Bridge building in balsa

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jkristia

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Gavin, I have a question about the letraline you are using. I don't know if you saw the other thread "where to buy letraline" I posted a few days ago, but I have been trying to find a source for letraline online, and haven't been able to. The only place I can find is in UK and they don't ship outside UK. I have tried several art and craft stores without any luck.

So what I ended up trying was to use electrical tape cut to thin (narrow) stripes, but it's kind of thick for the scale (height) and also it's difficult to get the same width every time, so my question is, how thick is the letraline tape, is it thinner (still talking about height, not width) than the electrical tape you can buy in the hardware store?, and do you have any online source, even if it's in Australia, that will ship to US?

Oh and by the way, your bridge and road looks really nice and I love the way your double lines came out.

Thanks
Jesper
 
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Donn Welton

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Getting to the photos

I was hoping, Gavin, that the pictures alone might carry enough information to be interesting to you and others. But I now realize that the address only gets one to the home page. Try this:
1. http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/html/framepage.htm
2. Click on Fotos
3. Click on Entstehungsfotos
4. Begin with about 05. Woche and work you way up the numbers.
With your interest on light benchwork I am sure you will find this fascinating.
Donn
 
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Tileguy

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Hey Don, Great site(sure wish i could read German Though)Looks like some fantastic engineering went into that project.The one Photo with about 500 wires popping out the benchwork scared H*** outa me LOL.You can tell a lot of Time, Effort and Marks ($) are going into that Project!!
 
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Gavin Miller

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Re: Getting to the photos

Originally posted by Donn Welton
I was hoping, Gavin, that the pictures alone might carry enough information to be interesting to you and others. But I now realize that the address only gets one to the home page. Try this:
1. http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/html/framepage.htm
2. Click on Fotos
3. Click on Entstehungsfotos
4. Begin with about 05. Woche and work you way up the numbers.
With your interest on light benchwork I am sure you will find this fascinating.
Donn
Click to expand...
Incredible! Just goes to show what you can achieve if you have enough TIME, MANPOWER and MONEY!!

Thanks for that link Donn.

Their benchwork is definitely NOT light weight material like my balsa though. I couldn't stand on my layout or crawl around on it like they can (I have no need to do so either, haha, mine's TINY compared to theirs).

Gavin
 
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Gavin Miller

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Aug 4, 2002
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Originally posted by jkristia
... so my question is, how thick is the letraline tape, is it thinner (still talking about height, not width) than the electrical tape you can buy in the hardware store?, and do you have any online source, even if it's in Australia, that will ship to US?

Oh and by the way, your bridge and road looks really nice and I love the way your double lines came out.

Thanks
Jesper
Click to expand...
Thanks for your compliments Jesper.

The letraline definitely made the lanework easier! Yes, it IS thinner than electrical tape (more like masking tape). It is also designed to be flexible (go around curves) and has a flat finish. It comes in convenient exact widths (1/32, 1/64 are useful for us). The dispenser makes it easy to apply as well.

However, in the past when I have not had access to (or couldn't afford) Letraline tape, I simply made my own by sticking a length of masking tape down on a piece of glass, painting it with the appropriate flat colour (white here) then, using a SHARP blade and a metal straightedge, slicing strips off as required.

I bought my Letraline supplies at Jackson's Drawing Supplies right here in my city, Perth Western Australia, which BTW is the most remote capital city on earth, he heh. If "I" can get it locally, surely there must be a stockist somewhere in the US?!

Gavin
 
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Donn Welton

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Can you tell, Gavin, from the photos as to just what material is that is used for the benchwork and what the thickness might be? It looks like a thin plywood to me and not more than 1/2". I would like to use 1/2" to save on weight but the two sheets that I bought recently are three play and warped when left standing. I know that one can order a special cabinet makers plywood that is 4 or 5 ply but this is expensive. Any suggestions here?

The best light weight alternative I can come up with is simply 3/4" pine. But I would still need a stable 1/2" plywood for the top and beneath the rails.

Donn
 
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pomperaugrr

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May 21, 2003
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Well, this is my first post on The Gauge. I model in N-scale and wanted to comment on the outstanding work done by Gavin. I have seen the threads on the backdrop painting technique and the balsa bridge construction. I am amazed at the quality of these projects. The bridge has given me inspiration on how to deal with an area where tracks will pass through a wall, on the layout I am currently planning. Thank you for sharing your outstanding work!

Eric
 
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