Great work Tim, I was wondering about the track going into the building; it seems to run across a turnout. Will you have to make a change to your track plan there or will the building be moved to another final location? BTY, the video of your laser cutter at work is very interesting, I had never seen one of these critters at work. I particularly liked how it scribed the boards on the walls and doors without cutting all the way through. You might post the link here as well as imbedding it in your blog. [tup][tup][tup]
Nice job…a clean, simple, very logical, utilitarian design, and likely one an awful lot more representative of common, property-starved, smaller RRs and branchlines, than the huge stone/brick, multi-stall, versions most often found on HO layouts. Excellent laser-cut design for assembly, too.
Also appreciated your honestly in mentioning that creating a scratch model using a laser cutter requires a lot more time than doing it the old fashion way. Too many hobbyists today think that the high tech approach to personally making models in the future is going to be a quick and simple procedure…ignorance is bliss!
After seeing bits and pieces of Tim’s layout here and on his running blog, I had the pleasure of seeing it in person at the Springfield, MA, show this past winter. The intricate trackwork is a work of art. I took a number of pictures of the car float, since I’m planning one myself and I wanted to get ideas from the same kit which had been very nicely assembled.
I’m still looking forward to the Freight House. It’s such a unique and interesting structure that we’ll all gain from watching it go together. Since I assume you’ll be doing it on the laser, perhaps others might be interested in a craftsman kit of that structure.
It is just not fair. I watched the lazer video (and YES with a “Z” because the video was that cool) and I priced out the machine…10000 bucks. Oh the possibilities!
If you read back on the history of the prototype on Tim’s site, it will answer most of the questions. He built the thing on top of scaled drawings of the actual location - nothing is compressed, it’s completely to scale. The access to the enginehouse did indeed go over other turnouts - what the real railroad did was have pieces of rail they laid over top when they needed to move the engine in and out of the house. Not sure how you could simulate that in HO scale - I don’t know if the pieces would stay in place, plus there’s the whole issue of shorting out the other tracks. I wouldn;t be surprised though if Tim figures out a way to do it.
I just looked up the term “scratchbuilding” and wikipedia came up with : It’s the process of building a scale model “from scratch”, ie. from raw materials, rather than building it from a commercial kit. Another said : A model part, or base built from scratch, as opposed to using pre-manufactured kits, parts, etc.
Yes some readers of this post have right, don’t beleive it’s just to put on a button to cut this model, there is a lot of work of programming.
I beleive you use autocad and even if you are a professionnal user, you need certainly two of three hours of programming and checkout.
Of course the model is very accurate and had precise cut pieces but I need a lot of programming time before you push on the “button”. and anyway the plans are scratchbuild.
Hope to see the round storage depot in the middle become a wood model in the near future.
don’t let the narrow minded opinions of a few bother you. I went thru the same crap a while back when I showed a model of a GE centercab switcher I built. I was told it did not meet the criteria to be called scratch built since I used a comercially available motor and trucks. They simply looked over the fact that I had over 300 hours into building the shell and frame to not only look proper but to also accept the motor and drive train and have it dependable. As to the work you did… simply awesome! You are also correct in stating the laser is nothing more than a fancy Exacto knife. The laser can’t do anything untill the work is done ahead of time to program it. I can guess on the amount of time you have sitting in front of Autocad (just reread Tim’s post and noticed he solid modeled this in Solidworks) or a similar program to design the parts to fit as I did the same thing for a model of a Whitcomb center cab switcher I am currently working on.
Thanks for the feedback. Obviously some of the posters didn’t actually read the original post on my blog, which covers the design process in detail focusing on the amount of design time that goes into a model like this. (about 10-12 hours). THEN, the model doesn’t build itself… lol
Wow, I guess some people have no clue. So it now matters what TOOL you use to be able to call it scratchbuilding? Please.
I invite anyone wh thinks it’s so easy to go ahead and try to draw and render a structure in CAD and then figure out just hwere the joints can fall so that it goes together cleanly. ABout the only thing gained by techniques like this is it makes it easier to build a second, third, fourth… one, because once all the design work is done, you can crank out as many ‘kits’ as you want. But that first step…she’s a doozy!
Not that laser cutters are cheap, but there ARE smaller and less expensive models than the one Tim has - remember he also runs a business with that tool.
I would imagine that we could say that creating a model with a laser cutter is somewhat like creating a Hydrocal casting from a home-made mold. Yes, it takes a long time to make that mold, just as it takes a long time to create the inputs for the laser cutter. The first casting, start to finish, takes days or even weeks. But, after that you can turn out copies very quickly.
My guess is, if Tim wants a second copy of this model, he could turn out the laser-cut sheets pretty quickly, right? Later on, he’ll be able to do the same with that freight house…
Tim thank you for your post. That is one neat enginehouse and the video on the laser at work is amazing as is all your work. People who are uninformed do not realize how much work and time it takes just to prepare the plans to create something of this nature. The laser machine makes it look so easy that it seems like there is very little time between the idea and the finished model. Don’t you wish that when it got the parts cut out that it would paint and assemble the model. Nah what fun would that be! [:)]Thanks again for posting a very informative video!
Tim, I can realistically say that you would get a perfect score in NMRA judging in the scratch building catagory!!! What some have said is like my sister telling me once that using a computer to write a letter isn’t really writing a letter because you didn’t hand write it!!! Well she is an Artist and thinks that way. Or did, until she finally bought a computer!?!
If I hear some people correctly at times on here if you build a structure out of wood you didn’t scratch build it unless you grew the tree from a seed you planted and then chopped it down with a herring! Using a chain saw would be cheating![:-^] And you did start with the basic material. It was cut from a piece of wood if I saw correctly.
Nice work, sir! (And I sure wish I had access to a laser cutter and the knowledge to use it.)
I’m sending a rendering of a sawmill to company that will laser cut it to a pile of walls etc, just like a store bought kit, will this still make me a "scratchbuilder’’ ?
