I did flatten and polish the bottom, but I can assure you, it wasn't optical quality. However, it does work! I finished everything today except for the tank and the landscaping. I got all the lighting hooked up today too. And took a bunch of pictures.
This little project is, for all intents and purposes, complete!
I finished putting all the fencing in and it's tougher than it looks. I was able to fudge it enough so each fence segment had whole geometry in it. I realized after I was all done that my first two segments were installed too low, but it was too late to adjust them. I will live with it. I was able to install fencing around the watchman's shanty.
I used a Sharpie metallic marker to paint the raised lettering on the two "Sherman" signs. The marker worked beautifully just letting me pick off the lettering without flooding the surface. In the "old days" I would have dry brushed it. The marker was easier. It is a nice bronze color.
I drilled a #32 hole in the base for the signs after testing them in a number drill gauge to find the right size hole. I also glued (thick CA) the "Heritage Park" arch. It's delicate, but shouldn't be touched going forward (famous last words).
I soldered together the + & - LED leads from the two LEDs so they were in series, and then used one of my driver modules to run them both. I have bus bars all over the place under the layout feeding 12VDC for present and future LEDs. I added some heavier zip cord to the LEDs' other + & - and ran them through the same hole in the layout that already existed for the Shanty's power.
I attached the Shanty using 3M Transfer Adhesive Tape. It's great when the surfaces are nice and flat and clean.
With the room lights on, the lanterns are not really visible, but with the room lights off, the lanterns look pretty nice. They're not bright, but they are definitely on. This image was taken before the signage went on, but I needed to see how the fence looked. I realized in this pic that I didn't add a sewer inlet. Not hard to do, but it means getting down below to undo the wiring before removing the base. I'm not going to glue this vignette to the layout. Since it's really a structure, especially since the tower is solidly fastened to the base.
I then added the tower and signage. Again I plopped the unfinished Sherman to see if it all still works. You can clearly see the area that needs the landscape work to blend the edge into the terrain. That will be a quick and fun job.
And then I took a bunch with the room lights off.
Again, no upper storm drain managing the lower inlet. This image shows the lanterns well.
Again, I ran into a suspended print job due to an error code. This time it crashed at 13% completion. And it was printing beautifully. I now have enough park bench end frames for 8 benches, but have yet to successfully print the slats. I took the back cover off and checked out the USB port since the error is claiming a USB error. The actually USB connection is on the mother board and there's a USB extension cable that brings another female connector to the outside of the case. I plugged the new "non-working" flash drive directly into the mother board connector and it worked! It wasn't consistent. Sometimes it worked and others it didn't get read. Something's going on and I have to find out what. The park benches aren't in the critical path. I can add them at any time just like I can add the tank.
I am going to redraw the slats to add more heft to the end caps. They're very frail. I had about 1/3 of the slats printed and used this as an opportunity to see what trimming was going to do, and found this weakness.
It's Friday so y'all have a nice, safe, warm, socially distant, weekend. It's really winter here in Louisville. We never really had one last year. There's actually frozen water all over the place….Weird!
