The Tomix Pachinko Building - Part 2

After finishing how the lighting was going to work I moved on to finishing the interior detail.  The kit included 4 rows of pachinko machines and 8 rows of seats.  These were removable from the base but were made of a type of plastic that did not take paint very well so I had to spray them with an adhersion promoter before painting.  I had a bag of background quality figures and about half the seats got  occupants after their legs were cut off. 

The kit included stickers for pachinko machines and other interior surfaces that were part of the base.  A few more standing figures were also added.

The roof normally sits loosely over the original battery compartment.  To hold this roof on but have it still be removable, I glued a small magnet to a scrap of .030 styrene sheet and then taped that over the walls of the battery compartment.

Then a scrap of steel starping was glued to the inside of the roof with E-6000 adhesive.

The entire inside and outside of the building got painted.  The building itself was already glued together so I just had to paint it carefully by hand.  The outside of the building also got a bit of light weathering using detail wash with the roof section getting a little heavier treatment.

The railings that came with the kit were painted and installed on the sidewalk section and a few more figures were placed outside the building.  

The Tomix Pachinko building- Part 1

Years ago I found this Tomix building at a local train show for 10 dollars and when I built these modules I found it easy to fill in an empty space with it.  It already had some unpainted interior details so I thought some day I would like to finish this structure and light the inside.  That day has finally come.

Tomix buildings like these often come with a nice sidewalk section that interlocks with the structure base.  This set had this front sidewalk plus another section for a parking lot in the back.  When I first installed this on the module there was no room for the sidewalk so I left it off.  Now that the modules are developed further, I decided to use the sidewalk so I cut the parking lot section to fit and moved the structure back just a bit.

This building has a sign in the front that lights with 3 LED's connected to a circuit that makes them flash in sequence.  The light was barely visible through the sign and I had considered replacing it with something else.  What I discovered was that the LED's were positioned too far behind the sign for the light to be effective.  I found that if I fitted styrene tubing over the LED's the light was more focused so decided to keep the sign. 

I built a small 3 volt regulator circuit to replace the pair of AA batteries that had been powering the sign.  The load is very small but I still added a heat sink and did a 24 hour test to be sure this circuit would stay cool.

To light up the interior of the first floor I made a ceiling out of .030 styrene sheet and glued it to the existing plastic piece that holds the lighted sign and front doors and windows in place.  5 surface mount LED's were inserted through holes in the ceiling and scraps of decoder wires were used to connect them to a PC board from a Kato GP50.  This was also something left over from a decoder installation.  These will run on the 12 volt DC power circuit with a current limiting resistor.  The photo below shows the top side of this ceiling.

To be continued .......

Finishing a Tomix corner building

This Tomix corner building is one of a pair that I modified about 14 years ago to form the entry of the Musashi-Koyama Palm shopping arcade.  They along with the rest of the arcade structures have been sitting on the module all this time with a primer gray color while I worked on other areas of the modules.  The photo below shows how it looks with the other structures removed.  The modifications to this structure had been that part of it on the left side had been removed to make it fit in the space available and the windows had been covered with a styrene siding.

Up until the late 2000's, the actual location that this model is based on had been a yakitori chicken place.  That's long gone now but I wanted it in my representation of the area as it was in the 1990's.  I recalled noticing what seemed to be a take out counter and my wife remembers it having both take out or eat in options.  So leaving out the clear plastic front door insert, I made a counter and back wall attached to the base.

And here it is with the building re-installed to see that everything still fits OK.  I plan to add lighting over the counter area and some detail as well.  The opening to the right of the counter will be the entrance to the restaurant.

To light the area of the take out counter I used 2 surface mount LED's glued to a piece of clear window material left over from a kit and dulled with sandpaper to defuse the light.  The LED's were connected to a leftover board from an Atlas locomotive to use it's current limiting resistor. Scraps of decoder wire were used to connect the LED's to the board then 22 gauge wire was soldered to the inputs of the board to connect it to the 12 volt DC buss under the module.

A sign was created for this business and attached to a sign board that was in my stash of parts.  The sign board and exterior trim was painted yellow and the visible interior walls were painted a darker yellow.  Some menu board images from the internet were shrunken down to side and pasted to the wall behind the counter.  In these last two photos it will be noticed that tile flooring has been added.  How I did this will be covered in a future post.

To finish this building the visible exterior walls were painted white and the roof received some 3D printed details.  Then the roof received some black weathering wash which really brings out the detail on the items on the roof.

Finishing a Kato office building

I know, long time no post.  I've been keeping busy with my American theme home layout but with another 5 day long exhibit of the AsiaNrail layout coming up at Hiller Aviation Museum in April I wanted to finish a few more things on the modules.

This Kato office building was one of the first Japanese buildings I bought back around 2009 but never finished.  A couple of years ago I did get around to painting it to get rid of the plastic look.  Now I want to get rid of the vacant look.

The Kato part number is 23-435 and they are still available.  These buildings are particularly well designed, have interior walls, and can be easily made taller or shorter 2 floors at a time.  I'm leaving this one at it's stock 6 floor height.

I decided that I wanted to light and detail the lowest 2 floors.  The ground floor was going to be a convenience store and the base already had detail for a restaurant so I cut that off with a hack saw. 

The base got a new floor and wall arrangement to resemble a small convenience store.  Shelves and counter were made from scraps of styrene and printouts of on line photos pasted to the shelves. 

The 2nd floor was going to be a pizza restaurant and the interior for that was built on the existing 2nd floor insert that is part of the kit.  Most of the fixtures were scratch built and the chairs came from a Pieser set. 

The upper floors windows got blinds printed out on paper, taped to the inside of the windows and set at various heights.  The upper floors businesses include a music school,  an optometrists,  a language school, and a dental clinic.  The signs were created using Google translate, then copying the Japanese text into Microsoft Visio where it can be edited for size and color.  Background color and any graphics are also added then printed out on plain paper.  Glossy package tape was used to give the signs some shine then they were pasted on styrene strip.

Here is a closeup of the floors with interior detail.  Two surface mount LEDs were used on each floor.  The restaurant has warm spectrum LEDs and the convenience store has white LEDs.

Here is the completed building back on the module.  I added that billboard sign on the side of the building from a image I found on the internet.  The type of glue featured in the ad is the same as what I used to paste some of the paper parts of this project.

The vertical signs on the front of the building were made the same way as the signs that are above each window then pasted to each side of a strip of styrene.

Details & lighting inside the sake shop

Back in September in the post Building a TomyTec sake shop, I had built one of the buildings from TomyTec kit No. 089 and installed it on the Hot Springs Junction module.  With an open door and some details already part of the kit, I felt this could create a nice little scene. Now I have gone back and added some more details and lighting to the inside of the building.

The kit had come with a couple of low Japanese type tables and an interior wall.  I added additional interior walls as view blocks as the building as some other open doors and I wanted to avoid the see through look.

The 4 figures were selected from various TomyTec and Kato sets.  The seated customers are local workers, perhaps from a construction site. (towels around the necks) who have finished a days work and are enjoying a few drinks.



The wall posters are from a sticker set that came with one of the Tomix building kits and the stock of sake bottles on the back wall are printed from files provided on the Quinntopia blog.

If I was going to detail the inside then I needed to light it so the interior could be seen.   I use bright white LED light boards from Atlas locomotives that are left over after installing DCC decoders.

On this building I added a view block so the same light did not shine out the upper floor windows.

Here is what a visitor to the layout might see peeking into the shop from the front of the module.  Depending on the angle of view, slightly different parts of the interior can be seen.

A little bit of weathering has been applied to the outside and the building is now permanently mounted on the module. A couple of the nearby trees have been relocated to allow for better viewing of the scene.  I still plan to add a few more details to the outside to complete the scene.

Finishing the Green Max station

After adding the window glazing to the inside of the station building, the building and the outer walls got glued to the base.  Also a few figures were added to the scene.

I was happy with the results so far but was concerned that after the roof was put on the scene would be lost in the shadows so decided some lighting was needed.

I used 3 small surface mount LEDs to light the open areas under the station roof.  The inside of the station building is not lighted.  I used copper foil tape to create the contacts and built the whole assembly on the top of the ceiling before installing it.  The red and black 22 gauge were will go down through the building and module base.

So here is the finished station with the lights on.  Not too bright, just enough so the details show.  This station is now ready for the module.  Platforms will be needed and I am planning to scratch build or kit bash those to fit the space.

First attempt at inside store details

There have been some great looking interior building details done on a few of the blogs that I follow and I wanted to try this myself.  While I had done some interior details before on such buildings as a interlocking tower or a gas station, this would be the first time I have attempted this on some sort of retail store.  I am currently working to finish the block of Green Max stores and selected a dry cleaning store to try it out on.

The first step was to create a believable floor so I used Microsoft Visio to make a simple pattern and printed that on white paper and glued to the base.  The tiles scale out to about 16 inches.




Next I needed just enough detail parts to make it look right.  I made a pair of counters from scraps of styrene with one having a cash register and the other having a pole / rail to hang finished cleaning.  This was made of .010 brass rod.

I only had to detail the front half of the building as the back half, the actual dry cleaning plant will be hidden by an interior
wall.



I then went back to the computer and created what I thought would be the appropriate wall features again using Microsoft Visio.  A photo of a dry cleaning trolley system was found then reduced and added to the wall to simulate the room beyond the wall.  As I  don't yet know how to incorporate Japanese characters into a sign I could print, the price list is just gibberish that will be too small for anyone to actually see.  This was then glued to the inside walls of the front of the building.


Interior details won't be seen if they are not lighted. I added 2 bright LED light boards from Atlas engines with the LED bent down from the ceiling.


Here is the finished dry cleaning store with the LED's on.  To make working with the interior easier I did not install the front window & door part until just prior to mounting the building on the base and had selected one that is mostly clear.

The next store to receive this treatment will be a book store in the same block.

Lighting the Aoshima Apartments

Quinntopia is one of the N Scale blogs I follow and has some great tutorial posts on LED lighting for buildings including this model and is worth taking a look at if you are considering some building lighting.

I decided on my building to fully light the stairwells and just a few of the apartments.  There was a small indent on each floor that seemed perfect for a porch light. I drilled a small hole to one side of each of those and pushed the wires of pre-wired surface mount (SMD) LED's through with a bit of Walthers Goo on the backside of the LED to hold it in place.

In the past I have not had too much experience or luck working with the small wires that are attached to these small LEDs.  I thought the best way would be to land them on a PC board so I cut out a small section that would fit into one of the apartment sections.  I wired  2.2K ohm resistors on the board for each LED for a total of 10.

To light the apartments I used bright white LED boards that came from Atlas engines that I installed had DCC decoders in.  These boards already have a current limiting resistor.  After experimenting  I got the best results by attaching the board to the ceiling and bending the LED down as shown in this photo.

This photo shows an overall view of all the wiring and other electronic parts that are now inside the building before the walls go on. 

Styrene view blocks were added so the wiring won't be seen from the other side of the building which is going to face outward on the module.

Here is this building with the sides and roof added and the lights on.  The porch lights are partly blocked by the stairs but the stairs are illuminated which is the effect I was after.  5 apartments are lights with LEDs of various shades.