Welcome to the BOKR layout. The fictitious Bag Of Kindling Railroad will be constructed as a small layout with a gypsum quarry in the centre. We burn about 4 cord of maple and birch in our Vermont Castings wood stove every winter and go through many bags of kindling. We buy our kindling at a local furniture plant for $5CA a bag. It's by far the best deal in the City.
When I say holistic approach I mean using everything and anything to build the complete layout. Here is a picture I took this morning of Lake City Woodworkers where we buy the kindling. Dartmouth is known as the City of Lakes, that's where their name comes from.
This is what one of their kindling bags looks like. The wood scraps might be pine, spruce, basswood, maple and other species used to make furniture. I am going to make my layout from their kindling. Then when it's all done I can throw it in the woodstove ... kidding (or is it kindling). Going to have a great time.
I can see you scratching the structures out of kindling with a good set of chisels and sandpaper, but the locomotives if they are not electric they will have to run on steam. Now if they burn wood and they are made out of wood...
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
SpaceMouse I can see you scratching the structures out of kindling with a good set of chisels and sandpaper, but the locomotives if they are not electric they will have to run on steam. Now if they burn wood and they are made out of wood...
HaHa. All my trains will be CN HO scale but there will be minimum plastic in the layout.
For this project, I am going to need a way to work in different rooms in my house because I may want to work in the kitchen when I'm cooking, the family room when watching the dogs, outside when it is warm enough, basement where my trains and large power tools are, etc. In the March 1962 issue of Model Railroader, Jim Fisk wrote a short article entitled "Handy tray for assembling models." Just what I needed.
Last year I built a tray inspired by that article. Plywood base about 2' x 1 1/3'. A good size to move anywhere in my house and will sit on any of my work benches or desks.
There is a main work area and a place for tools for the job at hand.
And finally a styrofoam bottom for the work area. Note that I deliberately used CN colours (as close as my red paint would allow).
Around here the Broadway Lion appears to approach his model RR holistically.
Bear "It's all about having fun."
bearman Around here the Broadway Lion appears to approach his model RR holistically.
I think that's great.
I am going to start on page 71 of the October 1956 issue of Model Railroader. In the section called "Kinks" E.C. Harsch made a 64-word contribution called "Wax Water." He describes a technique for using paraffin for creek and waterfalls. So, time for a little chemistry experiment.
I really like the Woodland Scenics Realistic Water. We'll see how this water interacts with candle wax.
Wax was melted on the stove in boiling water.
Three test samples prepared. Top left I poured Realistic Water then a few drops of melted wax. The bottom two samples are the reverse, melted wax then a few drops of RW. Will come back to these when the RW sets up.
Time to dig into a bag of kindling for a flat piece of softwood. Going to use my router freestyle to carve out a river bed.
Riverbed cut and, yes, I keep all the sawdust for later use.
Season will be early spring and a lovely blue sky. So, I'll apply sky blue paint to the river bed.
Had a close look at the wax-RW samples and there are no problems putting the two together. Therefore, I'll use the wax to make submerged ice that hasn't yet melted in the early spring.
Before pouring a first layer of RW, I placed pieces of real shale from Walton, NS at specific locations on the riverbed.
Carved out some terrain and river banks, then added RW to set up overnight. As always, kept the shavings.
Down by the river someone is building a boat. E.L. Moore wrote an article on a boat in the January 1968 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. I'll do something like that.
So, back into the bag of kindling for a small piece of wood to carve a hull.
Scaling the hull dimensions in the article, a quick back-of-the-kindling calculation means cutting my 1"-wide piece of wood to 3.6" long.
Most of the carving I can do with my large striking knife. This is a professional tool from Lee Valley.
The boat's hull will be positioned on block 1 (B1) as shown, and a small marine slip will be built that will allow the boat to be launched into the lake on block 2 (B2), located east of B1.
To build a ship cradle I need to know the hull contours at the support locations, in this case fore, aft and mid ships.
Slip and cradle will be made by modifying an inexpensive CP 315206 flat car.
I'm diggin this. Look forward to more progress reports.
s~
On YouTube at It's My Railroad
originaldirtguy I'm diggin this. Look forward to more progress reports. s~
Thanks s~, I am too.
Carving and cutting the plastic car was just as easy as the wood. Of coarse I'll keep the shavings and two smaller flat sections for other applications.