Railway Miniatures 1/87 German Lighthouse: Lighthouses – helping to keep salty sea dogs out of the briny

[Angus Tura]

Bobby,

 

I haven't kept up with this. It's looking good. Thanks for the detailed build notes.

 

Alan

[Bobby No Mac]

1 hour ago, Angus Tura said:

I haven't kept up with this. It's looking good.

 

No worries, there so much to keep up with in this GB!

[Bobby No Mac]

Some updates from Roter Sand last weekend...

 

The bottom section was painted in rubber black.

 

 

Looking forward to weathering this with these goodies that arrived on the relief boat:

 

 

Back to the middle section, the port hole glazing was glued in for the central red band and the whole piece was added to the tower.

 

 

 

 

 

The windows were glued in place to the top section.

 

 

And again it was time to fix the cladding to internal structure.

 

 

Outer window frames then added. With hindsight it would have made more sense to have done this right after the windows were attached to the cladding. I had visions of me pressing the outer frame in place and the whole window falling inside. The edges are going to require some touching up with the hairy stick.

 

 

Jobs for this weekend include getting the last bit a cladding added to middle section of the tower, putting together the three oriels and further work on the lantern rooms. Stay tuned. 

 

Portland Bob

 

 

[Col.]

Coming together beautifully Bob. Nice work again.

[Bobby No Mac]

Right, it was one of those weekends where I didn't do a great deal, but the few things I did made a big difference. 

 

On with the last bit of cladding for central section.

 

 

I made a bit of a cock-up with this bit. As I was gluing and fixing segment by segment I slowly realised it was slightly skew-whiff by a nano tad and had to hastily unpeel it to realign it. Somewhere along I also managed to get the positioning of the potholes wrong - they aren't meant to be aligned with the floor below, but it's too late now. Also, there's an unsightly gap to deal with.

 

 

Back to the oriels; the interiors were painted black, the windows added to the cladding and the cladding wrapped around each one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two of them look a bit angry...

 

Then it was back to the top floor to add ALL of those layers I posted a few weeks ago...

 

 

Couldn't resist a little dry fit to see how it was looking:

 

 

Got to say I'm quite happy with how it's looking.

 

Portland Bob 

[AliGauld]

It looking really impressive.

An awesome build that you've made a brilliant job with despite the instructions.

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[CliffB]

On 2/27/2023 at 8:10 PM, Bobby No Mac said:

Got to say I'm quite happy with how it's looking.

 

Yes, it's looking very good 

[Grandboof]

Apologies for not dropping by sooner . Looks awesome . Hard to believe it's card 

Martin H

[danbuoy]

Looks excellent! And like others have said, it's hard to remember it's card. Apart from the castle-like top part, it reminds me of Portland Bill lighthouse which I visited in 2019, and the sadly now demolished lighthouse at Orfordness which thankfully I was able to visit in 2018.

[Bobby No Mac]

Now where was I? Sorry for the lack of updates, my attention was diverted to getting my Kuta build over the line and what work I have been doing on the lighthouse was very minor stuff that takes time but not a lot to show for it. But I've had a week off work  and the weather in Cumbria has been really grotty so I've made some inroads.

 

Three 'witch's hats' were made to go underneath the oriels:

 

 

Quite aptly they were toil and trouble -12 pieces of cladding per each one to wrap around the internal framework. Only a third of the way through did I realise that gently bending the card around cylinders of a similar radius - paint pots, paint brush handles and a pencil tip - made getting the parts to conform to the shape so much easier.

 

Now to the mystery of the compass points...

 

 

The gantry floor has this compass decoration. The instructions refer to RW, but I couldn't work out what this means. I can only presume it refers to a decal/sticker/transfer but I couldn't find one in the box. Initially I thought whether you are meant to cut out the diagram on the left and stick that onto to the model, but it's too small. The decoration is also laser cut into the floor part so I photocopied it and cut out a mask for the compass points.

 

 

What I'm going to do about the letters is still TBC. I think I'll try painting them and gently wiping off any stray excess with a pointed cotton bud dampened with thinners, but maybe an ultra fine pen nib but be better, though finding a white one could be difficult. Plan B might involve filling in the marked letters and using some rub-on transfers from Woodland Scenics. Anyway, it's been painted black, ready to give the mask a go:

 

 

Onto the lantern rooms and the lanterns themselves.

 

 

I passed up on adding all the little nubbins because they don't really look anything like the real thing:

 

 

So I just took a chrome pen to the main cylinders:

 

 

For the rods they're mounted on, the instructions tell you to cut out several tiny circle parts and stack them together. But each of these circles just disintegrated into even more circles when I cut them out. I abandoned this approach and found a length of rod from the spares box, in this case part of Heller Renault 4 exhaust pipe.

 

The lanterns were added to their respective rooms and the exterior cladding added.

 

 

Some extra nubbins were added to the main lantern room. Now they'll need glazing, and this is where it gets tricky...

 

 

The window frames are wafer thin and very fragile. I've managed to damage the smaller one above, and it will need repairing before painting. They're going to require a delicate touch to glue them to the clear parts and then fix them onto the lantern rooms. I never thought I'd say this, but I really wish they were photoetch! 

 

Onto the lantern rooms' roofs:

 

 

The main one went together perfectly and almost looks edible:

 

 

The second one and the instructions gave me aggro, leaving me with two petals that didn't want to conform to remaining gaps.

 

 

So I just freestyled some spare sheet cut roughly to the gaps.

 

 

And they've been painted in rubber black, not so edible now...

 

 

The oriels have been glued into place and a lot of red paint was used on the 'sandwich' floors:

 

 

Think I might have to apply some filler on these gaps:

 

 

In other news, I've made the vestibules that connect the lantern rooms...

 

 

  

 

... and this greeble that goes on the side on the lower half of the tower.

 

 

I presume it's something to do with ventilation, certainly doesn't look like a foghorn:

 

 

Incidentally, the screengrab above (and the one of the lantern) comes from an excellent documentary about Roter Sand that I found on YouTube. It's in German, natürlich, but you can turn on the subtitles and in the settings set the auto translate to English - it gets a bit garbled at times (it seems to think one of the preservation guys says the lighthouse was at the World Cup) though you can get the gist in most cases.

 

 

An interesting factoid I've gleamed from it is that the lighthouse doesn't have a generator like its cousins around Blighty; it's powered via underwater cables from a nearby island. Also, there's a good map illustrating just how tricky the sandbanks were in this area for ships trying to get into Bremerhaven, hence the multitude of navigation lights in different directions. 

 

So... not far to go with the actual kit. Once/if I overcome the window frame and compass hurdles, there's some lining to add around the sides of the top floor and oriels, fix the lantern rooms in place, assemble the solar panels and add the railings around the top (though these are the same wafer thin card that the window frames are made of). The big question will be whether I press ahead with my original plan to make a sea base. I'll also need to scratchbuild the mooring pillars, which shouldn't be too tricky with a bit a doweling and styrene sheet/rod.   

 

Oh, and there's also the small (very small) matter of old Captain Birdseye. He's been primed, I just need to summon the courage to start painting him proper:

 

 

Thanks for stopping by,

 

Portland Bob

 

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by Bobby No Mac

[Bobby No Mac]

Nothing to see here

Edited March 25, 2023 by Bobby No Mac

[AdrianMF]

Terrific project! I've built a couple of small and simple paper project but this one is something else.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[ArnoldAmbrose]

3 hours ago, Bobby No Mac said:

In other news, I've made the vestibules that connect the lantern rooms...

 

 

  

       Gidday, are you sure that's what they're for? One in particular looks like it could perform another service. 😁 And a little earlier in the post, I'm wondering if those two last 'petals' should have gone under the other two bits. Not that it matters now, you've solved that little issue.

       This build seems much more complex than first meets the eye, but it's come together very well. And it's not a subject that I can recall seeing another model of. It's an interesting build, one you're doing a very good job of.       Regards, Jeff.

[Bobby No Mac]

10 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Terrific project! I've built a couple of small and simple paper project but this one is something else.

 

Cheers Adrian, this project could have quite easily qualified for the Not My Comfort Zone GB!

 

  

8 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

I'm wondering if those two last 'petals' should have gone under the other two bits.

 

You might be right there. That did occur to me, only long after the rest had been glued in placed 

 

8 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

It's an interesting build, one you're doing a very good job of. 

 

Thanks Jeff.

[AliGauld]

Sterling stuff,

It's all coming together beautifully.

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[Mjwomack]

There's no escaping the call of the sea! Current edition of N Gauge journal just arrived and there's a long section on building a programmable lighthouse control circuit! I don't understand a word of it, but happy to copy and PM you if you want to go all out on this!!!

 

I did understand this link though

 

trinity house.co.uk/lighthouse-and-lightvessels

 

for Trinity house locations and light codes. Oh a life on the ocean wave!!! It's all quite addictive really sin't it!

 

 

[Bobby No Mac]

10 hours ago, Mjwomack said:

There's no escaping the call of the sea! Current edition of N Gauge journal just arrived and there's a long section on building a programmable lighthouse control circuit! I don't understand a word of it, but happy to copy and PM you if you want to go all out on this!!!

 

I did understand this link though

 

trinity house.co.uk/lighthouse-and-lightvessels

 

for Trinity house locations and light codes. Oh a life on the ocean wave!!! It's all quite addictive really sin't it!

 

 

 

That's a great link, thanks.

 

I think it maybe too late to go all out this time around, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought about doing another one with a working light at some point...

 

The magnum opus project would be a scratch built Fastnet, but maybe I'll save that for a future Salty Sea Dog II: Ready Salted GB  

[Mjwomack]

12 hours ago, Bobby No Mac said:

a future Salty Sea Dog II: Ready Salted GB 

The Ready Salted GB - I'd sign up for that straight away! Or for the more upmarket, the Prawn Cocktail flavoured GB!

[George Norman]

Delighted I came across this build. I bought a couple of Lighthouse some time back, Started with a small one to practice, on. Still have not got the courage to tackle this one so I will have to have a gander on the build so far and tune in from now.

[Bobby No Mac]

11 hours ago, George Norman said:

Delighted I came across this build. I bought a couple of Lighthouse some time back, Started with a small one to practice, on. Still have not got the courage to tackle this one so I will have to have a gander on the build so far and tune in from now.

 

Welcome along George. It would be great to see some of the others being built. Starting with a smaller one sounds like a wise move... but I just had the compulsion to jump in at the deep end with probably the most fiddly kit in the range 

[George Norman]

Like you it was a voyage of discovery about paperbending etc. I have not photos of it and it was dumped as it was a poor 1st attempt. yuo one look pretty good though.  I saw them at intermodelbau in Dortmund and instantly liked them

[Bobby No Mac]

Another overdue update from Roter Sand...

 

So, the compass points conundrum. The masking plan failed as the one-piece mask was too tricky to put in place, though by happy accident the tape pulled away a top layer of the laser cut shape:

 

 

Which led me to try and carefully peel away the other bits - including the letters...

 

 

To which I decided to cut my losses and avoid trying to add white paint and risk cocking it up.

 

Filler was added (good old-fashioned Milliput) to the gaps around the oriels and these thin strips of rivets were glued into place.

 

 

These little pegs that support the railings were glued in with some difficulty:

 

 

Again, they are very tiny parts of the thicker card that have a habit of crumbling into their component layers. In hindsight, my advice would be to replace them with some styrene rod.

 

They were painted and roof parts were joined with the top floor section (which had also undergone several more layers of red paint to cover the filler).

 

 

The glazing went on the lanterns with as about as much fuss as I predicted earlier. The window frames broke in several places but were easily repaired.

 

 

Despite my best efforts, I was a little disappointed by the amount of marks and fingerprints I've managed to get on the inside of the windows  I managed to cut a small slot in the top of the main lantern and was able to widdle a cotton bud around to clean it up a bit.

 

Anyway, they were fixed into place on top with the vestibules.

 

 

 

Some more filler was required in the gap behind the secondary lantern room just in case @Mjwomack tried to drive his boxboat through it 

 

That brings us to how it looks now - with the base layer of the railings in place and all the small struts for the lantern room roofs:

 

 

At the opposite end I've been playing with a bit of weathering.

 

 

I'm quite happy with the rust (using Abteilung oils and incorporating some of the sloppy glue marks that now look like I put them there on purpose ), but I think the slime (Ammo enamels) might need further work.

 

Not far to go now!

 

Portland Bob

 

 

 

 

[Col.]

Tidy work again Bob and the happy accident of those glue marks is working out well.

[Faraway]

That’s coming on really well. Love the compass, very neat.

Jon

[George Norman]

Looks Fab, I can perfectly understand how tricky this is , Even the small one I did was difficult!