Street Light Telephone pole

[eightyeightfan1]

Remembering someone mentioned North American telephone poles with streetlights in the "What Detail Parts Would You Like To See" thread, I thought I would try to scratchbuild one. Here's my first attempt.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Here's another one, on my test transformer, all lit up.
I started with an HO scale lamp from Life Like, but it was big and looked out of scale, so I opted for the N scale one instead.

 

[belg]

88 I'm wondering how will you hide the wires for the street light,is the telephone pole hollow or what?

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Its an Evergreen Plastics tube, capped at one end, and a hole drilled in one side for the light. The wires run down the inside of the tube. I will drill a hole in the layout to "plant" the pole and pass the wires down through.
Won't even see them.

 

[shamus]

Looks real good 88, now you have given me an idea to work on for my 0n30.
Shamus

 

[Tyson Rayles]

Nice work Ed, switching to the n-scale lamp worked out perfectly!

 

[spitfire]

Originally posted by eightyeightfan1
someone mentioned North American telephone poles with streetlights in the "What Detail Parts Would You Like To See" thread...

That was me! Those are looking good Ed. Do you perhaps have a photo where there's not so much in the background? I'm finding it a little hard to see the lamp.....

cheers
Val

 

[eightyeightfan1]

As per her Highness's request, here's a better shot of the telephone pole.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Well...Maybe this one is better...........

 

[spitfire]

Thanks for those Ed. They look great! How did you construct the arm that the lamp is on? More tubing? Or is it just the actual wires? Inquiring minds want to know!

cheers
Val

 

[Pitchwife]

.I started with an HO scale lamp from Life Like, but it was big and looked out of scale, so I opted for the N scale one instead .

Do you mean the size of the bulbs or the poles? I've been looking at the "grain of wheats" which is the smallest bulb I could find and they still look too big even for HO. If there is something smaller out there I'd sure like to know what it is.

 

[RailRon]

Clark,

the smallest bulbs I found so far were called "grain of rice" bulbs. The same catalog (sorry, not in America, but here in Switzerland) offered also "grain of wheat" lamps which were about 50% bigger.

Hope this helps,

Ron

 

[Pitchwife]

Thanks Ron. I'll have to see if I can seperate the wheat from the rice.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Thanks Guys and Val,
They are actually the arms that I cut off of N scale street lamps.
I was gonna post a step by step, I have taken pics of each step...But I changed my mind...because I used the HO lamp and it looked funny.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Here's the difference between the HO lamp and the N scale lamps.
See why I went with the N scale.

 

[Drew1125]

That is some excellent modeling Ed!

 

[spitfire]

That's very cool Ed. My original mistaken thought about just using the wires for a support arm has given me an idea though. The kind of streetlights I want to have, feature a gracefully curved arm, and now I think I know how to achieve this:

1. pull the wires from the straight tubing
2. cut a piece of very thin copper or brass rod to the length you want the arm to be
3. Line it up with the wires
4. Apply some of that heat-shrink insulattion to hold the wire and the rod together
5. Bend the rod to the desired curve.

I think this might just work. Here's a pic showing what I mean. It's pretty small but it's the only one I have without a cluttered background.

cheers
Val

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Sounds like a plan Val.
This is what I was trying to duplicate.