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Placement
of lighting, the type of lighting, the safety of the lighting,
are all of concern for the modeler. Placement affects
primarily follow function on the layout. These can include
signals, structure lights, and street lighting. Here, we
will discuss interior and exterior structure lighting as well as
street lighting. The type of lighting involves the size
of the bulb and the voltage required. And the safety of
the lighting is concerned with how much heat is produced.
The
most common lighting, in model railroading, is a single 14 volt
ac bulb. These are large, bright, and can produce lots of
heat. Gaining in popularity are 1.5 volt dc micro-mini
bulbs and LEDs, both are much smaller and produce far less
heat. We will be discussing the use of the 14 volt
ac and 1.5 volt dc lights.
Lighting
structures
It
should be obvious that real buildings have both interior and
exterior lighting. It is also common knowledge that real
buildings do not glow when lit from inside. Similarly, the
modeler quickly becomes aware that model buildings on the layout
may resemble glowing Christmas tree ornaments. Certainly,
this is not a problem with laser cut wood structures, but most
plastic structures are not opaque to the light of a bright
bulb.
The
easiest solution is to paint the interior of the
structure. The concept is to apply a barrier to light on the
surfaces of the structure. This will allow light to exit
the structure through the openings. This is fine, but
light will also escape through unintended openings, such as
along rooflines and under eaves, where gaps occurred during
assembly. These should be filled prior to painting.
Of course, you will want to mask the surfaces you do not want
painted. Follow the same principles as working on a
real house: caulk, mask, prime, and paint.
In
most cases, we are refurbishing an assembled house or
building. We first remove as many detail parts, as
possible, especially chimneys, and paint these separately.
We then look for gaps along the roofline, and around doors and
windows. We use gap-filling glue, and are careful not to
let the glue flow through the gap to the exterior of the
structure. We use spray flat black model paint as the light
block on both the interior and exterior, no masking. When
we apply a second color to the
interiors, we wrap the exterior with painters (blue)
masking tape to prevent overspray and to prevent paint buildup
that can hide surface details. Similarly, when painting
the exterior we mask the interior to prevent overspray.
To
add exterior lights to buildings, we drill a small hole through
the wall, just under the eaves. The hole, 1/32" to
1/16" diameter, is just large enough to fit the bulb. Even though the micro-minis produce little heat,
it is still probably a good idea to install the light so that it
is not resting directly on the model.
Street
and Area Lighting
Our
simple approach to street lights and area lighting is to use
brass tubing and micro-mini lamps. We use 1/8" tube
cut with a tube cutter. We trim one of the lamp wires to
about a half inch, and leave the other long. We solder the
short lead to one end of the brass tube, and the cut off wire is
soldered to the other end of the tube. The uncut lead is
fed through the tube. We shape the exposed wires to the
lamp to appear to be lamp supports. We color the brass
with "magic marker" or paint, and secure the wires at
the base with electrical tape.
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