Help! Lights, Poles and Shadows.

It's quite seldom I'm doubting if my modelling adds or detracts to my little layout, but with my newly installed wooden poles with lamps I'm not quite sure how to rate the result. Last week I finally got some time at the modelling table and I had two lamps installed on prepared poles with 3D printed isolators. The lamps were wired and painted in no time. The wiring is only temporary but everything works fine.

Snapshot of the two lamps at the lorry loading ramp.

My problem is the annoying shadows the poles cast on the backscene. The poles are placed no more than 7 cm from the backscene. My modules are only 40 cm deep so everything is quite close to the backscene! The shadows are cast almost no matter angle light is projected onto the layout: my usual room lights makes the poles cast shadows, light coming in throug the room's window the same and even when I blind the window and turn of the room's lights - the lamps on the poles cast shadows when I turn them on. And to think I own quite a collection of old LP's with the 'Shadows'! Now I don't like them...

Can some of the knowledagble reader of this blog spare a second for some good advice on how to mitigate the shadows? Am I going to ad some lighting above the layout to blend everything together or do I have to accept defeat and pull up the poles?

Mushroom cloud shaped shadow cast by the lamp mounted on the pole at the ramp. 

Working Lights At The Loading Ramp

Phew, it's been a busy November and I haven't had any time for modelling. Only on the last day in the month I managed to get some time at the workbench. I devoted the time getting a pair of lamps mounted on poles I finished a long time ago.

I have had a working lamp detailed with lampshade and painted mounted on a post earlier, but I have bodged the final installation several times leading to short circuits. This time I took a different route and soldered wires and battery connection up before I added 1/19 scale versions of enamel lampshades.

The lampshades are cut from a piece of thin metal upcycled from an old soft drink can. Precut with a circle cutter and cut free with a pair of cissors, the metal circle is then cut, bended and glued with AC-glue to form a flar cone. The lamps are cheap Chinese LEDs in white metal housings in H0 scale bought from ebay. The soft drink can lampshade is AC-glued to the lamp, blended in with fillet of extra glue and then painted dark grey. Quite simple really. 

Discs of metal cut from a soft drink can.

The home made lampshade fitted to the Chinese H0 scale lamp.

Complete assembly waiting for the glue to dry. I have since fitted a fillet of glue to blend in the lampshade better. Once painted it will probably look quite decent.

Power, Poles and Isolators

A little over a year ago I received some excellent 3D printed porcelain isolators for my little 1/19 scale layout. I have now fitted a few isolators to poles made earlier. The poles are first stage in the electricity and lighting installation on the layout.

Finished pole top with isolators and protective sheet metal cover.

In Denmark wires hung from steel or wooden poles are fast disappearing completely as most wires and cables are being buried. Some may appreciate the improved view from their house, but I've always liked the nice and orderly impression of  power or telephone wires on a wooden pole. But while poles are becoming abscent from the Danish landscape new ones are now being erected on the Nystrup Gravel layout.

The fate of many Danish poles: stacked waiting for a new owner or the chipping machine.

My work began with separating the isolators from the small print support sprue and file away the tiny attachment stub. The 1/19 scale isolators are designed with a small hole in the bottom to accept a 1 mm wire for mounting. I had planned to make a small jig for bending the isolators' mounting bracket, but I soon realised that making a jig would consume more time than hand bending double the number of brackets freehand and binning the worst. I bent the brackets from 1 mm nickle silver wire and having selected the best, they were trimmed and isolators test fitted. Each bracket was then adjusted to ensure a minimum of similarity of the isolators' position on them.

Once I was satisfied with the isolators' fit on the brackets I painted the isolators with a light sand colour and the brackets a light grey. When dry I mounted the isolators in pairs on the poles in predrilled holes. My model poles correspond to a prototype height of 6.5 m and I fitted the isolators with a distance of 2 cm on the poles with reference from prototype poles. Once the AC glued had dried I weathered the isolators lightly with a wash of black oil paint while the brackets received a burnt sienna wash for imitation of rust.

Fresh from the 3D printer: A 20 piece double row of Danish pattern porcelain isolators in 1/19 scale from Per Møller Nielsen of Epokemodeller.

Four isolators fitted to nickle silver 1 mm wire. Final adjustment still to be done to ensure a minimum of similarity of the isolators' position on their wire brackets.

The previously made wooden poles had been fabricated from round wooden sticks that I sanded with a file to obtain a slightly tapering shape. I smoothed the surface somewhat with finer modelling files before I treated the pole with dark grey wood staining fluid and an assortment of thinned acrylic colours. Each pole took no more than 10 minutes to make. Before I mounted the isolators I fitted the poles with the usual top protection to avoid the rotting from the top in the humid Danish atmosphere. I made two types from cut-up soda can metal: the simple bent pointed plate and the flat topped round version. 

Close up af a pair of isolators on a pole.

I have yet to find permanent locations for the poles as I'm still looking for an ideal balance between what will look good and at the same time put the poles least in risc of damage during traffic on the layout. Once the poles have found their final upright positions I'll show them in their full height and glory!