Amusement Park Diorama

[Bernard]

Sorry I couldn't participate in this years project party....but finally I have some time and I've been toying with this idea for some time. All the structures are HO scale. (I wished it was N but what can you do :( ) 
In the past I'm built some Amusement rides and decided to start putting them together in a diorama.
Here are some photos of the structures positioned on the base......I have a swimming pool that will be located at the entrance, then there will be a gate to the rides. Here are some photos of what I planning to do. 

[cteno4]

Bernard,

very fun! i have a soft spot for those as well and have been collecting n scale ones over the years (got most all of them except for the jupiter and the octopus, those go for ridiculous amounts and i think i can scratch build them). keep hoping to do some little amusement park sometime. cool thing about doing it in japan is that things are nice and crammed together so makes life easier. i really want a wild mouse faller roller coaster in HO and then downscale the cars to be 2x the rows of n scale people in them. even thought is a small roller coaster its still pretty big. lots of fun when its going though!

i keep looking at auctions of some of the great animated HO rides and thinking i may grab a few cheap for the guts of the animation and then scratch build the rest to n scale, there are sooo many cool ones in HO!

ill be waiting to see what you come up with, looks like great fun!

jeff

[Bernard]

Jeff - Finding good small motors and re-tooling these rides is the key.  Every IHC kit I've had to modify in some way. I found that the motors in old Walkman Cassette players worked the best.

[quinntopia]

That's a neat little set of rides you have there Bernard!  I've been tempted to go down this road a couple of times myself.  Someday I want to include an amusement park on a layout.

Yeah, Jeff, the selection the HO folks have is just amazing!  I'd love to build that roller coaster from Faller just for fun.  In fact, I'll bet it wouldnt be too difficult for that one to be represented as a giant coaster in N scale....hmmm...that's a thought!

[cteno4]

Jeff - Finding good small motors and re-tooling these rides is the key.  Every IHC kit I've had to modify in some way. I found that the motors in old Walkman Cassette players worked the best.

ha thats a good idea! you can get those super cheap these days!

ornament motors also make nice slow turning motors as well.

Quin, yep i keep looking at the mouse and i think it might look ok as a larger n scale coaster!

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Faller has done some great stuff in H0 if it comes to rides. Their water ride is really cool as well, even though it moves very non-prototypical (obviously ;))

The most impressive one is the newer, HUGE ferris wheel though. I've seen it built and lit when I was at Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, and it's just an amazing sight. The size and the whole light set up is excellent :)

[Bernard]

ornament motors also make nice slow turning motors as well.


jeff

GREAT Idea!! I need one for a Merry-Go-Round! Thanks

[cteno4]

some interesting custom amusement park rides went up on ebay in the last week.

gravitron, interesting one that could be easily scratch built

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170669480095&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_540wt_883

pair of kiddie rides. interesting bumper car that could be done with an off-center disc below on the motor and magnets to drag the cars around. he has this listed twice not sure if he has two sets.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170669480095&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_540wt_883

couple of other roundyrounds more for z, but might make it as n scale kiddie rides

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170669754066&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_514wt_883

im always looking in the craft store for little details that would make good n scale cars for rides like this. not a lot has turned up though. i want to find a cake decorations store, they use to have a lot of little things that would be perfect for n scale, but i have not seen them for a long time and im wondering if the small stuff is no longer used as a choking hazard...

cheers

jeff

[Bernard]

I started working on the swimming pool and cut out the pattern of the pool into the foam. Here are some photos.
I think I'm going to keep the pool separate from the amusement part and do another diorama where I have the option of connecting the 2.

[cteno4]

bernard,

cool, so will the pool people swim around?

jeff

[Bernard]

bernard,

cool, so will the pool people swim around?

jeff

Yes they will swim around the pool...and with the heat wave we're experiencing I been finish it fast or those little people will have heat stroke! 

[quinntopia]

That is really cool Bernard!  Great idea!

[Bernard]

Okay, I've done some more work on the Amusement Park and the Pool area....they are now separate and can be joined together if I decided to do so in the future. In the Pool diorama I'm adding a children playground and for the adults, table tennis....and maybe a bocci court (if I only knew what that was  )

Here is the layout of each module:

[Bernard]

Okay I've done some more work on the dioramas.
With the Amusement Park I've changed the positions of the rides and have some of them at an angle. In the 2 photos you can see where I've placed the Lite foam tape for the walkways and will fill them in with Lite spackle and paint it gray.

On the Pool, I make 2 separate areas, a playground for kids and Table Tennis for the adults. I'm separating the 2 areas with a fence. How I made the fence (and I'm cheap!) I used a rough sandpaper used in a sanding belt that has perforations. I cut the sandpaper with scissors and then painted them silver. I'm add straight pins as posts later. Here are the photos:

[cteno4]

interesting a couple of guys started putting up their own amusement park rides on ebay recently (ive followed n scale amusement park rides for years on ebay). this is more than just the simple circus tents and a few other odd things other than the kits that have been up. pretty crude

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=carnival+O+A+K&_sacat=19119&LH_PrefLoc=2&_dmpt=Model_RR_Trains&_odkw=&_osacat=19119&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313

this guy's stuff is animated and the other night he had a pair up for $10 so i grabbed a set to see what mechanism he uses. the bumper cars looks fun. he is making stuff in ho to z.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/170683315409?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_500wt_1044
http://www.ebay.com/sch/tj.brooks/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

bernard,

here is an interesting one for you! never seen this in any picts from japan, but seems like it would be a popular thing in japan!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230666125562&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_733wt_1029

been noodling on how to do this in n for a while now.

jeff

[bill937ca]

Bernard, are you aware of Asakusa Hanayashiki in Tokyo?

http://www.hanayashiki.net/e/index.html

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/b1wkSfIBAG4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/b1wkSfIBAG4</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/_xYjB5LTajg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/_xYjB5LTajg</a>

LaQua Amusement Park

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/kR6qDahp0VM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/kR6qDahp0VM</a>

[cteno4]

Bill,

thanks for this, i was trying to remember the name of the Hanayashiki park as curt and i were talking about it the other weekend. the wild thing is that is literally right behind the Sensoji temple. its a fun little very compact amusement park and what i hope to model eventually on a layout with the temple scene near the park. the shirne/temple complex has many buildings close to the tomytec and fujimi buildings.

cheers

jeff

[bill937ca]

Jeff, I think there is a subway line on a surface cut very close by.

[cteno4]

yes its really packed with great stuff. a nice traditional shopping street, couple of shopping arcades, lots of high rise apartment buildings, a hotel, and a river. lots of cool stuff.

you can also walk through it and the temple/shrine grounds on google maps! really is a nice microcosm of scenes!

jeff

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ROuCRqlOK18" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ROuCRqlOK18</a>

(lets see curt make some panda bears to ride on!)

warning next one may shock you!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/QixaUub0fNc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/QixaUub0fNc</a>

[Bernard]

I have pretty much completed the diorama of the pool and the Amusement Park rides. It is designed to be inserted into an HO layout in the future. Almost everything works, a little problem with the Merry-Go-Round table being warped and need a motor...(need to borrow one of my sister-in-law's animated Xmas ornaments...and hopes she doesn't want it back  )

The sidewalks are in and all I need are people.
Here are some photos......unfortunately I don't have my flip camera with me to show it working.

[cteno4]

Bernard,

Wow thats going to be a good sized park at HO scale! the animator ornament rotators may be a bit slow for your merry go round and may not be strong enough. they are pretty wimpy, low powered motors on them.

your project got me back onto my Hanayashiki park idea again! the cool thing with Hanayashiki is that the whole park is less than 450' x 250', so thats less than 3'x2' modeling area. cool thing is that the rim is all street buildings as well so it can fit right in with city buildings going right up to the park! really love that its also a block away from the a large temple/shrine complex!

im now thinking of starting the construction of this as a unit that later can get dropped into a layout. i want to animate and light as many parts of it as possible so i will need to get into work on it a lot so i think the whole thing will need to be able to come out anyway. this way i can work on it before the layout is started and just build around it! actually might work in the center of the jrm layout as well!

as doramas go an amusement park seems like a really fun one to do! lots of elements to add with animation, mini scenes, lights, sounds, and great density.

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

ran across these little motors on ebay. looks to be about the right speed for rides and geared to give some torque if needed!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-3V-50RPM-Replacement-Torque-Mini-Gear-Box-Motor-/250861797475?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a68874063#ht_3625wt_1024

i grabbed one to play with.

cheers

jeff

[Bernard]

Jeff - Thanks for the info! The IHC amusement ride kits are very interesting BUT they plastics they use are of an inferior quality. The Merry-go-round's base is warped and gearing in most of the rides have to be "kitbashed" due to the fact that the motors they make just don't cut it. I've been using old "walkman cassette" motors to make the rides run....they are small enough and of excellent quality.

[cteno4]

bernard,

where you you pick up the old walkman motors? havnt seen those guys for a long time!

jeff

[Bernard]

Jeff - If it has a motor I never throw it out....they're my old Walkmans, I saved the motors.

bernard,

where you you pick up the old walkman motors? havnt seen those guys for a long time!

jeff

[cteno4]

ok here you got, gotta have a batman ride!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220849674749&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_500wt_1058

cheers

jeff

[quinntopia]

ok here you got, gotta have a batman ride!

Cool, but really...is it HO? I'd love to see one of those, could be interesting!  By the way, I've been looking at some of those (hard to find AND expensive) Faller Roller Coaster kits in HO lately.  So tempting....

[cteno4]

ok finally got the ebay carnival rides. they are pretty crude on the ride part, but interesting mechanisms for the bumper cars. it looks like he is using servos for the motors, run from 1.5v A battery. the servos are pretty noisy units, would not want to have that much noise on a scene from the motors like that... they run at around 100 or so RPM

http://www.ebay.com/itm/170683315409?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_500wt_1090

the bumper cars runs from a disc attached to the motor under the ride with small metal discs on it. then the bumper cars (plastic lady bugs with half people glued onto them) have small bits of magnets on the bottom side. makes the cars go around in a circle and spin. im going to play with this idea some to see how random things can be made on a concept like this.

was a bit of an impulse buy, not at all worth the $28 total, but does answer the question of using servos is probably not workable due to the noise they generate.

cheers

jeff

[DanMacK]

The Faller Big Dipper is on sale at Walthers for $209!  

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/272-140451

If you look on the Roller Coaster Database, you'll find plenty of inspiration.  Not sure if you're aiming for a Japanese amusement park, but the Big Dipper lends itself well to kitbashing, especially the gentle slopes and helices of alot of Japanese roller coasters.

Looking good, hope to se more!

[cteno4]

tempting, but im leaning towards the wild mouse as its a bit more compact and wild. think the cars could get shaved down and then have n scale folks 3 across. and maybe 3 rows. even then it ends up pretty big. always wanted to experiment with rolling my own, but after reading the guy who worked on building an n scale roller coaster you start to see the physics you are up against in n scale to make things roll well and have enough potential energy to overcome the friction you are up against at this size. ho seems to be the limit on easy to do ones.

using the ho wild mouse in n scale would be a good sized roller coaster. its close to the overall size i want to do my little Hanayashiki style park. im thinking ill just fake it and not have the roller coaster running!

recently found a couple of good haunted house paper models to use for the haunted house and some ornate fencing to chop up to detail the structure.

jeff

whoops forgot
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/zuIJ0wyzY1s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/zuIJ0wyzY1s</a>

[Martijn Meerts]

An N-scale roller coaster will have to be all metal to run smooth, and I guess you need to be a roller coaster engineer to make sure everything it physically correct ;)

One option might be doing something like Space Mountain from Disneyland, where you see the cars get shot up, and the rest is just indoors. Just make the Space Mountain dome, add some mechanism to fire the cars, have them loop back to the cannon, and you're ready to go for another run. Add an LED flash and possible a decent smoke generator for when the cannon launches, as well as some sound simulating the cannon blast and the ride in general.

Something like the Tower of Terror from Disney would be very doable as well.

[FFISKIV]

WOW, that is too cool.  I gotta have one.  If there was a coaster you could but tomorrow which one would it be?
Thanks

[Martijn Meerts]

Don't think I'd buy any, the motion just looks weird. I'd probably get some advanced carousel instead.

I always liked <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/nFX_92AmDa8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/nFX_92AmDa8</a>, they even had an N-scale version at some point, but again, the motion is just off.

I'd definitely get <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/PHvegnNJUX4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/PHvegnNJUX4</a> if it was available in N-scale. I've been considering getting their smaller one in N-scale, and modifying that with a servo motor and lots of LEDs, but that's a project for the future =)

[Bernard]

That is the weirdest motion on a ride I've ever seen. Is that actually a real ride?

[cteno4]

yeah this is what the guy was doing and its mainly a weight issue at n scale with the air resistance and friction being larger proportionally as you get smaller!

http://www.aglasshalffull.org/article-roller-coaster.html
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/BryyUIlWd94" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/BryyUIlWd94</a>

other fun site. lots of interesting models

http://www.rollercoastermodels.com/

coasterdynamix finally released their static wood nscale model

http://www.coasterdynamix.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62:n-scale-update&catid=3:news&Itemid=18

another chap i think using a string down the center tube with a magnet in it to pull the car along. would then need to rewind the string at the end of a run as the magnet would not get past your driving wheel.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/T3FrK0Y2RPk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/T3FrK0Y2RPk</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/adoes-bOB7U" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/adoes-bOB7U</a>

cheers

jeff

[shiniji]

Wow, this is interessted :D this reminds me of my project (new update coming soon )

http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,2644.0.html

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/_XOVXVImj40" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/_XOVXVImj40</a>

[Martijn Meerts]

Bernard, I believe it's based on a real ride, but the model in the video has been modified with some custom controls. The original Faller didn't have such exotic motion ;)

[cteno4]

heres google for you was looking for something else and ran across this!

http://www.bannister.org/coasters/trips/2004/0726.htm

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Looks familiar =)

[quinntopia]

Lot's of neat videos Bernard...sigh, all those neat HO models... 

What about that lighting for the HO Jupiter?  Does it come with the kit, or is it something aftermarket that is added on or (gulp!) something some crazy electronics wizards figure out themselves?

[john_ibw]

Lighting for the Faller Jupiter ride is a addon kit and costs a lot. Transformer not included.

http://www.faller.de/App/WebObjects/XSeMIPS.woa/cms/page/pid.14.17.90.132/agid.1179/atid.418/ecm.at/Ferris-wheel-lamp-set.html