The Geordie and Daphne Railroad

What's Left?

2011-08-27T01:21:00.005-04:00

Although to the casual observer the G&D looks totally finished, there are just a few little things left to do. The most cosmetically obvious is the crops/cemetery beside the upper cabin. Still leaning toward cemetery, but I could change my mind at the last minute. Of course, I could go a third route, and just fill in the empty plot with some more trees and be done with it, but that's a distant third as possibilities go.

Another visual item on the to-do list is an assortment of vintage vehicles. I've got a selection of Micron Art kits set aside for this last detail, which could stretch out over the course of weeks or even months given the dearth of free time I have these days.

The very last thing to be done is to finish cleaning the track—in particular, the switches, which need a great deal of TLC to get them back to their as-new reliability. That could be quite a challenge, given that they've all been doused with paint, ballast, alcohol, glue and general dirt.

If I didn't tell anyone it wasn't done, few if any would know. But in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to be sure my faithful readers didn't get the wrong impression. So, there will yet be a few more blog posts!

Lessons Learned

2011-08-26T15:18:00.029-04:00

As far as I'm concerned, if a project isn't challenging, it's not worth doing. And if the next project isn't harder than the last one, then I'm not learning anything. So, from the get go, I'd intended the G&D to be a learning experience. And now that it's (very nearly) done, it's time for me to assess what I've learned.

Lesson 1. Right off the bat, I can assert that my experience with sectional roadbed track was a positive one. Without question this was due to the quality and breadth of the new line of track from recent startup Rokuhan. It was a daring move on their part to launch a product line with so many options, but that gamble appears to be paying off, as they've effectively captured the attention of many North American Z Scale modelers—even though that wasn't their intention (their focus was the Japanese market).

Lesson 2. Although I've been using Gatorfoam for layout bases on the last three or four layouts, this time I expanded its use to include the subroadbed as well; indeed, I used it for just about everything, including the side trim panels, scenery support, the works. It's an ideal material for any small layout, and the benefits of light weight, rigidity and moisture resistance more than compensate for the downside of being a fairly costly material.

Lesson 3. Rubber rock from Cripplebush Valley is an extraordinary product, the value of which cannot be overstated. I was able to assemble sections of gorgeous-looking rock to fit around tunnel portals and other fixed objects with precision of less than a millimeter—there's simply no other method that offers that level of control, and I've tried just about all of them. Although its cost would be somewhat prohibitive for larger layouts, it's well worth it for portables, especially considering that the smaller the layout, the greater the need for precise control.

Lesson 4. Networking on the Internet has connected me with some great new friends—and consequently challenged me to learn new skills. In particular, I was offered time on a laser, assuming I was willing to do the design work. Of course I was! The result: accurate renderings of the wooden truss and wooden trestle. Although I could have scratchbuilt them, lasering them produced better results and in a fraction of the time.

Lesson 5. Nothing should be so sacred that it can't be changed or even removed. While not new, it's a lesson worth repeating. And blog followers have gotten to see just how often things may need to be revised until they're right. Sometimes that includes the whole layout! Remember, this one started out with Micro-Trains track, for which I'd cut the track and Gatorfoam base, before switching to Rokuhan. Since that first big change, readers have had the benefit of being inside my head at nearly every twist and turn in the project.

Lesson 6. Be wary of pourable water products. Admittedly I have precious little experience with them, as I've always used stained glass up to now. I'm sure that, over time, I can perhaps master this stuff, but my biggest mistake was not practicing first. Or was it not following my initial instincts, and using stained glass at the outset? Regardless of which might have been the better path taken, I'm thankful at least that I was able to rescue the layout from two watery disasters.

There have been countless other little lessons learned along the way (including perhaps one of the touchiest: be careful what to name your layout), but these were the most salient. All of them will make me even better prepared for my next big project—whatever that may be—and anxious to add more to the list.

How Big (Small) Is It?

2011-08-24T13:23:00.010-04:00

Knowing the dimensions of something doesn't always impart a good sense of its size in life. While the dimensions have long been published as 17" x 31", a frequently-asked-question has been, "That's nice, but how big is it, really?" So, in order to help people visualize the layout's size, I've (grudgingly) stepped before the camera, layout literally in hand, to provide a definitive reference (click the image for a super-sized version—if you're daring):

Its final weight, by the way, is almost exactly ten pounds, so it's as lightweight as it is diminutive. Some folks have recommended that it serve as a coffee table, but it's actually a bit small for that—our rather average-sized coffee table is nearly twice the area of the layout!

Where Were You When the Quake Hit DC?

2011-08-23T15:04:00.009-04:00

As it happens, I was in the driveway taking photographs of the G&D in the sun. Despite the fact that the house shook, I didn't even know it happened. I'd prepared for a full-bore shoot with my DSLR, even ready to take stacks of images for Helicon processing, but the blazing sun was threatening to melt everything—including and especially me! I'd about had it just getting the rolling stock on the track, so I grabbed my pocket camera and fired off a few quick random shots so I could escape back into the cool shade asap. It explains why I didn't even bother to reposition the rolling stock for the trestle views—I was racing against the clock before the layout suffered any real damage from Mr. Sun.

Looks Done...

2011-08-18T01:52:00.007-04:00

...although technically it's not quite yet reached the 100% mark. Enjoy the layout in its entirety (click the image below for a super-sized view):

Just for reference, exactly six months ago today the layout looked like this:

Lake Redux

2011-08-17T01:09:00.006-04:00

Yes, I know I'd said I was going to leave the lake alone, cracks and all. But with each day I've had to live with it, I've found it harder to live with. The turning point came when I turned the layout around to install the water tower in Daphne: I saw an unsightly glob of gel at the end of the dock, and when I went to pick it off, up with it came much of the surrounding wave layer—all virtually intact. That was it; that was my excuse to fix it.

However, I wasn't going to tear out the whole lake and start all over from the ground up; I had a much better idea. Instead, I would just peel off the wave layer, and paint the underlying lake surface just as many modelers do who begin a river or lake with a sheet of plywood; then I'd re-apply the wave layer for the finished effect.

After removing the old wave layer, I found that I had to create a new shoreline, because the various water materials were firmly integrated into the rough edges and couldn't be peeled away. So, I sprinkled on a fresh layer of dirt and stone, which I bonded in place with dilute white glue. Consequently the lake became slightly smaller, but that's minor in the grand scheme of things.

Next, I broke out my acrylic paint set, made myself a little palate from a scrap of Foamcore, then sat down at the layout and began to play artist—something I hadn't done since college. I began by mixing a color to match the dirt and rock of the shoreline (Yellow Ochre, Titanium White and Payne's Grey), and applied this along the edges. Then I laid down the body of the lake, using Payne's Grey with just a touch of Burnt Umber to warm it up. Finally, I blended this into the paint along the shoreline to create a feathered effect.

When the acrylic paint had dried, I applied the new wave layer using gloss gel medium. This is a very thick material that can create glossy three-dimensional effects with just a single application. So, in a matter of only a couple of hours, the lake was reborn. And there was much rejoicing.

In retrospect, I believe it's just as well that the initial lake treatment failed, because I happen to like the new effect much better. For one thing, it looks right from any angle; while lighting still plays a big part in bringing it to life, even under non-ideal circumstances it's far more effective than it was before.

For another, it looks more like a lake and less like a puddle, even though, if scaled up to life size, it would barely be bigger than a puddle as it is. Studying the photographs of the original HO Scale lake, I sometimes wonder if the builder had at some point painted over the glass just as I had done; it certainly looks quite different in later years.

Before, above; after, below. Quite a transformation!

Daphne Water Tower

2011-08-16T02:43:00.000-04:00

The Daphne water tower was relatively easy to install. After leveling the terrain where the tower would stand with a sanding stick, I marked out its footprint.

Next, I drilled 1/8-inch holes at the corners of the perimeter.

Then I glued pieces of bamboo skewer stick into the holes, and trimmed them to height.

Finally, I applied healthy globs of thick CA into the corners of the tower base interior, and pressed it down onto the skewer sticks. In a few moments, the tower was immovable.

A few bits of Silflor tufts around the base completed the installation. Now I need to turn my attention to the freight station, which awaits cosmetic repair. (I can see I also need to straighten the ladder on the newly-installed water tower!)

Safety First

2011-08-15T09:55:00.007-04:00

After installing a Preiser figure beside the shack at the branchline switch, I took notice of his precarious place in life: mere feet away from a deadly vertical drop. Although there was none on the original HO Scale layout, I decided to install a fence along the top of the stone retaining wall.

I started with some etched stainless steel split rail fence from Micro Engineering. This product has been discontinued, which is a shame as it's a versatile detail, so I had to use it wisely. For this application, the farmland quality of the fence had to be altered, which was accomplished by clipping away the bottom rail.

I placed the modified fence on the top of the retaining wall, and marked the locations of the posts with an ultra-fine Sharpie.

Using a #60 drill bit in a pin vice, I drilled holes for the posts. This was quite easy since the retaining wall is made from casting resin.

Then it was out to the garage to hit the fence with a coat of Rust-Oleum ruddy brown primer. When that dried, I installed the fence, then applied CA to the post holes with the tip of a knife blade.

The last step was to touch up any spots where the paint was nicked off of the fence from handling—stainless steel doesn't like holding onto paint. And with that, I felt much better for that lonely fellow standing guard over the branchline switch.

Then, using the same material and technique, I installed the fence along the culvert by the old mill, the only difference being that I used grey primer instead of brown. Incidentally, this fence does exist on the original HO Scale layout.

The Lake, Part 3

2011-08-14T01:38:00.004-04:00

The lake is done. But not without bringing me to the brink of madness; I think the Universe just doesn't want me to get the water right. After so much careful testing and painstaking work, a completely new and unexpected disaster has occurred: beneath the final layers of gloss medium, the EZ-Water cracked. And not just in one place, but all over. There's a myriad of them, as if someone had taken a hammer to glass—in one area, it practically shattered.

For a while I considered tearing out the lake and starting over. It would be a long, really gruesome job, but it could be done. I'd use the heat gun to peel away the wave layer, then melt down the EZ-Water, which I'd scoop out as much as possible. Then I'd start again with a new terrain surface, just as I had for the stream by the old mill.

But, you know what? I'm just going to leave it the way it is. The cracks aren't seriously unsightly, the way the creeping Magic Water was. They're only visible when the lighting and viewing angle are just right. My bet is that most people wouldn't notice them unless you pointed them out. Maybe I'll pose a couple of small boats on the lake as a distraction.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the finished lake. The first thing I noticed is that, for effective photography, correct lighting is absolutely critical, something the builder of the original HO layout learned as well. He even devised a lighting system that made the waves appear to move when the lake was viewed in person. I may try that same effect when I start shooting videos of the layout.

The above is what I'd refer to as a "beauty shot." The lighting was carefully arranged to heighten the surface effects. Compare the image above to the one below, which shows how the lake looks under "normal" (non-optimized) room lighting conditions. You will notice right away the worst of the cracks: the lighter-colored streak running straight from the cabin at the back to the dam at the front.

Here it is again in the view from the upper cabin, below. Fortunately, even under non-optimized lighting, most of the cracks don't show up in photographs; trust me, when you see the lake in person, it looks like a shattered window.

Here I've deliberately adjusted the lighting to highlight the cracks. You can see how many of them there are—dozens, in all different directions.

Naturally I wonder why this happened. I thought perhaps it was the application of the waves, but why would a thin layer of acrylic paint cause something to fracture like that? Acrylics are pretty benign, so I can't imagine it was chemical. The EZ-Water was completely cooled before I began applying the waves, so it's not thermal. The base is very rigid—two layers of half-inch Gatorfoam with a thick layer of Sculptamold over it, so it can't be structural.

Well, who knows. At this point, I'm done guessing. Let's have another beauty shot—it makes me feel better!

And here's how the whole layout looks right now.

Not much left to do. Repair the Daphne freight station, install the Daphne water tower, add some more figures, and build a bunch of Micron Art vintage vehicles—these will surely take my mind off of things, and for a good long chunk of time, too.

The Lake, Part 2

2011-08-13T01:00:00.000-04:00

Short post. Long process. Layer after layer of "waves" go down. Before drying, they look like the whitecaps of a hurricane-ravaged lake...

The Lake, Part 1

2011-08-12T11:44:00.008-04:00

I'm now at the point I'd expected to be about a week ago, were it not for a little distraction: ready to pour the lake. After experimenting with a number of products and techniques, I decided to use a combination of two: a base pour of Woodland Scenics EZ-Water, and a top coat of gloss medium.

Based on tests, I found that the EZ-Water product is not practical to pour; it simply cools to quickly to flow everywhere it must. So, I melted in place using a paint stripping heat gun.

This process went surprisingly well, except... it produced a minor issue of its own: the heat from the heat gun melted all of the window glazing in the cabins around the lake!

I did the Big Melt in two layers because the pellets must melt down, which reduces the initial depth by several times. Once I'd gotten the lake to the desired final depth, I began pouring gloss medium, which will allow me to add realistically-sized waves to the surface; EZ-Water can be teased into wave shapes, but they tend to be oversize, and without any surface features, the lake looks more like a little puddle.

After having done the initial melt in a matter of minutes, the process will now slow to a matter of days as layers of gloss medium are applied, which I will poke and prod into a wave-like texture as they dry.

Disaster Recovery Complete

2011-08-11T01:37:00.003-04:00

Having finally built up the creek with countless layers of gloss medium, the scenery beside the old mill was at last back in shape. I celebrated by adding a little touch I'd been thinking about for a while: water effects at the wheel. At first I was going to try and work some silicone caulk into the desired shape in place, but given the limited access to the space beneath the waterwheel, I took a different approach...

I was actually inspired by something else altogether: I was making repairs to a fishtank, removing some excess silicone from the corners under the lid. As I sliced out the excess material with an X-Acto, it dawned on me that I could sculpt a tiny scrap of the stuff into the desired shape, and then simply glue it in place with some Elmer's white glue. I then blended it into the rest of the water with some more gloss medium.

Satisfied with the results, I did a final test of the water wheel, then sat back and enjoyed a light show.

Odds and Ends

2011-08-10T03:08:00.000-04:00

As I continue the process of land reclamation around the old mill, I'm catching up on a long list of odds and ends that have needed finishing since forever. To start, I finally wrapped up the shed at the branchline switch. All it needed was a roof, and I started with some light cardstock:

After I colored the underside and edges with a black magic marker, I bonded it to the shack.

I then applied a piece of masking tape to surface, ensuring that the "grain" of the tape ran down the slope, as a way to simulate tarpaper.

I drilled a tiny hole and inserted an ordinary straight pin for a smokejack. Finally, I painted the roof and smokejack with Floquil Weathered black.

A couple of additional stacks of ties finished the scene.

From there I moved on to finish up the crossbucks for Geordie. The Micron Art brass kit parts had already been soldered, so I gave them a quick vinegar bath, followed by primer and finally flat white spray.

The painstaking part was coloring the lettering, which I did using a super-fine-point Sharpie. Then I drilled holes in the layout and cemented them in place.

Other round tuits were a few odd little bits of terrain that never received texturing and vegetation. These included the swath of ground under the through plate girder bridge...

...a slice of earth at the mouth of the stone tunnel portal...

...and the little wedge of dirt to the left of the stairway to nowhere.

All in all it was a very productive day. But there's still so much more to do!

A Tale of Four Sheds

2011-08-09T01:44:00.018-04:00

The shed at the end of the siding in Geordie has been the object of considerable change—more so than any other structure on the layout, oddly enough. First, it was part of the original water tower, which was a Micro-Trains kit (below). Its selection was inspired by a vaguely similar structure on the original HO Scale layout.

Later, I decided to follow in the footsteps of the original layout's builder: I moved the water tower from Geordie to Daphne, and replaced it with a more substantial structure. However, I still wanted some sort of little railroad outbuilding on the siding in Geordie, so I modified a brass Micron Art tool shed to keep the new Micron Art water tower company.

Unhappy with the the look of the brass shed—particularly the doors, for which I couldn't find a good alternative—I later replaced it with a Micro-Trains tool shed. Curiously, I never even photographed it after it was installed on the layout, although it was more or less a straight build of the original kit:

Then along came the Stonebridge Models speeder shed, which was introduced as part of a Z Central Station kitbash contest. I felt that it possessed just the right character I was looking for, which none of the preceding sheds had. So, I tore out the Micro-Trains tool shed (literally—it was completely demolished) to make room for the spanky-new speeder shed.

The kit represents a good value, I believe—more detail per square inch than most kits of its size. Nice touches include open windows, a workbench, a rack of finely-lasered tools, a clutch of steel barrels, and in particular a scale Z Scale speeder, supplied by Stony Smith Designs. I decided I would do a 100% straight build—no trademark tweaks.

After cutting the parts from the frets, I dove right in and started coloring the walls with Sharpie markers. I tested various colors on scraps of wood to make my selections, and ultimately I chose a maroon red with mustard yellow trim.

Although the instructions recommended white glue, I prefer brush-on cyanoacrylate (CA); it makes kitbuilding go like lightning. I applied it to the bottoms of the tabs so there was no possibility of it showing (CA has a tendency to make Sharpie inks change color).

I colored the rails (which are supplied as strips of square styrene stock) using a silver Sharpie, bonded them in place on the base with brush-on CA, and trimmed them to length.

The building proper was done in no time. I sealed everything with matte fixative, then installed window glazing. Then, because the Sharpie coloring is quite brilliant, I toned everything down with a dusting of grey powdered chalk.

Finally came the star of the show: the speeder. Stony Smith is pushing the envelope on what's possible with rapid prototyping, and consequently a couple of the parts arrived broken, although this was in no way a fault of the packaging. (Incidentally, the wheels actually turn, although the only advantage of this I can perceive is bragging rights!) I repaired the broken parts with scraps of strip styrene, primed the model with grey primer, then brush-painted it with thinned yellow enamel. After highlighting the motor grille and wheels with a silver Sharpie, I applied liberal amounts of India ink wash and Rustall to give it some evident mileage.

If the results aren't all that impressive, it's because I wasn't especially worried about the outcome: the speeder was going to be tucked well inside the shed. The reason for this move was that its design is rather modern for my layout, so I wanted just a hint that there was some sort of vehicle stowed inside.

I'd also applied silver Sharpie to the tool rack so it would stand out well against the dark interior wall, and carefully positioned it for best possible visibility through the open doors.

The only deviation from the original kit that I made was omitting the little tool cart behind the speeder—there just wasn't enough room for it. After an enjoyable hour of modeling, I was quite pleased with the results of a pure, straight build, and promptly dropped it in place next to the newly-installed water tower.

One may question the speeder shed's placement at the end of a siding. Well, one may question the placement of the water tower as well. All I can say is, it reflects aspects of the original HO layout. Although there was never a speeder shed at this location, there was a water tower, along with a few other somewhat odd items over the years; my suspicion is that, since this was presumably the builder's first layout, he was likely learning as he went, so prototype fidelity may not have been especially strong at the time. And even though I supposedly "know better," I enjoy retaining the flavor of the original—even some of its quirks and flaws.

Installing Geordie's Water Tower

2011-08-08T03:01:00.004-04:00

While layer upon layer of gloss medium continue to dry in the stream beside the old mill, I took the opportunity to install the water tower in Geordie. I'd struggled with an idea for a sure-fire way of bonding it in place securely, and ultimately I devised a solution. It started with twelve bits of 1/8-inch square brass tubing for the footings:

While the primer was drying on the footings, I marked the surface of the layout with the positions of the twelve legs.

Knowing the alignment would not be perfect, I drilled slightly-oversize holes at the marks. Then I attached the painted footings to the water tower legs with CA.

I filled each drill-hole with a healthy glob of thick CA, and then wriggled the footings down into the holes.

If the force required to get the water tower down into place was any indication of the quality of the bond, then the proof was when I lifted the layout using the water tower as a handle. I don't think it will ever come loose!

The final step was to fill in the gaps around the footings with ballast, and bond it in place. Later I'll add the footing for the ladder.

(Oh, by the way... don't tell anyone, but the water tower is way too close to the track. If I'd set it back the proper distance, it would have to be moved down almost to the end of the siding. So this will have to remain our little secret!)

Disaster Recovery, Part 3

2011-08-07T01:05:00.002-04:00

It took a long, long time, but the worst finally happened: the waterwheel seized up. I was in the midst of adding the greenery around the re-surfaced stream bed, when I flicked it on just to take in the effect, and... nothing. I tried moving it manually, and after some effort the wheel then began to spin—freely! As in, on its own, and not driven by the motor.

I have to say, this poor little mill has been, well, through the mill, including two motor drives and micro-surgery on the lantern. Now I had to pry off the roof to see if I could make repairs.

Evidently what happened was the wheel had become bonded to the stonework that holds up the faux outer wheel bearing. Forcing the mechanism to run with the wheel locked caused the worm gear to shift on the drive shaft until it was free of the worm. So, with the wheel freed, it was a matter of getting the gears back in alignment.

With the waterwheel working again, I left it running while I finished repairing the scenery around the stream bed. In fact, I may leave it running the rest of the day just to be certain nothing can possibly re-bond with it.

Meanwhile, the gloss medium water I added to the restored culvert at the front of the layout may not look as über-wet as poured resin, but at least it stayed where I put it!

Disaster Recovery, Part 2

2011-08-06T01:05:00.000-04:00

Like a concerned parent checking on a sick child every hour or so, I made regular trips to the layout just to power up the waterwheel briefly, and ensure it hadn't been seized up by the Magic Goo. So far, it appears to have escaped catastrophe.

The amount of destroyed terrain around the mill is pretty depressing, but the real killer is the goo that crept along the foundation of the old mill, completely surrounding the stone walkway. In the hopes of disguising the brilliant glistening wetness along the bottom edges of the building, I doused the whole area with powdered chalk while the goo was still tacky, then left it alone for a day to set.

So the very next task (after checking the waterwheel again) was to blow away all of the excess powdered chalk with compressed air. The result (above) wasn't awful, to be sure; I had to study it for a while to find something in it I could grow to like. It's there; it essentially means I'll need to age the building a little more to work with the new look of the stone path, which basically has collected what looks like dirt and crud—in other words, it's rather more unkempt than it was at the outset. It's not the end of the world, anyway.

With the worst of the problem dealt with, the rest was a matter of re-surfacing all of the terrain. The challenge is working in seriously cramped quarters. I was tempted to yank out all of the trees temporarily, but I tried removing one and wound up destroying it.

As before, I sprinkled on a new layer of dirt and rock along the stream bed, then re-applied my standard mix of terrain surfacing materials of brown sawdust, tan ground foam, and green foams/grasses. As an aside, the contours of the repaired terrain are now quite different, given that it's built upon existing terrain that included goo-saturated grass tufts and other groundcover materials.

With the terrain restored, I began the tedium of applying layers of gloss acrylic medium. This will likely continue over the course of a few days, which is fine—it's not as if I'm working against a deadline, although it's disappointing to think this area was essentially done days ago, were it not for the Magic Disaster!

Disaster Recovery, Part 1

2011-08-05T01:37:00.002-04:00

I'm easing myself back into the disaster zone, and addressing it a little bit at a time—it's otherwise just too overwhelming to take in all at once. I started with the culvert at the edge of the layout, since it constitutes just a couple of square inches of layout to repair.

Since the stream bed was virtually devoid of any resin, I essentially treated it as if it was unfinished scenery, starting with a layer of dirt and gravel to cover the stream bed and a portion of the slopes on either side. This was bonded in place with dilute white glue (below).

After this was set, I applied my usual sequence of terrain texture to the regions between the gravel and the top of the culvert walls. This comprised brown sawdust, followed by fine tan ground foam, and finally green foam and Silflor tufts.

This brought me to the point of adding new "water." The last thing I was going to use was the "magic" variety; instead, I used Liquitex gloss acrylic varnish, which I've begun applying in a series of layers. I'm not overly fond of gloss medium, as it's not crystal clear like the poured resin, and it shrinks substantially, requring numerous pours. But at least the stuff won't attempt to take over my layout like The Blob, as you can see below.

Still to come will be several more layers of gloss medium to build up the depth. I must also sand down the fascia and re-stain/re-seal the veneer to rid it of the remnants of Magic Goo. But the wet parts look wet, and the dry parts look dry, and at this point that's all I care about. I feel a little better now; I'm still not at the point where I can look at the old mill area and not feel queasy, but enough that I might be able to deal with it later.

A Magic Disaster

2011-08-04T03:36:00.011-04:00

While pouring the lake is still a ways off, I felt that it was safe to pour the stream next to the old mill. I thought this might also be a good exercise to get familiar with "Magic Water," a product I'd never used, but one that came with high marks from others. Up to now, I'd always made water with stained glass, a process that requires considerable advance planning, and one that was not an option for the G&D owing to the logistics of the stream by the old mill.

As it happens, doing a little "test pour" was both a good idea and a bad idea: bad, because it was a complete disaster; good because it limited the disaster to small, reasonably manageable areas; plus, I now know what to expect pouring the lake—if I still pour it, that is.

It all started innocently enough. After creating a little dam at the edge of the layout (above), I mixed up about two tablespoons of Magic Water, and did the "pour" with a disposable eyedropper (below).

Then I watched in horror as capillary action immediately began to draw the resin absolutely everywhere—just like magic—and at a frightening pace. In the image below, the two parallel rows of larger stones line the original course of the stream. Yet see how far astray the resin has moved; it's drawn itself two thirds of the way up the embankments on either side, and has crept into the foundation around the building.

Along the front of the layout, it's made it all the way up to the top of the culvert wall, leaving the stream bed empty! Granted, the instructions cautioned this was a possibility with ground foam, but I didn't expect that trees, rocks and building foundations would necessarily be included in the warning list. In fact, this stuff has sucked its way into absolutely everything it's touched, and hours after the initial pour, it's still on the move. I have this utter dread that it'll find its way inside the mill and seize up the waterwheel mechanism. If I dare pour the lake, I could envision it crawling all the way up the shoreline, overtaking the wharf, and then creeping down the road like a micro-tsunami.

I foresee literally hours of painstaking, surgically-precise scenery work ahead to convert the wetlands I have now back into dry ground. And what am I to do about the leak that's sprung from under the walls of the old mill, threatening to soak the feet of the gentleman standing on what should be bone dry stone? It's become something of a small nightmare; I'm nauseous with despair.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and now I truly wish I'd stuck with stained glass, even with the problems it would have posed for the old mill area. The ancient, scuzzy slide above offers a taste of how stained glass looked on my old White River and Northern. I'll figure out some way of keeping the lake under control—perhaps I'll try sealing the scenery around the perimeter with gloss medium as a precaution. But I doubt very much that I'll be using any kind of resin for water effects ever again.

Track Cleaning: the Big Chore

2011-08-03T01:36:00.001-04:00

The Big Chore has begun. I knew going in this would be a fairly lengthy process. I don't care how good anyone's track is—commercial or handlaid; any thoughts of it performing as good as it did before applying paint and ballast and glue, without a lot of work, must be dismissed. It's a long, tedious job getting it back into shape.

I'm tackling it in stages. The first was simply getting the nineteen-bazillion layers of gunk off the rails. I began by scraping it off with a knife fitted with a chisel blade (above). One must be thorough about this, because just cleaning the tops of the railheads is not enough; one needs to also clean off the inside corners as well, because the wheel fillets often ride on them, particularly on curves (below); I also clean off the outside corners for cosmetic reasons—otherwise, the paint acquires a ragged edge.

Step two I'll leave for another day: switch points and frogs. These require a great deal of care, as well as a different approach: since wheel flanges often ride in the frog flangeways, they must be cleaned out as well; otherwise, locomotives will loose electrical pickup there. I also learned the hard way that a gentle touch is needed on the frogs, because they're nickel plated, and the plating can be scraped off.

Muck

2011-08-02T01:15:00.001-04:00

Work on the lake continued with more materials added for color and texture. Most modelers paint their river or lake beds with dark colored paints to suggest depth; instead, I decided to use dark grey ballast, with some chopped up twigs and groundcover materials sprinkled around. I have no idea why I elected to use ballast instead of paint; I think it came down to the fact that the lake bed already has a great deal of texture, and I didn't feel as though I could create effective-looking gradations in shading using paint, whereas the ballast tended to make its own natural feathered edges.

When I applied alcohol and glue to secure it all in place, it turned into a wonderful muck. Assuming the materials take on the same coloration when the "water" is poured as it did when I hit it with glue, then I'll have achieved just the look I sought.

As for being done making messes, I forgot all about the cattle pens. I'd intended to apply a layer of straw-colored flocking to simulate a bed of dry grass. I'm a little leery of this process, mostly because of the way glues tend to creep up into the fences, and I'd like to avoid gravity-defying straw!

One Last Mess

2011-08-01T01:06:00.002-04:00

Although one might not have known by looking at it, the road was not finished; a final texture/color coat had been planned for it all along. This is the last "messy" step that keeps the lake from being poured; the balance of the work—most of which constitutes installing various structures—can be done safely after the pour.

The texture step involved brushing on dilute white glue and sprinkling it with the minitec powdered ballast material. When this is dry, there will be a marathon vacuuming/dusting/blowing episode, followed by powdered chalk coloring, which will lead to yet another cleaning session.

Meanwhile, with the gravel layer dry, I've been adding texture materials to the lake bed, including ground foam and more dirt. Still to come will be some deadfall and other debris.

Lake Preparations

2011-07-31T01:47:00.002-04:00

Although pouring water is still a ways off yet, I am closing in on that time quickly enough that I can start preparations. In particular, I've started work on the lake bed. I've poured some dirt and gravel along the shores, and bonded in place with diluted white glue. The next step will be to add more textures and colors to the lake bed, as well as some detailing such as dead tree trunks and the like.

Meanwhile, I've started work on installing the water towers. The large one in Geordie will be a fair bit of work as I need to fabricate a dozen concrete footings. But the bigger challenge will be devising a method of securing the structure securely; it's quite massive, yet it makes contact with the layout on twelve tiny squares...

Safety for the Cyclist

2011-07-30T01:27:00.004-04:00

That cyclist on the road past Geordie certainly would have had a rough time of it had I not finally finished the grade crossings. This round tuit only took a few minutes to knock off. The crossings were made from leftover lasered wood, layered with plain wood scraps to set the proper height.

After assembling the layers with thick CA, I simply stained them with a brown permanent marker, then distressed them with a fingernail file. The triangular-shaped piece fits into the space between tracks, just beyond the frog.

Installation was a matter of applying blobs of thick CA to the ties and dropping them in place. The triangular piece was secured by brushing CA onto the sides of the rails.

Now the cyclist's ride will be considerably smoother and safer! Meanwhile, I needed to add a grade crossing on the industrial siding as well, and elected to make a different style; I felt that a much less sophisticated type—mainly plain dirt—was appropriate.

To begin, I secured .030 square strip styrene to the insides of the rails with masking tape (above). Then I sprinkled the minitec powdered ballast material I used for the rest of the dirt roads between the styrene strips (below).

Finally, I wetted it with alcohol, and dribbled on my special white glue/water/alcohol mix (below). Tomorrow, when it's thoroughly dry, I'll carefully extract the styrene strips and clean up the rails.

Nooks and Crannies

2011-07-29T01:40:00.000-04:00

Another one of those musty old round tuits bit the dust: the terrain under the stone viaduct. It was simply a matter of applying the same terrain-making techniques as before, except in very cramped quarters.

After applying dilute white glue with a brush (above), I sprinkled on ground foam with my trusty little craft spoon (below).

Since there was no practical way of vacuuming the excess out of the spaces, I instead blew it out with compressed air (below). This then led to a tedious process of cleaning the debris off of the rest of the layout, which is still ongoing and may take quite some time—admittedly it wasn't the brightest idea I've had.

The process was repeated twice more for additional layers of ground foam. Finally, I applied some Silflor tufts to complete the job (below). I may add some bits of scrub brush as well; if so, that will come later.

Gettin' Dirty

2011-07-28T01:34:00.001-04:00

With the scenery nearing the 90% mark at the other end of the layout, I turned my attention to a long-overdue project: filling in the roadways around the industries. I sort of dreaded this because it's rather messy—not that I object to messy things, but because it's a very "fussy" process that will put some features of the layout at a degree of risk.

I'm sure there are better ways of doing it, but the process I developed is akin to ballasting. It's also the result of considerable experimentation (read: loads of failures) that involves some counter-intuitive steps.

I start with minitec 50-0221-01, which is essentially powdered stone—nearly as fine as talc, and just as messy. I dump small piles of this into the areas to be filled in using a small craft spoon.

Next, I level the powder by jabbing it lightly with the end of a stiff bristle brush. This is one of the counter-intuitive steps: all other methods of leveling I've tried didn't work. The result is a somewhat uneven, pockmarked surface, but this will be dealt with in the following step.

The powder is then saturated with alcohol. Because fine powder resits moisture, this step takes patience, and works best when the alcohol is applied along the edges of structures and scenery. Dribbling it right on top of the powder only results in large craters. As the alcohol creeps along, the surface smooths out nicely, all on its own.

For this process I've developed a special adhesive recipe: one part each white glue, water and alcohol. This is dribbled on in the same manner as the wetting alcohol step. The result is—quite literally—a form of mud.

In its "mud" state, the material can be shaped with a small, smooth curved object, like the bottom of my tiny spoon. Occasionally I find small sink-holes, which are characterized by glue puddles; into these I'll sprinkle some powder with my fingers.

At this point it becomes a waiting game, underscored by a kind of prayer vigil: I'm in a state of low-grade panic that all of the fluids I've applied will warp the foundations of the cattle pen and fuel tanks. Only time will tell.

Once everything has dried—which may be sometime tomorrow—I can do some touch-up work on low or irregular spots. Then I'll tint the surface with powdered chalks to give it a more natural dirt road color. That's assuming I'm not stuck rebuilding the cattle pen or fuel tanks, that is...

The Upper Cabin

2011-07-27T01:44:00.001-04:00

It's in, and after seeing it in situ, with the surrounding trees and greenery, it left me in a quandary as to where I'd want to live if the G&D was a real place. All of the cabins have strong appeal, as well as the old mill. If nothing else, it takes my mind off of things as I take in the layout.

This now puts me in a position of having to complete the spot at the bend in the road. Crops, or cemetery? I'm still leaning toward the latter; it seems to offer the layout much more character.

Arbor Day

2011-07-26T01:44:00.006-04:00

With the terrain surface getting wrapped up on large swaths of layout, many trees have been planted—in fact, over fifty of them were added to the layout in one mad planting session! I think you'll agree that the layout looks substantially different, now...

After completing the scenery around the old mill, my concern over its access has diminished. I can imagine all manner of scenarios involving things that cannot be readily perceived through the vegetation, which is so thick that the water wheel is barely visible. For instance, I can pretend the mill is no longer in use as a mill, but instead is now the home of some recluse with no need for a road to his front door. (That would be me!)

As an aside about the water wheel... yes, it's now a lot harder to see—more difficult than I'd anticipated. And at first I was a wee bit concerned. But, when I turned it on, I noticed that it adds a perfect touch of motion that's glimpsed through the trees, peek-a-boo style, which I decided was perfectly satisfactory. It's something that can be "discovered" by people seeing the layout in person for the first time, which can be a lot of fun.

At any rate, I'm now closing in on the upper cabin, and with that comes a decision to make: on the original layout, there was a patch of crops populated with pigs beside the bend in the road in front of the cabin. I'm not entirely set on reproducing the same sort of farm scene, even though it would be fun to make; I've been toying with the idea of making a small, weed-grown cemetery instead.

I'm not entirely certain why; perhaps it's because the cemetery planned for my James River Branch layout got squeezed out by other things, and I just have a hankering to build one; perhaps it's because I imagine a need for a place to bury all of the poor victims of the lynchings that occurred nearby on the original G&D—a way to honor the colorful history fabricated by its builder. In order to give me more time to ponder this, I'll likely leave that particular bit of layout real estate until last.

Incidentally, I've been working on improving the images I'm taking of the layout. Fine-tuning the white balance has helped with the fidelity of the greens, which up to now has been the most troublesome aspect. Part of the problem appears to be that I use all LED lighting in my workspace, and the color temperature of white LEDs is not universal, not well characterized, and not well handled by digital cameras.

While it may look as if the layout's nearly done, it's far from it. Still to do: install both water towers; repair and re-install a damaged Daphne freight station; complete the little shack next to the brachline switch; finish the terrain under the stone viaduct; finish the road surfaces around the industrial buildings; install grade crossings; add loads of little details such as railings along the culvert, grade crossing signs and so forth; clean all of the track (ugh!); and, of course, pour the lake. So, you can expect plenty more blog posts to come!

It's Happening Again

2011-07-25T01:53:00.003-04:00

Don't panic; major changes are not afoot. I'm just over-thinking things again. Remember way, way back, toward the beginning of the project, when I was bothered by the fact that the culvert beside the old mill had no outlet? Then, recall that I also struggled with the situation where the industries had no access road? Well, as I was creating the stream bed along the old mill, it dawned on me: how does anyone get to/from the mill? (Which immediately raised an ancillary question: why didn't this occur to me sooner?)

On the original layout, the mill had what appears to be an odd little dock, complete with rowboat. I shudder to think that access was supposed to be via boat, since the only place for a boat to go was into the culvert—the culvert with no outlet. If access was not by boat, then there seemed to be no other way to get to/from it other than teleportation; the structure was completely surrounded by cliffs and retaining walls.

Now I'm pondering the problem for my Z Scale adaptation, if a little late. Do I create some sort of path? This might require building a little bridge across the stream. It might also require chopping into the scenery across from the mill to extend the path up to the road. Or, it may involve creating a staircase from the side of the road down the culvert wall nearest the mill. I just don't know if I should bother with any of this, even though it'll bug me forever.

What do my faithful readers think? Should I go to the trouble of bringing some logic to this trivial little corner of the layout? Or should I just ignore it and carry on, blithely ignorant of how things might work—or not, as the case may be—in the real world?

Oh, and to answer a FAQ: pouring the water will indeed be the very last step. I've had at least three readers ask, so I thought I'd post the answer for all. "Why?" one may ask. The reason is that poured plastic is a dirt magnet. So, if there was any construction left to do on the layout—particularly messy stuff that involved glue, paint or powdered materials—I'd risk damaging the surface.

Layers of Texture and Color

2011-07-24T01:00:00.008-04:00

As I'd noted previously, the sawdust I've applied is just the beginning of the final terrain treatment. The idea behind it is to create a surface with an earth-colored texture to give the following layers more character. The next layer is light tan super-fine ground foam applied in the same manner as the sawdust, using diluted white glue brushed onto the surface. The only difference is that I immedicately vacuum away the excess after sprinkling it on; this prevents the foam from becoming too dense and obscuring the texture I'm working to create. I only work on thumbnail-sized areas at a time because the sawdust absorbs the glue quickly.

Next, I repeat the process using finely-ground foam in a variety pale green shades, working from lighter to darker, applying less each time in random patches. I'm making a much greener layout than its HO scale counterpart, as that's my preference, although I'm still sticking with a southwestern feel; if this was a northeastern layout, I'd be using an entirely different palette of materials, applied far more heavily. Being a northeastern native, with a preference for the scenery here, it's a challenge for me to keep the application of greenery dialed so far back. That said, I'm enjoying the challenge as well as the change of pace.

One last step in the terrain surfacing process is to go over all of the areas with a stiff brush. This does a few things: it removes any material that wasn't well adhered; it creates more irregularities in coloration; and it brings the brightness down a notch, so that the layout isn't scorchingly bright. Once that's done, I can begin adding weeds, shrubs and trees.

You can see how the overall look of the terrain is quite different than it was at the outset. Notice that the Sculptamold is entirely covered, which may inspire some to ask why I bothered coloring it. The reason is this: even when the surface is being completely covered, it's not 100%; there are numerous tiny patches that remain bare, and collectively these patches will skew the outcome. Had I left the Sculptamold white, the scenery would not look good—ask me how I know! While the precise color of the Sculptamold isn't critical, what's important is that it's a natural color that's preferably a little darker than the final terrain color.

One minor frustration I've had to live with throughout has been the inability to photograph the scenery's final appearance faithfully—and it's not for lack of decent equipment, either. There's a range of subtle hues in the terrain that's lost in these images. It may come down to lighting; I've yet to try shooting the layout in natural sunlight. But given the triple-digit temperatures we're enduring right now, that experiment will have to wait. Meanwhile, I've completed the control panel replacement.

And Talus for All

2011-07-23T08:49:00.007-04:00

After getting the base terrain texture down, I started adding talus around the trestle footings. Not only does this add visual interest, but it's much easier to get into the tight spots than normal groundcover. I just sprinkled some fine gravel and dirt along the upper areas and allowed it to trickle down into crevasses naturally. I did have to do a bit of teasing to break up unnatural clumps, but otherwise it was then just a matter of dousing it with alcohol and dribbling on dilute white glue to secure it all in place.

In other news, all of the new decals have been applied, so I can photograph the station, billboard and other principal structures without having to digitally obfuscate the readable bits. The billboard suffered a printing flaw—I was having trouble getting my printer to be happy about being fed decal paper, and rather than continue yanking out jams, I just left it, and eventually I'll add some weathering streaks to disguise it.

Along similar lines, I've just completed re-editing the two videos I'd created for the G&D, and returned them to their respective posts: the maiden run and the old mill water wheel.

No More Terrain

2011-07-22T13:43:00.006-04:00

While I waited for the freshly-sealed decals to dry, I posed the little cabin at the base of the trestle to see how it looked. I was fearful it might draw too much attention away from the trestle, but it seemed fine. You can also see how the Sculptamold around the cabin is still drying, with patches of starkly-contrasting shades (below).

With an oppressive level of humidity, even with AC, the Sculptamold was taking it's sweet time drying; fortunately it didn't need to be totally dry in order for me to apply the base terrain texture layer of brown sawdust, so I broke out some diluted white glue and started brushing it on, carefully sneaking it in between the trestle bents.

After I'd applied glue to an area about the size of a postage stamp, I'd sprinkle on the sawdust using a craft spoon made for working with stained glass materials. It's just the right size to slip in between the trestle bents and get all of the nooks and crannies covered.

When this has thoroughly dried, I'll vacuum away the excess and apply the next terrain layer, which is super-fine light tan ground foam. The result will be the earth texture seen in earlier photographs of completed scenery—golly, it seems like that was years ago instead of just months. Anyway, while the terrain glue is drying, I'll get all of the new decals in place.

Although the milestone was really reached a couple of days ago with the application of the last batch of Sculptamold, it only hit me now, while taking in the work done today (above), that I have no more terrain left to make! If I want to mix up any more Sculptamold, it'll have to be for the James River Branch—and even that layout only needs one or maybe two more small batches at most.

Rebranding, Continued

2011-07-21T13:47:00.019-04:00

The process of rebranding the layout continues. I've re-rendered the artwork for a number of structures that needed new identities, beginning with the billboard (above). The fact that it's now all new art, as opposed to a faithful reproduction of the original, meant that I was free to embellish it with little touches such as "in Z Scale," which was recommended by a reader back when I did the first one.

Next in line was Geordie station, followed by the hotel and saloon for Daphne Flats. Although the original saloon name was likely safe to leave as it was, I elected not to take any chances, so it got renamed the Squire Bottom Saloon. Last up was the factory. Again, it was probably OK to leave alone, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

As before, all of the art was printed in high resolution on white waterslide decal material. I'll simply apply them directly over the existing art.

The Last Batch

2011-07-20T10:01:00.006-04:00

It was a kind of bittersweet moment mixing up the last batch of Scultpamold. I love making scenery, so mixing the stuff up always gets my creative juices flowing. At the same time, the final batch brings the layout to a major milestone.

Today's batch was used to fill in around the trestle bent footings. This was a tedious chore, as I had to tease it into tiny crevasses using a small screwdriver and a knife tip. There were some mistakes made along the way, including a large blob that landed right on the track, but these will clean up fairly easily after it's dry.

Although I didn't need much, as per usual I had quite a bit left over. So, on a whim I decided to give the slope of earth to the right of the lake a bit more character: I piled on a large glob of Sculptamold, then pressed a leftover chunk of rubber rock right into it. After blending it in around the edges, you'd never know it was a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment idea.

Fifth and Final Control Panel

2011-07-19T15:30:00.005-04:00

Work on the Geordie and Daphne resumed today with the creation of yet another new control panel—the fifth one I've made. This time it wasn't done out of a technical necessity, but instead a legal one.

Above is the revised control panel art; below, it's been printed in high resolution on presentation cardstock. Prior to installation, I will have it laminated.

In other layout news, the trestle is now permanently installed. I made one minor little tweak to it before bonding it in place: I added another layer of wood to the stringers. They looked just a tad wimpy in the photos I'd taken of it before installation, and since I had a spare lasered stringer part on hand, I just glued it on top of the finished assembly.

Installation was not without a bit of difficulty; as I'd anticipated, the added thickness of the stringers required carving out additional space under some of the footings, which was challenging given the tight clearances involved. Also, the bridge was ever so slightly warped with respect to the track, so it took a considerable amount of thick CA and clamping to get things to settle into place. I now have some touch-up painting to do on the track as a result, but that's minor in the grand scheme of things; I'm just glad to have certain events behind me, and to see fresh progress after a long hiatus fraught with all manner of trouble.

Only One Batch Left...

2011-06-12T11:32:00.008-04:00

After carving up the scenery to accommodate the finished trestle, there was a fair amount of cosmetic restoration to do, although it's quite difficult to discern in the image below—the flaws often blend naturally into the surroundings when rendered in two dimensions.

In order to get repair material into all of the recesses without adding any significant thickness, I mixed up a small, very soupy batch of Sculptamold, and brushed it onto the scenery with a half-inch stiff-bristle paintbrush. I had enough left that I was able to fill in the terrain around the wharf as well. Then I continued on from there and blended everything together with a top coat of the thin mixture, which did a nice job of eliminating the patchwork-quilt effect of having built up the terrain from multiple batches of Sculptmaold—even though groundcover materials would have done the same thing.

While it's still wet, this batch of Sculptmold photographs as an odd shade of bright olive green, although it dries to a nice netural grey. This also puts the trestle installation on hold until it's all dry. Then, with the trestle in place, I'll need to mix up one last little batch of Sculptamold to fill in around the bridge footings, and that will wrap up all of the terrain. I'm psyched!

Final Trestle Assembly, Part 3

2011-06-11T12:22:00.009-04:00

Once assembly of the trestle itself was complete, it was time to make footings. Using a razor saw and miter box, I cut them from styrne shapes. Being hollow, they got filled in on the ends with Squadron Putty and, when dry, sanded to shape.

After spraying them light aircraft grey, I bonded them to the trestle bents with thick CA. What followed was the tedious task of carving up portions of the scenery so they'd fit; this was the bulk of today's work, as it required many iterations of fitting, carving, fitting, carving, etcetera.

While it doesn't sound like much work, the process pretty much tapped me out, so Part 4 will cover the mopping-up activities of installing the abutments and filling in the terrain. Adiós.

Final Trestle Assembly, Part 2

2011-06-10T10:52:00.022-04:00

Having assembled the laser-cut bents, the project entered the "scratchbuilding" phase, as I set about cutting and installing the girts and the side cross braces individually by hand.

It's clear that I'm definitely not going for accuracy, since there are thirteen bents on the original bridge, whereas mine has only nine (reason being that the Rokuhan switch is longer than the original's handlaid switch, forcing the bridge to be shorter). Other more subtle differences include the detailing of the bridge over the dirt road on John's version, which I omitted, and the fact that he positioned the outermost girts on the insides of the bents, instead of the outsides, which is how I did it. And, John's bridge has a walkway, whereas mine doesn't. As I've said many times, I'm striving to capture only the flavor.

Before getting down to it, I first needed to correct the alignment of the bents. Because the bridge is on a slight grade, the bents must be angled relative to the stringers in order to get them vertical. With the bridge positioned on the layout, I carefully broke each glue joint, adjusted the bent, and re-bonded it. If any of them still look a little wonky, that's likely because my eye is a little wonky.

As an aside, it occurred to me that it's just as well I didn't attempt to laser the whole bridge, as my original drawings did not take the grade into account, and I'd have had to toss all of the cross brace parts—a sad waste of materials and laser time.

Back at the workbench, I cut, stained and installed the girts, which kept the bents securely aligned. To simplify assembly as well as add strength, I made the girts out of single lengths of wood which I crimped with a flush cutter and gently bent (upper image). Then I cut and installed the rest of the cross braces (lower image).

Returning to the layout, I found during the test fitting that I needed to remove some rockwork and terrain to clear the bracing on the back of the bridge. Once in place, I photographed it from a variety of angles. Ah, the wonders of modern digital pocket cameras!

The next steps are to make the footings and abutments, then install the bridge, fill in the terrain, and add final details such as fire barrels. Until next time...

Final Trestle Assembly, Part 1

2011-05-27T14:55:00.014-04:00

In our last episode, I'd verified the drawings I'd made for the bents and bent braces by printing images of them on paper and taping them together. Satisfied that the drawings would do the job, I sent them off to be lasered, and busied myself with other things until the parts arrived. You could tell without doubt that I was ready for them in a major way, since I had the bents stained and assembled and the half-finished trestle sitting in place on the layout within about ninety minutes of their arrival in the mail!

Right after removing them from the envelope, I cracked open my can of dark walnut stain and applied the stain to the frets with a paper towel. Next, I cut the parts free of the frets, and began assembling the bents using brush-on CA. When the bents were done, I sanded the tops flat with a fingernail file, and bonded them to the one-piece stringer part.

At this point the trestle was ready for posing on the layout. What hit me as soon as I saw it in place is that the bridge is on a slight grade, so the bents will need to be bent a bit to make them vertical before cutting and installing the girts and side braces. After this, I'll make the footings, and that will lead to the final step, building up the terrain around the footings. Can't wait!

I Nearly Forgot...

2011-05-22T21:16:00.012-04:00

When I'd posted about the wharf being the last structure, I'd entirely forgotten about a little shack that sits by the branchline switch. One could argue that it might not even qualify as a structure, but since it has a door and a window, I think it does.

While there's certainly not much to it, the project has me in just a bit of a quandary. You see, some time back I'd started two versions of the little thing, neither of which I'd completed because I couldn't decide between them, and only now did I realize that I need to finish one of them before I can declare all of the layout's structures "done."

The first one (above) is a modified Micron Art crossing shanty. The second (below) was scratch-bashed out of some leftover laser kit parts. I like the brass model because of the finer detailing; however, the lasercut version is closer to the original design.

I'm leaning more towards the lasercut version, but I'm still on the fence. Perhaps readers might chime in with their thoughts: which shanty should I finish for the layout?

The "Wharf"

2011-05-19T17:13:00.010-04:00

The little "wharf" (really, it's nothing more than a fishing dock) on the lake has the distinction of being the last structure for me to build—well, sort of; it shares that honor concurrently with the wooden trestle, which was begun before the wharf, but will be finished after; it worked out perfectly to build the wharf whilst I awaited the lasered trestle parts.

It seemed like a natural thing to simply order a Micro-Trains Narrow Pier Kit (799 90 935). It wasn't possible to judge its size from the product photo; as it happens, it's huge in relation to what was needed, but it wasn't unusable. After I chopped off two thirds of the deck, it became about the right length. However, it looked absurd with only six pilings, so I drilled holes for four more, and it finally started looking right.

The extra pilings precluded using the kit's cross-bracing, so I made my own from stripwood scraps. By this time it had become one of those why-bother-with-a-kit kinds of projects, but there was no knowing this before cracking it open, and ultimately there was a modest time-saving advantage to using the kit.

I placed the assembled wharf on the lake bed and marked out the piling locations. Then I drilled holes in the scenery with a small power drill. After test-fitting the wharf in the holes and making some minor adjustments, I sprayed the wharf with light grey primer, then applied an India ink wash to achieve a nice weatherbeaten wood effect.

Since the lake will be poured, I had to make sure that the final installation was "watertight," so I re-filled all of the holes with Loctite PowerGrab adhesive, which I worked into the holes with my finger. Foreseeing a challenge in trying to color and texture the area under the installed wharf, I made use of the adhesive that was smeared all over and sprinkled on some texture material, vacuuming away the excess just before pressing the wharf into position in the glue-filled holes.

All that remains to finish off the scene (aside from pouring the lake, which will be the very last thing done on the layout) is to build up the terrain around the land end of the wharf. A small batch of Sculptamold will do the trick, and that will allow me to wrap up the scenery work around the front half of the lake.

Problem Solved

2011-05-16T21:11:00.009-04:00

If you've got to have problems, then the best ones to have are the kind that solve themselves. Not long ago, I thought I'd created a mini-disaster when I started using some so-called "Perfect Glue" from Liquid Nails. I wasn't aware that it's a polyurethane glue, which as a rule I never use because it swells. The result was that the stone abutment for the wooden truss bridge separated from the retaining wall:

My good fortune was to simply leave it alone and go about working on other things, with the intent of coming back to it at some future point armed perhaps with a good idea on how to correct it—I needed a really good idea, because in spite of its fatal flaw, polyurethane glue is really tough stuff. But I didn't need any good ideas; evidently the glue had some sort of chemical reaction with the plastic casting, and it slowly turned to useless rubbery gunk. I was able to pull the abutment away with ease, and I had only to strip the remaining mess from the retaining wall to get back to Point A.

Once things were cleaned up, I re-installed the abutment with Loctite PowerGrab, which is a caulk-like adhesive I've used extensively for layout construction. And so the mystery remains why I didn't use it in the first place! No matter; what counts is that the abutment is back where it belongs, fitting snugly against the retaining wall. And all is right with the world... tonight.

Verification and Adjustment

2011-05-11T13:08:00.008-04:00

With renderings of the bents and stringers at hand, I printed them out at 1:1 on plain paper and cut them up with scissors. After taping the bents in place on the stringers, I gingerly posed the bridge in place on the layout.

What you see is the result of about a half-dozen iterations of adjustments to the height and position of the bents. The process was well worth the effort, and as a consequence, I'll need to "slenderize" some of the bents to avoid collision with the rock face behind it.

The next task will be tweaking the points at which the side braces will subdivide the bents vertically. This will likely be the "fussiest" part of the whole process, but once it's done, it's all downhill from there.

It was suggested that I laser the side braces as well, but as I'd indicated before, the trestle is curved—and not evenly at that—which means every set of cross braces is different. In the end it'll be a lot less trouble to simply measure and cut the pieces to fit. Yes, lots of work, but actually easier—and in a way more satisfying—than doing it mathematically.

Post Surgical Activity

2011-05-10T17:47:00.016-04:00

My surgery was thankfully along the lines of what I'd done for the layout: pretty much a textbook procedure. No complications, nothing messy or extensive, just get in, get it clean, and get out. I'll be on restricted activity for a couple of weeks, naturally, so now I'm deciding what to do during that time. I've already set my sights on the wooden trestle, taking key measurements and rendering primary components in software.

Originally I was going to laser the whole thing, but this particular bridge poses some special issues, the principal one being that it's curved—and not just a simple radius, but a compound curve with easements. This makes it agonizingly difficult to plot out the size and shape of each side brace. It's not impossible, but it takes a massive investment of time calculating every angle in three axes to an incredible level of precision. Ultimately I determined that the effort required to do this was likely greater than simply cutting and installing all of these parts individually by hand.

While I was certainly encouraged by my luck with the wooden truss bridge (above), I wasn't feeling the same level of confidence with this beast. Being on serious pain narcotics also wasn't helping—all of those angles and calculations and whatnot were just turning my head to mush!

Ultimately I decided the trestle would be a hybrid project: the bents and bent cross braces would be lasered, because these were all dead flat, easy to measure, and simple to draw; the stringers, too, would get burned, since the curve of the track can be reliably matched photographically, producing a far better result than if I'd cut and assembled the stringers from a series of straight parts. Meanwhile, the side bracing and girts would be cut by hand from stripwood; this would not only afford the greatest accuracy, but it would create a superior cosmetic effect in the end.

So, you can expect a few random posts coming up over the next week or so as I take best advantage of occasional periods of relative clearheadedness between doses of narcotics, and dive headlong into the wooden trestle project. As an aside, it's got me thinking... could this possibly be the last structure for the layout? Oh, right, the dock on the lake. OK, so it's the penultimate. Hard to believe the project is coming so close to completion!

Invasive Surgery

2011-05-09T01:11:00.018-04:00

I screwed up. Big time. As robust as Rokuhan track is, it's not designed to be ballasted. And in spite of my most careful measures to avoid fouling the switches, I managed to "brick" one of them. As bad luck would have it, the switch is right under the delicate wooden truss bridge, making it highly difficult and risky to attempt any corrective measures from above.

Repair, however, was the only option; given that all of the track is soldered together and permanently bonded to the base, it's quite impossible to replace the switch—or any piece the track, for that matter. But how would one go about making repairs?

The answer: open up the underside of the layout. Thankfully, if there was any good news in this disaster, it's that the only thing separating the bottom of the switch from the outside world was an inch of Gatorfoam. A sharp knife would provide complete access to the switch—and even allow it to be dismantled, serviced and reassembled. And so, just like its builder, the layout required some invasive surgery!

The first step was to plot out the incision on the bottom of the layout—not a familiar perspective (below). The incision required the removal of one of the large felt feet, and doing so tore the woodgrain covering. No matter; this is simply vinyl shelf covering material, which will be completely replaced later.

Once the outermost layer of Gatorfoam was removed, cutting had to proceed very carefully, as the layout's wiring is embedded into the upper surface of the Gatorfoam, so the process was akin to what surgeons must do to avoid cutting veins and nerves. Slowly but surely, the underside of the switch was exposed. It was tedious, but relatively straightforward, because I had not applied any adhesive to the underside of the switches when I laid the track.

It wasn't long before I was able to remove the cover plate from the bottom of the switch. Once inside, I carefully dismantled the mechanism, and eventually determined the cause of the failure: alcohol and ballast bonding agent had seeped in through the openings where spring contacts provide track power from the PC board to the rails.

It looked worse than it really was, because the alcohol dissolved and drew in some Sharpie ink. Corrective measures involved saturating all of the parts with alcohol and scrubbing them until they were spotlessly clean, which took longer than everything else combined, since it entailed removing and cleaning all of the tiny conductive springs, PC board, switch contacts, slider bar, coil, etcetera, all in situ. Naturally, this was followed by reassembly and testing.

This was certainly not something that could have been accomplished from above, least of all with absolutely no cosmetic evidence that anything was done (above is an "after" image, which is identical to the "before" image). The irony is that, at the outset of the project, I'd contemplated cutting access holes for all of the switches, and fitting them with removable covers; I should have followed through with that thought. Still, it wasn't terribly difficult performing this surgery, and now that it's done, I'm reasonably confident that access will not be required again, since there's no more ballasting to be done.

So, while the patient required major surgery, it has fully recovered and is functioning normally, with a good prognosis for a long, healthy life ahead.

Wrong Glue

2011-05-06T01:47:00.011-04:00

There's a reason I never use polyurethane glue (popularized by the brand Gorilla Glue, but sold under many names). Oh, it's tough stuff, that's for sure, and lots of people love it because it'll bond all kinds of dissimilar, hard-to-bond materials. Unfortunately, it also swells as it cures.

Recently I bought some new adhesive from Liquid Nails called "Perfect Glue." It does not say anywhere on the tube what sort of glue it is; from the look of it, I thought it was an ordinary general-purpose cement such as Duco, which shrinks as it dries, and that's desirable because it keeps joints tight.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be polyurethane. I made that distressing discovery when I noticed that the abutment at the right end of the truss bridge was no longer fitting snugly against the retaining wall the way it was when I'd originally assembled it.

I'm not quite sure what to do about this. As I said, polyurethane glue is seriously strong, so there's no popping the abutment off and re-attaching it. Maybe I'll just fill the cracks with vines. But in truth, that's a cheap cover-up trick.

For the time being, until I come up with a corrective measure, it'll serve as a reminder for two things: first, never use an untested adhesive on an in-your-face bonding job such as this. And second, never use polyurethane glue. It swells.

Postscript: The remainder of the so-called "Perfect Glue" was deposited in the trash.

Installing Daphne Flats

2011-05-05T01:22:00.015-04:00

Given that the layout wasn't originally designed to accommodate such a thing, I knew in advance that installing Daphne Flats wasn't going to be a trivial process. In particular, I had to bury the electroluminescent panel driver circuit underground, which involved quite a bit of very careful cutting and grinding.

Brute force—in the form of a Dremel tool and a diamond cutting disc—opened up the ground beneath Daphne (above), and I had enough of the Masonite foundation carved away not only to accommodate the EL electronics, but also to potentially illuminate the Assay Office. Actually, an accident resolved my indecision about lighting it: despite very careful work, I managed to inflict minor damage on the building; the necessary repair work thus included a small EL panel.

In the midst of all this activity, I determined two significant issues that needed to be resolved: strengthening a very flimsy structure located at the very edge of the layout—and hence readily subject to potential damage—and sealing up the exposed building backs and lighting panel. I addressed the former by firmly bonding a pair of hefty steel rods into the assembly, which were embedded in the layout. As for the latter, I applied a shim border around the perimeter of the flats, and attached a piece of the veneer I'd used to trim the layout edge, which also served to further strengthen everything.

While I was at it, I did a little detail painting to highlight the wonderful woodwork on the end buildings, and I also made a few signs using DIY decal material. The building to the left became Stephen A. Greene Hardware (satisfying my penchant for naming things after my adopted grandfather); in the center is the Daphne Hotel; and to the right is the Squire Bottom Saloon, inspired by the town of the same name on the original layout. To finish off the project, I added a number of Preiser figures.

Incidentally, the color effect of the saloon sign was achieved by using two sets of the same black decals. After applying the first set of decals, I hand-painted yellow paint over the letters with a 10/0 brush; then I applied the second set of decals, this one with the filigrees cut off, since they weren't needed. Liberal applications of Solvaset helped get the decals to settle into the wooden surface better. This trick only works where the extra thickness of two decals plus paint will go unnoticed—for instance, it would not be suitable for freight car sides.

Since a fair bit of the work had to be done in situ on the layout, and I desperately needed to stay off my feet, I removed the layout from the chest-height work stand on which it normally sits, and placed it on a folding table next to my workbench. It certainly highlights one of the many benefits of a small layout!

Back At It

2011-05-04T01:39:00.015-04:00

Daphne Flats is my nickname for a row of building fronts I decided to add next to the Assay Office, tucked away in the very corner of the layout, to give Daphne a more town-like feel; it also helps to deal with the awkward back edge of the layout. Based on reference images of the original layout, I focused on classical Western architecture, which RSLaserKits has in abundance. I chose three kits: #4022, Zelda's B&B; #4023, Dakra's Dry Goods; and #4030, Main Street Store.

To keep the project simple and straightforward, I didn't do much in the way of modifications. The only significant change was making the porch on the B&B shallower (above); had the porch been left unmodified, it would have nearly stretched all the way across to the tracks, and I needed at least a token bit of street in front of the buildings to create a town-like effect, however compressed.

Because I was only using the store fronts, all three were completed in fairly short order. As I worked on them, though, I had to wonder how many modelers have successfully completed these kits. It would appear they were reduced from larger scales, and consequently some parts were absurdly small while others were literally lasered out of existence (above). In particular, the cornice details for the Main Street Store (below) were nearly too small to pick up! Installing a dozen of them would be far more work than it was worth for a background building—one that's partially obfuscated by trees, no less—so I substituted a slice from a leftover part, giving me one (relatively) large piece to install as opposed to a bunch of flea-sized bits.

I debated for some time over whether or not to illuminate the buildings. All together there were quite a few windows—some having interesting shapes—but I had only a fraction of an inch in depth available. The solution: an electroluminescent panel. Thanks to having done all sorts of lighting effects in the town on my James River Branch layout, I had lots of experience with—and leftover scraps of—EL material from Miller Engineering.

Illumination naturally called for making everything light-proof, since wood is notoriously translucent. This required multiple coats of black paint on the backs of the facades. The EL panel was cut as a single piece to run the full width of Daphne Flats. Using spray adhesive, I applied an orange warming filter to tone down its garish blue-white color; this also diminished the light output considerably, which in this case was desirable for subtle lighting. To enhance the effect even further, all of the windows were glazed with frosted plastic for a diffuse glow.

Finishing followed my usual practice of a few light coats of grey primer spray, followed by chalk tints for subtle coloration. Given the intricacy of the detailing on these buildings—particularly the B&B—it was tempting to give them lavish, colorful paint jobs; I had to constantly remind myself these were background structures, and so the colors had to remain muted. Nevertheless, I did use a range of shades for the B&B woodwork, and I may go back and highlight some of the woodwork on the other buildings later; I may also add a sign or two.

When I fired up the lighting for a test, I liked the effect so much that it got me thinking about the Assay Office. But I haven't decided yet whether or not I'll illuminate it, as it would be a fairly complex task to retrofit the building with lighting given that it's sealed up and permanently bonded to a sheet of Masonite!

Last of the Ballast

2011-04-28T01:58:00.002-04:00

This is it, folks, the last of the ballasting is done. Which means the next task is—ugh!—cleaning the rails...

Not my favorite chore, by any means, but if I ever want to see trains running again, well...

Geordie Detailed

2011-04-27T01:49:00.007-04:00

A while back on The Railwire, when I posted images of the Geordie station, one of the regulars joked about a desk for the ticket agent. Little did he know that I'd been planning to add just such a detail all along. Since the station is right up front, features many windows, and is illuminated, interior detailing was a must.

I started with the ticket agent's desk, and while it's not "quartersawn oak," it's made from stripwood that I deliberately painted a slightly-too-bright color (Testors Flat Brown) and covered with tiny slivers of styrene shaved from the end of strip stock that scales out to around the size of paper, so that it's noticeable through the windows. Attached to the return on the desk is a wooden cabinet that hides the lighting wires. And lurking in the back right corner is something vaguely resembling a large stove, which is actually the resistor for the LEDs painted dark grey. A couple of Preiser figures—one of them seated on a scrap of styrene at the desk—rounded out the simple interior detailing, all of which was bonded to the station floor on the layout.

The lighting consists of three warm white SMD LEDs. A notch I'd made in the roof during construction allows solenoid wires to pass from the station to the canopy over the platform. Once the LEDs were secured to the structure and the interior detailing was finished, the wires were soldered and, after one final electrical test, the station was permanently bonded to the platform with thick CA. Oh, and one big advantage of a solid brass structure is that there's no need to light-proof it!

The next couple of hours were spent detailing the area around the station—a most enjoyable task. Benches in the waiting area are from Stonebridge Models; baggage cart (modified into a freight cart) is by Micron Art; there's a BAZ Models stepladder; and the freight scattered about is mostly Preiser, with some Merten mixed in. The freight loading dock is Micro-Trains' first ever Z Scale laser kit, #799-90-901. Now I'm really looking forward to getting the ballasting done, so that I can clean all of the track and start running trains through the finished scenes!

Geordie Station Platform

2011-04-26T01:20:00.017-04:00

The original station platform was brick sheet; however, inspired by the freight dock for a building I'd subsequently removed from the layout, I decided that I'd make a wooden platform from individual boards instead. It may sound like a lot more work, but actually it was only marginally more difficult, and worth every minute aesthetically.

Before I could get to work, I had three preparation steps. The first was to shim the area up so that the boards would be nearly flush with the railheads. I used sheet styrene for this so as to prevent swelling or warping while ballasting the tracks. Then, I had to install the floor of the station, which I made from a scrap of lasered micro-ply. And finally, I had to decide which way the boards would run. I was really torn, but ultimately it came down to the left end of the platform where the tracks start to curve: it would be much easier to fit the boards if they were set perpendicular to the rails.

Then it was time to start cutting stripwood, which had to be done one board at a time, and not mass-produced using a Chopper, owing to the fact that the two parallel tracks were not precisely parallel. I bonded the boards to the shim with thick CA, which set almost immediately, so I could place the boards as fast as I could measure and cut them. When the platform was finished, I applied an India ink wash; later, I'll also apply some powdered chalk to tone down the variations in the ink wash.

With the station posed on the layout, Geordie is really starting to take shape!

Installing the Truss Bridge

2011-04-25T01:14:00.011-04:00

It was by design that the truss bridge, although completed relatively early in the project, wasn't installed until much later: I wanted to avoid as much as possible any chances of damaging it. With the industrial siding pretty much wrapped up, and the surrounding scenery well under way, I felt it was time to set the layout's centerpiece in place. Not to mention that it was holding up the last of the ballasting.

Installation required three ingredients: two stone abutments and one timber center pier. I fabricated one abutment from stone castings I'd created for this layout, then made a mold of it. This was less work than fabricating two abutments owing to the precise fitting of all of the mitered corners. Yet even though I only had to make one, it involved hours of work—that giant sucking sound you hear is my time going into this project. The abutment had to be asymmetrical, and by a stroke of good fortune, the asymmetry was the same for both ends, thus the casting process was a perfect solution.

While the abutment mold was setting, I made the center pier. Due to several factors—including differences in track geometry, differences in grade separation, and others—I determined that it would look better as two hefty timber supports, rather than three spindly ones, as the original was designed. This saved a little construction time, but not much—the redesigned assembly still comprised over sixty wooden parts. After staining them with dark walnut stain, I assembled them using thick CA.

At this point, the bridge itself had to be installed. I'd run out of excuses to not permanently bond it to the track, so I took a deep breath, applied two beads of thick CA to the bridge, and ever-so-carefully placed it against the underside of the flex. Once the bridge was secure, I installed the center pier and ballasted the surrounding area. Even after having adjusted the track alignment so the center pier would fit better, I still had to fudge its position; fortunately, its odd placement isn't all that noticeable—you must really scrutinize it carefully in order to tell something's askew.

By this time the two abutment castings were ready to be trimmed, painted and installed. Once again I had to do a fair bit of fudging to get everything to fit without causing clearance problems, but the liberties I took are only visible from the back of the layout. Granted, I designed the layout with 360-degree viewing in mind, but with the bridge located along the front, the many flaws are far enough away that they're not painfully obvious.

With the truss bridge installed at last, I think the layout really captures the flavor of the original! Now it's time to tackle the trestle...

Stairway To Nowhere, Part 2

2011-04-24T01:35:00.004-04:00

The stairway to nowhere was just slightly more involved than I'd anticipated. Beyond its construction, the challenge that I faced was incorporating it believably into the surrounding scenery without relying on too much stone retaining wall. To break up the otherwise vast expanse of wall, I notched it and added several stone trim pieces cut from a casting left over from the viaduct project.

From the back, the assembly is the very definition of kludge, but of course it's what faces the viewer that counts. Construction was almost done; the railing was the finishing touch. Made from .010-inch diameter brass wire, it wound up looking remarkably like the original—it even has the same odd ending at the top, presumably done to clear passing trains.

All that remained was to paint everything and install it. Starting with a primer coat, I hit random stones with accent colors, as before, and brushed light tan acrylic paint on the stairs themselves. A light India ink wash finished the job, and it was time to secure it in place. To blend it into the scenery, I used a small chunk of rubber rock and bridged all of the bits and pieces together with Sculptamold.

Once the Sculptamold dries in a few days (or more, given that it's quite rainy at the moment), I can complete all of the scenery around the viaduct, and turn my attention to the Geordie station platform.

Stairway To Nowhere, Part 1

2011-04-23T05:04:00.001-04:00

I call it this because the stairs at the end of the stone viaduct on the original layout seem to serve no purpose, since there's no station or platform or anything else at the upper end. As such, I was on the fence about whether or not to even bother building them. I tried to visualize the area without them by posing some plain retaining walls in the space, and concluded things would be rather bland—thus perhaps explaining why it exists, being purely for visual interest.

Since the track geometry of the layout isn't quite the same as that of the original—the lower and upper lines are much closer together in my adaptation—I couldn't exactly replicate what was done originally, particularly with respect to the arrangement of retaining walls. Complicating matters was the fact that the stone wall of the viaduct curved at the end, which meant the stairs would have to match that curve. So, I had to wait until this part of the layout was nearly finished before I could devise an approach to their construction.

Because of the curve, I couldn't build the stairway entirely at the workbench; I had to do much of the work in situ. I started by making the short lower set of steps and the lower landing at the workbench, and posing them on the layout. Then, based on their size and position, I designed a section of stone retaining wall that would follow the curve of the bridge wall. This I cut from the same stone-textured sheet styrene I'd used to fabricate the viaduct masters, which made life much easier because it's very easy to cut, and the cutting was anything but simple—it was notched to exactly match the step thickness. Using a chopper, the steps were cut from .040 x .060 strip styrene.

Armed with the carefully cut stone wall parts and a bazillion steps (actually, just 24 of them—it only seemed like a lot), I moved to the layout and assembled the long middle section of stairs in place; however, I didn't bond the steps to the viaduct wall, because I needed to paint them separately. Returning to the workbench, I evened out the ends of all the steps, and made the upper landing and short upper set of steps. Finally, I bonded the three sections of steps together while posing them on the layout to ensure everything fit perfectly, then took them away to paint.

As much work as this had been up to now, I felt as though a greater challenge was to come: blending the stairs into the surrounding scenery. We'll see how that plays out anon!

By Request

2011-04-22T01:45:00.025-04:00

I've received requests to provide a track parts list for my layout. There are four important notes to bear in mind if you build it:

1. A total of 19 pieces of track must be cut. Cutting Rokuhan track isn't difficult; practice is recommended for first-timers.

2. Two pieces of Micro-Trains flex track are required for the bridges (marked MTF1 and MTF2 on the plan).

3. R022, the 55mm 26º switch (at the lower left of the plan), is not expected to hit the street until fall of 2011 or later. You'll either need to wait, or be willing and able to bash one together.

4. Except for R012, which comes in a 2-pack, all of the track sections come in 4-packs, so you'll have some leftovers (good for practicing cutting track).

Here are all of the track parts you'll need, including the cut pieces:

8 x R001 straight 110mm (2 packs)
8 x R002 curve 195mm 45º (2 packs)
2 x R003 curve 170mm 45º (1 pack)
5 x R004 curve 220mm 45º (2 packs)
12 x R005 curve 145mm 45º (3 packs)
3 x R006 left turnout 110mm 13º
2 x R007 right turnout 110mm 13º
1 x R008 straight 55mm (1 pack)
5 x R009 straight 220mm (2 packs)
2 x R011 curve 120mm 45º (1 pack)
1 x R012 curve 13º (1 pack)
1 x R022 left turnout 55mm 26º

Now here's what you'll have to cut; the letters correspond to the highlighted parts on the plan:

A. R001 42mm
B. 2 x R004 13º
C. R005 24º
D. R002 40º
E. R004 146mm
F. R005 21º
G. R004 136mm
H. R001 78mm
I. R001 60mm
J. R002 26º
K. 2 x R005 32º
L. R011 36º
M. R012 8º
N. R005 12º
O. R001 100mm
P. R002 20º
Q. R009 160mm

The track plan shows the stock track parts in orange, and the cut track parts highlighted in aqua.

The track plan was developed using AnyRail. If you have the application and would like to tinker with the plan, download the file here (right-click on the link and choose Save Target As). And if you don't have AnyRail, I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

No Clearance

2011-04-21T01:52:00.012-04:00

It started with the factory. Pleased with the new arrangement of the industrial siding, I took action and permanently affixed the building in place on the layout. To maximize the foreground space, I positioned it as close to the siding as clearances would allow—the freight doors along the track were designed with this in mind. As a result, it called for a little detail: a "No Clearance" sign on the corner of the building adjacent to the track.

It was a simple enough thing: I just rendered it in a drawing program, printed it in high resolution on white decal paper, and applied it to the building. What followed was a flurry of detailing that included a skylight and a collection of rusty, unidentified drums tucked away behind the building—surely a future mini-superfund site in the making. The drums were made for N Scale, but being isolated at the end of the building, their slightly excessive size goes unnoticed.

Next I tackled the remaining tasks for the fuel depot across from the factory. It was already well along, and only needed a catwalk and some plumbing. The catwalk is comprised of a scrap of N Scale freight car roofwalk, a pair of supports made from brass fret material, railing from a ship detailing kit, and a ladder left over from a fire escape, all soldered together. Plumbing, as such, was just a few bits of brass wire here and there to suggest things were functional. Meanwhile, the little office—originally a tool shed—got a coat of primer and some colored chalk finish work. I'm still debating whether or not to make a sign for it, and if so, what to name the business.

The siding itself got a bumper (as did the other three sidings) courtesy of GCLaser kit #5182. My version is slightly modified: I reduced it by one layer in height—it's just a tad too tall otherwise—and I added a striker plate made from a scrap of lazerboard. All of which is to say that the industrial siding is done. Of course, "done" is a relative term; there are a few things still to come, including the road surfaces, grade crossing and some vehicles. At any rate, it's interesting to compare the final outcome with how I'd envisioned it back in early February. This blog certainly provides good insight into my singular modeling process!

The New Control Panel

2011-04-20T01:48:00.000-04:00

I'm embarrassed to admit that this is the fourth control panel I've made for the Z Scale Gorre & Daphetid. The reason for the first three iterations, which were all of the same functional design, was cosmetic. The panel consists of a one-eighth inch thick slab of styrene to which I adhered the graphic, which was printed on photo paper and laminated with 10 mil material. The problem I faced was that the lamination would fail wherever there was black ink, and when I cut or drilled the material, the clear layer would separate, creating grey halos around the switches (visible below) that spread over time.

By contrast, Panel Number Four came about owing to a major blunder on my part as I was working on the old mill. The replacement water wheel motor was mad noisy; being electrically part of the illumination circuit, however, it would run whenever the lights were on. Since I have a "thing" about noise as it is, I felt it would be prudent to separate the water wheel from the lights. But this meant adding a new switch—which meant making a new control panel.

Since I had to change the artwork, I decided this time around to make further graphic adjustments to deal with the de-lamination issue by rendering white circles around all of the switch openings. I did, however, forget to add white circles where the mounting screws went. But I have a curious way of justifying some of my little goofs: according to a Chinese proverb, a perfect work of art is the Devil's doing; thus, artists were known to deliberately incorporate errors into their artwork, lest anyone think they were the Devil incarnate. (Caveat: this is based on a very dusty old memory, so it could be completely bogus.)

Just One More Change...

2011-04-19T01:52:00.009-04:00

I promise it'll be the last one. Well, maybe. But there can't be very many more, as the layout is coming along quite far quite quickly; many buildings are now permanently installed. Indeed, I'd just glued down the cattle pens, and was contemplating doing the same with the factory next, when things ground to a halt.

The set of storage tanks were sitting in place but thankfully not yet glued, because when I dropped the factory down next to them, I began feeling as though things were just a bit too crowded; there wasn't enough room for an access road to the factory loading dock (oh, those pesky access roads!). So I reduced the tanks from five to three. Not good enough. Three to two. Yikes! There really wasn't room for any tanks!

That's when the accident happened. Not a bad accident, mind; I'd simply placed the tanks temporarily in the empty space on the other side of the track, where the lumber yard would go, just to get them out of the way... "Hmmm... I like that." And I liked it even more when I brought it back up from two to five tanks. Which is how I came to decide to not include the lumber yard.

In my mind, it wasn't iconic, not like the Geordie station or the wooden truss bridge. I've said time and again, I'm doing an adaptation, and I was having problems visualizing it on the layout. I'd tried all sorts of substitutes—some of them can be seen lurking in earlier construction photos; I have a drawer full of half- and fully-built kits and various kitbashed thingies that ultimately just didn't do it for me.

The principal problem I was facing had to do with size: a faithful rendering of the lumber yard building would have been quite tall, which would diminish the hill behind it—I'd already dropped the wooden factory that I'd originally built for the siding for that reason. And a secondary issue had to do with time: I've already invested far more effort in various aspects of the layout than I'd originally planned.

The storage tanks solved all of the problems at once: they were low-profile; they were in keeping with precedents set by the original; and, perhaps most significantly, they were already built! I only needed to add a little office shack, inspiration for which was drawn from a similar little building next to the lumber yard. For this I tossed together a GCLaser tool shed (#5201), which took all of about ten minutes.

To finish the scene, I need only paint the office shack, and add some plumbing and a catwalk to the tanks, and the whole industrial siding will be done, done, done! What I like most about the final effect is that the area isn't crammed full of stuff; it has some air. This creates added space for little detailing touches such as vehicles, villagers and vegetation.

The Old Mill, Part 4

2011-04-18T01:51:00.004-04:00

It was an embarrassingly long time in coming, but the old mill project is finally wrapped up. After two rounds of unexpected repairs—first to the light and then the water wheel—the roof was the last hurdle, and a bigger challenge than simply slapping it on top. Interior lighting makes for an extra wrinkle, because light will leak through the tiniest crevices; indeed, earlier I'd already sat for a good while with the mill's interior light on and the room lights dimmed hunting down every last little light leak. When I test-fit the roof in place, I saw in advance the magnitude of task that faced me.

To deal with the light leaks—as well as the frustrating translucency of wood—I laminated a layer of aluminum foil to the underside of the roof assembly, and attached strips of foil "flashing" to the top edges of the building walls (above) to leak-proof all of the eave joints; these were folded inward just prior to attaching the roof. One last step was to apply the roofing materials: wood shake shingles for the main building, and corrugated metal for the extension, per John Allen's original.

Despite all of these measures, there are still some light leaks where the foil presumably doesn't meet properly; it's impossible to confirm this, as there's no way to see inside the building with the roof now permanently attached. Still, the leaks are quite minor in the grand scheme of things—a pinpoint of light at one peak, and a slender line of translucency near one eve—and are only visible with careful scrutiny in total darkness.

Interestingly, the structure sat for so long without a roof that its addition made it look like I'd installed a whole new building. Now at last I can start adding the greenery around it—my favorite chore.

Daphne: A Different Perspective

2011-04-17T01:57:00.015-04:00

While I had the layout turned around for scenery-work across the back, I was gazing at the barren patch of earth destined to become Daphne, and the different perspective led me down a new path. I'd wanted to make it more town-like, which is why I'd built the Assay Office kit from Wild West Scale Model Builders; but that little structure seemed a bit lonely, so I decided to assemble some building fronts into a flat that will run along the back edge of the layout, not unlike a movie set.

"Daphne Flats," as I refer to the new project, will take the place of the water tower, which is being relocated down the track just a little ways, adjacent to the switch (where it appeared for a time on the original layout). As I had to wait for the arrival of the kits I'd be using for Daphetid flats, I decided to turn my attention to Daphne station.

For a brief time I was tempted to bash a Kibri factory into a version of the brick station that appeared on the original layout, but I didn't think it architecturally fit with the more rustic, overtly Western flavor of the town. So I returned my focus to the freight depot. I had all manner of ideas about what to use for it, until I realized that I was spending more time thinking about what kit to bash than I'd have spent just scratch-bashing something together. After all, it was a simple enough little structure—it had only two doors, and two of the walls didn't even have any openings.

So I disgorged my drawer of lasercut scraps onto my workbench, and sifted through them looking for potential ingredients. Once I'd found enough appropriate selections (above), I spent an enjoyable couple of hours shaping them into a pretty fair representation of the original Daphne freight station. The pieces and parts that I used (below) were scrounged from the leftovers of at least five different kits—possibly more!

With the basic structure completed in two parts (below), I finished it in my usual fashion, starting with a light coat of primer, followed by chalk tinting. The separate freight dock was stained with an India ink wash and weathered with chalk. Last came the roof, which was simply Builders In Scale corrugated metal with a heavy rust patina, per the original.

Thus, in a matter of a few hours, it was ready to install (below), save for the sign—I'm still undecided whether or not to include it (for one thing, I have no clue what it says). Also, back before I'd settled on building this particular structure, the station was originally going to be illuminated; however, since this building has almost no windows, I dropped that plan in favor of illuminating Daphne Flats instead. Here it is posing, just prior to permanent installation:

Green Panorama

2011-04-16T01:47:00.003-04:00

Trees and vegetation have reached nearly every part of the layout's perimeter. In particular, there's a clump of growth in the left front corner of the layout where the large water tower goes, the spot where I moved the billboard—which is now permanently installed.

The next buildings to be permanently installed on the layout will be the little shacks behind the industrial spur. I'd thought about adding a windmill in that area, inspired by the little windmill/water tank contraption on the original HO layout, but with all of the trees, there's no room for it. No matter; I prefer the trees. Also, some people might wonder at all of the trees I added to the hill in front of Daphne—the make it hard to see the town! Well, that's the idea: a peek-a-boo effect. This not only adds a little interest, but it will enhance a new effect I have planned for this spot (subject of an upcoming post).

Meanwhile, I think I may need to order more trees—hard to believe I've burned through over $300 worth of them already. Oh, and yes, the control panel has been removed; I've had to make a new one owing to the noisy water wheel.

The Green Marches On

2011-04-15T01:09:00.006-04:00

Green continues to march around the layout, now circling around the back right and over the hill behind the industrial siding. Both the process and the progress is invigorating. And yet... it still feels a little alien. It's not a type of landscape I'm used to; Sometimes it seems as if I'm overdoing it, yet in the photos the vegetation looks sparse; other times, when I think I've restrained myself enough to maintain the desired level of sparseness, I don't feel as if I'm ever done.

I look at it, and it doesn't scream "Southwest" to me—indeed, it doesn't scream anything at all. And then again this may be the right direction, since the original layout did not represent any particular real area, either; it was all fantasy-land. So it's really hard for me to gauge my work.

And then there's the problem of photography: colors, particularly greens, are not captured digitally the way they appear to my eye, and that's frustrating. For instance, most all of the pine trees have greens that are very similar, and yet they look starkly different in images. Plus, density doesn't translate to imagery, either; what looks dense to the eye may look sparse in an image, or vice versa. And if that's not enough, in person the placement of trees looks pleasingly random, while in the images above it looks far too uniform. Sigh.

The only thing that's keeping the ball rolling is the fact that, at the end of the day, it looks OK. Not thrillingly great, but not embarrassing, either. I may simply need to return to modeling Northeastern locales in the future, just so I can feel as if I know what I'm doing, even if I don't, really.

Incidentally, the sharp-eyed regular may have spotted a recent weight loss. What's that all about? Well, all of that wet Sculptamold is gradually drying, and the weight drops as the moisture is released.

Going Green

2011-04-14T01:23:00.003-04:00

It was going to happen sooner or later, and when it comes to greenery, sooner is always better than later in my book. With a good chunk of ballasting done, there was nothing to stop me from breaking out the green stuff. It did take a while to get started, though, as I worked to establish a look and style for my layout. As much as I wanted to keep it Southwestern, I also didn't want barren sand and dirt, with only a handful of weeds as the extent of vegetation. It did take some restraint, as I'm far more used to making Northeastern scenery, which is rich and lush and filled to overflowing with green.

The toughest part was getting a decent ground cover color—a model railroad archeologist would find several layers of different materials beneath the surface, if they were to do a little digging. The recipe I settled on is a mixture of JJT fine burnt grass and fine yellow straw, plus Highball fine earth, applied over a base of ground sawdust (yep, good old ground sawdust—still a useful scenery material). Upon this combination I applied Silflor short and long autumn tufts. For scrub growth I used JJT branch pieces. And based on my tree study, I used JJT generic pine, cedar and mountain gum trees.

This is just a kind of "anonymous" snippet of scenery, the specific style of which is unimportant; there will be variations across the layout. The scenery around the lake will be much more lush, and the rugged terrain across the back will be a bit more barren. In the meantime, I'm madly ballasting more track so I can make more scenery!

Order of Execution

2011-04-13T01:27:00.002-04:00

A question often posed by beginning modelers faced with the eventuality of ballasting their track is, when to ballast? Answers from veterans will vary according to personal preferences. For myself, the time to ballast is firmly fixed: after basic scenery terrain, but before any scenery work.

Ballasting before adding basic terrain can be problematic. In some areas, there may not be enough surrounding material to hold the loose ballast in place—the ballast just flows off into empty space. Also, the shape of the terrain can affect the shape of the final ballasting—sometimes there will be areas that need to get filled in. Then, ballasting before doing any scenery work avoids potential damage to scenery-making materials, especially ground cover and flocking. This is because the areas around the track will be saturated with alcohol, water and bonding agents.

Which is all to say that it was time to start ballasting my layout. 99% of the basic terrain is in place, with plenty of areas adjacent to track that's fully set. But wait, I used roadbed track, right? Correct, but I'd never intended to settle for the molded plastic look; I'd always planned to paint and ballast the track for improved appearance. But I'd never ballasted roadbed track before, so it was time for experimenting to commence.

The track had already been spray-painted with a base coat of ruddy brown. This served mostly just to deal with the shiny silver of the rails. To correct the color of the ties—and give them realism-boosting individuality—I applied varying amounts of Doctor Ben's Driftwood stain to random ties. When this had dried, I then applied an India ink wash to all of the ties; this adjusted the ruddy primer to a nice basic tie brown, and also toned down the driftwood stain.

Originally I'd planned on using Highball Grey Mix ballast, but when I put some on the track it looked like white sand. So, I switched to minitec ballast (Gleisschotter Grauwacke Z), which is what I'd used on my James River Branch layout. This ballast unfortunately turns darker when it's bonded, so I may need to lighten it afterwards with some powdered chalk.

Another FAQ that emerges when discussing ballast is application methods. There are tools sold for the job, and there are DIY widgets one can make, but in all truthfulness all these devices do is deposit ballast on the track; they do not "groom" the ballast into its final form. I've yet to find any device that can efficiently do an acceptable job of grooming, at least for Z Scale; it remains, in my opinion, a task that must be done by hand carefully with tiny brushes. And just to complicate things further, I'm ballasting roadbed track, which is a different kettle of fish when it comes to technique.

Yes, it's a tedious chore, and I can well understand why some modelers skip ballasting altogether, even at the expense of appearance. Admittedly, however, I'm a strange fellow: I actually enjoy the process. For me it's a terrific stress-reliever; it requires focused attention for long stretches of time, which has the effect of blotting out distracting thoughts as effectively as any tranquilizer.

Ballast was bonded in place in the usual manner: apply straight rubbing alcohol, followed by 1:1 diluted matte medium, although I may likely switch to white glue, as matte medium does funny things in the presence of matte medium—the consequence of which may be a great deal of cosmetic touch-up to deal with what I call "slimers," or globs of otherwise clear matte medium that turned opaque white.

For obvious reasons, I paid extra special attention to the switches. I'd already sealed the roadbed to the subroadbed to prevent any bonding agent from creeping under the switch and freezing the slider bar. To avoid freezing the points, I avoided applying ballast anywhere near them. I had planned on painting the plastic ballast between the ties in the points area to match the "real" ballast, but once I'd cleaned off the railheads, I decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

And so the ballasting is well under way, with the branchline switch and the upper two tracks on the right end of the layout completed at this writing. Incidentally, while I was in a bonding mood, I also added a couple of talus slopes to the layout. I think they provide a touch of added realism and interest, and I like the variety of textures they create.

Last of the Rock

2011-04-12T01:53:00.008-04:00

The last pieces of rubber rock have been installed. With that came an immediate explosion of Sculptamolding—which included the lake. I'd been struggling with how to approach the shape of the lake, and after a while I realized I was thinking more than doing (coincidentally the same vapor-locked situation experienced by John Cubbin). So, I glued on a few chunks of rubber rock, and then started mixing Sculptamold—over two pounds of the stuff (check out the weight gain the layout has experienced, in the right column).

This officially brought the terrain-making status to the 98% mark. There are a couple of areas that must wait for things to be built before I have 100% of the terrain in place—they include the "stairway to nowhere" at the end of the stone viaduct, and of course the wooden trestle.

Note that the wild array of terrain colors is misleading. When wet, the tints are exaggerated; it will all dry to subtle shades of grey. Anyway, nearly all of it will get hidden under some form of dirt, ground cover, vegetation and what have you.

With so much Sculptamold on the layout, it will probably take a week—literally—to fully dry. That's perfectly fine; I have no end of other things to do. In addition to the two aforementioned items, I still have the abutments and center pier to complete for the truss bridge, the station platform, the lumber yard, the wharf, and any number of other things I've forgotten at the moment. If nothing else, it's great having no exposed white Gatorfoam left!

Adjustments

2011-04-11T01:18:00.003-04:00

Because my layout isn't an exact replica of its original HO Scale counterpart, some areas have had to be "adjusted" to suit the discrepancies in the 1:220 version. One of the more difficult areas to get right was the tunnels under Daphne. After a round of revisions, I think it finally came together.

Having completed the dirt road, I was studying the surrounding terrain and determined that some of the contours had, how shall I put it, plausibility issues. In particular, where the road skirts the cliffs over the lake, the terrain was too steep. The easy way out would have been to add another rock face, but I felt I'd already gone over the top with rockwork in some places as it is.

So, to make a break from more sheer rock faces, I instead added an old log retaining wall. It was made from a scrap of very old Chooch N Scale stock. I was reluctant to use it, as I have so little of it left, and it's impossible to find any more, but when I held it up in place, it looked perfect.

After carving the wall part into shape, I gouged out the road support with a knife until the wall part dropped into place. Once I'd secured it with PowerGrab, I filled in the narrow gap between the road surface and the top of the wall with some tinted Sculptamold. It created precisely the look I sought, and no one will ever know that I hadn't carefully planned it all in advance.

Meanwhile, I had a similar dilemma between the upper and lower tracks at the front left corner of the layout. The tracks are closer together than they were on the original version, so I couldn't make an earth slope as he had. One option was to make a stone retaining wall, but I'd already used more stone retaining walls than I preferred separating the upper and lower tracks on the right side of the layout, so I resorted to a strip of rugged rock. With loads of rubber rock scraps at hand, I had little difficulty finding a piece that blended into the existing rock and fit the arc perfectly.

Granted, the original had a few plausibility issues, too; some of these have been reproduced on my Z scale version, while others have already been adjusted. I didn't want to make matters worse by creating new ones. Besides, I've enjoyed using artistic license to develop my own personal adaptation of an oft-imitated original.

Some Days...

2011-04-10T01:34:00.006-04:00

...it doesn't pay to get out of bed. I'm beginning to think the old mill project is seriously jinxed. First it was the broken light wire; then, somehow I managed to snap the wire to the water wheel motor—right at the motor, leaving no opportunity for repair. Not even ant brain surgery could help. I'd essentially destroyed a twenty-dollar gearhead pager motor.

The only option was to replace it. And in order to do that, owing to how it was designed, I had to tear out and rebuild half of the gear train in situ. I'd sooner do without the animation altogether than attempt to remove the mill from the layout, so I started chopping and tearing; below is the half-gutted mechanism.

Just to make matters more complicated, I had no exact replacement for the motor. I had a similar one, but it didn't like the driver circuit I'd made for the first motor, so I had to build a new driver circuit using a 1.5V regulator, which I had to order online and wait for its delivery.

The problems didn't stop there; when I'd completed the drive train rebuild and installed the new motor (below), the motor ran fine—yet the water wheel refused to turn! I was on the verge of simply smashing everything and building something else to replace the mill when I finally discovered that a little glob of Sculptamold had dropped into the space between the water wheel and the dam, locking it in place.

Then, just to add insult to injury, the new motor is substantially noisier than the old one, which was nearly silent. This one's so noisy in fact that it drove me to separate it from the lighting circuit, which in turn meant making a whole new control panel so that I could add another toggle switch just for the mill. This way people can enjoy the illuminated buildings without having to endure the buzzing whine of the water wheel.

All told, it took nearly a week to make the repairs. What really irks me no end is that I've been making animated devices since practically forever, and this is one of the simplest ones I've built—yet it's given me the most grief. It certainly stands in stark contrast to the home run I hit with the truss bridge! Go figure. Maybe now, after all this time, I can finally install the roof on the mill...?

The Road to Daphne

2011-04-09T01:54:00.006-04:00

The one and only road on the layout is the little dirt road that runs from the Geordie station to the Daphne station. One might think that it would be a simple matter of working it into the terrain as it's being built up; however, it's actually a much more involved process.

The challenge is keeping the road on an even keel—that is, preventing sudden kinks or grade changes. Based on considerable experience, these problems can emerge all too easily if one attempts to "eyeball" the road's shape on the fly. The solution is to create a substrate for the road before adding any terrain material to the area. In addition to being a guide for its construction, it also allows one to study the road's path and ensure it's plausibility before rendering it in Sculptamold.

It's not too far removed from what was done on the original layout. He was using a hardshell scenery technique, and he worked in a layer of (presumably) cardstock to establish the road surface. For me, the first step was to make a paper template. It may not be evident in the photo below, but the paper template endured considerable cutting and pasting until it finally fit properly.

I then transferred the paper template shape to a piece of heavy cardstock. I chose this material as it had just the right balance of rigidity and flexibility needed to follow the grade changes (I'd already tried Foamcore—bad choice). With a sharp knife, I cut out the road slightly too wide so that I could fine-tune its geometry without having to cut and paste corrections, or cut a new one. After placing the cardstock substrate in place, I marked it for trimming (below), and made the final cuts.

Next came the process of supporting the road so that it would maintain the proper grade changes as well as remain level side-to-side. This involved cutting, fitting and installing a number of Foamcore fillers. The cardstock road had to be removed and replaced with each addition, resulting in a fairly protracted iterative process. Then the cardstock road was then installed on the layout using a healthy layer of Loctite PowerGrab.

When the PowerGrab had dried, I mixed up a batch of Sculptamold and applied a roughly one-eighth-inch thick layer along the length of cardstock. I also applied Sculptamold to the areas of the industrial siding that required road access. The next hour or so was spent carefully shaping the Sculptamold with a clay-working tool (a small plastic spatula, available at most craft stores).

The final road-shaping step came a few hours later, after the Sculptamold had started to get good and firm. I smoothed the surface with a wet finger—the best tool I've found for this particular task. In a few days, when everything is fully dried, I'll enhance the road's color and texture with a coat of craft paint and very fine dirt. Remember, the color of wet Sculptamold isn't the final color; it will dry considerably lighter. Plus, it's colored mostly so that any damage or areas that aren't 100% covered don't show through as bright white.

More Sculptamold

2011-04-07T01:29:00.003-04:00

The neat thing about terrain-making is that it can go like lightning; a typical batch of Sculptamold covers a lot of ground. This sort of makes up for the loooong setting time. At this point I'd estimate that, of the layout area that gets terrain (there are significant areas that don't need it), about a third of the layout has been Sculptamolded.

Three hurdles need to be crossed in order to make much further progress. First, I need to make the substrate for the dirt road between Geordie and Daphne. This is just a matter of cutting and installing a piece of cardboard. Second, I must begin the wooden trestle project. This will be a major undertaking that will involve considerable planning, and nothing can proceed without knowing exactly where those bents will go.

The third hurdle is getting my head around the Lake. I don't have a sheet of glass to worry about, so there's no substructure to make; it's just a matter of being sanguine about how it will look. Plus, I need to decide how I'll approach installing what's amusingly referred to as the wharf. While the term may be technically correct, wharf typically refers to substantial structures in harbors; a more accurate term for this would simply be dock.

One other great thing about getting so much Sculptamold down so quickly is watching the white Gatorfoam disappear. In fact, now when I look at earlier construction photos, seeing all of that white gives me a chill!

Tree Study

2011-04-06T01:19:00.007-04:00

Long before I undertook this project, I've built this layout in my mind countless times, and one distinct departure I'd always made from the original had to do with trees. The initial version of the HO original was treeless, and only sparsely populated by shrubs and low growth. As the masterwork grew around the core layout in Monterey, trees were added here and there.

Granted, the southwest is notable for its barren landscape; however, I suspect that at least part of the lack of trees may have been due to the fact that they're difficult to model convincingly, and there were likely no acceptable prefabricated trees to be had back in the day.

Regardless of the reasons for the lack of trees on the original, it's not the way things will be on my version. For one thing, there are plenty of forests in the southwest, so there's no lack of justification for having lots of them; for another, I simply love trees. I also feel they add visual interest and drama to a layout; they make it look larger by breaking up the space.

What I can't do is use properly-proportioned trees. Real trees are really tall, and the vast majority of modelers use model trees that are woefully undersized. Most modelers probably do so because they don't know any better, and manufacturers reinforce this bad habit by marketing undersized trees for specific scales. That said, in some cases using the "wrong" size of tree is justified. Small layouts, such as this one, tend to look rather absurd when proper-sized trees are used—true scale-sized trees would be nearly as tall as the layout is wide! Scale trees are best reserved for larger (approaching basement-sized) layouts, or, paradoxically, very small dioramas.

For my layout, I've been collecting a supply of JJT trees for months, a few boxes at a time. They're among the best commercial model trees available—and their prices reflect the quality. Their pines are particularly versatile because they have nice long planting trunks, and leaving much of them exposed changes their character. The range of available sizes will allow me to use larger ones in the foreground, and smaller ones for forced-perspective effects along the back. Woodland Scenics has a few decent trees in their premium line as well, and I posed one of their "dead trees" by the old mill, below. Even without ground cover, ballast and other scenic detailing, trees are transformational.

Even for a layout as small as this one, it'll cost a small fortune to create satisfyingly dense clusters of trees; bear in mind that the small bunch at the back right corner of the layout in the test photo above is one whole box! Sure, I could make trees myself, but that would take considerable time; I'd rather pay for decent prefabs and be able to do things other than sitting around making trees night after night.

Now that terrain is under way, I'm looking at the placement, size and (gulp) quantities of trees needed. Cost aside, it's exciting—as I've said, scenery-making is my favorite modeling process, and green is my favorite color!

Brain Surgery On an Ant

2011-04-05T01:39:00.009-04:00

Remember a while back I'd remarked that not everything always goes perfectly? Here's a good example of something that went terribly wrong. I was in the midst of installing the old mill on the layout when the wire to the light on the pole snapped. While it was fortunate that it snapped at the driver circuit board and not the end of the pole—which would have been Terminal—it was nevertheless Really Bad.

You see, the wire for these lights isn't really wire; it's an extremely thin, narrow strip of flexible insulating material with a PC board-like copper trace on each side, all sealed inside a protective coating. The end that's connected to the driver circuit board has two patches of bare copper that are pressed against a pair of contact pads with a plastic spring clip. The material broke right at the clip, so the connection points were gone; there was no way to deliver power to the LED.

After muttering a string of unsavory remarks, I set about devising a means of repair. Replacing the light was out of the question; I was not prepared to entertain any notions of tearing the mill back out of the layout. Ultimately I determined that the only practical approach was to scrape off the protective coating from the traces on both sides and carefully solder on a pair of ultra-fine solenoid wires (above); these wires would then be soldered to the contact pads on the driver circuit board.

It took several tries—with breaks in between my attempts to calm down—but eventually I was successful. Given the incredibly delicate materials involved and the impossibly small margin of error, it felt as if I was performing brain surgery on an insect. Once I'd confirmed the light worked, I sealed the repair in a glob of acrylic paint to protect it, which made it look vaguely insect-like (below).

Just to make things that much more challenging, all of this had to be done in situ, as the structure was already permanently attached to the layout. I'd even covered the circuits in preparation for scenery—it's a good thing I hadn't yet mixed up the Sculptamold! It wasn't the most fun way to spend my modeling time today, but such are the ups and downs of the hobby. I still love it more than anything.

My Favorite Milestone

2011-04-04T01:24:00.001-04:00

There are precious few aspects of model railroading that I don't love. Admittedly, operation is one of those rarities. When it comes to layout construction, I can't think of anything I don't enjoy; but there are, undeniably, my favorites. At the top of the list: scenery. So, when a layout reaches a stage when I can start scenerymaking in earnest (as opposed to sneaking in little token patches, just to see some green among the benchwork), I'm in my glory.

This little layout has officially reached the Big "S" Milestone. In this case, "S" has dual meaning: Scenery, obviously, and Sculptamold, my favorite terrain-forming material. Mark your calendars—3 April 2011, first Sculptamold batch. I made a small one so I could test the color, not that the color has to be perfect, since most all of the Sculptamold will be hidden under some sort of ground cover, be it vegetation or just dirt.

I will say, though, my "small" batch sure covered more ground than expected. I'd only anticipated doing the two right corners of the layout, but there was enough left to do much of the hill behind the industrial siding. Note that the stuff looks really, really dark in the photos. This is normal when it's wet; it will dry to a nice neutral greyish-tannish-brown. Alas it will take 24-48 hours for it all to set—the one and only down side to Sculptamold.

If you're a beginner looking to build your first serious layout, you'll find quite a few veterans like myself who will recommend Sculptamold for terrain. It's available at most big craft stores such as Michael's, and if that's not convenient, it can be purchased online from many sites.

The Old Mill, Part 3

2011-04-03T01:00:00.002-04:00

For such a modest structure, the old mill certainly has been the focus of considerable attention. This chapter covers the installation of the little porch light, electronics for the water wheel mechanism, internal lighting, and completion of the flume. This may not look or sound like a lot, but believe me it wasn't trivial to accomplish.

The porch light—I have no idea what else to call it—is a modified Märklin streetlight (above), which ordinarily is almost twice as tall as what's needed. First, I removed the base by slicing it lengthwise with a sharp knife and prying it off. Then I clipped off the pole above the light bracket. After drilling a hole in the stone patio (no idea what else to call that, either) and carving a recess slot underneath, I inserted the light pole and lowered it to the desired height. With the height established, I lowered it further, then bent the pole 90 degrees. Finally, I pushed the bent pole up into the recess, and secured it in place with CA (below). The reason for these drastic measures is that the pole cannot be shortened from the bottom, and if left straight the pole would stick out the bottom of the layout!

The Märklin light is an SMD LED that has its own driver circuit; because it's meant to be powered by a higher voltage than I'd be delivering to it, I adjusted the load resistor by piggybacking another resistor on it (visible below, to the left). Meanwhile, the water wheel motor runs on 1.5VDC, whereas the layout power supply is 6VDC. To deliver the proper voltage to the motor, I connected two diodes in series with a load resistor; this creates a voltage drop across the diodes of 1.5 volts. It's the same principal behind the old constant lighting trick for locomotives, back when 1.5 volt grain-of-rice lamps were sometimes used for headlights.

The main mill structure is internally illuminated with a single 3mm warm white LED (below). To diffuse the light, I painted it with white acrylic paint. I soldered the LED leads to 24 gauge solid wire, which holds the LED upright in position. The wires are bonded to the structure base and pass under the stone wall parts to join the rest of the wiring (above).

The last accomplishment of the day was scratchbuilding the flume and associated woodwork (below). Just as John Allen most likely had done, I cobbled it together from scraps of stripwood cut to fit, although the specific design differs from John's. After painting it with thinned Railroad Tie Brown, I simulated water and wetness with gloss acrylic medium, then bonded it in place on the dam stonework.

Still to come is the roof, which is turning into a little project of its own: because the structure is illuminated, extra measures must be taken to prevent light leaks from under the eaves where the roof meets the walls. But once the roof is at last done, the mill will be installed on the layout—the first structure to have the honor!

A New Water Tower, Part 2

2011-04-02T01:45:00.006-04:00

I'd thought the bottom half was the hard part for this project; little did I know the challenges that lay ahead of me for the half I was going to build more or less per the kit. One of the two major challenges was due to some of the oddities in the kit's design; the other was due entirely due to my decision to change the design.

Ironically the caption "Easybrass" appears on the instructions; I wouldn't call the kit seriously difficult, but "easy" it's not. Aside from my personal opinion that the tank's supporting structure appeared to be inadequate, the way the tank part itself was made defies my understanding. It has irregularly-spaced board etchings on the back; consequently it was extremely difficult to bend it into a smooth curve, as the uneven etch line spacing caused kinks, no matter how carefully I worked.

Perhaps I just didn't have the skill or temperament to deal with this; regardless, the uneven board spacing also goes against how the tanks I've studied are made—the boards are usually all the same width. Furthermore, the board lines create slots that result in a see-through effect; makes it hard to visualize water being inside when it looks like a sieve. (And I'm kicking myself for not installing a liner—again!)

Once I'd wrestled the tank into some semblance of a circle, I was desperate for some way to maintain its shape. The roof part at least helped—somewhat; the opening was a bit oversize. But the bottom part offered nothing to help maintain the shape, having only four slots for four tiny tabs. Here's where I took matters into my own hands and redesigned the bottom part: first, I cut it into a circle matching the tank diameter; then I painstakingly soldered the edge of the tank to the edge of the bottom part, a millimeter at a time (above). Finally, I filed the edges smooth—at least as much as I could.

The redesign of the bottom part fit right into my plan to improve the appearance of the tank support. I soldered the kit's original legs (which I'd replaced with heavier parts) across the bottom of the assembled tank (above), which mated perfectly with the leg assembly—compare the image below to this real-life example. Now the tank looks as though it's properly supported! (I left the frost box opening open so that I could solder things to the tank from inside—the opening won't be visible once everything is assembled.)

Another oddity about this kit was the spout, which had a strange mounting arrangement—the end is cut in half, so it sits offset to one side within the pivot. There's no reason for this design that I can conjure; however, the spout for the Micro-Trains water tower has precisely the same design—but for that kit it makes sense because of the asymmetrical design of the support. It all left me scratching my head. Anyway, I filled in the missing half of the spout with a chunk of styrene, filed it to shape and drilled it out. Now it looks and fits properly.

As an aside, I found it curious that the entire spout structure is identical to that of the smaller water tank. The latter kit is an eighteenth-century design, whereas this beast is presumably newer; one would think the design would be different. I was tempted to fabricate something myself based on any number of reference images at hand, but by this point I just wanted the thing done.

To wrap things up, I added a ladder brace (made from a piece of N Scale scaffolding, above) to the bottom edge of the tank, and I used the finial from the smaller water tower, which looked more at home on its bigger brother. Incidentally, everything except the spout and finial was soldered. I've always preferred soldering metal kits over gluing them with CA. For one thing, it's much stronger. For another, if you screw up the paint job, you can strip the whole model in an acetone bath and paint it again; if it was glued, this wouldn't be an option.

At long last it was time for finishing. I left the tank and leg assemblies separate to make painting easier, which comprised several light coats of primer, followed by a few light coats of ruddy brown, and finally some powdered chalk. The spout and associated parts got an India ink wash. The two main parts were bonded together with CA to complete the project.

Don't get me wrong, it's a handsome kit, and I'm certain that very few modelers are as fussy about appearance as yours truly. All the same, I have to wonder about some of the things that were done. Surely there's some room for improvement; I hope the manufacturer takes my criticism in the constructive spirit in which it's offered.

The Old Mill, Part 2

2011-04-01T01:16:00.006-04:00

Having built the basic structure and water wheel mechanism of the old mill, I had only to add the details—windows, doors, and trim—and apply finishing. The roof must remain until the very last, as I need access to the interior all the way through to final installation.

Once the windows, doors and trim were on, I sprayed the structure with grey primer, then brushed on two shades of ruddy red powdered chalks to achieve the weathered barn red finish. (Applying chalks directly to raw wood is all the rage these days, but I'm not thrilled by the results; I prefer starting with primer first.) Since this structure will be illuminated, the water wheel mechanism had to be painted black so that its bright parts wouldn't be visible through the windows.

With that, I'd arrived at the task of fitting it into the scene; this meant building the dam. The is a stone rubble/earthen dam; I elected to go with random stone for the "fussy" areas that needed to be precisely fit around the structure and, in particular, the working water wheel.

To give it an appropriately rustic look, I relied on my favorite stone material, Chooch's discontinued N Scale random stone. I sliced and diced a bunch of scraps to create a shape that fits snugly around the back of the mill, as well as the small bit of wall on the opposite side of the water wheel. The top edge was sloped back by cutting thin strips of stone and offsetting them horizontally in layers, as well as hand-carving the tops and backs. Everything was painted Floquil Earth, with random stones highlighted in Depot Buff and Primer Gray, followed by an India ink wash. Wetness around the water wheel was created with acrylic gloss medium.

Finally, the dam was permanently merged with the mill structure to make a single object to retain the critical alignment of the stonework around the water wheel. The last items to come are the roof (obviously), the support for the outboard end of the water wheel axle, and the flume over the wheel.

Ultimately much of the dam will be buried in earth in order to evoke the style of the original; loose rock and vegetation will help add to the effect. Because the mill is an integral part of the dam, and the dam is an integral part of the scenery, the mill will have the distinction of being the first structure to be installed on the layout.

A New Water Tower, Part 1

2011-03-31T02:00:00.005-04:00

One by one the first structures built for the layout are being eliminated. Last time it was number two, the factory; this time it was number one, the water tower. As nice as it had come out, it started looking a little crude compared to all of the other fine structures on the layout. And so I elected to replace it with the larger Micron Art water tower (#1001RA). The Micro-Trains water tower was meant to represent the brick-based one on the original layout. Size-wise, however, the little one I built for Daphne is closer to that mark.

Getting into the Micron Art kit, I had the same sense about it as I'd had for the little one: the supporting structure just didn't seem adequate; the legs looked a little spindly, and there wasn't enough cross-bracing. Water is really heavy, and large water towers have massive supporting structures. So, once again, I did my own thing from the bottom of the tank down.

This time I dipped into my supply of N Scale etched brass details, and found a set of lattice parts that were fortuitously just the right size—and also exactly as much as I needed. Together with some beefier square brass stock, I built a whole new support structure. First, I made four assemblies with three lattice parts soldered to one leg in a T-arrangement; these were then soldered together to form the center of the structure. Then I made four more assemblies with a single lattice part between two legs, and these were soldered to the outsides of the assembly to finish it.

It's not perfect—the lattice is more industrial-looking than rustic-looking—but I think this will get toned down when it's painted; posed on the layout it creates just the look I'd wanted. The rest is all downhill from here.

Oh, while I was working on the new tank, I made another very minor change in the arrangement of things: when I spotted the wandering billboard in the reference image of the large water tower, I decided I liked it there better than where I was going to put it—the right front corner of the layout, over the control panel—which was a bit too in-your-face. Now, tucked behind the looming water tower, the billboard isn't as overpowering.

The Old Mill, Part 1

2011-03-30T02:12:00.006-04:00

Ironically, while it was in the original layout plan from the outset, the old mill wasn't built until well after the second version of the HO layout was under way. One can only speculate what took so long; was it trying to figure out how to deal with the depressed scenery? Or animating the wheel? Or was it just a really old Round Tuit? It will forever remain a mystery.

It was the structure I most wanted to build, but alas, I also had to wait before I could start it. The principal hold-up for me was the water wheel. Yes, I could have scratchbuilt one, but I'd have rather spent that time on other tasks, such as scenery. Ultimately a solution presented itself in an unlikely source: a Japanese laser-cut paper kit company, Sankei. Among other things, they make a little water-wheel mill. That the mill screams Japanese architecture is no matter; the wheel is the item of interest, and it will be attached to a heavily-bashed Nail Brothers Salvage kit from BAZ Models.

Of the ones I used, every part of the BAZ kit was modified in some way. One side of the building is half stone wall, made from a scrap of older Chooch random stone material. The lower half of the back isn't even finished, since it sits against the dam.

Oddly enough, I hadn't intended to animate it. This might come as a shock, considering my proclivity for animation. But I soon got over that brain fart and cobbled together a simple mechanism comprising a gearhead pager motor, a homemade right-angle worm drive, and a shaft ground square to fit the water wheel.

All of the hard work is done. Now it's just a matter of finishing.

The Only Constant

2011-03-29T01:23:00.018-04:00

Together with the words "is change," the title presents an axiom that not only describes my modeling style (as most regular readers know all too well), but that of the original layout's builder as well, based on the well-documented history of his layout. It should therefore come as little surprise that I've made some changes to the layout. They're not earthshaking, by any means (nothing that rates a "Stop Press!" headline), and they remain well within the realm of the original layout.

The principal change was the loss of the anonymous industry. After rendering the scenery behind it in rubber rock, I came to the inescapable conclusion that the building was simply too large—more specifically, too tall—making the rugged hillside look instead like a lumpy anthill. It was a difficult decision to make, as I really liked the way the kit turned out, but once I replaced it with the cattle pens, the whole scene improved considerably.

With the cattle pens relocated, their former spot was now a patch of empty real estate. What to put there? Oddly enough, I resurrected a very early idea: the model factory.

Shortly into the project, I'd rejected the notion because I didn't like the style of the original structure. Strange thing about that structure—in some photographs, it's rotated 90 degrees. Then I found a curious image that led me to suspect the building had no back; it appears as though it was originally a background model, meant to be placed against a backdrop.

While I never found an explanation for the "backless building," I did learn that many of the structures on the original layout were built before that layout was even conceived, and they all survived through to the end of final version. Along with many of the other familiar buildings, the model factory appears in several very early photographs taken to demonstrate principals of model photography.

Regardless of the building's origins, I'd always felt the factory was architecturally out of place. And I had a better alternative, which I'd considered using back at the beginning of the project; it has a strong older Southwestern style appropriate for the layout. It's Scholz Transfer (#20-152) by Randy Brown. Just goes to show one's initial gut instincts are often the best—I could have saved myself many false starts had I gone with it.

It's a seriously simple little kit that goes together in a major hurry... except that, as I'm wont to do, I made a few modifications—all subtle, for a change, but nevertheless labor-intensive. For one, I replaced the windows and doors with etched brass parts, which pushed assembly time literally from minutes to hours, as every opening had to be resized: windows were filed out larger, and doors were filled in with styrene strip stock to be smaller. As is usually the case, the sweat equity paid off, since small fine details can make an ordinary kit really pop. I also made a new freight dock from lasered wood leftovers. The freight dock was my only serious disappointment about the kit—it's not even mentioned in the instructions!

When I dropped the partially-finished kit in place on the layout (above), I immediately felt that I'd made the right decision. Plus, it solved a small conundrum about the storage tanks behind it. For a long time I'd wondered if the storage tanks were part of the factory, or if they were a separate fuel oil business. Based on the earlier images of the original layout, I suspected they were supposed to be part of the factory.

But the model factory was moved far away on the final version, and for some time the tanks remained sitting beside the cattle pens in various arrangements; under these circumstances, they'd surely represent a fuel oil business. At any rate, the problem was solved for me when I placed the factory on the layout, as it was a bit longer than I'd anticipated—but not in a bad way—and it butted right up against the tanks. So they became part of the factory.

The tank set came from the BAZ Models A.J. Slick kit. I cut and spliced the base part so that the smaller tanks fit the available space (above). Then I sprayed the base Light Aircraft Gray (my favorite concrete color), and the tanks flat silver, followed by some light mists of ruddy primer for a subtle rusting effect.

Finishing the factory was fun in that I had a chance to experiment with a stucco effect. After priming the shell and masking off the roof, I applied a series of texture paints, starting with Rust-Oleum Multicolor Texture, followed by Valspar Suede, and ending with a few light coats of Tamiya Insignia White for the final color. After removing the masking, I made a tarpaper effect using one of my favorite tricks: placing a layer of toilet paper on the roof and brushing on a thick coat of Weathered Black. Finally, I sprayed the doors and windows Tamiya Neutral Grey and installed them, along with the new loading dock. And I made a sign on the computer that I printed on photo paper.

There are some bits and pieces still to add—roof details such as a skylight and some vents, and maybe a little plumbing for the tanks out back—but the model factory is essentially done, and I'm quite pleased with how it came out.

Rock Around the Clock

2011-03-28T01:31:00.008-04:00

My second shipment arrived from Cripplebush Valley with some exciting new items. In particular, a piece called "rotten shale hilltop" practically finished off the whole of the hill behind the industrial siding with one piece.

Meanwhile, the dramatic sheer rock face behind the wooden trestle is in, and some of the bits below the road under the trestle are in the works.

One little persnickety detail about the lake... the sketch shows it being fed by some meandering stream, or possibly a little waterfall, neither of which were ever modeled. Having already created the dramatic rock face behind the trestle, I have no opportunity to model such a stream or waterfall, either. So, the lake will have to be spring-fed. I know I shouldn't get all hung up on such trivia, but I can't help myself—it's part of my nature.

Geordie Station

2011-03-23T01:19:00.012-04:00

Deep in my gut I knew that Geordie station would require special attention. The original layout's peculiar little building was as iconic as the layout itself. But as I've said repeatedly, I'm making an adaptation, not a replica, so I wasn't going to scratchbuild a slavishly accurate structure. Still, I felt compelled to capture the feeling of the original, all the same.

I'm glad that I waited a while to tackle it, too, because I had a sense that I'd have some sort of inspiration along the way. Which is just how it played out. It's one of those moments you can't explain: suddenly an image flashes in your mind, and things start to click. I've no idea what drew me to Miller Engineering's train station kit (#1010, below); it had nothing in common with Gorre station. But when I pulled the fret from my leftovers drawer, I started spotting certain characteristics in the detailing that seemed useful; indeed, the more I studied the kit, the more potential I saw—window arrangements that coincided well, surface textures, size and shape of the canopy extension, and so on.

I also really liked the idea of working in brass—with such a small structure, material thickness and part size figures into the equation, particularly when it comes to corner joints and window/door openings. And being a foreground feature, it needed to be a clean, crisp build, and brass was a good choice as the modeling medium.

This is where I drew upon considerable experience bashing brass buildings for my James River Branch. Once I identified all of the required elements in the kit's parts, I wasted no time breaking the kit down into its components, measuring them against one another, marking up the new pieces, and cutting them down to size. The only bit of "fussy" business to get out of the way before assembly could begin was filling in the slots in two of the walls and the main roof (below); this was accomplished by soldering pieces of fret connectors into the openings.

Once the roof was assembled, I went off on an unplanned tangent attaching trim parts. The edges of the raw brass just looked like raw brass, so I soldered 1/32-inch brass L-stock onto all of the edges—ten pieces in all (below). It was well worth the extra effort. One other subtle cosmetic issue I addressed was the thinness of the canopy support posts; to make them a little beefier, I laminated pairs of them together.

The rest of the structure went together like clockwork. After all, it's such a simple little thing, with only four small walls (above); it literally took minutes to assemble. After removing the solder resist paint, flux and other crud with acetone, I placed the station on the layout for some posing. Perfect!

Good clear color images of the original version of Geordie station are as rare as hen's teeth, so I pretty much had to wing it for finishing. After a quick vinegar bath and a primer coat, I started with Light Aircraft Gray (which is really a pale tan), then carefully masked it and sprayed the trim and what was brick on the original flat ruddy brown. An India ink wash brought the light tan down to the desired tone, and highlighted the surface textures. Windows and doors were also sprayed dark brown just before installation.

Given its numerous windows, (planned) interior lighting and foreground location, the station will eventually receive some sort of interior detailing, which I'll likely fabricate in styrene. That will come when I get closer to making the station platform, as the station interior will probably be an integral part of the platform.

I must say that, in general, this layout project has been full of pleasant surprises: so far, many of the elements that have gone into it have exceeded my expectations. Geordie station is certainly one of them!

Laying Foundations

2011-03-22T01:57:00.015-04:00

I've always been a big believer in giving each and every structure—from the grandest station to the lowliest shack—a good solid foundation, because any sense of realism is quickly broken by crooked buildings with gaps along the bottom edges. You're at liberty to claim that I'm a bit obsessive about it; that's fine, and you'd be right. We all have our modeling quirks.

It's strange, but whenever I glance at a photo of the original layout, I get a sense that it's rather sparsely populated by buildings. This is actually a good thing—not so much because it reduces the construction effort, but because the layout doesn't appear overcrowded with stuff, as so many compact layouts tend to look.

However, when I took structure inventory, the number was surprising: seventeen (not counting the billboard). Now granted, one reason the layout doesn't look crowded is that many of the buildings are small shacks. So, the number is somewhat misleading. All the same, the structure count for the original layout was variable, so there's no official number on which to hang one's hat. Plus, the count may still change for the Z Scale version—for instance, it's not a certainty that I'll be building a passenger station and a freight station for Daphetid.

Some of the foundations serve an additional purpose: to bring trackside structures up to the proper elevation. This is necessary because Rokuhan track is elevated considerably above the subroadbed owing to its molded roadbed. I made all of the foundations from a scrap of untempered Masonite, which just happened to be the perfect thickness, and would be easy to bond very securely to Gatorfoam. I didn't need to cut seventeen pieces, however, since several structures shared common areas, such as the industries along the siding and the cluster of buildings in Daphetid. It took quite a bit of weight to keep the foundations true while the carpenter's glue dried!

All of the foundations are now in place, save for one: the cabin in front of the wooden trestle. That won't go in until the trestle is finished, as it's a tight fit back there and the cabin needs to be carefully positioned. Here's how things look right now, with an inventory of the buildings presently slated for the layout (those marked with an asterisk are finished):

1. assay office* (could be anything)
2. water tower*
3. Daphne passenger station
4. Daphne freight station (uncertain)
5-8. cabins*
9. water tower with tool shed*
10. Geordie station
11. old mill
12. factory*
13. lumber yard
14. cattle pens*
15. fuel oil
16. switchman's shanty
17. speeder shed

Still, as it's often said, it ain't over 'till it's over, so things may be different by the time the layout is declared done. That said, I don't think there will be any substantial changes, so don't expect to see any blog posts entitled, "Stop Press!"

Loose Ends

2011-03-21T01:09:00.009-04:00

We've always got at least a few of them on any layout project, right? In the case of my little layout, the plate girder bridge numbered among the more outstanding: I mean, after a month and a half after being built and installed on the layout, it finally got abutments—plus, as a bonus, the railroad's logo.

The abutments couldn't have possibly been any simpler: two pieces of sheet styrene laminated together, sprayed Light Aircraft Gray, and weathered with chalks (one may rightfully wonder what took so long). As for the logo, that turned out to be one of those classic "Duh!" moments. I wasn't looking forward to having custom white decals made—until it finally dawned on me that I could do the old print-in-reverse-on-white-decal-sheet trick.

Reducing the logo from HO down to Z resulted in a startlingly small decal, and even printed in high resolution they're a bit crude. Nevertheless, they look reasonably good under normal viewing; only a seriously tight macro shot reveals their flaws.

They're seen here on the bridge which was in the midst of a weathering treatment; it's still got a ways to go, as among other things I need to tone down the white of the logos a few notches. Meanwhile, I plopped all of the completed structures and other details in place on the layout to get a sense of how far along I am, and it looked good. Yes, there's still plenty of work yet to be done, but much less than it might seem when the props aren't in place.

The plate girder bridge completion may seem trivial, but sometimes even the smallest accomplishments can be quite satisfying, as collectively they move the layout that much closer to completion. Now I'm getting really itchy; I'm on the threshold of some serious progress, but forced to wait until supplies arrive in the mail. Please Mister Postman...

Cabin Fever

2011-03-20T01:16:00.007-04:00

Yes, right now the weather here in New Jersey is beautiful and beckoning me outside. But in this case, the post title refers to the homes on the layout.

Originally I was going to use log cabins from RSLaserKits—I'd even assembled and finished a couple. But, while I'm not after a millimeter-by-millimeter replica of the original, they just weren't right; they looked as though they belonged buried deep in a northeastern forest, not sitting out on a southwestern desert. Then, in a stroke of excellent timing, Micro-Trains released their Logging Camp Houses (#799 90 940), which had just the right look—although this came at a price; I needed two kits, which was nearly fifty bucks. All things considered, they did save me a fair bit of effort.

As an aside, these kits are made from the new darling of some laser kitmakers, Lazerboard, which is a resin-impregnated cardstock material. I can't say as I'm thrilled with it; while it offers some advantages over wood, it has some drawbacks as well. For one thing, it's a very tough material that's more difficult to work with, and easts up X-Acto blades by the bunch. For another, CA responds to it rather strangely, taking its sweet time setting up, and leaving the modeler guessing whether the bond is good or not.

Materials issues notwithstanding, I must say the roof parts supplied in these kits are simply superb, having the finest shake shingle effect I've ever seen—well done, Micro-Trains! I liked it so much, in fact, that I used the roof parts to improve the little southwestern building in Daphetid; the cabins instead got corrugated metal (Builders In Scale) and tarpaper (StoneBridge Models) roofing applied over plain cardstock replacement roof parts.

To give the cabins individuality, I assembled them four different ways. I only built one of them as designed, complete with its porch. For the second, I cut all of the walls down shorter to eliminate the slots for the omitted porch. I made a new door opening in the peaked wall of the third, used the same doorless back walls from two kits for new sides, changed the slope of the roof, and added a stone chimney from Stonebridge Models. And for the last, I cut and spliced the remaining wall parts (above) to produce a little square shack with a slant (not peaked) roof, similar to one of John Allen's cabins, complete with a little covered entry—its exquisitely delicate wooden braces having come from the southwestern building in Daphne.

As great as the kits' roofing was, the green paper doors and windows left a bit to be desired, so I substituted etched brass doors and windows gleaned from my bottomless supply of leftovers, which happened to yield parts that fit perfectly. Various shades of flat spray paint and generous applications of Rustall and powdered chalk wrapped up the four little cabins. And now that they're done, I'm going outside to play!

Daphne Tunnels, Part Deux

2011-03-19T01:59:00.008-04:00

With all of the track painted—now including the guardrails—I resumed the rockwork, turning my attention to the tunnels under Daphne. It was good that I didn't start with these, because they actually required a bit more effort than the troublesome twins, due mostly to the fact that they're offset in depth from one another, and now I've acquired considerable skill in working with rubber rocks.

Consequently I decided to revise the tunnel portal arrangement. I was never overly thrilled by my stone/timber portal kludge, so I decided to partially dismantle it (above) and see if I could devise a better design. The key was finding a sliver of rubber rock to wedge in between the portals, where the small stone retaining wall originally stood. The candidate would be nearly dead flat, with low relief—just some subtle texture to suggest it's rock.

Once I found a piece that fit the bill (second from the right, bottom row above), I ground it down to about the thickness of heavy cardstock, then sliced it to exactly fit the space. After that, it was a matter of choosing the rest of the puzzle pieces and cutting/grinding them to fit perfectly. I must say that griding the rubber with a cutoff disc in a Dremel works surprisingly well; the precision with which I can shape the pieces is very high—down to less than a millimeter.

At the end of the process—which provided a fair bit of exercise, since I did the grinding at one end of the basement, far from the layout at the other, and there was considerable iterative grinding and fitting done—I wound up with a rather bizare-looking rubber thingy (above) that exactly fit around the tunnel portals. The fit was so snug that everything was securely bonded in place with only a few drops of CA. Once the rockwork was installed, I then crafted a new and much improved-looking timber portal to fit the revised shape of the space.

Now, I'm not about to claim this would have been impossible to accomplish by any other rock-making means, but I will assert that it would have been mighty difficult to achieve these results with anything other than rubber rocks. I'll also say that I'm much happier with the results having revised the portal design.

En Garde

2011-03-18T01:52:00.004-04:00

Lest anyone think that my modeling always progresses flawlessly, rest assured that I make plenty of mistakes—I simply don't document them all. As but one of many examples, I fabricated the control panel three times before I got it right (and indeed I may do it again to address some minor cosmetic issues). My latest goof: I forgot to install the guard rails before painting the track.

Turns out it was a lot less work than I'd anticipated. This was due to the fact that the original layout had no guard rails on the wooden trestle, either! I hadn't noticed this until I started reviewing photos more carefully. They were only installed on the truss bridge and the through plate girder bridge, and even then not until the second version of the HO layout was under way.

When I'd found that the original layout—that is, the first version, which I'm building—had no guard rails at all anywhere, I was tempted to use this as justification to save myself the trouble. However, I didn't like the look of these bridges without them. Besides, it wasn't much work—they were made from scraps of Code 40 rail bonded in place with CA.

To save time masking, I wrapped the whole layout in a trash bag and slit openings for the bridges to spray them. As for the trestle, I elected to remain true to history and leave them off. Just as well: they'd have been considerably more work to install than the others. So ended one more goof in a long line of goofs.

The Blue Cocoon

2011-03-17T00:07:00.000-04:00

Doing the rockwork was so enjoyable that I got just a bit carried away, and neglected the order of execution for certain key layout construction steps. The step I nearly forgot: painting the track. I had to do it now, because the more scenery I finished, the harder it would be to mask everything off so that I could spray.

Mind you, I did spend a fair bit of time experimenting with various track painting techniques. Several leftover sections bear witness to my experiments in brush-painting the rails and ties, as well as several approaches to ballasting. After testing Plans B, C, D and E, I determined Plan A was still the one of choice.

Plan A was to spray all of the track. The primary reason Plans B and on failed is because brush-painting the rails produced unsatisfactory results (not to mention it involved considerable manual labor). The metal needed to be primed for good coverage, and even brushing on primer didn't work well.

And so the layout got wrapped up in a cocoon of blue masking tape in preparation for the Big Spray. But I had one last task to complete before I could pull the trigger on the spray can.

Because I couldn't devise a cosmetically-acceptable way of dealing with the manual switch levers, I made the rather bold move of cutting them off and sealing the openings with pieces of styrene; I then applied a bead of PowerGrab along the full length of both sides of each switch to completely seal them to the subroadbed. The reason for this rather extreme-sounding measure is a consequence of the switch mechanism design: the main slider inside the unit is completely exposed on the underside of the switch. Thus, anything that might get under the switch would render it non-functional.

After all of the blue tape was removed, a quick test confirmed that all of the switches survived the ordeal. The only unfortunate incident, oddly, was a case of the special blue painter's masking tape not performing as it's supposed to on the layout trim: it didn't damage the finish, but instead actually tore away small bits of the wood veneer! I'll have some woodworking repairs to make to correct that little mess.

The paint I chose was Rust-Oleum Flat Brown, which has a nice ruddy rail rust hue. An India ink wash turns it into a decent tie brown, and some dashes of driftwood stain gives the ties individuality. It's all still very dark-looking at the moment, since obviously the molded ballast got sprayed as well; this will change when re-ballasting takes place, which will begin after most of the basic terrain is done. Still, the layout as a whole is actually a little easier on the eyes since a fair amount of the stark white Gatorfoam is now also brown—I was half-tempted to spray it all!

Rock On

2011-03-16T02:06:00.009-04:00

I must admit I'm having more fun with the Cripplebush Valley rubber rocks than I've had doing most any kind of scenery in a long time, and for a small layout, I probably won't go back to any other method. Just getting the rockwork in around the twin tunnel portals convinced me there's no better way to get highly realistic rock into tight, precise spaces.

Although I need to order more, I'm far enough along with the work that I'm finishing and installing some significant chunks. And here's where I depart from the instructions provided, because they don't tell you a few things about rubber rocks that greatly enhance their versatility and appearance. First, you can cut and splice pieces together with great precision and strength using CA. In fact, once rubber rocks are bonded with CA, you can't break the bond; it will tear elsewhere.

Yet sometimes even the best cutting and splicing still needs a little carving to help blend the joints. That's where rubber rocks pose a small problem: it's really hard to carve. But I found that you can use a cutoff disc in a Dremel with some startling results. Surprisingly, even though knife blades virtually bounce off the stuff, it grinds more like wood than rubber.

As for finishing, while the molds do come nicely pre-finished, they're all different colors, which creates problems when cutting and splicing from different pieces, as well as creating consistency across a single layout. The manufacturer cautions against the use of solvent-based paints; however, as a friend of mine found out, ordinary spray paints don't seem to cause any adverse effects.

My finishing process began with some experimentation—I'm so used to modeling northeastern scenery that I had to recalibrate my eye for the original's southwestern palette. The process I settled on (image sequence above) begins with two or three light coats of grey primer to kill the original coloration. This is followed by a liberal India ink wash. Next, I give it a few light mistings from upward angles with Pactra Light Aircraft Gray. Finally, I apply various tan powdered chalks to blend everything together while adding subtle hue variations.

The first piece of rock to be installed on the layout was the main part around the twin tunnels. While it's mostly one large single piece, a view of the back (first image above) reveals about a dozen tiny bits added around the tunnel portal openings to create a seamless joint between rock and portals. The assembly was bonded in place on the layout with Loctite PowerGrab, plus some CA around the tunnel walls to keep the fit good and tight.

The second and third pieces installed were the rock faces leading into the sides of the portals. Here again the level of precision required for the fit was very high, considering that one had rock surfaces that faced three different directions (above), and the other was sandwiched into a 1/16-inch space between the upper track roadbed and the lower track portal.

Obviously all of this marks the official start of scenery-making, which is one of my greatest modeling pleasures. It also perhaps marks the biggest departure between the original and my Z Scale adaptation: I'd always intended to feature much more rock on my version, solely because I like it. The rubber rocks are such a great innovation that the results have exceeded my expectations.

Let's Rock!

2011-03-15T02:26:00.002-04:00

My order of rubber rocks from Cripplebush Valley (or most of it—one piece was backordered) has arrived, and thus begins the process of creating rockwork for my little layout. I selected a range of shale molds; these offer a high degree of detail and visual interest, and to an extent mimic some of the original's rockwork.

The trickiest parts were cutting and fitting around the tunnel portals, which is why I opted for this product. It's pricey stuff, but well worth the investment considering what can be accomplished with it that would otherwise be nearly impossible using any other process. As a consequence, I've taken some liberties with some of the specifics of the original; for instance, I'll change the angle of the strata in certain areas, such as around the twin tunnels, and I'll be incorporating much more rock around the wooden trestle.

The profile of the terrain behind the wooden trestle is another example of taking a degree of artistic license. Like other aspects of the original, it morphed over time: first it was subtle, then it was dramatic, and then, by the final version, it was nearly non-existent. For my Z Scale adaptation I chose dramatic, which I further exaggerated, for a few reasons. I felt it more firmly established the back perimeter of the layout. It also seemed to better justify the existence of the wooden trestle, and created a better visual balance with it as well.

With respect to the wooden trestle itself, I deliberately didn't begin building it until the basic terrain contours were established and the bulk of the rock and other scenery was completed; the other way around, it would be considerably more difficult to accomplish, given that I don't have the luxury of substantially more space in which to work, as the HO Scale version affords.

Designing Daphne

2011-03-14T01:47:00.014-04:00

As had many other aspects of the original layout, the little town of Daphne did quite a bit of morphing over time. At the outset, both towns were nothing more than stations. Geordie eventually acquired the industrial siding with all of the businesses there, while Daphne started to become something of a "real" town when the original reached its third phase, thanks to the additional layout space.

I'd already cobbled together a little water tower; what really moved things forward was discovering the Assay Office building kit from Wild West Scale Model Builders. It perfectly captures the flavor of the southwestern-style buildings of the original.

As an aside, this is probably the highest quality laser kit I've come across so far. The laser work is extraordinary—the finest I've seen—and the documentation is thorough to an extreme, comprising a 24-page book. It's even got extra parts so that the interior can be fully detailed. I made only one change during the build: I replaced the roof parts with leftovers from a Micro-Trains logging camp house kit (799-90-940) because I wasn't too keen on the printed paper shingles supplied. By sheer coincidence, the logging camp house roof fit the main building perfectly, with no need for any cutting.

The currently anonymous structure is shown above sitting comfortably in place on the layout—I'm undecided on what it should be. Meanwhile, I'm still wrestling with thoughts of what to do for a station. I was originally going to use Randy Brown's Small Town Depot Kit (#350), but I'm not so sure any more; I'll probably wind up kitbashing or scratchbuilding something. We'll see!

Third Structure

2011-03-13T01:37:00.002-05:00

Including a cattle pen on my Z Scale layout was something of a no-brainer. I'd originally planned on building just one, but there were one or two of them on the original HO layout at various times, and having changed the industrial siding to create more space, I decided to split the difference—in a manner of speaking—by combining the two Micro Trains livestock pen kits, 799-90-903 and 799-90-905. One has a single pen, the other has two; when merged together, they make a three-pen, two-ramp structure that fits nicely on the layout without consuming too much space. (Just don't tell anyone that you can't spot two cattle cars next to it!)

My first order of business was trimming the two base parts so that they merged seamlessly. I then bonded these parts to a slab of thick sheet styrene, and applied modeling putty around the edges. The idea behind this was to provide a larger edge that could be blended into the surrounding scenery. When the putty dried, I sanded everything smooth, and sprayed it with a few coats of Valspar Tan Suede paint to give it an earth texture.

The rest of the assembly process was pretty much per the kit instructions. After staining all of the fencing parts, I cut them from the frets and test-fit them on the new base. Some parts had to be trimmed to accommodate the fact that the two kits were physically combined, and not just butted together. One issue that emerged during kit-blending was that the ramp post caps were styled differently between the two kits, so I had to modify all of them to look the same, which wasn't fun. Some powdered chalk weathering completed the project.

The Game

2011-03-12T01:15:00.018-05:00

Since the days of the original layout, there's been a billboard advertising the railroad. This little detail eventually became part of what might seem to be a game, as the billboard showed up at different locations in countless images, from the earliest shots of the first version all the way through the last color photos of the third. And it traveled far and wide, appearing in a vast array of locales.

I've decided I'm going to include this billboard on my Z Scale rendition, using the Stonebridge Models billboard kit as the basis. With the artwork complete, I had the billboard kit assembled in short order. A few mods: base omitted; frame members rearranged closer together; frame added around the outside; bent pin lights added. The billboard image was printed in high resolution on photo paper, and sealed with matte fixative. Amazingly, everything is readable.

Thanks to a number of visitors for helping me find the source art. Nice to know I've got so many regular readers—and so early on a Saturday morning, no less!

Finished Edges

2011-03-11T01:00:00.012-05:00

It's hard to know how the perimeter of the original HO Scale layout might have been finished, since the first layout wasn't completed before moving on to the second. Based on those few images that reveal layout edges, there was little concern regarding their appearance. For the most part, if there was anything along the edge aside from scenery, it was raw lumber.

For myself, I prefer giving a layout a finished appearance, and I knew how I was going to trim my version of the layout since the start of the project: hardwood veneer. The material I purchased is thin enough to cut with a sharp knife, and the back is coated with heat-activated adhesive, so all it took was a clothing iron to permanently bond it right to the Gatorfoam.

It was a relatively quick and painless procedure: all I did was place a piece of veneer against the side of the layout, trace the shape onto the back with a pencil, and cut it out with an X-Acto. Repeat three more times. The only tricky part was making the battery compartment and tunnel access openings, which involved carefully plotting the coordinates for the corners of the openings on the back of the veneer.

After bonding all of the veneer in place and sanding the corners flush, I stained it with a light walnut stain; when this dried, I applied clear satin polyurethane. Funny how the layout looks so much more complete, even though nothing was done to the layout itself...

Stoned Again

2011-03-10T01:51:00.005-05:00

Since my original stone wall master comprised over 300 stones, the wall around the back of the branchline switch must have about 1,000, as it's made up of two full castings and most of two more. Of much greater significance, the wall marks a departure from what was done on the original layout, which featured a stone arch bridge.

I chose to make a solid stone wall for a number of reasons. One, it faces away from the front of the layout, so it's not all that important. Also, if I'd made a stone arch, it would have had to be filled in, since it backs the control panel. And finally, it was a lot less work to make!

Construction was quite straightforward: four castings were joined together to exactly fit the shape of the space, sprayed with primer, detail painted, weathered, and glued in position. It marks the last roadbed-related work to be done, which means I can officially move on to the scenery phase of layout-building—my favorite by far!

A Simple Thing?

2011-03-09T01:23:00.005-05:00

If someone had told me that it would take the better part of a day to make the portal face for the twin tunnels, I'd have said, no way; it's just a few pieces of stained stripwood. But indeed the portals shown below took hours upon hours of cutting, fitting, re-cutting, re-fitting, and so on, seemingly forever. It actually took considerably less time to assemble the truss bridge!

The lesson, of course, is that appearances can be highly deceiving. It wasn't just a matter of taking a few measurements and cobbling together some semblance of a portal, as I'd thought; each and every piece was cut to fit, often multiple times. (Note that the images make it appear as though the whole thing is wonky. This is an optical illusion created by the camera lens; trust me, all of the parts are aligned and square.)

It's all quite a change from my original plan, which was to use cast wooden portals from Randy Brown (far right, below). Considering the modification that would have been required, I'm not sure which option would have involved more work...

Taming the Troublesome Twins

2011-03-08T01:57:00.010-05:00

As regular readers have come to know, I don't give up without a good fight, and if I want something badly enough, I find a way to achieve it. In this case, I really wanted to nail the twin tunnel portals—not so much because I insisted on being super-faithful to the original, but because he'd already solved a tricky modeling problem that didn't have many solutions.

After countless careful measurements, I determined that I could pull it off, but what I needed in order to succeed was considerable control over the divider between the tunnels. And so, as I had for the stone viaduct, I turned to my faithful friend, styrene. The reason it's all so very tricky is that the divider is made up of nothing but angled lines all twisted into a curve. Consider: one track is ascending, one is descending, there's three quarters of an inch in vertical separation between them at the portal, the cribbing faces one side on the top third and the other side on the bottom third. Plus, just to add to the mess, the two tracks follow non-parallel curves. Quite the little nightmare!

Using scribed sheet styrene and square strip styrene, I assembled the tunnel divider (above) one piece at a time, returning to the layout to fit each part as it was cut and bonded to the assembly. Because the curves converge, there reached a point where I could not add any more vertical posts, at which time I considered the task complete.

Almost. After spraying the divider flat black, I temporarily tacked it in place and started running trains past it. This turned out to be a good thing to do, because it highlighted some issues, and I wound up rebuilding the whole thing (much easier than modifying it). Only when the second assembly passed the rolling stock test did I declare victory, and bonded it permanently in place.

Then it was on to the rest of the tunnel construction—which was trivial by comparison—consisting of installing a pair of tunnel liner castings for the walls, followed by black paint and cinder ballast, as per the procedures used for the Daphetid tunnels.

At this point it's all over but the shouting; I have only to make the tunnel portals—such as they are—out of stripwood. When that's done, the last track-related work to complete will be the retaining walls around the branchline switch. And when that's done, watch out—it's time for scenery!

Daphne Tunnels

2011-03-07T01:43:00.012-05:00

The double-tunnel I wrote about yesterday isn't the only tricky scenic spot on the layout; the tunnels under Daphne are very similar in both their arrangement and the modeling challenge they present. The difference is that these are two distinct tunnels—and different tunnel types—situated side-by-side.

Although there's marginally more room between these tracks than the others, there's still much less than what was on the original owing to the different track geometry. The lower tunnel interior was completed first: a pair of stone wall resin castings were shaped to fit the curve (ten seconds in boiling water), spray-painted flat black, and glued to the Gatorfoam with Loctite PowerGrab adhesive.

The upper tunnel was considerably more work. The first task was making a master for wooden tunnel liner parts, which I cast in resin just like the stone walls. In order to accommodate the upper tunnel liner, the adjacent stone wall casting had to be notched in situ—not a fun process (below). The wooden tunnel liners were then bent to shape, sprayed flat black, and glued in place.

Next, I painted all of the remaining tunnel interior surfaces—including the track—with black gouache. I used gouache because it dries absolutely dead flat, as opposed to acrylic paint, which has a slightly satin finish; brush-painting also afforded far more control than spraying, and could be done indoors. When this dried, I poured N scale cinders along the sides of the track roadbed to fill in the tunnel floor, and bonded it with alcohol and thinned white glue. Finally, I installed the tunnel lids.

The portals came last. The three-piece stone tunnel portal was carefully assembled to precisely fit the space, followed by a simple timber portal that I scratchbuilt from stripwood. Where the two portals overlap is where I had to depart from the original configuration: with more space, he was able to squeeze a tiny token of rock in between them. My two portals actually merge; I hand-carved stone blocks into the back of one retaining wall to blend with a bit of stonework tacked onto the side, which forms one wing of the wooden portal. It's something of a kludge, but it does add some interesting character, and I'd like to think it's what John might have done had he faced similar space constraints.

Armed with new tunnel liner castings and fresh experience working within really close clearances, I return to work on the troublesome twins.

A Real Stumper

2011-03-06T08:22:00.018-05:00

Work on truss bridge abutments begins, stone by stone. Meanwhile, I'm taking on some other challenges. I know from time to time I post stories about issues I face adapting the original HO version to Z Scale, such as getting the stone viaduct to fit right; eventually I manage to prevail while maintaining fairly high degree of fidelity. But here's one that's had me scratching my head for a while: the tunnels behind the industrial siding.

The problem of the side-by-side tunnels was originally solved by making one large timber tunnel with a divider down the middle; the image above clearly shows how it was designed. My problem is clearance: the divider will have to be almost literally paper-thin to fit. Here's the space I'm dealing with:

I may have to render the tunnel a little differently, although I'm not too worried about this. But it's become something of a little time-sucking monster nevertheless.

Puzzle Pieces

2011-03-05T01:03:00.003-05:00

When the truss bridge arrived, I was in the middle of finishing the control panel, and after building the bridge, I went back to work on the panel. One might think I'd instead be making the abutments so the truss bridge could be installed, but that will have to wait just a bit. The reason is that the truss bridge abutment on the near side actually fits right against the edge of the control panel, so in order to get the abutment shaped right, I had to have the panel in place.

Fortunately, as I'd described previously, there's not much to control on this layout, so it was no big deal to wire up the nine switches that comprised the whole of the control system (six track switches, main power, lights and direction). The speed control will be a gutted throttle that's on its way.

The panel itself is a piece of 1/8-inch thick sheet styrene. The graphic was printed on heavy-duty photo paper and laminated with 10 mil clear plastic. The laminated graphic is simply held in place by the switches, and everything is attached to the layout with mounting screws driven into a Gatorfoam support that's bonded to the "benchwork" at a slight angle to improve visibility.

The finished effect gives the layout a lot of eye appeal. And now I can turn my attention back to my new truss bridge!

The Gift

2011-03-04T01:09:00.007-05:00

One of the options I was strongly considering for the wooden truss bridge was to commission a laser shop to custom cut one for me. Well, I was literally a few keystrokes away from drafting an email to a shop, when out of the clear blue one of my readers was kind enough to offer up some time on his laser to cut this bridge. The only (entirely predictable) catch: I had to do the artwork.

While I've never designed a laser-cut structure before, I've assembled countless kits (and spent more than a few hours pondering how to improve the kits as I assembled them), so I've been exposed to the principles involved. Plus, I've been rendering computer illustrations for a couple of decades, so there were no new skills or software for me to learn. And finally, just to make life even easier—for a change!—the file type required was native to drawing software I've used since Version 1. Thus I was well prepared for the task in every way.

The offer provided me with two tremendous opportunities: a chance to learn how to design a laser-cut structure, and a chance to have the original truss bridge faithfully reproduced. But I had to act fast—the window of opportunity was open only for a short time. Which meant a couple of late nights spent studying the bridge from every angle possible (I have about 30 reference images on file), studying the laser-cut kits I had on hand, and conversing with the man with the laser.

Since this would be an invaluable learning experience, I asked him to please not make any adjustments to my artwork, unless there were obvious dire problems. This way I could learn from my mistakes, since I anticipate there will be a time in the not-too-distant future when I'd be commissioning laser shops to do custom work for me on an increasing basis.

One week later, the package arrived. To say that I was excited to open it is an understatement—I was literally shaking. What a thrill to see the lines that I'd rendered all now burned into wood. And what a way to start the project: the first part I cut out, I promptly broke! Fortunately I had plenty of spares, but it did point out the need for me to refrain from rushing. I had to force myself to slow down and take it easy.

After cutting all of the parts free from the frets, I did a quick test-fit of a few key components—wow, they actually fit right! Then I stained them all with Minwax Dark Walnut stain. When this dried, I began assembly. Since I created it, I certainly knew how to build it! The first and most tedious assembly step was installing the 40 .008-inch chemically blackened phosphor bronze wire truss rods, while the last and equally tedious step was installing 48 nut-bolt-washer castings.

I experienced such a strange sensation as I worked: it went together like a kit, and yet it was my own design. I can't overstate how surprised, delighted and proud I was by how well—and how quickly—it all went together. Granted, it's not a seriously complicated structure to assemble, but it's also not all that simple, either, with over 100 parts. Since I designed it exclusively for me to build, I didn't bother with such niceties as alignment tabs and notches, so it wasn't an insert-tab-A-in-slot-B, peel-and-stick affair. All that's left to do are the abutments and the center piling.

So, what were my lessons learned? What would I do differently? Amazingly, almost nothing. I might make the vertical sway brace pairs a little heftier, and the truss rod rastering a little deeper, but these would be subtle tweaks; there were no errors in the design, which I still can't get over—I feel like the guy who stepped up to bat for the first time in his life and hit a home run on the first pitch.

And so, between the Gift and my scratchbuilt stone viaduct, my layout is becoming far more authentic-looking than I'd ever imagined.

Uncharted Territory

2011-03-03T03:44:00.017-05:00

Some areas of the original layout shall forever remain unknowable. By the time the second version was under way, the first was as still incomplete, and we have no way of knowing how it might have looked if completed as designed. The areas that were never finished include, among others, the right front and rear corners of the layout.

Original sketches just show generic scenery in the corners, but as the second version took shape, they were filled with multiple tracks that wrapped around the corner of the original layout. Since the purpose of my project is to complete a version of the layout that pretty much never existed in a finished form, I must pretend I knew what was originally envisioned in these spaces.

As my Z Scale adaptation has grown, I've taken some artistic license here and there, as regular readers well know. The front right corner of the original variously had sheds and other little details around the branchline switch, which I'm thinking about moving to the "new" real estate at the front right corner to relieve some of the congestion around the switch. I may even add a little section house; we'll see.

The right rear corner will just be an extension of the surrounding generic terrain. Beneath this rocky outcrop, however, will be the layout's battery pack, which is now built into the fascia. I must say I love working with Gatorfoam, as it allows me to make clean, remarkably intricate shapes for the edges of the layout. When completed, these panels will all be laminated with oak veneer for a professional-looking, finished appearance.