How do I share without it seeming like I'm trying to toot my own horn?

Just do it. People will either enjoy what you have done, or not. It might inspire them to do something similar. You might get questions about your technique. That's what the forum is for, so go for it.

Thanks!  I will be happy to share details.

RoyBoy posted:

Just do it. People will either enjoy what you have done, or not. It might inspire them to do something similar. You might get questions about your technique. That's what the forum is for, so go for it.

RoyBoy is right. That type of thing is very normal around here, and may constitute as much as 25% percent of the posts on the forum. Some people even start their own topics for just such a purpose. I recommend starting just one for that purpose, and then continue posting to it to show your progress. Mine has been running for almost 4 and a half years.

The community version of this is "What did you do on your layout today?" Most popular topic on the forum, and anyone can contribute.

OK, you've given me, as they say, "Scots Courage" without my needing to imbibe a dram of my favourite Scotch!    Stay tuned.

I look forward to seeing your posts!

-Greg

You could always take the Jeopardy approach, presenting your work in the form of a question.  Explain how or why you did something and ask for opinions or advice on issues encountered.  Many of us consider the most interesting, gifted and persuasive people we meet to be those who ask us what we think.

What, me worry?

Go ahead and imbibe as long as its single malt . Everything you say will sound like Shackspear  wrote it .Really , it does not matter , we all want to hear what you are up to !! Please don't be shy . Jim

I get on this forum for ideas, and to see what other people have created, so PLEASE post your efforts.

please share, that's what we're here for. I show off my projects, and so far I've had nothing but approval.

RETINPA - come on - cut the suspense - start posting the stuff - you may never know how your post(s) have inspired or helped someone on the forum.  We need guys like you and are happy you will take the time to post/share!  Thanks in advance.

If folks didn't "toot their own horn" here, it would be a very dull place indeed.

Rusty

Go ahead and share with us, we all learn from each other's efforts, so its a good thing

10 hours later and still no pictures?????? Come on, lets see your work. Half the ideas I got for my projects come from reading what others have done. Maybe yours will inspire someone.

Yeah, juss do it.  We are all a bunch of Alpha males strutting our stuff on a never ending "Show and Tell Day" at OGR school.  Anything from tubular track around a Christmas tree to a Big Boy wonder layout is fair game.  It's all good.

It would be a dull place without a little of this.

Now that you got us all hyped up, it better be worth it!   

I always love to read anything from a Pennsylvania guy.  Those guys know how to do things right.  Lets see what you have.

SUCH A TEASE You OL" SCOTSMAN

By all mean Joe show us what you've done.  That's what brings me here everyday.

I see nothing wrong with tooting your own horn  ,, as long as you make it  loud and long       ..............

RETINPA posted:

OK, you've given me, as they say, "Scots Courage" without my needing to imbibe a dram of my favourite Scotch!    Stay tuned.

RETINPA, At the risk of sounding too poetic, I was reminded of a line from a song popular several years ago when I read your inquiry of us. The song goes,

Looking for an echo, an answer to ourselves...a place to be in harmony...

Well, sir, this is the place to find harmony, among like-minds that are happy to share their accomplishments and enjoyment. From each other, we learn. Together, we are a hobby that is, also, a community. Be happy with your accomplishments. And we will be happy for and with you.

FrankM

 Post Away! Toot Toot!

 It is what makes the Forum great. You can get ideas and inspiration from All 

 Enjoy and share the Hobby

Al

RETINPA,

    Never worry about what other people think, only one guy you will eventually answer to.  

Further here on the OGR we have decent members who like to see what others have built and accomplished with their layouts.  We don't take it as bragging when members show what they have built, we enjoy seeing everyones efforts and learn much from each other.  

Post away sir and enjoy yourself and the OGR forum.

PCRR/Dave 

This forum has several different sections.  Scenery and Structures, may be a little better suited for display pictures.  I always found this section of the forum to be a bit more friendly.  IMO.  Mike CT  

A consideration for a new poster on the forum.   Click on the underlined phrase to link the Scenery and Structures Forum.

Joel: Best wishes and welcome to the forum. 

Here is what I did with my Model Power lighthouse.  I'm a big fan of lighthouses and I've had one on my layout since my HO days.  Years ago I tried Lionel's offering but it seemed undersized for O scale and the foghorn sound drove me crazy!  I liked this model from the start because it's a realistic size, about 100 scale feet tall.  I thought it was a great buy at about $60, until I got it home and found out why it didn't cost more.  The beacon didn't rotate and it had a goofy flasher bulb in it.  That had to go.

To begin, I found a set of Delrin gears online, then elsewhere bought a 30 RPM timing motor to drive them.  I cut out the center of the larger gear and epoxied it to the beacon assembly, which when mated with the smaller gear rotates at about 4 RPM or 8 flashes per minute.  The motor drives the small gear through a wood-and-brass driveshaft that runs the entire height of the tower.  I replaced the original bulb with one I had in my parts bin.  I had to extend it because it was shorter than the original and the filament wasn't centered in the lenses.  The original beacon's lenses were a good size at about 2 scale feet, but they had no optical qualities; i.e they didn't actually focus the light.  I lived with this for many years.  Recently I decided I wanted a brighter light so I replaced the original bulb with a 6-volt halogen flashlight bulb.  It ran too hot and started to melt the beacon assembly, so I tried a lower-wattage 6-volt flashlight bulb.  Both of these bulbs also sat too low so I extended them as I had done with the previous bulb.  Even the lower-wattage bulb generated too much heat, so I swapped the original beacon assembly for a Lionel 494 beacon top that I attached to the large gear with silicone caulking.  My thought was that the aluminum shell would help dissipate the heat, and it does.  The 494 beacon top is oversized, about 5 scale feet, but I think it still looks OK given the overall size of the model.  Prototype coastal lighthouses can have very large optics indeed.

Being larger, the Lionel beacon top sat too high in the lantern room, so I used a tubing cutter to take out about 1/4" of the center column of the tower, and glued it back together.  You can see the cut line in the close-up image.  Doing this also lowered the gears, making them invisible at normal viewing angles.

For lighting power I use a 6-volt switching power supply.  In the underside view you can see I have a bridge rectifier; that's because the present beacon bulb on 6 volts still generates a bit too much heat for my liking.  The bridge drops the voltage down to a measured 4.3.  Since flashlight bulbs are overdriven by design, the bulb is still plenty bright.  The other bulbs are 12-volt; I use a buck/boost converter to raise the 6 volts to about 11.  The motor runs on standard 120 volts; I placed a 12-volt SPST relay into a small project box that's wired to my DCS AIU to switch the power for both the motor and the 6-volt power supply.

The lightkeeper's house is an MTH row house that I repainted.  Then I painted both roofs with dark green acrylic paint.  I had to cut and glue in card stock light blocks in the oil house because the interior light was visible through the walls.  I didn't have that problem with the keeper's house because it was originally molded in gray.  I wrapped the oil house chimney in Micro Mark brick paper and fabricated a new top for it from a bit of styrene; the chimney pot is a section of a ball-point pen tube.  I brushed acrylic paint "mortar" on the other chimney, and repainted the roof of the lantern room with a dull red acrylic paint.  The porch lights are Walthers HO scale wall lights, whose shades scale to a little more than a foot diameter.

The most tedious part of this project was cutting out the 8 original windows in the tower and replacing them with Grandt Line parts that have muntin detail.  It was a matter of carefully shaving off the original window detail with a #17 X-Acto blade and then gluing in the new parts.  Clear styrene window "glass" finished them off.

When I get around to actually installing this into my new layout, I will recess it below table level and cover the gray base with various ground covers.

This was a lot of work but I'm really happy with the results.  Someday when I can lay hands on a really bright omnidirectional LED, I'll install that and hopefully kick up the brightness a notch.

Dang,  that's great!  That wasn't so hard was it?  Now we need a video to see that project rotate. 

Anything moving on the layout exclusive of trains adds interest.  I am very interested in the methods and materials used to slow the rotation of the beacon, 

Great post !!! Thanks for sharing it . Jim

Nicely done! I was going to suggest some type of LED, but you already considered that.

Don

Here you go.  This is my first video attachment...we'll see if it works.

Nice job, but you do need sounds. Seagulls, fog, lobster traps snapping, etc

Don, as I see it the problem with LEDs, at least for now, is that while there are some very bright ones that would both solve the heat issue and make this beacon really intense, they aren't omnidirectional.  I thought of making an array of small chips but I'm not sure it's worth my trouble because the beacon looks pretty good now.  You can bet I'm keeping my eyes open for something that will work.  It's almost too bad that flashlights can use chips that are directional...otherwise the technology might advance more quickly.  They certainly have the brightness.

Yup, now that's what we're talkin about. Great job, will look nice on the layout 

Looks great! It's projects like yours that keep us lesser folks inspired.  

Thanks for the kind words!  I'm heading over to the Scenery and Structures forum to post pics of my gas station.

Nice job!

Peter

Joel I would not change but one thing. As far as brightness, etc is concerned, you nailed it. We travel the coast offshore and see a lot of lighthouses and yours is very realistic. I love the effect as the beam passes; it looks like the light at Buxton, NC (Cape Hatteras).

Most lighthouses have a white light that shines out to sea/deep water and a red section on the area that denotes shallow water/land when that portion shows. Not sure if you can make that happen or not but it might be worth a try. Mariners know that when they see red, they are in a danger zone.

Your speed and light effect are perfect in my opinion. If you are set on trying to do a cluster, marine supply stores sell white LED lights of that type. I am not sure how small they are made but you could look.

I am going to bookmark this and give it a try. We have a need for a realistic lighthouse and your light effect should do the job changed to white with a red tinted screen in the danger zone. Thanks for posting.

Bill, I like your idea.  Not sure I can do anything with the lenses this came with.  If I could get a beacon top with clear lenses, things would be much easier.  I don't think Lionel made one though.  What I'd really like to have is a scale Fresnel lens, but I don't know of any.  I know the red/green color isn't prototypical, so my model may have to remain one of those "count the rails" things. 

Retinpa -

Had one of those; sold it at a an area train show last year. I liked it, but it was too big for my layout. I like what you have done.

===========

So far as posting photos of things you have built is concerned, that, to me, is the best part of this Forum. The "help" suggestions are useful, but the photos are the fun part. 

I post my stuff here every so often. Some seem to be liked, others get nada reaction. Don't care. I like it. I don't like everything I see here either - but so what?

Post your stuff. We want to see it.