Hi Roger,
What I learned to do pretty quickly was only half dunk them. That way when I squeezed them out the glue distributed through the rest of the tree. I rolled them in the foam immediately after, then left them a couple of hours before putting them on the layout. I seem to have a combination of hard shelled and soft shelled ones and never really figured out what caused this. Possibly the glue strength. The other thing was to make a combination of round and straggly ones. This allows a more varied appearance when viewed.
Have fun,
Steve
One more photo to show progress on the last piece to be completed on my layout: the truck dumps area. Since this photo, earth colored paint has been applied, as well as earth (dirt) ground cover. Yesterday the puffball trees were started up the hillside. Photos when completed....
Three photos of completed truck dump area, thus completed layout for now. Only minor detail to be added here is a short section of guard rail to dirt area by truck dump on this end:
A few more shots of my scenery:
The first two shots are of the truck dumps in the Grenn Hill area.
Here are shots of the "Cullen" station that I have renamed to "Madison" after my granddaughter.
Flash photography really makes the bare spots stand out. I have a lot of spots that need touching up.
Notice that I am going after the style of mountains as seen in the November 2012 issue of Model Railroader. The entire hill side will not be covered in puff balls, but instead open areas will be left and foliage clusters are being used to represent underbrush around the edges of the trees. I am by no means finished with the scenes pictured above. More underbrush will be added, dead trees will be inserted and more weeds, grass tufts, and dirt will be added to the open areas. I am also using the Woodland Scenic tree kits to make the free standing trees. A few are shown in the pictures but these will not be permanently planted until all other details have been completed.
More new shots of the layout may be seen using the link below.
My Layout Pics
Coming right along Roger....looking good!
More progress pics.
Again, Nice progress Roger. I will admit I have done next to nothing for the last month. So little left to do on the layout yet so much to do in the yard in the short time in Michigan between the last snow and the summer drought. I have also been struggling with a particularly tricky switch derailment that may cause me to rip up a section.
Cheers,
Gentlemen, as I am finished with building the layout, other than the fascia, and later the staging yard, I probably will not be posting in the forums any longer. Instead, I am in the process of building a website to carry on with the story of and behind the layout, and the operations of my layout, plus the history of the prototype area. Watch for a final post when the website is live!
For those still with an interest in the day to day operation of my layout, updates, and prototype information on the Kanawha Secondary and Hitop Branch in West Virginia, my website is up and running at: www.hitopbranchmodelrr.com
I know nothing about turnouts. I am building the Virginian At one yard there are 3 turnouts connect end to end. Do you still put insulated joiners on the turnout as per instructions on the Peco package back? If you do, do you have to run power feeds to each turnout? Or is that what the thin wire put on at the factory is for? Lot of questions I know. The original oval worked like a charm and I added turnouts and now nothing works. TRying to work this out in my head.
Moses, I have not used Peco electrofrog turnouts, but looking at Peco instructions you will need to insulate the frog on each turnout. Then because of this, you will need to provide power drops to each turnout. When you say nothing works, do you mean anywhere on track or just through the turnouts? Are you running DC or DCC?
Dear Moses,
Not knowing what exact Peco a turnouts you are using my advice is as follows: if you are using insulfrogs then you don't need insulated rail joiners. If you follow the wiring distribution that is in the MR articles then you should be OK as they also used insulated frogs in the yard. In any event you will need to check that you have droppers for each insulated section to ensure that you don't have any dead spots.
If you are using Electrofrogs then follow the directions in the instructions which is what MR did for the Electrofrogs that they used. If doing this then you will need two insulated rail joiners for each turnout and you will need to used some sort of power reverser to power the frog, either a hex frog juicer as MR did or Peco's switch motor with Peco's accessory switch.
In my opinion Electrofrogs, whilst not necessary, are better for DCC as you get much better power continuity especially if you are running sound locos but they are a little more complicated to wire.
Let me know if you have any queries about what I have written above.
Regards,
Mick
Moses,
If you are using the Peco Electrofrog #5's, you need to do what Mick has recommended. Once you use the insulated rail joiners where they show you on the package you connect the "little factory installed wire" to either a Peco switch motor or a Hex Frog Juicer. MRR used a Hex Frog Juicer. This is a circuit board that provides electricity in the correct polarity depending on which way the turnout is thrown. You can buy one from TAM Valley depot.
I recently started construction on MR's Virginian layout and I have one question about the roadbed height at the bridge. I currently have the roadbed height at 3" but it looks way too high, I am curious what everyone else has their roadbed height set at? Also do the Peco electrofrogs have to be powered?
JohnB. I recently started construction on MR's Virginian layout and I have one question about the roadbed height at the bridge. I currently have the roadbed height at 3" but it looks way too high, I am curious what everyone else has their roadbed height set at? Also do the Peco electrofrogs have to be powered?
My height to the top of the roadbed is 3" at the beginning of the bridge (rock face side) and about 3 1/3" at the end of bridge heading towards Green Hill. It is a steep grade coming up the rock face to reach plywood height of 4" by the turnouts by Green Hill. Some of us had Green Hill at 4" and some at about 4 1/4"(base plywood height) . The height I have at roadbed includes the cork so you need to remove that from the equation to get to the height you need to set the cookie cutter plywood.
The Peco Electrofrogs need to be powered. You modify them to make them DCC friendly then have to power the frogs either via a Peco switch machine or some other method. MRR (and I) used a Tam Valley Hex frog juicer. This was relatively easy, You connect the frog juicer to the track bus to power it , then connect the wire from the frog to the juicer. Alternatively you could use insulfrogs which do not need to be powered.
John B, Welcome to the Virginian Build thread. Steve gave you good information. I might add that you don't want the grade to be very steep from the end of the bridge up to Green Hill because you will be parking some cars on this stretch during switching operations.
Please feel free to ask as many questions as you need, and post lots of pictures of your progress.
Dear John B,
Welcome, I support Steve on his advice on the measurements at the bridge. It depends a little on what Power you are planning to run up that grade. I have found that my Deisels make it up fine but Steam struggles. I do differ on the Electro frogs though. I am pretty sure you can use them unmodified. You will still need to put insulated joiners on the frog as it draws its power from the points. The risk you run is as time goes by you can get intermittent power due to fouling and warping of the points. That is why it is better to go with the modification as it provides consistent power.
First off I would like to thank everyone for their advice on the roadbed height at the bridge and the the info on the Peco switches. After working on the layout today I took a few pics and thought I would share my progress. I modified the layout for a 4x8 to a 5x8 which allowed me to expanded the turning radius' to 26" on main and 22" on the branch line. I made this change to allow me to run my H-4's with no problems.
John B.
MikeB16 Dear John B, Welcome, I support Steve on his advice on the measurements at the bridge. It depends a little on what Power you are planning to run up that grade. I have found that my Deisels make it up fine but Steam struggles. I do differ on the Electro frogs though. I am pretty sure you can use them unmodified. You will still need to put insulated joiners on the frog as it draws its power from the points. The risk you run is as time goes by you can get intermittent power due to fouling and warping of the points. That is why it is better to go with the modification as it provides consistent power. Regards, Mick
Mick,
I stand corrected. It is not absolutely necessary to modify the electrogfrog, however Peco recommends that you do.
John,
Its looking very nice. One thing I neglected to notice when I built the rise up to the bridge is the cookie cutter caused some slight warping of the plywood creating some changes in horizontal elevation from a positive superelevation to negative. I had checked for level at various points but not the whole thing. The offending piece that caused the twisting was the large cutout for the base of the mountain. This later caused derailments coming up the curve that I solved by shimming. This was mostly caused by my lack of understanding of the effects that cookie cutter can have as it was the first time for me. But.... boy I wish I had caught it right where you are now. So if you haven't already done so, get a small level and check that its horizontally level up the whole grade... Nice choice on going for 5*8 as well.
Keep posting. its great to see how different people are building this.
sjhenry Mick, I stand corrected. It is not absolutely necessary to modify the electrogfrog, however Peco recommends that you do. Cheers, Steve
Dear Steve,
No worries and I whole heartily agree that it is much better to modify them than not.
Steve, When I was adding risers yesterday I noticed the twisting of the plywood also. So I went back on all my risers and adjusted them so the plywood was level. Like you this is the first time I have used the cookie cutter design also. I think there may also be a warping issue when setting the height around the mine but if so I will deal with that once I reach that point.
Finished up the bench work today and started laying the roadbed. I would have probably finished the roadbed today but my nephew wanted to help. Which meant I had to stop every two minutes to answer his questions and to stop him from getting into everything. So here are some pics of my progress.
John
Looks good John. Just out of curiosity, what method are you using to attach the cork roadbed? Caulk, glue, staples?
Keep posing the pics. Enjoy watching other's progress.
I have always used track nails to attach the roadbed.
Hi All,
Latest update pic. All track laid and wired less the "upper deck". The upper deck is the next major works to get it test fitted before painting the track and ballasting in the tunnels. I have started to form some of the foam scenery base as I have just got a hot wire cutter and was testing it out. I plan to use foam, newspaper and plaster cloth to form the scenery base.
Regards, Mick
MikeB16 Hi All, Latest update pic. All track laid and wired less the "upper deck". The upper deck is the next major works to get it test fitted before painting the track and ballasting in the tunnels. I have started to form some of the foam scenery base as I have just got a hot wire cutter and was testing it out. I plan to use foam, newspaper and plaster cloth to form the scenery base. Regards, Mick
I am at the point to where I am about to start laying track I have a quick question though about the ties used to support the hand throws and to replace the removed plastic ties. Since I did not see anywhere in the pages of MR or MR video plus on what kind or size ties to use what ties has everyone else used?
Thanks,
JohnB. I am at the point to where I am about to start laying track I have a quick question though about the ties used to support the hand throws and to replace the removed plastic ties. Since I did not see anywhere in the pages of MR or MR video plus on what kind or size ties to use what ties has everyone else used? Thanks, John
I know you can buy ties commercially, but I could never find any. What I ended up doing was removing all the plastic ties, then going to Michaels and finding some craft wood about twice as thick as a tie then trimming it for both length and height. That way I got two ties for each length of wood. Also if you are going to use the Caboose ground throws and are using some Peco turnouts I would recommend going with the 218S rather than the 202S. The 218S has a series of selectable end fittings that fit multiple different types of turnouts.
John, To replace the removed ties, I simply used the same ties after grinding the area where the rail joiners cross them. I used balsa wood to create the support ties for the Caboose Industry throws. First I placed a small rectangle of cork and then the two ties which were slid in between ties of the track. The ground throw can then either be glued or nailed to the ties.