Portable Tower Lights
These are among the little details that are common around work sites, but that aren't commercially available, to my knowledge, and not often modeled. So I made a couple of my own. And as with many of my efforts lately, I did it twice. The first time, I made the armature out of brass, and it was nothing but trouble. For the second go-round, I started with double-sided PC board that I cut into square strips with a jeweler's saw for the masts (below left). This solved the problem I had the first time around with wiring.
As before, I made the reflectors from Tichy HO Scale lamp shades. I simply drilled out the center and then threaded pre-wired cool white 0402 SMD LEDs into them. Next, I made brackets for pairs of the lamps by drilling two holes in styrene strip stock to accept the necks of the reflectors (above right). A dab of CA locked everything in place. The next step was the toughest: cutting, stripping and soldering all eight leads, and soldering the two bundles to either side of the mast. The big bunches of wires didn't bother me, since the lights would all be oriented to face the viewer, obscuring the wires. I completed the light assembly by bonding a bit of wire to the top of the mast (with a bit of insulation to keep from shorting out the mast), and then the light pairs to the wire.
I made the generators from solid blocks of styrene; I eyeballed their size and shape based on reference photos. Then I attached fenders, outriggers and hitches made from bits of strip styrene, and wheels from the scrap box. Paint and some random decals finished them off.
