New Layout Photos Posted

[Jumijo]

I just added 15 new photos of our layout to my Photobucket site. Click on link below to see them all. Not many of them are gems. Here are a few of my favorites.

Jim


http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v236/jaabat/Trains/

The new wooded area with scratchbuilt trees



Modified station with new platforms, chimney, passengers. Platforms are made from pink rigid foam. Magnetta looks hot in red (and she knows it)!



Cape Cod house used as Railway office



Kid's playhouse number 1


Kid's playhouse number 2



Looking down the tracks at the wooded area



The main drag in a sleepy little town



John - one of my little engineers!

[FJ and G]

Sweet; esp. the kid's playhouse; very novel

[spankybird]

Looks great ! !

I really like your trees

tom

[Frank53]

exceptional Jim. The sign for Scenic Excursions is a nice touch.

[Anonymous]

Nice work, the "wilderness" adds a good touch. [:)]

[Buckeye Riveter]

QUOTE: Originally posted by spankybird

Looks great ! !

I really like your trees

tom

[#ditto]

Jim, are those the pine trees made from furnace filters? How did you do the roadway though town?

[cnw1995]

Tell us more about the playhouses! Great shots

[dwiemer]

Fantastic work Jim,
I really like your roadways, how do you make them? Nice work putting dirt/tire marks coming from the farm. One thing that I picked up from the tips and tricks book is that you can take the screws that you use for your roadbead track holding screws is to partially screw them into a small piece of wood and then spray paint them all at once with a paint the color of the roadbed, this should make them dissapear in your layout.
Great work.
dennis

[ChiefEagles]

This guy can work wonders. Great job.

[FJ and G]

failed to mention (b/c I said it before) that those are some of the best trees I've ever seen.

[Jumijo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Buckeye Riveter

QUOTE: Originally posted by spankybird

Looks great ! !

I really like your trees

tom

[#ditto]

Jim, are those the pine trees made from furnace filters? How did you do the roadway though town?

You guys are really doing a lot to cheer up a down-in-the-dumps fellow (me). Thank you all so much for the nice remarks.

The pine trees in these photos are all made from furnace filter material. Some have real tree branches for trunks, while others have wooden meat scewers. I think the newer trees look more realistic than my first attempts. I started sprinkling on some course ground foam to the newer trees before painting them. It makes a huge difference. The foam goes on thick, and looks like too much was applied, but the paint shrinks it nicely. I use cheap hairspray to make the foam stick to the trees.

The road is just the painted surface of the foam panels. I mixed up a batch of medium to light gray and slapped it down. I don't know if you can see it, but I continued the road onto the backdrop (ala the roadrunner and coyote). I penciled in road cracks with an ordinary no. 2 pencil. The dirt marks coming out of the farm are just made with brown paint.

The playhouses are 2 small Plasticeville hobo shacks. Painting and dry brushing really brings out a lot of molded in detail. I plastered circus posters all over both shacks, figuring kids would do that type of thing. They could still use more kid-oriented detailing. Eventually I'll find some figures of boys and a girl for them, but right now, a pony-sized black lab rules the roost there.

Oh, I scratchbuilt the little boy in the last photo with the help of my wife. We made 2 identical, but I'm not going to divulge how we did that! [;)]

Jim

[casconi]

Great looking layout!! CTT Quality!

[Birds]

Jim,

Really excellent work!

[?] - What technique, or facing material, did you use to create the surface for the station platform and the wall below the sign?

I know you said the core is foam, but what did you do, or use, to get that detailed a rock look on the foam?

Thanks,
Birds

[Jumijo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Birds

Jim,

Really excellent work!

[?] - What technique, or facing material, did you use to create the surface for the station platform and the wall below the sign?

I know you said the core is foam, but what did you do, or use, to get that detailed a rock look on the foam?

Thanks,
Birds

I carved the joint lines into the foam with a pencil, then painted it.

[traindaddy1]

Jim: You are certainly out of my league! Lots of great ideas for this 'older' guy. Wondering: How big is the layout? Many thanks.

[Jumijo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by traindaddy1

Jim: You are certainly out of my league! Lots of great ideas for this 'older' guy. Wondering: How big is the layout? Many thanks.

It's L-shaped. 8' x 4.5' one way, and 10' x 4.5' the other.

Jim

[johnandjulie13]

Hello Jim:

You are truly gifted. I love your landscaping and your attention to detail (like the dirt car tracks coming out onto the asphalt road). I do have a question. As realistic and detailed as your layout is, why fastrack? Why not a railed track with ballast?

Regards,

John O

[FJ and G]

John,

Interesting question you posed. Way back when, CTT ran an article of a tinplate layout (largescale) with incredibly realistic scenery.

No matter which track system or trains you use, realistic scenery is a big plus and is IMO the best way to highlight your trains.

[thor]

Beautiful layout, looks really realistic, I'm impressed with how good the Fastrack looks. Good job mate!

[Anonymous]

Excellent photos! You have one fantastic layout!

[crip]

Wonderfull layout

[Frank53]

That's a keeper.

So Jim, here's the deal:

Howsabout you take the wife and kids on a nice Florida vacation.

Bring your paint brushes and whip up a few backdrops and a few hundred trees for my me, and I'll build you a fistful of buildings.

deal?

ps: I offered a similar deal to a fellow about a year ago - all he had to do was build his benchwork and I would build him a switch tower.

Chief?, Chief?

[Anonymous]

Jim -- what a sensational job you've done with your layout, I can only echo the comments of those before me. Great work!

I really like the way you've integrated the FastTrack into the layout.

And your trees (as well as vegetation more generally) are incredible, makes one think you're a landscape architect by profession.

Could you give me a little more detail on the roads? Yours are truly excellent, I've been fiddling with different materials and colors but after 2 months I'm not wild about what I've come up with (speckled black vinyl or rubber) floor tiles. I didn't understand what you meant when you referred to the "foam panels" in your reply to an earlier question.


Thanks for sharing your photos and congrats on the outstanding work.

Bob
Houston

[dwiemer]

Jim,
When you do elevations, do you cover the foam with plaster/gauze, or do you just paint and add ground foam? I will be starting my layout very soon, unlike that other guy from the south[;)] and I think you have "shown me the way". Look forward to more photos.
Thanks,
Dennis

[Jumijo]

Thank you, everyone!

Why FasTrack?
I bought a bunch of O27 track and started putting it together. It was hard to get the pieces to go completely together, and hard to keep them together. We had a bunch of FasTrack from sets, I liked the way it went together, and liked the conductivity (each loop only has one connection to the transformer). It looks better than tubular too.

David,
I remember reading about that large layout with the great scenery. You did a great job writing that piece. I've re-read it many times.

Bob,
My layout sits on 2" rigid foam panels glued to plywood. I sealed the seams with joint compound and painted the whole thing beige. Then I drew the road in and painted the middle of it flat white. I masked the center of the road with thin strips of masking tape and painted the road gray. That's all there was to it. When that dried, I made the cracks with a pencil. Nothing exotic by any means. It's just paint.

Frank,
Hindsight being what it is, I now wish I had made the backdrops higher. I painted the large backdrop with dark colors so I could see the smoke from the steamers better as they ran past it. The trick was to match the backdrop colors with the foliage placed in front of it.

Jim

[1688torpedo]

Jim- You have a super layout! It looks very detailed & lots of scenery with trees & buildings. Nice job with the Fastrack also. Oh,Almost forgot! Like your scratchbuilt Little kid.Good Job![;)][:)][8D] P.S. - You need a 800lb Bear for your layout crossing the road while delaying the shipment of Grits to the local country store.[;)][:)][:o)] Take Care.

[Jumijo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by 1688torpedo

Jim- You have a super layout! It looks very detailed & lots of scenery with trees & buildings. Nice job with the Fastrack also. Oh,Almost forgot! Like your scratchbuilt Little kid.Good Job![;)][:)][8D] P.S. - You need a 800lb Bear for your layout crossing the road while delaying the shipment of Grits to the local country store.[;)][:)][:o)] Take Care.

Thank you, Keith!
I do have an 800 pound bear on the layout. Look closely at the black blob about half way from the bottom on the right side. A bear is wondering down to the river for a drink.

Jim

[Jumijo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dwiemer

Jim,
When you do elevations, do you cover the foam with plaster/gauze, or do you just paint and add ground foam? I will be starting my layout very soon, unlike that other guy from the south[;)] and I think you have "shown me the way". Look forward to more photos.
Thanks,
Dennis

Dennis,
Forgive me for not answering sooner. I've got a lot on my mind lately, and somehow didn't manage to see your question until now.

The joints of the foam panels were splined with plaster gauze skimmed over with joint compound. I'm not sure, but that might be contributing to the high noise level when the trains are running. The mountain is also foam pieces covered with gauze, as are the rivers. I only did the rivers that way to make them look more rocky.

Most of the terrain is just foam panels cut to shape with a hacksaw blade, painted, and covered with ground foam. I think the ridgid foam resembles rock especially well. For higher elevated areas, I just glue a few panels together, let them dry, then shape the piece. I usually make the entire area, landscaping, rocks, trees, and all on my kithchen table. It's easier to access the entire piece that way. When it looks good to me, I plunk it down on the layout and glue it in place. Very little touch up needs to be done.

Jim

[jefelectric]

Jim,

Great scenery, it is amazing how many different pictures you can take of your layout. It would seem it has to be much larger.

[Jumijo]

John,

I sure can milk it for all it's worth, huh? This is probably the last of the photos for a while. The whole other half of the layout needs to be landscaped, etc.

There's a few more photos not posted here at the following link:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v236/jaabat/Trains/

Jim