Having grown up on Long Island and driven extensively on its parkway system, I’ve developed a certain fondness for the old wooden lampposts once found throughout (and still common south of Merrick Road). Here’s an image of one on the Meadowbrook Parkway:
(Note, this is the tollbooth where Sonny Corleone didn’t have EZ-Pass and paid the price).
At any rate, I’d love to add some of these old lampposts to my N Scale layout. What would the best way to model them be?
I hate those lampposts (I believe the Parkways south of Sunrise/Merrick are considered historic, which is why they retain those wooden posts).
In N-scale, the obvious solution is - K&S rectangular brass tubing - you use the outside brass as the neutral (negative, whatever), and run the hot/positive insulated wire inside - solder one lead of the LED to the brass cross post, and run the hot wire to the other LED lead. The dropping resistor (if needed) goes under the layout. You can probably figure out the jig you’ll need to assemble a set of them, and you can probably scratch/scrap up the exterior of the brass tube (which will then be painted and weathered, of course). Cross piece and upright need to be soldered together, for obvious reasons of continuity. Hot lead goes into the cross piece via a hole (I don’t envy you fishing it through that L-turn - maybe run fishing line or thread thru first before you solder the crossbar & upright together?). For regular bulb (grain of rice?), perhaps you could cover the lead portion with putty, and paint that aluminium or other silver-metal color to mimic the lamp more closely.
Is 1/16" inch the smallest square brass tubing? That works out 10" in N scale, which is a bit on the hefty side - may want to check out other places on the web.
Hey, before you start, does that Cheap Chinese model lighting company sell anything like this?
Link to the Lighting Section of the New York City Street Design Manual. It haa photos and drawings of many lampposts. Unfortunately, does not have the type used on Meadowbrook Parkway. But may still be of interest.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nycdot_streetdesignmanual_ch4.pdf
Links to the various chapters of the manual here:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/streetdesignmanual.shtml
I’m not sure about N-scale, but check e-Bay and see if a company in China with the rather humorous name of “We honest” makes them. When you get onto e-Bay and the N-scale trains area, enter the search phrase “Street lights” and see what turns up.
1/16" square tube may not be too far off, but may be a little small. Looking at several different State standards: standard metal poles appear to be about 30’ tall and have a minimum base diameter of 8". My quick search did not find any standards for wood light poles. However, from a site of wood utility pole manufacturer it appears a urility pole of that height would have a diameter of around 13-15 inches “at 6’ from butt”.
I believe the word you’re looking for is “Cheat”…
If you’re planning to build more than a few of these things, you don’t want to drive yourself crazy making a model of each one.
I used some 1.8mm LED’s with yellow lenses as the starting point for my little town scene’s lights. Since mine were in proximity of surrounding buildings, I simply ran the anode and cathode right through the wall of the building, then bent them into a shape that reasonably approximates the shape of an old style cobra head fixture mounted on a wooden pole…
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I paint the arm gray from the pole to the light, and black from to pole to the building to camouflage it. When it’s dark, and the lights are lit, you can’t really see the ruse the that’s being employed…
To help with the illusion, I file down the little bump on the LED’s surface, and carefully file the head to a somewhat oval shape. I paint the back of the LED black to block light from leaking out the top, then give it a coat of silver or gray paint to make it look like a street fixture.
Lee
If he builds a jig, it shouldn’t be that bad - does the OP need more than, say, a dozen?
Maybe it works at night, but how close to the foreground are those buildings? I hate to say it, but those crossarms are very obvious in the “daylight” image you attached. - look more like you were going for Wall mounted street lights like London, UK has.
We all have to make compromises. I agree, in photographs, it’s hard to disguise (but photos can be “fixed” no?).
From a typical viewing angle, they’re not so bad, given the small size and the volume of surrounding detail. Recall that in N scale, you can put in more distractions per square foot, and it’s less important for something to be “there” than it is to look like it’s there.
And yes, when the lights are dimmed, the effect is tremendous!
Next ops session might be the graveyard shift!
Lee