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+--- Thread: The Mogollon Railroad (/showthread.php?tid=508)
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - Gary S - 06-09-2011
Alright Kevin! Good to see some updates on this thread. What else have you been doing?
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - nachoman - 06-10-2011
Gary S Wrote:Alright Kevin! Good to see some updates on this thread. What else have you been doing?
I've actually done quite a bit of scenery and ballast work - there are no more instances of blue foam or windows to the "benckwork underwolrd" left. . I have the pictures to prove it, too, but I got a new computer and the photos are all on the old one. Once I get the old photos transferred over, I'll post a few big updates.
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - nachoman - 06-24-2011
I've been kitbashing this power house/boiler house for my smelter complex. I'm just trying to make something that looks plausible and interesting. The base is an IHC pickle factory kit and some DPM spare parts.
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - Ralph - 06-26-2011
Lots of interesting lines with that combination Looking forward to seeing it develop!
Ralph
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - ocalicreek - 06-29-2011
Ah, the pickle factory! A kitbashing klassik! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.
Galen
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - tetters - 06-29-2011
ocalicreek Wrote:Ah, the pickle factory! A kitbashing klassik! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.
Galen
That was two thirds of a pun.... p.u.
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - Steamtrains - 07-06-2011
I also have a pickle factory kit sitting on my shelf...And also have a smelter in my future...
So I'll be keeping an eye on what you do with your kitbash....
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - nachoman - 07-09-2011
You are right about the pickle factory being a kitbasher's dream. I don't know who actually wants a "pickle factory".
Here is a mockup of the final assembly:
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - Sumpter250 - 07-09-2011
nachoman Wrote:You are right about the pickle factory being a kitbasher's dream. I don't know who actually wants a "pickle factory".
I thought that looked familiar. I've got one of those "pre-assembled" from a box of "used and abused".
I also have a scratch built Pickle Factory.........
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - Steamtrains - 07-09-2011
In my case...A pickle factory would make sense since I also have ONE Heinz pickle car....
As I recall. it was the candidate of choice to try my hand at weathering rolling stock....Didn't turn out half bad....
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - nachoman - 07-10-2011
About 17 million years ago, the tectonic regime of western North America changed. Before that time, the tectonic plate underneath the Pacific Ocean was subducting beneath North American plate, creating a compressive regime that resulted in high mountain ranges and plateaus along the west coast of North America. Beginning around 17 million years ago, the plate boundary changed and the Pacific and North American plates began sliding past one another between what is now Southern California and San Francisco. No longer in compression, this change in the stress regime allowed the high terrain of western North America to collapse and extend westward. This regime continues today, as the plates are sliding past one another, splitting California in half, and creating the San Andreas fault system.
The extension created an interesting topography in southern and western Arizona, Western Utah, Eastern California, and all of Nevada. As the crust of Western North America was no longer being shortened and pushed upward from compression, it began breaking apart along faults, with narrow basins and valleys dropping between high mountain ranges. The result is topography of tremendous relief, with great differences between the elevations of the mountain peaks and the valley floors. This topography is extremely apparent today as a series of parallel and alternating valley/mountain sequences that trend from northwest to southeast. Death Valley is an extreme example of one of those valley/mountain sequences.
As the basins subsided relative to the steepening mountain ranges, course gravel and sand sediment from the mountains filled the basins. As the coarse sediment became cemented with calcium carbonate, it solidified into thick rock masses called "conglomerate". Eventually, river and stream networks matured and linked the basins, causing erosion and exposing the conglomerate near the basin edges.
Examples of such conglomerate exist in nearly every valley of southwestern Arizona, Eastern California, Nevada, and western Utah. An example of this conglomerate forms the “head” of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, and is appropriately named the “Camel’s head Formation”
So what does this mean to my layout? Copper ores and mines, such as the one on my layout, are located in the hard rock areas of the mountain ranges. My fictional railroad traverses from the valley into the mining district within the mountains. That means I need to model the conglomerate as well as the hard rock of the mountains. I already made the hard rock using plaster and rock molds, and I'm somewhat satisfied with the results. Modeling the conglomerate, on the other hand, was causing some anxiety.
I eventually found a technique that I am satisfied with. The overall appearance of the conglomerate in my modeling area is of relatively flat-lying sediment beds. Coarse gravel pieces support some sediment beds, while others are mostly sand. Some beds are well-cemented and resistant to erosion, while other beds are poorly cemented and crumble more easily. This leaves an alternating appearance with stronger beds forming steep ledges and weaker beds forming recessed layers within the steep vertical profile, or gentle slopes where the weaker bed is thick.
Because of the layered appearance of the rock, I started with stacked 1-inch blue foam. Rather than make long, continuous layers of foam, I cut the foam into smaller blocks and glued them in place separately. This created a more random appearance than if I had used large pieces of foam.
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - nachoman - 07-10-2011
The Camel's Head Formation (pictured above) is not a good example of the conglomerate I am modeling because it is tilted and red. I am attempting the Gila Conglomerate, which has horizontal, tan/gray beds. Unfortunately, I haven't been over to take a photo of the Gila Conglomerate in awhile, so a few websites will have to do.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/federal/monuments/gila_cliff_dwellings/home.html">http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/federal/mon ... /home.html</a><!-- m -->
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.pbase.com/smokedaddy/image/74507348">http://www.pbase.com/smokedaddy/image/74507348</a><!-- m -->
I do have a photo of conglomerate similar to what I am modeling, although this is from northern Utah.
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - nachoman - 07-10-2011
My tools included two artist's palette knives, a plastic tub from a microwave meal, and a throw away paint brush. My materials included sculptamold, joint compound, playground sand, india ink, and various colors of acrylic craft paint.
First, I smeared scultamold over the foam cliff face, using the narrow palette knife to sculpt it into a layered appearance. Sculptamold is excellent for this because it has a long working time, can be applied thick, and does not crack when dried. The idea here is to create more of a finished shape than the foam alone. I applied the sculptamold this in a few reasonable sized batches.
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - nachoman - 07-10-2011
The sculptamold created the shape I wanted, but not the texture. Conglomerate is made of rock fragments, some as large as bowling balls or suitcases. After the sculptamold had set up for a few days, I coated it with a veneer to give the texture. First, I obtained a bottle of playground sand from my local playground. I took it home, poured it into a bucket of water with a little detergent, and washed the sand. After pouring the water from the bucket, I spread the sand out on a pan to dry.
Next, I took a generous scoop of joint compound and placed it in my plastic mixing bowl with a few spoonfulls of sand and a sprinkle of water. My goal was to create a sand-joint compound slurry that I could spread over the cliff face. Once the slurry was mixed up, I spread it over the sculptamold cliff using my pallette knives, doing my best to follow the pre-established shape I had previously created.
I specifically used joint compound here because it softens when re-wetted. Plaster or sculptamold set up permanently and won't work. Once the joint compound had mostly set up, I then took a cheap throw away paintbrush dunked in a tub of water, and gently brushed the rock face, in a direction parallel to the sedimentary beds (horizontal, in this case). The water and the paintbrush smoothed my sandy veneer, washing the joint compound from the sand and exposing the sand grains. I let the joint compound set up completely, and used a wetted paintbrush to smooth the surface again.
Once I had the texture the way I liked it, I applied an india ink wash, being careful not to overwork and re-soften the joint compound. Next, I applied a dilute wash of acrylic matte medium, thinned about 50/50 with water. The idea here was to seal and harden the surface so that additional paint washes would not soften the joint compound. Once the matte medium was dry, I applied washes of acrylic paint, until I got the color that I wanted.
Re: The Mogollon Railroad - Green_Elite_Cab - 07-10-2011
Cool plan for the conglomerate rock! The moment I saw that photo of the "camel hump", I figured it would be a pain to get that look right.
Mixing in the course sand was definitely a good idea.
loved the geography lesson as well! (Yay science!)