Scenery Base Application ~ Thursday and Friday, January 3 and 4, 2008
- Applied another section of scenery base to cover up loose sections and finish exposed areas around the control panel and swing gate as well as completed the area around
the passenger and staging yards.
- Once the areas were dry, painted with ground cover laytex paint and laytex caulk mixture.
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
Roundhouse Renovations Continue ~ Friday, January 4, 2008
- Weathered the styrene "concrete" flooring with an India ink and alcohol wash using a 1 inch paint sponge.
- Testing the recently convered to DCC Atlas GP-38 locomotives in the RH stalls.
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
Newly Converted to DCC Locomotives ~ Friday, January 4, 2008
- Purchased these Atlas GP-38 locos back in 2005 as DC units, and had them converted to DCC, testing and configuring the CV values for each of them. Southern GP-38 #2724 and # 2725
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
More progress on the layout the weekend of ~ January 3 - 5, 2008
- BN passenger car, CMX track cleaning car, adding ties back to the track, staging yard
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
More progress on the layout the weekend of ~ January 08 - 11, 2008.
- Scenery, details, weathering, swing gate progress.
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
More progress on the layout the weekend of ~ January 12 - 13, 2008.
- Attended the Great Train Expo in Winston-Salem, NC on Saturday, January 12, 2008.
- Central Carolina NScalers and a tree making demo put on by Kevin Beck, Secretary/Treasurer of the club.
- N scale modular layout on display at the show and a 7.5" gauge coal fired 4-6-0 steamer.
- Swing gate, scenery, and roundhouse and roundtable scenery progress.
- Tools I picked up at the GTE show, digital calipers and square clamps.
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
More progress on the layout the weekend of ~ January 17 - 21, 2008.
- Thursday, January 17, 2008
- Four DCC equiped locos on the layout at the ready tracks.
- Made a batch of scenery base paint wash with 1:1 ratio earth tone latex paint and wet water.
- Reviewed scenery and thought out the next steps for progress.
- Made a batch of powdered tempra tan paint base using the Joe Fugate formula.
- Added plaster of Paris to some of the tan tempra powders in a 4:1 ratio of plaster to tempra colors.
- Friday, January 18, 2008
- Applied the plaster scenery dusting layer: 1. wet surface to be dusted with wet water, 2. sprinkle tinted powder with tea strainer, 3. spray with wet water again and allow to dry.
- Added ballast to swing gate tracks: 1. spread material using ballasting tool, 2. smoothed with a 1" wide brush, 3. sprayed with wet water, 4. applied 1:1 glue and wet water for adhesion.
- Mixed a batch of gravel road material with ballast and 2 colors of play sand (tan and brown).
- Built gravel road on scenery base masking tape and cardboard for crossing tracks and then down to roundhouse parking lot.
- Built road grade crossing using 2"X8" scale model lumber and 0.60 sheet styrene cut to 15' lengths. Between rail cuts made to 9/16" wide.
- Placed and glued road grade crossing into place after removing small portions of the scenery tape and cardboard material for a better fit.
- Tested grade crossing with the clear plexi test car.
- Weathered the grade crossing members.
- Took photos of the DT&I boxcar with weathering on the grade crossing.
- Saturday, January 19, 2008
- Once tan plaster powder set up and dried applied a coat of earth tone scenery wash to all exposed portions of the scenery base.
- Took pictures of progress around grade crossing and roundhouse
- Thought out next steps for scenery and tree building.
- Applied another light coat of tan scenery wash to exposed scenery and to gravel road.
- Monday, January 21, 2008
- Bought some Mini Cat's at Wal-Mart, and put one to work on the ballast.
- Added more scenery wash to gravel road and scenery base for touch ups.
- Weathered rocks for placement on scenery.
- Placed 72' Chevy pick-up onto gravel road as approaching the grade crossing.
- Took pictures of progress around grade crossing and roundhouse.
- Took videos of NS mixed freight consist around new scenery.
- Built trees using two methods, added scenery and forest floor details to gravel road and track embankment areas.
- Tree Method 1: Using poly fil and applied to various dried floral pieces using hair spray, then spray painted with flat black enamel, then hit it with hair spray again and coated with ground foam foliage mix.
- Tree Method 2: Using various dried floral pieces cut to tree sizes, then hit with hair spray and then coated with ground foam material.
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
- Tuesday, January 29, 2008
- After much research and thought the decision was made to go with a metal corrguated roofing on the roundhouse, and a very economical source of material was
found at Michaels Arts and Crafts store. Using corrguated paper card stock to create the 4'X12' HO scale sheets, you can view the mini-cliic at the Roundhouse Renovations page.
Click thumbnails for a larger view.
