Cannot say this is a great tip but here it goes. I want real looking ground cover / dirt for my new mining company (K-10 Mining named after the best LHS in the Midwest). I picked up some dirt clogs from the front yard where the city had just did a water line repair. I tried to crumble them up, but being moist did not work well. So I took some and Nuked them in the Miro Wave! Better half has got sort of use to the silly stuff I do for the bench.
I cooked the dirt for 3 minutes for 1 minute incumbents till I had a steaming bowl of dirt! Tired to crumble it up but, all I got was big chunks.
Not having a pastel and mortar how would I get the dirt to HO scale? Then I came up with this idea, with the dirt being dry why not sand the clumps? Finlay solution was to take a 6 inch section of 36 grit self stick air file paper and stick it to the bottom of a 8" Walther's tank car box and have at it. I did try some of my air sanders (was in paint and body for 20 years), but most of the dirt turned to dust and blew away.
Using a 6 inch Athearn box to store the dirt in, it did take me 1 hour to save 1/4 inch of fine grade dirt. If you are in a hurry, not a great tip. But, if you want a very fine grad real looking dirt it may be worth your effort. I know there are folks here that will spend hours on making a real looking tree, so why not dirt?
I will make some more Friday and post here and WFP so you can see the results. Will I make more? Depends on what it looks like and how far I can stretch it.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
Ken - A couple of things for you. First, I actually mined K-10 this year
http://www.goldgold.com/claims/k10.html
Ok, not your K 10 but it is on point. I agree you on the need to bake the dirt to kill all the bad nasties that live in all dirt. I'm not worried about the alcohol drenched, white glue encusted work of art we wind up with but the handling, sifting and stiring we do with it before to prevent the staff and respritory potential... sorry didn't mean to digress......
As a part time miner I know that there is a buch of metalic material (we lump it with the term Black Sands) in those dirt and gravels. I wouldn't consider putting dirt or gravles in a micorwave becasue of this. Bake em in the oven for 20 minutes about 1/8" deep. I do use a good plunger magnet from Harbor Freight ($5.00) on all dirt. You'ed be amazed on what you can pull out. If you can see Dave Frary's tape he shows this there. It's aslo usful when you spill that box of rail joiners and track nails.
ratled
Modeling the Klamath River area in HO on a proto-lanced sub of the SP “The State of Jefferson Line”
I did run a powerful magnet across the dirt first and should have said so! It is from a KEFF speaker tweeter that went bad. It will pick up a pinging hammer, that is about a pound.
Sanding dirt again, Cuda Ken
Well, since I have an infant daughter at home, I've learned all about sterilizing bottles. We have this container for bottles that is about 2 gallons in size. You put the bottles in that container with 7 ounces of water in the microwave for 5 minutes and then let it sit for at least 2 minutes before opening.
In that container, there is a shelf that holds the bottles above the water, so you would probably want to fabricate something similar that will hold the dirt above the water.
All that said, given that unlike bottles, dirt will not melt; just bake the dirt in the oven for a while at a high temperatire.
FWIW, I sifted garden soil, from which issue all sorts of things that creep and crawl and go bump in the night, mixed it with some plaster of Paris, and pre-wet it with alcohol before I sprayed it with yellow glue mixture. The stuff that resulted on my yard isn't exactly hard, but I have yet to see a denizen of the phylum arthropoda or other similar creatures emerge from its tiny burrow.
Plainly put, I actually buried two spiders while laying my ground goop elsewhere on the layout, but my yard surface is garden soil that I rolled flat after mixing in the plaster, pre-wetted with alcohol, and them almost drenched with a light glue mixture heavy on the water. Nuthin's comin' outta that.
-Crandell
First of all you need the right kind of dirt - clay soil will not turn to sand. Second, rather than the wife's microwave, use the outside grill. It gets very hot and I cook the sandy soil until it stops smoking (moisture is then gone). A little sifting after it cools gives me all the dirt I need and if I need more, back to the grill.
Ron K.
I went over to the Salvation Army store and bought a rather nice-looking toaster oven for $5.00, a couple of sifters from the dollar store, and a big honking magnet from Harbor Freight.
I give each heaping trayful a half hour at approximately 500 degrees. Works rather well, but like carknocker1 says, it can smell pretty badly.
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
Thanks for the other ideas on cooking dirt, only a model rail roader would say that!
My dirt around the mine worked pretty well, has the ruff look I was hopping for. One problem is the dirt is so fine it is hard to control when applying. Floats as much as falls. I painted the ground foam with brown latex paint, added some white glue and then the dirt.
After I painted the foam brown, I added some black paint high lites that bleed through the dirt. I don't know if you can see them in the pictures I listed, but gave a good looking detail to the dirt.
Next I will add a chain link fences around the mine.
Thanks for your tips and time.
Hi Ken Just a comment, I like your cliffs, especially the color. I would think that after you put the dirt down, you should spread some large boulders and gravel at the base of the cliffs to represent the erosion and small landslides that takes place in an area like that. Just a suggestion.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
Geared Steam, after I pull the cliffs off and finish them (they can be removed) I will added gravel and rocks to there base. I bought some rocks for a planter from Deals and look great, about 3/4 of a inch so more bolder sizes. Problem is they do not match the cliffs? Not sure if I want to paint real rocks!
Thanks for the kind words on my work, but the people here at this great site our the ones that should get the real credit.
If you don't have the facilities for cooking dirt, you could try buying a bag of potting soil at your local garden centre or Wallymart. It has been sterilized and sifted. It's a very uniform colour and decidedly brown (probably high content of peat moss). It's also quite fine, but if it floats on wet water, try alcohol instead. Fine material doesn't float as readily on alcohol.
I like the idea of cooking it outside on the grill. No smell in the house, no complaints from the other half about messing up her kitchen.
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
cudaken wrote: Geared Steam, after I pull the cliffs off and finish them (they can be removed) I will added gravel and rocks to there base. I bought some rocks for a planter from Deals and look great, about 3/4 of a inch so more bolder sizes. Problem is they do not match the cliffs? Not sure if I want to paint real rocks! Thanks for the kind words on my work, but the people here at this great site our the ones that should get the real credit. Cuda Ken
Ken
Next time your in Wal-Mart (or any store) , go check out the cat litter, there is one brand (I can't remember which) that resembles rock /gravel/boulders in HO. The coloring is close to the color on your cliffs. You may have to tear a bag to see the coloring and texture, you can get a lifetime supply for under $5.00. While your there, swing by the fish aqarium area, look at the gravel the sell for aquariums, cheap compared to Woodland Scenics or Scenis Express.
As far as other modelers getting the credit, maybe so, but don't sell yourself short, you've come a long way in a short time, be proud of your accomplishments.
GS
I rented a CHEEP 2 rm 1/2 bath place one time. It was infested with flee's!!! WE bombed the whole place 5 times over the course of a 3 day weekend!!. I stayed at g-feendes place while that took place . Point of story 1 DON'T GO CHEEP with housing 2 don't spend time w/g-fend during that time 3 PRAY TO WHOEVER YOU CHOOSE THAT SOMTHING LIKE THIS DOESN'T GET anywhere near your RR!! WHAT A MESS!!
Liltrees, first and second what the heck did you just say?
Gearsteam, thanks for the tip on the cat little but a name would sure help. As far as the aquarium gravel I all ready had the idea and have 140 pounds of it! I used to breed Angel Fish and fancy tail guppies. I have a 70 gallon aquarium with in arm reach as I miss spell. Been dry for 10 years now, wash out the fish droppings and off to the grill. I have all so thought about using charcoal for coal in the coal cars.
Hi!
Over the years, I've taken a number of "dirt" samples for the layout - particularly from areas where "dirt" was yellow/red/brown rather than the black that I am used to. Anyway, first I would run it through a window screen, and then run a magnet around it. Lastly, it was on to an aluminum foil covered cookie sheet for a bake off at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or so, depending on the size of the batch. Once cooled off, it was stored in jars and/or Athean boxes.
Regarding microwaving, I would not use it, and would use a regular electric/gas oven. I have no scientific basis for my opinion, but it seems like the oven would be a better choice to get the job done.
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Modeling the N&W freelanced at the height of their steam era in HO.
Daniel G.