building a burning building

[utdave]

I used cotton  little led flames you buy at the store, i used 4,   fiber optic  to give amber look and to hold cotton which in turn gave more color to look like the flames where higher.                                                                                                                                                                                 





Dave

[Doneldon]

Dave-

Nice work! Your burning building looks like a real conflagration, and it's a more
convincing representation than the commercial ones I've seen. Using the light
pipes and cotton was brilliant. Congratulations.
                                                                         -- D

[rogertra]

I normally find these burning building scenes cheesy as you seem to see them far too frequently, along with the over done road accident scenes but in the case?

WOW!  That is impressive I must admit.  Most realistic and best one I've ever seen.

Cheers

Roger.

[NarrowMinded]

Thats a work of art!

I have mentioned this before, those cheap disposable battery powered tea lights have great self flickering orange leds, there are differant shades of orange and around the holidays i find the in 3 packs for $1.99

A 680 or higher resister works well with 24vdc

Nm-Jeff

[jonathan]

Congrats!  That is really, really nice.

Regards,

Jonathan

[BigJim]

That's really cool, great job!

[AGSB]

Super, looks very real!

[James in FL]

Wow...great execution, brilliant indeed!

[Terry Toenges]

Looks great.

[J3a-614]

I concur, it looks great--and is a bit nostalgic for me, too!  How?

Well, back in the late 1960s or early 1970s, there was an article in Railroad Model Craftsman where a fellow had to hide a sewer pipe in his basement.  It was too low and obvious to ignore and too high where it went out the wall to hide with a tall building or smokestack for the modeled town under it, but a friend gave him an idea: "Build a fire under it and hide it with smoke!"  And that's what he did, largely with the same technique used here--lots of fluffed cotton from a relatively small point behind a structure, swelling up and out, with shots of grey and black paint to make the ugliest, smokiest trash fire you ever saw, with the smoke column going almost up to the ceiling.

Man, I wouldn't want to live in that town, not with all that air pollution from the town dump. . . . 
 

[Joe Satnik]

Dear All,

Go back and quickly scroll by the two photos,

imagining that you are seeing them for the first time. 

Holy smoke, somebody dial 911  !

Did everyone get out safely?

Nice job, Dave.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

[Doneldon]

J3a-

You can make the scene even more convincing if you hide an open can of sardines in
the smoke and then let it percolate for a few weeks. This doesn't work so great for a
burning building, but it's terrific for a trash fire.
                                                                          -- D

[utdave]

thanks everyone    i only payed a few bucks for this building with missing roof at a train auction .   im working on my water spray right now .  fiber(or fish string ) with alight blue led  try to match water a bit  and have it shooting into the fire from a fire truck .      i whished i could find a photo of a building that was local that almost looked the same when it burned down .       Yes everyone was lucky not to loose their lives in this tradagy.  fire insurance is looking to pay out large amounts to rebuild this structure ,    they found the cause was faulty electrical wiring or overloaded circuit ,        what my thoughts would be to put this on a table top lazy susan  one scene burnning building flip lazy around and have a nice building .     well the fire trucks will have blinking lights which is another project plus the water shooting out  and some real smoke on top of it and a lot of other props for it .    will save when i get the place to build my table top layout .      i spent like 2 hrs to make this and yes the store bought ones are not even close .     i have a short clip of how the flames flicker  and i t really does look good  just need to get a lazy susan to film better   one place on the back side really look like flames with the fiber i used, its  really bright .    i post more stuff if i have time to mess with it more       DAve 

[Doneldon]

Dave-

Try letting some clear glue run down the smallest monofilament fishing line you can find. The glue will increase the diameter a bit but the important feature is that you can disturb the smooth surface before the glue fully dries. This will look terrific when you put a light at one end of the line. The irregular surface will sparkle like water. You can also bundle more than one line together after the individual lines dry (don't twist) to represent larger water flows or perhaps the heavy stream from a truck-mounted water cannon. What's fun is that the light source can be at either end of the stream.
                                                                                                                                                                               --  D