Thursday
Mar042010
Another great kit mod
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 9:33AM Dave Morrow has taken the flag stop and with a considerable effort has created this interlocking tower. this is exactly the kind of thing that works really well with card modeling. Our hats off to Dave for thinking outside the box.
All of you builders keep pushing the bar higher.
Thom
Reader Comments (7)
Nice job.
-Ben
Software? HAHAHAHAHA ........ Even though I have been playing with computers since 1971 (originally with a TTY at 110 baud - if you even know that terminology - used baudot, not ascii; anyway I digress). The sheets, as provided by Clever, are in Adobe PDF format. I just use the free Adobe Reader to print them out. The Adobe writer/creator package costs hundreds of dollars, so could not modify them that way. I suppose maybe that is what Dave and Thom M. use. I do not know. Maybe I could have scanned the original sheets and tried to convert to .jpeg images and modified them that way, but in the end, everything in the model was done by hand. I just printed out many, many copies (maybe about 16) of the back and side wall sheets from the original flag stop (remember I had to scale them 75% to S Gauge) and did many, many splices. The upper floor sides of the model (the one with the door and the window opening upon the deck and the opposite side with the "double" window, were the two sides of the flag stop spliced together for each side. The wainscotting on the upper sides was removed and spliced with clapboard from other wall sections. The entire "triangle" at the top of those sides was cut out from the trim and replaced with a new cutout of clapboard, to hide the splice there. All bottom floor walls were all copies of the normal backside of the original flagstop, with two sides shortened. The windows were the normal windows cut and spliced at the window frames to make bigger windows. The window trim was simply plain old card stock cut to shape and painted. Since I used so many splices for the walls, everything was glued on cardstock backing, so all walls are two or three cardstock thicknesses thick. This provided good stiffness to the walls, so really didn't need a whole lot of interior bracing, even though I did reinforce the corners.
The stairs and deck was simply scrap wood I had left over from a wooden model ship I built several years ago and cut to approximate 4"x4" posts and 10" - 12" boards and stairs.
I have seen the various flagstops and like the idea of opening the doors and windows. I thought about it for the tower, but I had enough splicing work to do, and with clear windows and open doors, you have to provide some kind of reasonable interior. Maybe with the western store though.
Hope that answers most of your questions.
Again thanks for the compliment, especially since I have seen the caliber of your work.
I cant claim the shingle technique as my own, but I also do not know who originated it. I was just handing it along to anyone who had not seen it before. I am glad you tried it and obtained such nice results!
Do you plan to place your structure on a layout? I do not have a layout yet, but I think I will be building some dioramas in the mean time using my Clever structures. Please show your installation, if that is what you do.
Best Regards,
Ben
I have a small hobby workroom that is about 8 1/2 by 11 feet. I have had Flyer S gauge trains since I was young. I have added more modern cars every one in a while via EBAY sales. I am in the planning stages and was trying out track plans and structure layouts when I came across Clever Models. I like the cardstock models since like the Brothers M. clearly state, you can build a LOT of structures for NOT a whole lot of $$$. In the S Gauge world typical single structures cost in the range $40-$60.
I have pretty much decided on a modified around the wall shelf layout by Iain Rice, who has written a book on shelf layouts (published by Kalmbach) and who occasionally writes for Model Railroader. I have old Flyer track and turnouts that I will use for hidden staging and use American Models modern track for the exposed trackage. It's not exactly scale but supports what is called, in the S Gauge world, hi-rail. That really means scale as much as possible but will still run the old American Flyer trains (basically the wheel flanges are too deep and the couplers way too large). I am a big fan of John Allen and will build a copy of his straining beam pony truss bridge in S somewhere along the line.
I like the C.M. models and will build the western store and factory #2 when C.M. brings out the S scale disks later this month (hopefully).
David
-Ben
If you have your dad's American Flyer S, what led you to O Gauge? You do model in O, correct? Was it Lionel as a kid?
Question for Dave and Thom:
I took your "freebie" flag stop and kitbashed the heck out of it, by copying many original sheets, to create the tower. Ben would like to take the original sheets and maybe kitbash them electronically via a software package. That is changing the original. It might be a copyright issue. Do you guys really care as long it is for a personal kitbashing project? I could understand you being upset and seeking legal remedies if a person (I don't mean Ben specifically) took your work, changed it via a software package, and then intended to sell it. I could see a situation where som
What is your position on this?
David