Ashbrooke-Stein Dodecagon House

[Vermin_King]

While figuring out what I wanted to do for the annual Papercuts Awards at the Cardboard-Warriors forum this year, I stumbled on a photo of the Armor-Stiner Octagon House in New York (currently renting for $44k per month).


I immediately thought of Christopher Roe's Habdome, but it is dodecagonal, not octagonal.



So, I decided to see if I can make a suitably steampunkish house for my diorama. This month's theme over there is Steampunk/VSF, so I'm taking a break from the house to do a steam carriage.

The steam carriage is going to be similar to the Royal Mail Coaches, so Vehicular Konstructions (formerly VK's Carriage Works) is working on a Glasgow/London Royal Mail Coach, and this will be modified into the Steam Carriage.

Working on getting the various elements together on it now, should have a model of the Mail Coach by tomorrow night, I hope.


Back to the Dodecagon House, after Chris (Genet Models – Paper models and toys) gave me his blessing to post my files for this at Cardboard Warriors (just a steampunkish idea | Cardboard Warriors forum) , it really came together quickly, until I got to the steps. I kept changing how I wanted to do them. The build also went quickly until I got to the dormers. I want to re-work them so that they don't stick out so far over the gutters, and need to make them taller.



For the diorama, this will also have Tommygun's Zeppelin at the back. I'm redesigning the landing mast, and will also be repainting and modding the passenger area of the airship. I may swap out with one of Squirmydad's airships for that area. I've got a little time to decide. Tommygun's zeppelin is available here, http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/v...downloadid=858

On a lark, I also have made a quick little winged flyer


So far, it has been a fun little project

[Wyvern]

Very cool!

Wyvern

[wideride]

WOW! VK has been a very busy boy! Looks great. I second Wyverns' 'Very Cool', indeed!
George

[Vermin_King]

Once in a while a person gets lucky. I was just drawing this up at a scale that was convenient to work with. Then I worked at getting it to look something like this one.

Now that I have the basic elements, I checked it against a 30mm 'scale' carriage, and the size is correct! Getting the opposite side done, and the 'wrap' pieces, won't be hard. The body box will sit on the chassis box. Spacer boxes between the wheels and the chassis. I think the lanterns will be boxes with decorative attachments top and bottom.

I'm looking forward to this little fellow and the steam version to follow

[Vermin_King]

Ach, I'm probably too OCD on this, since it is being set up to be a very simple build (getting more complicated as I go along). But I do want it to not have glaring errors.

Replica builders, even museum replica builders, take some license in what they do. Tourist-y versions have all the extra seats, which from the period paintings isn't too much of an exaggeration. They also have extra signage, and don't attempt to have period-correct chassis, etc. I did find an old unrestored mail coach. I'm going to rework the chassis to look more like it.

I've also come to discount many of the period paintings. The chassis is totally different than on the unrestored and replica coaches. And from an engineering standpoint, I just don't think they would be built that way ... more like a freight wagon. I find it odd that the different painters painted the chassis more or less this same way. Perhaps there was an engineering change during the period these were in use. But I'm going to use the unrestored coach from the 1870's as my guide

[JohnM]

There's an old Royal Mail coach outside a pub about 20 miles up the A5 from me. The story goes that it was one of the last horse-drawn mail coaches to run the London to Holyhead route. It broke a wheel and there being no further coaches to bring up a spare, it has been outside the pub ever since.

It is of course regularly maintained and re-painted, and last time I passed it I noticed that at long last they have given it a fourth wheel, although that does rather spoil the story a bit.

It's not a route I travel much now, but I'll try to locate it for you using Google Earth. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.09...2!8i6656?hl=en

Better still, I found this ... Access Denied Dunno what the 'Access Denied means, 'cos the link works.

[Vermin_King]

Coolness. I'd like to see other examples

[JohnM]

Have you seen this one VK? ...



Brotwagen

And of course you've seen this one ..

[Vermin_King]

Yep. There are color versions of that last one out there, too

[Vermin_King]

Made a bit of progress. Sometimes extra parts makes the build easier. Makes modding to the Steam version easier, too. For folks that don't want to build the lanterns, I have some flat ones that could be glued on.

The body should be done now, and I hope to have the undercarriage done tonight to build tomorrow.