Railway bed. How to make a model of a railway with your own hands? DIY train simulation for grandpa
Toy railways are inherently associated with childhood. Many of us at a young age used to have a plastic or iron railroad prefab. And those who could boast of a foreign-made model were considered lucky.
In modern times, the toy railroad hobby has grown into a major modeling industry. Moreover, this business is already more focused on an adult audience than on children.
Trees, houses, roads, cars, relief surroundings were added to the main attributes - a track and a locomotive with trailers. And a table with a full-fledged model of the railway, with many details and trifles, is already a real art.
Abroad, such products cost from 2 thousand dollars, but in this article I will tell you how to make a full-fledged model of a toy railway with your own hands.
Table
You will need space for the layout. Ideally, this should be a separate table, but you can do with a small table, or just a fenced-off area on any suitable surface. It all depends on your desire and scope. I recommend starting with a small place - for example, a part of the table, and then, if inspired, make a large layout. It's better to start small than to take on a large amount of work right away and leave it half way.
Starter kit
Without which it will not be possible to make a model of the railway - this is the railway itself. Or rather, a set of rails, a train and a power supply system for it. Here, alas, there are no alternatives - all this needs to be bought. It's good that nowadays the market has a lot to choose from.
Sketch
To know where you are headed, you need to have a goal in front of your eyes. Make a rough sketch on paper - where what should be and what it will be general form your layout. Browse the Internet, look at the numerous models of railways and take note of what you like - bridges, crossings, houses, stations. You can make a model of a half-station in the Wild West, or you can make a station in the center of a modern city. But be sure to decide before you get to work. And make markings on the table so as not to suddenly find that the track goes beyond the boundaries of the table, or that the barrier will cling to a passing train.
The mountains
The presence of a mountain with a tunnel through which the train will pass will be a decoration of the model. To create a small mountain, you need polyurethane foam, plywood, knife, alabaster and sandpaper.
First, think over and, if possible, draw a sketch of the future mountain. Then knock over the rails a small box made of plywood or other suitable material... Make sure that the size of the box allows your train to pass freely through the tunnel. Then start applying the foam around the box, with pauses of one and a half to two hours, to allow the layers to dry and not sag under their own weight. After you apply the required amount of foam, leave it to dry for at least a day.
After a day, pick up a knife (more convenient - a clerical one), and start picking the mountain - cut off the extra pieces, giving it the shape you have planned. Cut out depressions, crevices, try to make it as natural as possible.
Then you will need alabaster. Dissolve it with water, and cover the entire mountain with a thin layer of up to 3 mm. It dries quickly, so dilute it in small batches. Then wait a few hours again until everything hardens - it is better not to use a hairdryer.
Now we need to paint over the mountain with gray. To do this, buy a primer cylinder in any car dealer, the color of gray stone, and you can paint your mountain. Just test the paint first on something else to make sure the color is right for you.
Then use sandpaper and rub in some places the mountain to remove the layers of primer here and there. This will give the mountain more naturalism, so that it is not a uniform color, but a shade from light to dark gray. You can repeat painting and sanding several times until you get what works for you. You can also paint individual pieces of the mountain white or black for more believability.
Finally, take a green paint and tint the pieces of the mountain in the color of greenery - so it will be even more naturalistic. Only paint should be a believable, mossy color.
Your mountain (or slide) is ready. Congratulations, you have already done a fair amount of work. Next in line are the rest of the relief details.
Here everything depends on your imagination, size free space and the matching parts that you have. Fill an unoccupied table surface with, for example, a dummy turf that is available in stores. Toy houses, figurines of people, vehicles, railroad crossing, a train station with a station, a bridge, trees - these are all the details that will decorate your layout. Many of them can be found in Lego blocks, or simply individually in toy stores. Railroad modeling firms also sell great kits, but be prepared to spend a lot in this case.
You can make a model on a large table, with many details, relief terrain, electric drive and a real small town. But you can also make a small model - a battery-powered train, with a small piece of landscape and a few decorative elements.
Whichever option you choose, the model you have made will adorn any home and be interesting to any company - both children and adults.
For young modelers and enthusiasts who feel sorry for or not have money for purchased rails, but have time, below we present you an example of a budget modeling railway track.
The basis a stretcher made of strips and plywood serves as our road. Its size can be approximately 3000x500x120 mm or more. It depends on the area of \u200b\u200bthe room. The role of ballast is played by wooden blocks on which sleepers are laid. Homemade rails are attached to the sleepers.
And to make your road bed look like a real one, grease it with liquid wood glue and sprinkle it with sand sifted through a fine sieve. When the glue is dry, shake off excess sand. You can do it differently: paint the stretcher with paint. Of course, you first need to putty it, sand it with a sandpaper ...
Sleepers can be made from plywood strips or pine planks 60x10x4 mm. In order not to bother with the manufacture of each tie, the work can be simplified. Take a sheet of plywood, mark it according to the size of the sleepers and cut it with a fine-toothed hacksaw, then smooth out all the irregularities with a file and sandpaper and paint oil paint or black ink.
The finished sleepers are laid on the canvas - glued at a distance of 20-25 mm from each other.
You need a stamp to make them. It is made of two metal rectangular bars of the same section.
On a milling or planer process these bars. On one, cut a groove with a size of 7x10 mm and two grooves with a diameter of 3 and 4 mm, on the other - the same grooves, but instead of a groove, a ledge. You will get a device like a punch and a matrix. The rail head is stamped into the groove (see figure below). The 1: 50 model uses a 3.5 mm notch, and the 1: 100 model uses 2.5 mm.
Let's talk about the sequence of operations. Take a strip of tin (see picture below), draw a center line, fold. Insert a wire with a diameter of 2.5-3 mm inside - for the rail head, crimp with wire cutters and now insert into the stamp. Clamp the die in a vice, and you get a rail that is even along the entire length with a good head and neck.
Without removing the rail from the die, flare its base with a screwdriver in different directions and align with a mallet.
Attach the finished rail to the sleepers with studs. Do this carefully and as accurately as possible. First of all, outline a line of one strand of rails along the entire length of the canvas. To do this, exactly at a distance of 15 mm from the edge of the sleepers, pull the thread, fastening it to two studs temporarily driven into the first and last sleepers. Place the rails and nail exactly under this thread. At the same time, they should neither touch her, nor pull her to the side.
There is another way. Cut a rectangular piece of 1000x32x10 mm. Place it in the center of the ballast, secure with nails and lay rails on both sides of it. You will see how smoothly they fit, and the distance between them will be accurate along the entire length - equal to 32 mm between the heads.
It is necessary to connect the rails to each other at the joints with rods that are inserted into the rail heads. The rail joints must be in the middle of the sleepers.
When you make one section of the track, test the locomotive on it and start building the next section.
Fasten the sections together with metal hooks or loops attached to the stretcher.
So, you have built a railroad bed, laid sleepers, rails. Now you need to install the support poles and tighten the contact wire.
Support masts. Cut the support out of a bar 200 mm long and 21 x 21 mm in cross section. Take plywood (30 x 30 mm) by the base. Drill a 10 mm hole in the center, sand and fit the bottom of the mast.
You can make the hanger on which the contact wire is attached from any wire with a diameter of 2-3 mm. Do not forget to wind the spring, as shown in the figure, for this take a nail with a diameter of 2 mm, clamp it in a vice and wrap a spiral 10-12 mm high around it. The suspension is ready. It is attached to the support mast through a bracket and, in addition, for greater strength, it is pulled with a string - an ordinary thread or thin wire.
Insulators there may be plastic beads or small buttons.
Contact wire runs along the entire track. It is supported by the support poles we just told you about and the support wire. It is fixed over the contact wire and connected to it with guy wires.
To make the model portable, the overhead wires have a break in several places and are connected by connectors - two metal plates: a contact wire is soldered to one, and a reference wire to the other. The plates are equipped with a lock - cutouts are made on one, rivets are soldered on the other. Thanks to this, the plates are easily and quickly separated.
You can "green up" the finished railway. The material for the "grass" is dry sawdust, painted with gouache in green color... They are sieved through a sieve onto a tablet greased with wood glue, drying oil or oil varnish.
"Trees" are made from a rubber sponge, foam rubber or a bundle of copper wire. The bundle is folded in half and twisted to the distance of the "trunk", and for the "branches" the wire is disconnected. To make the “tree” “green”, it is dipped in liquid glue, allowed to drain and sprinkled with finely chopped dyed tissue paper on the “crown”.
Thinking about how to make a model of the railway with your own hands? To implement such an idea, you will need to stock up on a huge amount of patience, since such work does not tolerate haste. In addition, before construction, you will have to study a lot of theoretical information and draw up competent drawings. Read more about all these nuances in our article. Be sure that very soon you will be able to build your own railroad to decorate your apartment.
The main types and features of modeling
A miniature railway is a piece of furniture that will delight the eyes of not only children, but also adults. If you are interested in a model for making railways with your own hands, then most likely you had a similar toy in your childhood and you decided to bring your memories to life. Well, or you just want to please your household with an unusual handmade jewelry. However, in the following sections you will find detailed instructions, which describes each stage of work on the layout in all details.
It takes a lot of work to make a really beautiful layout, because even the smallest detail of the composition requires close attention. If you have ever studied the device of real railways, then it will be much easier for you to implement your idea. However, do not be discouraged if you do not have the necessary skills, since all necessary information can be found on the Internet without much difficulty. For example, our article will present several original ideas, which will allow you to make a high-quality and unusual layout for your home.
As for the main types of layouts, it is rather difficult to classify them. In terms of scale, you can find small, medium, and huge layouts that fill almost the entire space of the room. Some compositions are used to make a toy train ride on them. Others are part of the interior. Quite often, various elements of nature can be found on the models: rivers, mountains, forests and fields, and sometimes they may simply be absent, and the railway itself is located on an ordinary plane. In general, there are quite a few options for making a model, especially for a person who will do it for the first time.
What materials will be required for the job?
Have you decided to make a model of the railway yourself at home? First you need to decide on the materials that you will use in the construction process. This can be done only if you carefully study the options for ready-made layouts, the photos of which are presented in our article. In this list you can find the most commonly used materials in construction and their purpose:
- plywood sheet - suitable as the main plane for the layout;
- construction foam - perfect option to create mountains with a tunnel;
- boards and cardboard - suitable for creating decorative objects.
It should be noted that the ability to use various materials limited only by the skill and imagination of the master himself. For example, if you are good with plaster, you can easily make several objects out of it for the layout. Do you know how to design bridges? Why not add a design like this to your composition. What about real water in the layout to represent the river?
Also, do not forget that some items can be purchased in stores, and not made by hand. For example, it will be quite difficult for a novice designer to make a human figurine from scrap materials, but on the Internet such an element can be ordered at a very modest price. Or, you can display your sports car collection on the mock-up so that it no longer gathers dust on the shelf, but pleases the eyes of your guests and family members.
List of required tools
We have already said that it is easiest to make the basis for a railway layout with your own hands from a large sheet of plywood. You can buy such material in a furniture store or remove it from an old unnecessary bed. However, what tools might a designer need in the process of work? As a rule, they directly depend on the materials that you decide to use. Although in the list below you will find the most commonly used tools, as well as their "field of activity".
- An electric jigsaw is indispensable for working with plywood sheets and wood.
- Construction adhesive is ideal for attaching small parts.
- Sandpaper - Suitable for uneven surfaces.
In the process of work, you will need quite a few different tools that are related to materials for work. For example, if you want to paint the layout with different paints, then you will need brushes of different fineness. Decided to add a couple of metal parts? Do not forget to get a grinder with discs and welding machine with electrodes.
As you can see, the list of tools for work can be quite extensive, so it is recommended that you find everything you need in advance so that you do not have to be distracted by anything during the work. If you don’t have a tool at home, you can ask your friends for it, but in no case use alternative options (screws instead of nails). Making a layout is a very delicate job that requires adherence to certain rules.
Design or drafting
How to make a model of a railway at home step by step and with your own hands? You will find detailed information on this in the following sections. However, before you start building something with your own hands, you need to competently draw up drawings of the future product, which would take into account all the features of the composition.
First of all, you need to decide on the size of the layout. It should be understood that the larger the area of \u200b\u200bthe product, the more small details you will have to add to it. A beginner designer should first learn how to make small layouts, and only then move on to large compositions. Although if you are confident in your abilities or work under the guidance of a real professional, then you can forget about this rule.
However, one should not forget that not only the quality of the future design depends on a correctly drawn up drawing, but also its decorative view... Typically, people start making layouts when they already have a certain idea. For example, the master wants to include in the composition several mountains with a tunnel, a river, a bridge, and also a small village in the middle. This layout may require quite a lot of detail, but it will look pretty decent.
We make a breadboard
We make a model of the railway with our own hands. The first stage will be the manufacture of a sub-layout, on which all the main elements will be placed. It is highly recommended to use a sheet of plywood as a building material, since it has good enough strength and is lightweight that you can drag the layout even by yourself. You can buy such a product in any furniture store, but if you want to save money, then go to the construction base, where a sheet of plywood of the required size will be sawed off right in front of the buyer.
Once the plywood sheet is ready, it must be carefully processed so as not to be damaged by sharp edges during work. For this purpose, you can use an electric jigsaw with a special attachment or medium-grit sandpaper. Try to process the plywood as carefully as possible, since then this opportunity may not be available. In addition, it is much easier to paint and stick on a smooth surface. small parts... And if you want to cover the layout water-repellent coating, then sanding a sheet of plywood is a must.
Working with the landscape
The next step in making a model of a railway with your own hands from plywood is to work on the landscape. This stage can be called the most difficult, since the quality of the future design depends on its correct implementation. If you cannot implement the idea the first time, then you should not despair. At any time, you can throw out the plywood sheet and purchase another. Fortunately, they are quite inexpensive.
A wide variety of methods can be used to work on the landscape. For example, mountains can be made from regular construction foam by releasing it from a spray can in the right amount. If you mean that a tunnel will pass through such a natural element, then you should take this into account in advance by placing a plastic or cardboard pipe on the model. After using the foam, you don't even need to take it out. Let it lie inside the mountains, and the seams can be masked with almost anything.
Another irreplaceable material for landscaping is gypsum or construction filler. Unlike foam, such a material is much easier to modify for the desired shape, but it is most often used as a decorative element, and not as the main one. Firstly, gypsum weighs a lot, so you should not make large objects out of it. Secondly, over time, the putty can crack, especially if you do not use a water-repellent mixture during construction. In general, there are a lot of options for working on the landscape, so you should choose wisely.
Grinding and painting works
The next stage in the construction of a do-it-yourself railway model is grinding and painting work. If you used wood for construction, then you can eliminate all the irregularities with ordinary sandpaper. Dried construction foam is easiest to trim with a putty on all uneven areas. After that, the mountains will become quite smooth. If that doesn't suit you, don't be afraid to chunk off a few pieces of putty to give the natural formation a more natural look.
As soon as the landscape takes on the desired shape, we open several cans of acrylic paints, take brushes in our hands and start creating. It is best to have an image of real mountains with vegetation in front of your eyes in order to better understand which colors from the palette should be used first. Do not be afraid to apply several layers of paint, as this will only give the future composition a natural look. For example, you can paint stones in grey colour, and then add a little white paint on top, thus depicting snow at the top.
We are laying the railway
We are still making a model of the railway with our own hands and gradually we are approaching the longest stage of construction - the laying of the railway. As a rule, most craftsmen prefer to purchase ready-made material in toy stores, since the manufacture of the railway with my own hands it can take an unrealistically long time. In addition, plastic parts are quite cheap and it will not be a pity to break them if used carelessly. This is especially true for those people who have children in their families.
The railroad is fastened to the model using ordinary construction glue. Do not use too long parts during operation, as this can give the road an unnatural straightness. It is best to make it so that there are more turns and elevations on it. Remember not to use too much glue to attach parts to the surface. Also, on any tube you will find information that for good fixation, the force of pressing the part to the surface plays a huge role, and not a long pressing time.
Scenery creation
Once the main element of our layout is done, you can start creating various decorative elements. You can buy such parts in toy stores or make yourself from building materialsif you have a talent for it. For example, on some models you can see the usual medical cotton wool, which plays the role of snow, although most professional designers still prefers to use a special blend that is sold in small cans at Christmas stores.
The same goes for the rest of the composition. You can make do-it-yourself lanterns for a model of a railway from ordinary plasticine or buy a ready-made decoration in a store. By the way, if you plan to make a layout for Christmas, then replacing the standard one would be a very good idea. street lighting on christmas garlands, however, such a solution should be foreseen in advance by cutting out several dozen holes for light bulbs in the plywood - this way the wires will be at the bottom, attached with electrical tape.
Video clip and conclusion
We hope that now you understand better what makes a mini-model of a railway with your own hands. If the information from our article seemed to you a little, or you still have some questions, then we recommend watching a short video in which the master demonstrates the entire process of making a landscape with his own hands. Such a video will be useful for both a novice designer and a true master of his craft. If you look at it in its entirety, you will certainly learn how to craft beautiful mountains and other natural objects with the help of scrap materials.
This story crafts short. During the summer holidays I had quite a lot of free time and wanted to do something do it yourself... Once passing by a railway crossing, I had the idea to make a working model of such an object that seems to be so ordinary at first glance.
For the foundationrequire a drawer from the table. We mark the location of objects on the box and drill holes for attaching the semaphore and lanterns, as well as drill holes for wiring the house.
For the house you will need:
- a piece of thin plywood;
- thin transparent plastic;
- matches;
- whatman;
- lED with wires for lighting the house.
We cut out the walls and roof of the house, then we saw through two windows in the walls and glue the resulting parts together with hot melt glue, paint. We cut glass from plastic. They should be slightly larger than window hole and glue them. We cut and paint matches. We make window frames using super glue. Finally, we attach the LED in the center of the roof of the house.
Now let's tackle the road and landscape:
Road consists of glued finely sifted screenings that are rolled with a roller. The surface is painted and marked.
Railway track we make it like the road, only we add a second layer (smaller width). On top we lay sleepers made of ice cream sticks and rails made of thick aluminum wire.
Grass made of green colored shavings.
For lanterns you will need :
- LEDs with wiring;
- Housing conventional ballpoint pen and a rod from helium;
- incomprehensible gizmos that lay in my desk.
Putting it all together and we get:
Semaphore:
- Dowel for skirting boards
- Pen body and helium pen shaft
Cut off the upper part from the dowel. Bend the rod at an angle of 90 degrees. We cut off half of the handle, drill the cut off part of the dowel and the handle, connect them.
Barriers: We make them from two pieces of plywood of different thicknesses and make two holes at the ends of the narrow strip.
Electronics and mechanisms
We make a simple multivibrator circuit and attach it to semaphores. They turn on when the barriers are lowered using a homemade "relay".
