Terrain Dilemma

[Gary S]

Photos for Gary.

Thank you sir! That's looking good, am looking forward to the continued application of the scenery materials!

[tetters]

Hi Wayne. It's always to good to have you comment on these things. We all learn so much for fellows like you!

Let me see if I can explain with out sounding like a goof... :?

As you may remember on the last layout I did stain the ties and then pre-ballast the track before spiking. This time around I decided to get the track work down before doing any staining or ballasting. During my searches on the net I came across a couple of layout threads where the authors hand laid and then spray painted the rails, ties and spikes all rail brown. So this time around I decided I give it a go and see how I like it. Unique to this situation though is that the new track work was added to replace the area the pier once occupied. All the track around the pier had been painted and weathered and ballasted while the pier was in place. As such if I don't want to make a big mess with over spray I need to mask off the "finished" trackwork, lest I ruin it while painting the new section. From areas that I have finished I think I prefer this new-to-me-method as the brown provides a good base coat for other paints or what not to adhere to... especially in the case of my turnouts with the copper clad ties the brown provides some uniformity for the PCB ties and the wood ties and it doesn't require as much effort to disguise the difference. It's also tons easier to spray paint my turnouts then try to hand paint them as brush painting does not seem to agree with the PCB ties and get more consistant coverage with the spray paint. If anyone is worried about the points sticking once the paint is cured, they don't. Provided an excessive amount of paint hasn't been used its simply a matter of "breaking" the seal and the turnouts operate just the same prior to painting.

For the water, the plan is to use Magic Water. My measurements show that I'll need about a 1/4" depth of it. I will then finish the water by adding some gloss medium to create some slight ripples to the water. I was going to use Envirotex however, it smells reeeeeally bad and I don't want my wife kicking me to the curb in the middle of winter. The MW is apparently less offensive in the odour department and is easier to work with. I was going to do most of the scenery at the waters edge first and then turn my attention to doing the other things like trees etc further inland. I want to have a sandy shore littered with rocks of various sizes, dead fall, old grey groups of piles and discarded lumber "sticking" along the shores and also out of the water like in photos I've seen near the slips. Don't forget, one of my primary design goals will be to have the water at the base of the rail where the slip just meets the shore. This is important to me and I really want to emulate the feel of the scenes I see in the photos I've collected. Please understand that I know with enough care I can pull this off, I just have to try it. While my locos won't be axle deep in the water, the wheels will be damn near close to it. It will also mean that the car float and slip will become permanent parts of the scenery... and honestly I am okay with that. I don't think I'll be satisfied if it looks like the structures are sitting on top of the water... they were in the water for the prototype they will be in the water on my layout.

Whether or not my methods are questionable or simply the wrong way of doing things to quote Bill Joel, "You may be right. I may be crazy." So if hand laying one layout and ripping it up within a year just to start another one and then change a major design aspect in favour of a completely new one insn't the sign of a lunatic then I don't know what is?

[tetters]

Thank you Kevin!

...and you're welcome Gary.

[doctorwayne]

Whether or not my methods are questionable or simply the wrong way of doing things to quote Bill Joel, "You may be right. I may be crazy." So if hand laying one layout and ripping it up within a year just to start another one and then change a major design aspect in favour of a completely new one insn't the sign of a lunatic then I don't know what is?

Nothing at all "wrong" with your methods, I simply missed your changeover to spray-painted track.

As for the business of lunatics, most of the rest of the world view all model railroaders as such. Suits me to a "T", too.

Wayne

[tetters]

Whether or not my methods are questionable or simply the wrong way of doing things to quote Bill Joel, "You may be right. I may be crazy." So if hand laying one layout and ripping it up within a year just to start another one and then change a major design aspect in favour of a completely new one insn't the sign of a lunatic then I don't know what is?

Nothing at all "wrong" with your methods, I simply missed your changeover to spray-painted track.

As for the business of lunatics, most of the rest of the world view all model railroaders as such. Suits me to a "T", too.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne.

I like to tell people that we are all crazy in some way... it's the people who think that they are "perfectly normal" are the ones you gotta watch out for! hock:

[tetters]

Track is painted... see that wasn't so bad now was it. The only thing about working like this is that I cannot do anything else in this area until tomorrow night in order to give the paint a chance to dry. I've found it takes a couple of days to cure completely in a warm house though...

[tetters]

Been sometime since I've added anything to this. I've been doing some ballasting and paint touch ups. But what has me a little pumped is the application of some static grass to the layout. I'm happy to report that my homemade grass applicator works like a charm.




While I am happy to add some color to the layout... I think this grass might be a bit too bright. I have a darker blend which I might try in another area and see how it looks. Depending on what I prefer, I may go with either or...

One dilemma I've also run into is this section here. Space is limited, so I might cut out some of the terrain and build either a wood or stone retaining wall... not sure yet.



Perhaps tomorrow night, I'm going to try to add some grass to the middle of the tracks and stuff.

S.

[faraway]

... I think this grass might be a bit too bright....

You might stay with the bright grass if you have it on hand and tone it down with a deluded brown applied with the air brush. That is what I do most time.

[doctorwayne]

Aah! Looks like a touch of Spring - just what I needed. If you're not happy with the newly-sprouted colour of the grass, try mixing it, in varying proportions, with the darker blend. That "fresh" colour, though, is perfect for low-lying areas and near the water. I think that it looks great.

Wayne

[P5se Camelback]

... Being an engineer by temperment and training, I naturally gravitate to wiring and stuff like that. Drawing, outside of stick figures or mechanical drawing with proper tools, is a skill that eludes me. Picking and matching colors - that too seems to be beyond me. ... --Randy

I'm sorry! I'm going to have to apologize in advance!

As an Industrial Designer, I had to read that bit several times to insure that what I thought I read was, in fact, what I had read. We I.D. guys say that all the time about the M.E.'s but I've never actually ever heard (or read) one of them saying it before!

Thanks for the chuckle, Randy! You made my day!!!

You guys make it work great, but we make it irresistably purchaseable!

Sorry, fellas ... after over thirty-eight years, I just couldn't let that bit slide.

[rrinker]

Glad you got a chuckle out of it, but it's true. Of course as the EEs we used to say the MEs had it easy - same formulas but without the imaginary numbers. And the IEs, those were just Imaginary Engineers.
No other comments but this - everyone, regardless of major, had to take Economics 1. Engineers usually off semester from the business majors. There was more than one business major in my class trying for the THIRD time to pass this class.

On the actual topic, I'm trying to figure out how I cna build a hill tall enough to have a road bridge over the tracks at one spot without it lookign too contrived. There's not a lot of space to work with, at least in a way that won't block the spot of one of the industries I want to put in. It's a rather rickety old road bridge that is still in place, one of those "oh, I know exactly where you mean" kind of details, and the track below the bridge IS in a steep rock cut, but I have about 3 feet of linear space to go up 4" and come back down. The real world in this area is rather undulating, no more than 1/4 mile from this street bridge, the railroad crosss over another road - and the tracks are not on a steep grade. You don;t really notice this unless you think about it - drive UNDER the tracks, make a left, go 1/4 of a mile, make another left, and drive OVER the tracks. I may have compressed distance too much though to make this work, but I REALLY want to work that bridge in. For those familiar with the Lehigh Valley area, I'm talking over by AIr Products on Tilghman, where you go under the tracks, go south on what used to be 100, left at the church, and over the tracks. I'd include the churve but my benchwork on that side isn't really wide enough to fit the building - I could probably put the old part of the cemetary there though.

--Randy

[Russ Bellinis]

Does the bridge have to go over the tracks? If it is a neat bridge that you want to include on the layout somewhere, do you have another spot where perhaps a road went over a stream or a small gully?

[rrinker]

It's a rather nondescript bridge, nothign special other than it is memorable to anyone int he area since it isn;t a full 2 lanes wide and it's a bit peaked in the middle so you have to take turns - and there's always some dope who thinks you are stoppign to let EVERY car through, not just the one in front of him. I played around with some kit boxes and stuff and I might be able to make it work ok.

--Randy

[rrinker]

What sort of paint did you use on your track? I may try something like that as opposed to painastakingly using a small brush to paint all of it.

--Randy