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1/72 Maritime Lift-Span Bridge


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Photograph of the bridge's bumper rollers.

 

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Built another set of four bumper rollers but for lateral movement this time.

Only used the rollers from the microswitch actuators this time.

 

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Added the vessel traffic lights to the centre of the span.

 

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There are several containers on the balconies. These are made from block timber and painted.

Here they are drying on my window sill.

 

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Used 3 mm MDF board, 2 mm clear Perspex, and white card to build the hut walls. I was surprised how well the Perspex can give that glass window effect (slight reflection and parallax error). The four tabs at top of walls is for positioning the roof.

 

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Added split bamboo skewers for railings, and fly screen for mesh. Started to paint the span with a home mixed, Bridge Grey oil enamel.

 

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Found some washers that fit over the LED nav; lights. Now they look more like beacons.

Added railings for the road and footpath. Gave that a paint. Will paint road later.

 

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To be honest, at this point of model making I felt really good on how the span turned out.

Edited by Tecko
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Thank you @phantom for encouragement.

 

to continue:

Since the console interior is to be another diorama, I decided to add a touch of drama by adding Power Status Indicators. Each DC voltage source has two LEDs. Green for all okay; Red for 'blown fuse'. Also cleaned up the terminal strips and made new set of printed numbers (1-60) for them. Then I installed the Power Supply Unit into the console.

 

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At this stage, the console was at the museum. To cut down on double handling, I got the console delivered to my place.

 

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The pulley wheels I wanted were too expensive (to buy ten of them). So I came up with an alternative by solder-sweating different sized washers together.
My first attempt had too much solder, but got it right after that.

 

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The towers are not actually in place in these photographs. They are just positioned to see how it will look, and how close the span bumpers would get to the towers.
The towers have to be installed at the same time as the road surface.
 
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I discovered before installing the towers that once they are in, the span cannot be removed for repairs. There won't be enough room to pass above the pulley wheels. So I cut off the lateral bumper rollers (the hidden side) and replaced them with removable ones.

 

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Thanks @Slartibartfast for your complement.

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Then I had the fiddly job of painting the railings. 

 

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I do not plan to paint the bridge to appear weathered, but as if brand new and unpolluted. It is something I learnt to appreciate from doing some architectural rendering in my youth. So, I gave the rest of the bridge a cement grey colour. The road will be painted to appear as concrete (with gravel).

 

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@southwestforests, thank you for thoughtful, funny, adjectives. Very complimentary.

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Throughout this project I continue to do Internet research. A friend emailed me a photo taken of a computer screen by her iPhone. It revealed a few things I was still not clear about. There was the matter of what did the swing-gates look like. The scale of the cars is known, but how did they look in comparison to the whole bridge. Finally, what did the concrete road look like from above.

 

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Decided to splatter dark grey paint onto the cement colour. It turned out horrendous. So then I used the dry brush method to lighten up the dark patches. Afterwards, I kept alternating between dark and light paint with a fine brush until I was happy with the results.

 

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Painting the span took longer than painting the rest of the road. It was difficult to get into the central areas. The edges of the span and bridge have a metal plate (silver painted area). The hole you see on edge of road is for the fine (0.7 mm) bridge cable which goes through the display table.

 

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