Like your scenery! It's amazing how much a little scenery improves the look of the trains (which are beautiful already, btw)!
Let us know how the guy-wire trees go. I'll be making trees for our layout eventually--so I am always interested to hear how others have done it.
Can never see enough pics, but that is looking very nice.
Here are the latest pictures of the layout. The first shows the yard with a few trains in it. You can see where it transitions to the painted green section.
Next is another view of the yard.
This is the other part of the layout. No scenery yet.
Bob,
Great job on the layout!
I'm not very talented at scenery, so I purchased some pine trees for about $1 each from Dechant's Railroad Express (www.MrTrain.com). A very helpful lady (forgot her name) in customer service suggested drilling a 1/16' hole and adding a drop of white glue to mount the trees on a layout. (The trees are sold without bases in several sizes.) The lady in customer service made another great suggestion: Spray the trees with hairspray to reduce the amount of "shedding" (loose "needles", that will eventually land on the track, switches, etc.) After spraying, let the trees stand for 1-2 hours to dry. (I put the "wet" trees on 2" x 4" wood boards with holes drilled a few inches apart.) You can also spray the trees with a little white paint to simulate snow.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
Here is the latest picture showing the progress of my attempts at scenery . All Lionel tubular track has been replaced with GarGraves on this 4X8 section. The mixture of black and white sand from Michaels looks better, IMHO than the Woodland Scenics ballast. Using paint as an adhesive does a better job than the 50-50 water & Elmers mix, but I have been using the mix lately as I can't get outside to clean the paint off the brushes. The Elmers can be cleaned up in the sink.
I found a container of Elmer's School Glue. Is there any reason I shouldn't use that?
I had no problem with the straight track, using the W-S Roadbed, but as I expand the area, I find it difficult to bend the roadbed for curve track. Is there some trick? I cut a narrow pie slice from the center of the curve track, but that just results in 2 shorter straight sections.
Also found some multi-strand guy wire to use for trees with Lichen Moss. What I can't figure out is how to attach them to the plywood table.
Taranwanderer One other trick is to use dried, used coffee grounds, mix that in with the paint, and it gives a bit more coarse texture. Plus used coffee grounds are mostly free (as opposed to Woodland Scenics ground covers!) It takes some experimenting, and don't think you're going to get the look you want in one coat--I usually wind up doing 3 or 4 coats to really get the texture I want. But take your time and experiment with it--there's no "wrong" way to do it! Have fun...
One other trick is to use dried, used coffee grounds, mix that in with the paint, and it gives a bit more coarse texture. Plus used coffee grounds are mostly free (as opposed to Woodland Scenics ground covers!) It takes some experimenting, and don't think you're going to get the look you want in one coat--I usually wind up doing 3 or 4 coats to really get the texture I want. But take your time and experiment with it--there's no "wrong" way to do it! Have fun...
Coffee grounds? I will try that. The last time my trains had any scenery was in the 1940's, and we mixed sawdust with green paint to make grass. A couple of my O-22 switches still have some of that mixture on them. I don't do much woodwork now, so I don't have a source for sawdust.
One question tho: Do you use new coffee fresh out of the Maxwell House box or dried out used grounds from the coffee maker?
You mentioned mixing sand with the paint. I've used that trick for some time with latex paint; of course, the sand becomes the color of the paint, but it gives your paint texture. If I mix sand in with gray paint, I get something that looks like concrete. In with green paint, something that looks like grass. In with brown paint, something that looks like dirt. One other trick is to use dried, used coffee grounds, mix that in with the paint, and it gives a bit more coarse texture. Plus used coffee grounds are mostly free (as opposed to Woodland Scenics ground covers!) It takes some experimenting, and don't think you're going to get the look you want in one coat--I usually wind up doing 3 or 4 coats to really get the texture I want. But take your time and experiment with it--there's no "wrong" way to do it! Have fun...
I found a helpful video that answered many of my questions:
The next thing I need to get is some roadbed. The Woodland scenics product looks good. I have not yet seen a picture of tubular O Gauge track on it.
watch?v=rhBhA4LLg0&feature=related
One thing it does not cover is how to rip up the old track when (not if) I decide to change the layout.
Looking good I'm still trying to figure do i want to go with plywood and put homasote ( think thats right spelling) or do I want to go with cut pieces of wood to match my track then homasote and build scenery in later doing like screen and papermache type work then painting and adding rocks and all. I originally thought of going with plywood and homasote as I have a big piece of indoor/outdoor green carpet that would look like grass. still have to decide lol but yours looks great so far.
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
This year's project was to start adding some Gargraves track and switches to my tubular setup. Well, it is not all Gargraves, the O-31 curve track is Ross. Now I am adding some scenery, even though I am not a very artistic person, I will give it a try. Bought some coarse sand from Michaels Craft store. The grains measure 2 3/4" in scale, so it is about the right size as ballast. I plan to add some green sand when I find some, and a few lichen bushes. This picture is taken part way through, trying to decide how much will be done this year. Since I am learning as I go, I will share what I am learning.
For the first attempt, I mixed sand into the paint. This was not a good idea. The color of the sand does not show at all.
I am using Latex house paint, which is quick drying. If you try to do too much at one time, it dries, and the sand does not stick. I find that about 3' of track ballast is all you can do before it dries.
After it dries I vacuum up the excess sand using a small hand vacuum. If you clean out the vacuum first, you can re-use the sand. I get about 1/2 of the sand back using the vacuum.
One item that I need help with is what will I do next year when I change the layout. Put new paint & sand over the old, or use some kind of gel paint remover?
The Gargraves switch and uncoupling track controllers fit in nicely, with 2 switch controllers fitting in where 1 Lionel was.
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