The next detail item was adding the phone/radio. Turning
to Google again, I found a phone/radio that looks like a tele-
phone with knobs. I measured my landline phone receiver
(the part you listen and talk with). It measured 10” so I figured
the phone/radio must be around 12”. How could I print a 12”
phone in 1:29 scale? A Garden Railways contributor mentioned
the website
I found lots of things to print. Most
of the items are for doll houses, but there are many neat things
that can be used in the model railroad world.
There is a calculator on the website to calculate the right print-
ing size. Put in the real-life dimensions and the scale you’re
using. The calculator tells you the actual dimensions to print it
to scale. For example, see [28]. I was going to make the radio
12” x 12”. I selected 1:29 scale for the conversion, then clicked
27. Adding the railroad and car number.
27
Extended-vision caboose - 12
Calculate and all the information was filled in. According to the
calculator resizing the Google image, 7/16” x 7/16” is the cor-
rect size for 1:29 scale. Everything on Printmini is free.
Another detail I wanted was track warrants. A Google search
brought that up, and the calculator gave me the dimensions to print
scale 8” x 10” paper. I usedMicrosoftWord to resize my images and
print them. [29] shows the printed material scaled to size.
Using a metal ruler as a guide and a sharp X-Acto blade, I care-
fully cut out the images [30]. One thing that helps this process
is a piece of glass underneath. I got my glass from a picture
frame at the local dollar store. Caution! Picture frame glass
28. Hobby calculator on
28
MRH-Nov 2014
