch-building most of mine in the past.  I did recently find and order some furniture from an outfit in Germany.  Here's the link if your interested:

http://www.luetke-modellbahn.de/shop/index.php?cPath=92_142

You can be assured I have been through your blog several times  and was inspired by your furniture production, I even made an office chair myself but got the scale a bit wrong and ended up with something that would not go amiss in a junior school 

I checked out the link too, but got scared off by the prices 

I will persevere though and will pick up some more scratchbuild materials this weekend 

[Kamiyacho]

I enjoy interior modelling as much as anyone and have learned that you need to keep in mind the ultimate display environment.  If you will have interior lighting and the building will be either up near the front edge of the layout or featured in close-up photos, then it is well worth the effort to make a detailed interior.  But if there is no interior lighting or it is set back a bit, a simple interior will convey the same feeling as a highly detailed one.

That said, I have spent time painting the precast interiors, hanging signs and placing figures in Kato buildings without interior lights on my portable Unitram set.  But I do it just for my own enjoyment - not because anyone is ever likely to really see it. 

[cteno4]

there are some chairs and tables done by faller. while they are patio chairs the can work inside at n scale

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/fal/fal272441.htm?source=froogle

and presser

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/psr/psr79554.htm?source=froogle

and gold metal etched brass basic chairs

http://www.goldmm.com/nscale/gmnsctyp.htm  (no picture, if you are interested ill scan mine)

and fancy cast iron patio furniture

http://ngineering.com/Tables.jpg

ill try and dig out my little experiments using fun foam and strip styrene and wire to make some simple couches and chairs and take some pictures. these were pretty convincing at a foot away and pretty easy to make with the chopper to cut up little bits to assemble. easy to make several of the kinds of tables in quinntopia's reference.

for regular plain chairs i would just use the gold metal or preiser chairs as trying to roll your own with tiny legs would be a lot of time!

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

I looked and cant find my table and chair tests, put away somewhere...

so i fiddled for a minute tonight with a couple of the ideas that i had thought worked well and were pretty easy.

first was the fun foam couch. simple chunks of fun foam glued together. second is a metal tubing chair for a desk or conference table.

cheers

jeff

[quinntopia]

Whoa! Jeff! That chair looks amazing!  Exactly how did you create that? 

The sofa as well...really impressive looking!  I've never heard of 'fun foam' before....is it like foam board?

[Lawrence]

That really is a bit of genius Jeff, love it

[cteno4]

thanks guys. actually these are pretty simple and easy to do. the fun foam is 2mm thick foam rubber sheets you can get at the craft store cheap. cuts really easily with the chopper (http://www.nwsl.com/tools/cutting-tools-the-choppers-i-ii-iii). just chopped up bottom piece, a back and two ends and glued them together. like 3 mintues.

chair was just 34g wire that i bent up into the chair shape. then two little pieces of construction paper for the seat and back. would probably work better with 0.004" stainless rod as its a bit stiffer.

i played a bit with bending some 010 x .100 styrene strip into a basic plastic S chair shape and that might work, but is going to take something to hold its form. thinking that construction paper will work better.

on the tables i had built i had mounted them on square and tubular seed beads, but could bend up wire pretty easily like the chair to make U legs.

was thinking of how you could easily make a roll around 5 arm base chair. wondering if there is some tiny seed bead or sequin that would work...

cheers

jeff

[Kamiyacho]

Great work on the sofa and chair.  I've also made some tables and planters from beads.  You are absolutely right that wandering around in a craft store can lead you to a lot of interesting things.

[Bernard]

The sofa looks great but the chair....that's amazing! Bending the wire to match on both sides is hard for me, but your chair looks flush to the floor. What is your secret to getting the sides to match?

[cteno4]

Great work on the sofa and chair.  I've also made some tables and planters from beads.  You are absolutely right that wandering around in a craft store can lead you to a lot of interesting things.

yeah but i do feel self conscious after a while in there as i find the staff looks at me funny (maybe i just look funny in there, i am its usually about 95% female in AC Moore!). i think its because its not the normal looking directly for something search that you end up doing! they probably think im shoplifting!

btw, http://www.fusionbeads.com is a great online place to find small beads and parts that can be used for this sort of stuff cheap, no min order and free usps shipping!

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

Bernard,

i make a long U first and then just bend both sides at once with the needle nose pliers. trick is to make sure to have teh bend edge of the pliers perpendicular to the wire.

heres a sequence. i used 26g copper wire to show up better in the pictures, the more scale 34g wire which does not photo so well!

1. star with a long U with the bend end being the top of the back of the chair

2. make plier perpendicular to the wire for bend

3. bend back

4. bend leg down

5. bend bottom feet back

6. nip off with some to bend back connection

7. finis!

at $1.29 for a spool of 34g wire you can make chairs for less than a penny a piece! i have some fine nichrome wire coming which i hope will be a bit stiffer for fine bending. the 0.004" stainless wire (0.6" scale) is a bit too fine and the .012" a bit too bit (1.8" scale). have not found stiffer, straight stuff between those sizes yet, but the chair works from with the softer spool wires.

cheers

jeff



cheers

jeff

[brill27mcb]

Jeff, if you change the sofa design slightly, you could have a shrink's office. Tissue?  :-)

Rich K. (does Tomytec offer "Seated Human with Notepad"?)

[cteno4]

ok rich, heres your dr freud and patient on his chaise lounge. unfortunately the notes are blank, maybe a reflection of the figure as you cant read anything on his face!

cheers

jeff

[quinntopia]

Jeff...this is just brilliant! Thanks for sharing your technique!

[cteno4]

Quinntopia, you are most welcome.

turns out you can get all sorts of nice tiny diameter straight stainless steel wire and tubing on amazon cheap and qualifies for super saver shipping.

search on

Stainless Steel Wire Straightened and Stainless Steel Hypodermic thin wall Tubing

cheers

jeff

[Lawrence]

Jeff

would something like this do the job

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beading-Wire-34-Gauge-Silver/dp/B002C7D8JY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294996443&sr=1-1

[Kumo]

I guess I'll be able to order tons of those to my girlfriend! She's a jeweler, so she's used to work at this scale and even smaller!
 

Nice work anyway! :-)

[Bernard]

LOL Jeff - It's like"give you a situation and see if you can model it" challenge. 

[brill27mcb]

Jeff, that's terrific!

Rich K.

[cteno4]

Rich K.: Doc, im spending all my time and money on japanese model trams, ive become obsessed! i see tomix street rail shapes when i close my eyes, i dream of different layouts to setup the next day...

Doc: Zzooo do you think this has something to do with your mother?

well you make up the therapy dialog!

jeff

[cteno4]

Jeff

would something like this do the job

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beading-Wire-34-Gauge-Silver/dp/B002C7D8JY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294996443&sr=1-1

Lawrence,

yep that looks like the same stuff i picked up here in the craft store for $1.29. its nice scale, bit thin though. one issue with beading wire is its of a composition to be more flexible so the chair may crush with anything falling on it. the other issue is having to straighten the wire out before bending. on thin stuff this can be a challenge, but the chairs are so tiny that unless you are doing really close macro shots you will never see any of the little kinks.

on searching Amazon UK i dont see all the wonderful micro straightened stainless steel wires that are on Amazon.com unfortunately. If you want to try some of the cool thin stiffer wires drop me a pm and i can send you some pieces, i have a nice selection of them coming soon here and there will be an ample supply!

cheers

jeff

[rankodd]

A bit lat to the party, but that's some amazing work with that chair!

Jeff - you need a collection of how-to's for your work! You've got so much to teach us aspiring scratch builders :)

As for the German N-scale furniture, it looks simple enough that I might be able to duplicatie it with my Proxxon micro mill...

[cteno4]

Rankodd,

thanks, i try to post them here and to the jrm site as i have time to write them up and take some photos.

again these are pretty simple to do, just need to get the fine wire and a good pair of tweezer nose pliers!

actually that german office furniture could be done easily with a few packs of evergreen strip styrene and one of the little choppits

http://www.micromark.com/Chop-It,9547.html

cool you have the micro mill. ive looked at it, but not enough need to sink the $$ into it. i did pickup micro mark's x/y table for my drill press to do some simple milling.

cheers

jeff

[rankodd]

Rankodd,

thanks, i try to post them here and to the jrm site as i have time to write them up and take some photos.

I haven't spent much time at the JRM site yet. I'll take a good look around there, next.

again these are pretty simple to do, just need to get the fine wire and a good pair of tweezer nose pliers!

I'd never have figured that one out by myself, though. Seeing what you've done opens up a whole new range of ideas...

actually that german office furniture could be done easily with a few packs of evergreen strip styrene and one of the little choppits

http://www.micromark.com/Chop-It,9547.html

I've actually got a Micromark Chop-it, as well as a duplicate-it, and whatever the 3rd "-it" kit was. I've also got an Anaconda 2" mitre/chop saw on the way. I like to have the right tool for the job...

Looking at the pictures of the original, I'm 100% sure that they're using a CNC mill to make it. The chairs, in particular, would be difficult to reproduce without using at least a drill press.

cool you have the micro mill. ive looked at it, but not enough need to sink the $$ into it. i did pickup micro mark's x/y table for my drill press to do some simple milling.

I looked long and hard at a lot of options before I picked it up. It seems that a true mill would be very useful for modelling - I've just received it and haven't had much of a chance to play yet. I can see myself all sorts of surface details and texturing, for example. I've also got a kit to convert it to CNC, but I'll have to get some experience running it manually first.

[cteno4]

i was poking around the other day for doll house furniture stuff for Mark's Koban and found this great site for making 1/144 doll house furniture. she did a nice little jig with a couple of small squares of wood to bend her wire, i just eyeballed it with the tweezer nose pliers!

great stuff and very doable, im going to work on some, i need some patio furniture for my house under repair scene.

http://www.btz.se/minis/DIY/index.php#144

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

ok heres another amazing bit of tiny tiny tiny detailing you can get into for your layout. this guy does amazing 1/144 scale work, click on the 1/144 scale link on the right

http://www.nanotray.com/

his chess set is amazing, but the working foot treadle lathe is awesome as well as his chairs.

after seeing some of the things he was turning i started to fiddle some thing weekend and was able to actually make some scale 10" dia flower pots w/ bases! also made an n scale grande latte, but it flew off the lathe just as i was finishing it! i have to put down a black cloth under the lathe area to catch things like this and keep shaking it out. also made an HO scale wine glass about 3.5mm high, i had a wood one about 2.5mm but it broke up near the end. this is something that will take some real practice, but its very fast to do and try things and much better than when i was a kid and would spend a couple of evening turning a salad bowl only to have it split right near the end! right now i have pretty crappy wood so trying to get some more fine grained dowels to play with and then also make a much better micro lathe system.

anyhow quite fun, next is noodle bowls!

cheers

jeff

[quinntopia]

I seem to be notice a few private artisans getting into the N Scale interior furniture area...some of these pretty cool:

Store shelves, etc
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Detail-Interior-parts-unpainted-10pcs-N-scale-/110845532619?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item19cee899cb&autorefresh=true

Restaurant
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Detail-Interior-parts-donut-doughnut-shop-3-N-scale-/110845535285?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item19cee8a435

Pool table and arcade games 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Interior-parts-POOL-table-arcade-machines-pinball-and-jukebox-N-scale-5pcs-/110845533921?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item19cee89ee1

[cteno4]

wow nice stuff and so far looks to be going for reasonable prices until it gets popular that is!

something i would love to do in retirement!

jeff

[nik_n_dad]

We've bought a number of interior and exterior details from this company.  Nice stuff.  Comes painted or unpainted if you're so inclined.  There's several pages of stuff....

http://modeltechstudios.com/nscaledetailaccessories.aspx

[cteno4]

hmm interesting pieces and reasonable prices! like the bird set!

http://modeltechstudios.com/sscalebirdsbirds8pack-1.aspx

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

here some papercraft interiors for sort of little doll houses of small shops. some interesting parts that could be printed out in 1/150 and use to paste onto building interior bits.

http://paperm.jp/craft/dollhouse/index.html

jeff