I finished the Mine, its basswood and balsa stripwood on a backing piece of 1/2" foamcore, and am painting it now, My wife left our camera at a family members house, and now its gone AWOL
So no pics for now, I'm considering just getting another one, a cheap backup camera, for just such a situation.
Have fun with your trains
vsmith wrote: sorry, no pics, camera's gone awol.
Time to go to the store for a new one! Unless ofcourse you would prefer to spend the cash on the RR, which is understandable.
Tom Trigg
Need a break from all these "hom'impruvm'nt" projects, so....Began construction last night on building the permanant structure I had wanted to do for the BTS this year, but ran out of time for, the 3 "town" buildings were only "temps" for the show, I need them for the big layout. BTS 2008 display:
When I began finishing this I had planned for a mining structure on the top of the hill, so after some quick sketching I drew this up on the com'fuser: Its a large facade that will go along the back in the same place the 3 "town" buildings were located. Construction is basswood on a foamcore backing, one nice thing about being indoors is that I can use much lighter, and much easier, construction technics, its going faster than I thought since I discovered I could cleanly cut the basswood siding with a large scissors Pics when I can
Vic,
Looks great man! Lotta work and just great results!!!
Is that a Indian Motorcycle I see?
Toad
Well a hard push this weekend squeezing time in between yardwork and chores, yields results, I give you
Tincan JunctionOverall view
Station looking up the hill
Looking up the hill from the crossing
View of Brien's Pinnacle
Tincan itself, a one horse town and they had to borrow the horse.
Still lots of little detail stuff to add, I thought this would take another month to do but it went surprisingly fast, BTW this is a full dress rehersal for the big indoor layout.
Cheap, is what I am.
Bought the basswood stock , thought I had enough, cut it down and was short, it was late, on a weekend and I didnt want to wait to get more, so I just spread'em a little wider...
Its not unprototypical for poor tram lines, besides you should see in the back, theres a reason theres a tunnel, hides where I ran out of full ties and had to use sections!
A tad more progress I added highlight colors to the bluffs on the layout above. Going to go with 3 facades at the top with the watertank as shown, and the "house of relief" next to the water tank (eeewww!) Got a bag of "Ballast" in the pet aisle of the local Theftway.... dam stuff has pink "scent control crystals" in it, another had blue ones, geez well at least pink looks more southwesterny than blue. I think if I had one full day I could finish this, fat chance I'll have that kind of free time
A tad more progress
I added highlight colors to the bluffs on the layout above. Going to go with 3 facades at the top with the watertank as shown, and the "house of relief" next to the water tank (eeewww!)
Got a bag of "Ballast" in the pet aisle of the local Theftway.... dam stuff has pink "scent control crystals" in it, another had blue ones, geez well at least pink looks more southwesterny than blue.
I think if I had one full day I could finish this, fat chance I'll have that kind of free time
Why are the ties so far apart? All I have for a frame of reference is the plastic track I've picked up, but even as a kid walking the MOPAC tracks, the ties were less than a normal stride apart.
Could it be because you're in a hurry to finish? And, it doesn't matter at all to me if you have just 3 per section, ala Lionel 027. I'm curious, is what I am.
Les
What about something besides a town up top. You could add a little ho track and have it go off the side, and model that to a "mine dump" scene where the HO cars are unloaded on the top of the mountain, then the ore is brought down by wheelbarrow or donkey-carts to the large scale trains at the bottom of the hill?
Or, why not model a piazza up top (an open area in a city) and presume that the buildings are all "out of sight." You could have lots of vendors with carts of fruits and vegetables and wares... all brought up to the town by the little road from the train looping below. A sort of "piazza pizza." (My own little play on words)
Or, what about a desert scene with a bunch of people surrounding a camp fire (you could incorporate lighting and smoke effects) and maybe some cattle, and maybe a wagon or tent or throw-together shack. The cattle could graze up top and then be brought down the mountain to be loaded into the train for shipment to the city.
Just ideas, but none of them would require extensive buildings to be constructed.
Modeling the D&H in 1984: http://dandhcoloniemain.blogspot.com/
Small test area for scenery, Woodland Scenics stuff, guess it works for large scale, no ballast yet, gotta get some stuff without the blue "ore" in it.
Photo came out too bright, it doesnt look this washed out in person
vsmith wrote: hoofe116 wrote: What you say could work, what I did was to spike down the outer rail, then using the gauge spike down the inner rail. I did this cause I figured the inner rail would be easier to adjust or trim off excess rail if needed.
hoofe116 wrote:
What you say could work, what I did was to spike down the outer rail, then using the gauge spike down the inner rail. I did this cause I figured the inner rail would be easier to adjust or trim off excess rail if needed.
I'll be building strap-iron on wood (actually copper strips) rails. I'm going to try using cut-to-scale furring strips, boiling and forming and letting 'em dry and 'take a set' before putting them down. I have some suspicion the furring stripwood rails might 'writhe', even w. glue and nails at every tie. They may not: I'll coat 'em with linseed oil right after I figure the glue's dry, it might help. The copper strips will go on next, soldered and spiked.
That's where the idea of removable 'keepers' came to me, as a way to hold things in place for a bit but be easy to remove.
Keep posting the good stuff.
Saw your railbus--wish I wasn't in the pre-IC era!
Thanks Vic! He sounds like the Dark Knight at first
Had to keep him in my fav's folder.
Guess I will have to look through u-tube more for good stuff like this! You think they have some on fireworks
Toadster
Just standard latex house paint with a brush and ground cover added while its still wet. Its called "Zip Texturing" in HO I beleive.
I used standard carpenters glue to glue the stuff together, cheaper than Liquid Nails but I have to wait a day for it to dry, but what the heck, if I glue it down the night before by the time I get back out there the next night its dry.
PS I watched this on Youtube very helpfull.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D1D4KBB_GC4&feature=related
Vic, looking good man!!!
You going to hand brush or air brush it? (color) What is the foam stuck with liquide nails?
hoofe116 wrote: Vic:Your pixes and info are very much appreciated. I never thought of the problem of laying curved track and keeping it 'in gauge'. It's little tidbits like that that are very welcome to me.Why couldn't one 'notch out' several pieces of say, 3/8 x 3/8" wood as 'keepers'? The notches would be just the width of the rails (light press fit) and would lay over them as the gauging and nailing went on ahead. It seems like it'd help relieve the stress on the rail as it was spiked further up by distributing it across both rails. When they were pulled off, if one or two 'hung', it'd alert one to an area of possible problem. Or perhaps I'm drinking from a bad batch?Two steps closer to benchwork up: old drafting table in trash and reject kitchen table cut to stock size and put aside to await The Day. (The day I can start building benchwork).Very much appreciate the pixes and tips.Les W.
Vic:
Your pixes and info are very much appreciated. I never thought of the problem of laying curved track and keeping it 'in gauge'. It's little tidbits like that that are very welcome to me.
Why couldn't one 'notch out' several pieces of say, 3/8 x 3/8" wood as 'keepers'? The notches would be just the width of the rails (light press fit) and would lay over them as the gauging and nailing went on ahead. It seems like it'd help relieve the stress on the rail as it was spiked further up by distributing it across both rails. When they were pulled off, if one or two 'hung', it'd alert one to an area of possible problem. Or perhaps I'm drinking from a bad batch?
Two steps closer to benchwork up: old drafting table in trash and reject kitchen table cut to stock size and put aside to await The Day. (The day I can start building benchwork).
Very much appreciate the pixes and tips.
Les W.
One evenings carving, not bad, starting to look like southwestern sandstone:)
Still need to sand some of the rough spots down and carve the back side a bit but this was very very fast!
Really cool. Would be perfect to have on a a deck or porch. You can sit outside and relaxe. As soon as I get my outdoor layout set I am thinking about a small indoor set. You might have started something.
You have all these indoor layouts so Whens the outdoor layout coming????
Someone mentioned Garden RR had an article about building tunnel mouths. Does anyone have that link. I have to build some on my RR and not sure how to go about this.
I have to finish the darn thing first ya know...
Scenery like this has never been a strong point for me, I'm a styrene butcher by trade. Blue foam is brand new to me, but if it works well I'm doing the indoor layout with it. Very light stuff, perfect for this type of layout
Vic, thought you already had finished it, guess I am seeing doubbles.... And if your going to call it "a stupid thing" you can send it all to me! Engine and rolling stock too, you can have caboose. I think my mom would like it much.
William
Progress pics:
Starting with the foambackside viewfoam topped off
Now gotta wait for the glue to dry, then I can start shaping.
Well lets see, its been about a year, maybe I should try to finish this stupid thing BEFORE this years BTS. I work better under pressure anyways...
I started building up the blue foam "hills" last week, getting near the top now, be ready to start carving the foam into rocks pretty quick here, lets see...
...I got 47 days to go!
Track under testing:
Ties stained:
Well I found that spiking a curve is a tricky business, just because it was in guage when you spiked down a rail at ties #R, S, & T doesnt mean the rails at ties #R, S, & T will STAY in guage when you spike down the rail at ties #X Y & Z.
Had to respike two short sections when the track guage pulled apart to create too wide a gauge in the track. Hopefully thats done now and I can finish up the track laying tonight.
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