The Laundromat and the Barber Shopa.k.a. "The World's Most Animated N Scale Building"This is what it looks like when I totally lose control. Crammed into this 2" x 2" building are no less than ten motors. It all started when I created a new home for the laundromat dryers from the decommissioned Mountain Vista Railroad, and things snowballed from there. I jokingly call it "the world's most animated building" because it features:
Plus nearly 40 LEDs for lighting effects:
Construction took place over the course of about nine months. Because the animations were not all planned from the outset, the mechanism acquired the appearance of a Frankensteinian Rube Goldbergish nightmare: as I added each new effect, I'd think of two more, and I just kept piling them on top of one another. For instance, the barber's chair started out as a joke where the seat would rise up in steps as the barber pumped the foot pedal. After installing it in the new building, I thought, why not make it recline, too? And once I added that, I realized I could also make it rotate. The result was an object not much bigger than an N Scale figure that had nearly as many animation options as my excavator. Here's a peek at the guts. Clockwise from top left: left side, front, right and back. The whole thing is so complex that I had to create a separate control box for it, because the main panel connectors didn't have enough circuits to accommodate it plus everything else on the diorama. I Can Dream, Can't I?If I had the time left, one of the things I'd build would be the "Ultimate Strip Mall," a way to showcase a ton of animation in one tiny space. I'd start with the Laundromat/Barber Shop and add on the following:
...as well as some others I haven't thought of yet, most likely. But, considering how much time I've already invested in the Laundromat/Barber Shop so far, this could take a year or more to finish. And, considering that the strip mall would be part of a larger scene, it might take several years. But I can dream, can't I? ReturnCopyright © 2017-2022 by David K. Smith. All Rights Reserved |