The Mogollon Railroad

[TrainNut]

That's looking great. I like the carved rock walls. I pray you never have a runaway train down that grade!

[ocalicreek]

Nice arrangement of buildings. Glad to hear you can keep modeling despite economic difficulties. Whether or not you'll be able to shower or water the lawn, well, that could be a different story! hock:

Galen

[nachoman]

Ralph's caboose thread made me realize that I do not yet have a caboose lettered for my standard gauge connecting railroad, the Gila and Southeastern. Here is an old MDC caboose kit that I redecorated for the task, using home printed decals again.

[ocalicreek]

Nice weathering. Is there a # 101 somewhere (even a fictional car)?

Galen

[nachoman]

Last week was one of those painfully depressing weeks that come with unemployment. After sending out stacks of resumes and receiving little or no response, eventually a worthless feeling sets in. After a week of feeling worthless and somewhat panicked, I reorganized myself into "plan B" mode, and now I feel a little better. I re-committed myself to do whatever it takes, be a little unconventional, and put a stronger emphasis to branch into other industries. For now, I will put the idea of getting another career type job in my science field on the back burner, and concentrate on getting certifications or training that I can use in related industries. I am a smart guy, and I know I can be extremely useful to somebody. In the meantime, I will try to use my knowledge and skills to pick up odd jobs for friends, neighbors, or family.

I had been spending my modeling time on rolling stock rather than my layout in the event I had to relocate. I decided that relocating is plan C or D, and until that is inevitable I may as well have a little fun running trains. I cleaned up my layout room, cleaned off the layout and tracks, and took a photo for this week's photo fun thread - only to recognize all that blue foam and white sculptamold was an eyesore. I had a gallon of "oops" brown paint in my workshop, and I figured it wouldn't cost anything or take much time to at least paint my landscape a tan color. I still don't have the rocks carved or groundcover glued on, but at least it is better than blue and white. Here are the results:

[TrainNut]

Looks good. Throw some quick grass and bushes on there and it'd make a tremendous difference.

[faraway]

... but at least it is better than blue and white. Here are the results:

A little color makes a big difference. I do usually put some deluded low cost gray paint on unfinished parts of the layout until they get their final layout.
My best wishes for a successful plan B.

[ocalicreek]

Kevin,

Hang in there! If you aren't already, you should be planting a garden or some sort of crop to offset food costs, get outside in the fresh air, and get the satisfying feeling of growing something yourself. It's a terribly liberating feeling that costs about as much as a pack of seeds.

Now, back on topic, painting the landscape makes a real difference! Nice to see progress.

Don't despair. In my final year at seminary I started my timesaver layout and began collecting a few kits at train shows. I already had some stocked up from my time as an intern in SoCal, when I was part of a modular club. Between sem and the first call, we lived in my wife's old bedroom. But in the spare room, I had a tiny little desk (plus the kitchen table, occasionally) and when I think back to those few months it boggles my mind to think I actually got any modeling done.

I was seriously living with a stress that eventually became full blown depression, but thank heaven I had set aside a plastic tub full of tools, paint, and a few kits. I also renewed ties with the club I had been a part of before we had to move, and those acquaintences were good support. In those few short months I managed to build several pieces of (craftsman kit) rolling stock, a couple structures, and a prize-winning diorama.

You are a talented modeler and I'm glad you're here at The Gauge to share your work and spur on the rest of us. Don't give up!

Galen

[Mileswestern]

It's absolutely EXCELLENT to see you working on your layout again, you're a modeler I've wanted for years to enjoy a scenicked layout to run those neat HOn3 locomotives through, keep at it and don't dispair!

[Ralph]

Continued best wishes on the job search Kevin. Meanwhile I'm glad you see the layout as a source for fun. The brown paint sure makes a difference! The sheer cliffs make this an exciting looking layout!
Ralph

[eightyeightfan1]

When I was out of work last year, and I came back from one of those, "Nice meeting you.We'll be in touch" interviews, I'd come home, take the good cloths off, put on the rags and head for the layout room.

Nothing like running some trains or doing some scenery to boost your moral.

[nachoman]

while waiting for glue to dry on TrainNut's caboose, I have been putting rock castings on a portion of my layout. Having a geology degree, it should be fitting that my rocks be more than just crinkly plaster. But, I am also impatient and on a tight budget. I want the geology of my layout to depict two different types of rock units, and I decided since my layout is kinda one big ridge, I will have the different rock units occupying opposite sides of the layout.

Geologists joke that they are either "hard rockers" or "soft rockers". Hard rocks would be crystalline basement rocks such as granite, schist, and well cemented sedimentary rocks. Soft rocks are weak sedimentary units, dirt, gravel, and evaporates. My layout represents a copper mining town on the edge of a mountain range in southern Arizona. Hard rocks make up the range and the ore body, whereas soft rocks make up the adjacent basin and much of my railroad's right of way. This is typical of the Basin and Range geologic area that encompasses much of the western USA between the Sierra Nevada and Wasatch mountains, and from the northern part of Nevada sown to the southern border of Arizona and into Mexico.



Anyone who has visited the area recognizes the high, steep mountains rising up from low, flat valleys. A few tens of millions of years ago, Western North America was stretched. Normal faults developed and basins dropped down between rising mountain ranges. The basins filled with sediment derived from the ranges. As drainage networks developed, the basin sediments were further eroded, leaving behind ridges of this loosely cemented sediment. This sediment is often exposed as conglomerate is common in western basins. Local Phoenix area examples examples include the head of Camelback mountain and Papago buttes in phoenix.



I want one half of my layout to represent the hard ore-bearing rocks, and the other half to represent a basin conglomerate. I haven't decided how to make the conglomerate, but I went ahead and started making the hard rocks using standard plaster-in-molds techniques. They won't me truly representative of the type of rocks I am trying to model, but they will be quick and look good enough.

[nachoman]

I only have one rubber rock mold from woodland scenics, and don't have the money to buy more. No worries there, though. I also considered the aluminum foil method of making rocks. I have had success with it before, but some extra work needs to be done to make it truly look convincing and not like crinkled aluminum foil. Carving the rocks out of foam is quite tedious, and I am just not patient enough for that these days.

Rubber rock molds are a great way to get some good-looking hard rocks. But they also have drawbacks:

1) Large rock faces will require blending various castings together
2) One needs to avoid repetitive patterns due to using the same mold more than once

Since the various molds often have distinctively different textures, using an assortment of molds sometimes leads to a rock outcrop of unrealistic contrasting textures. But using the same mold over and over leads to repetitive patterns.

There are two was to apply rock castings - wet and dry. Wet castings are applied with wet plaster directly to the scenery shell. Dry castings are allowed to dry in the mold and then glued to the scenery. I am using a combination of both methods. First, I applied a few wet castings to my rock face spaced by about 10 inches. I made sure to orient the mold in different directions so that the pattern is less recognizable. Then, i made a bunch of dry castings using the same mold, and broke the castings into pieces.

   

I then wet the casting fragments and "back buttered" the fragments with plaster and glued them to the scenery. If you don't wet the castings first, they will dry the plaster glue and it won't set up hard - the rock castings won't stick well. I used the various pieces and arranged them however they would fit. This is similar to applying a cultured stone veneer to a building, or laying a flagstone path. I tried fitting the casting fragments at tightly together as I could with minimal gaps. Having the few "wet casted" rocks already applied to the scenery helped give something to work from.

   

[nachoman]

After the casting fragments were in place, I used plaster and artists palette knife to fill in the gaps. I made sure to leave the plaster a little rough looking to help blend the casting fragments together a little better. I will need to go back and do some cleanup work because of air bubbles in the castings and do a little better blending, but so far I am happy with my results. Hopefully, because I am using random fragments of the same mold, I will avoid both the repetitiveness and the widely contrasting texture problem. I have a lot more to do, though!

[TrainNut]

That looks really good. I never thought to wet the backs of my castings before placing them. I always just slathered on wall joint compound and stuck it in place.
You know... I've got 6 different WS rock molds that your welcome to borrow.

Overhead,


Same molds, different angle...