Steve,
Great to hear from you, it’s been a while! I need to get over to Timonium shows more, usually just been doing teardown there.
Yeah all the leveling units are super overkill. What we need is some sort of toy one! I’ve actually been meaning to look at smaller diameter bolts and inserts as an option as well. Even if it were a kit that you could send for just the odd bits, having things smaller and lighter might work. A smaller insert might also go into the thin frames on these canvases.
I’m on the quest here for something simple, available and for the total newbie that doesn’t have any formulaR laying around or maybe not even a hammer! I just end up talking to so many folks that’s fine with diving into trying scenery stuff and even scratch building buildings but doing carpentry or mechanical sort of stops their enthusiasm. It’s strange where the crafting background can abruptly stop for many.
Using 3 bolts has been wonderful these days as well, so much easier to get the over all track level quick with the front bolts and then just fiddle with one bolt in the back center for the front back level. Nice as the back ones are always the hardest to reach and sort of confuses which way to spin the bolt being upside down and backwards… I find myself always spinning front bolts the right way most all the time but sort of 50/50 doing the back bolts. Also just a 25% savings on leveling parts. We have had no issues with big modules with heavier buildings on them with any tipping action, tripos is way wide enough to handle anything but a brick on a back corner.
I’m also experimenting with making a simpler version of the Kato mini diorama modules and ones that may be a tad larger so that a small structure could work on it. Kato kind of pared it down to the absolute minimum on scenery space to where you actually need some scenery design experience under your belt to dream up that compact of scenes. But cool thing here is these are tiny and a $10 kit could have base, track and some scenery materials to get folks going and once hooked move up to Ttrak. I hope to have a loop for the fall shows to start seeing folks reaction to them.i want to get out of the talking mode and get something in folks hands.
丑迟迟辫蝉://飞飞飞.办补迟辞-诲颈辞谤补尘补办颈迟.肠辞尘/复製-远くへ行きたい-2
Hope we can meet up here at a show this year, been too long!
Cheers
Jeff
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On Aug 16, 2022, at 10:29 AM, Steve Jackson <steve.jackson@...> wrote:
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Hi Jeff,
Great to hear from you and I hope you and yours are doing well!
I really like these boxes and I have not seen them before... but I will have to check one out. I also like the leveling brackets, but as Geoff pointed out, they can get expensive if you are trying to make this a budget build. You can easily glue a T nut into a scrap of foam and be in business for a quick?first module for a new modeler.
On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 10:43 PM Jeffrey Reynolds <
Cteno4@...> wrote:
Hello,
I just thought I would throw out this idea since commercial sources for modules are slim these days, availability is spotty, and they are not cheap due to rising ply prices and shipping costs. Out club (Japan Rail Modelers of Washington DC) has been doing Ttrak for a long time and in the past I’ve whacked out modules for members in my shop or they have purchased the various lasercut kits. But at shows we talk up Ttrak a lot to the public as a way to get started and one drawback has always been just the price of a single module from $25-50 (depending on brand). Add track some building and scenery materials and it starts adding up to get someone to jump in.
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So I’ve been looking around for something that is less expensive and more readily available and potentially locally. This lead me to wooden canvas panels, these are basically a Ttrak module design used to paint onto. They make 12”x12” and 12”x9” versions that are 1.5” tall which are just about perfect for a single module. It’s 1/8” shy on the width, but really that only adds a small amount to the module gaps (they would work out to about 5mm (3/16”) gaps between these types of modules), but that can be compensated with some gap filling scenery strips or just having a gap which isn’t horrible to separate different scenes on adjoining modules. The 1.5” height is fine, just need the appropriate length bolts to bring it up to standard running heights. 1” extruded foam board could be glued on top to create depression scenery and bring the module height to close to the usual 2.75” if desired.
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Nice thing is these are prebuilt, sturdy, and very standardized. Cost is around $6-14 each.
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Only thing that needs to be added are inserts for leveling. This could be done as simple as made from foamcore squares layered up with glue to make more the old style corner blocks and then drill a hole on it and epoxy a T nut into it. Or small square of ply to put the insert into and just glue in front two corners and back center off the back side (we’ve found the 3 legs to be way easier to level modules).
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We have been doing lots of more general public events with Ttrak and lots of folks get interested in this a an interesting way into the hobby. Many love the crafting/diorama aspect of Ttrak. Also younger folks usually have a lot less room to work with so the idea of small modules that don’t that don’t take up a lot of storage space and they can work on it on the kitchen table. The meetup aspect also interest many as a simple group event.
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Just curious what folks think and if they have any ideas to make this more workable on the leveling inserts or other ideas for simple modules for newbies that is easy and cheap.
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Cheers,
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Jeff
