That looks fantastic. I am congratulating you on a wonderful start to a nice layout. You guys keep raising the bar on the realism and "WOW, that looks great!" I have my work cut out for me to keep up!

Fantastic!

Thank you all for the lots of very friendly comments.

Beside a lot of other activities I could spare some time during xmas and start working in the very left side of the layout. That is the hatch in front of the door. No loading docks for cars are planned as I do never park a car on the hatch (They might become flying cars...). The rear building is almost completed while the front one is under construction.
I spray that large cardboard buildings with the can on the balcony. I hope it will not freeze the next days or the work has to suspended.



ps. the truck is used for testing at the front building on the hatch and is only temporary placed at the tank unloading facility.

The tank car unloading dock got a fence. I did not want to fight a second time with the Walthers fence and I did not have the guts to try Kurt's well documented fence. I tried the easy way and bought the fence from Micron Art. It is really easy to build and give good results for the not so gifted craftsman. I glued needles to the posts for easy installation. However, you have to pay a steep price...


The buildings an the bridge in front of the door are almost completed. The front building got some fantasy tanks and piping to look more interesting. The truck sits on a light gray painted stick in the ground.


That completes phase 1. All structures are in place but absolute no details and no weathering has been done. That will be the job for 2010!

That's a very nice layout!!

The fence you've installed definitely makes this scene look great.
Maybe add some warning signs for good measure?

Reinhard-Very nice work on your layout.Great detail work.
Bob

Great Job! I like the way you handled each building...they work together, but clearly are separate in function and form, and therefore all interesting.

Great job indeed.

faraway Wrote:oh yes, I would like to see the photos. Can you put them on a server for viewing and may be downloading?

I'm sorry for neglecting the above. I've just been totally absorbed in my construction project for the last 3 weeks. I should have some time this coming week to get some more photos of the industrial areas and post them here in a thread or two, in the Industries forum.

Back to your layout. it is looking really good. Who makes the fencing? Or is it scratchbuilt?

faraway Wrote:The tank car unloading dock got a fence. I did not want to fight a second time with the Walthers fence and I did not have the guts to try Kurt's well documented fence. I tried the easy way and bought the fence from Micron Art. It is really easy to build and give good results for the not so gifted craftsman. I glued needles to the posts for easy installation. However, you have to pay a steep price...

Hmmm - googling for Micron Art fence, I find this one ? http://www.micronart.com/93405_HOchainlink.html

$31 - a bit of money, but they sure look good. Thanks for the tip about Micron Art - they also have some other stuff - like some very elaborate gates and some 1910 and 20s cars, and some baggage cars.

Quote:The buildings an the bridge in front of the door are almost completed. The front building got some fantasy tanks and piping to look more interesting. The truck sits on a light gray painted stick in the ground.

That's a good idea - pretty hard to see against the concrete in the shade under the car, even when you know it is there, and it is a good idea to prevent the car from becoming a flying missile when you open your gate :-)

How did you fasten down the buildings ?

Smile,
Stein

steinjr Wrote:... Hmmm - googling for Micron Art fence, I find this one ? http://www.micronart.com/93405_HOchainlink.html

$31 - a bit of money, but they sure look good. Thanks for the tip about Micron Art - they also have some other stuff - like some very elaborate gates and some 1910 and 20s cars, and some baggage cars.

How did you fasten down the buildings ?
...

Stein, yes, that is the fence I used. The unloading dock needs four strips or 1 1/3 packages or about $40 sold in Germany for 40€.... You might want to try Kurt's method first.

The buildings are glued down with 1:1 diluted white glue (for wood). I put weights on the building and made seam of glue all around the building (made of card board) with a fine brush. I did the same with much more expensive plastic buildings. It is strong enough to hold them in place but you can break them off with tight grip for reuse. This cardboard buildings would not survive that procedure-

Whis Wrote:...Maybe add some warning signs for good measure?

That and all the other details will be the task for 2010. The entire layout has no signs, no traffic signs, no markers on the roads, no people no nothing...

I'm also going to slightly change two other aspects.
1. The trees with very dedicated stem will be replaced by palm trees. The trees in Florida look more like large bushes but no so much like e.g. oaks with a clear expressed stem. However, it's an industrial park and there are only very few trees at all.
2. While the light ground made of sand is ok it must be covered more by green. Florida must be a great place for all kind of grass. The ground is totally covered with some kind of green very much like in the Netherlands or in Germany. There are not much spots of bare ground like in the West of the US.

Reinhard, I like that curved structure on lift-out section and the tank car unloading is a real eye catcher! The Micron Art fence looks very good and it looks like it very easy to install, unfortunately it is a bit too steeply priced for me.

I have got a problem with my roofs. I did paint most of them light gray. That looks nice but the prototype looks "some what" different.
For reference we may use the roofs at the 58th St in Miami
http://maps.google.de/maps?hl=de&ie=UTF8...03433&z=19
or
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=n940mk8...top=0~0~0~

What are they made of? Is it tar paper very old and with a lot of washed out black tar? I know some techniques to do roofs with tar paper on model roofs but none will produce something like that. There is some kind of regular pattern but it is not from the rolls of tar paper and they are not rectangular from some kind of clapboard.
I picked this roofs intentional as it is a well known place in this group but you can find that kind of roofs all over the states.
How to do that on my layout?

My first idea is to do it with a black dry brush on the light gray roof.

I would create a roof like this by, indeed, painting it light gray and then use dark gray chalk (powder) to get the distinctive patterns. My experience is that you can create perfect gradients from light gray to dark gray, or even black, by using this method. I believe dry brushing is more effective for highlighting details and such then it is for creating smooth color gradients.

Hope this helps and I'm very curious for the results, whatever method you will use

faraway Wrote:What are they made of? Is it tar paper very old and with a lot of washed out black tar? I know some techniques to do roofs with tar paper on model roofs but none will produce something like that..

Reinhard, my guess is that the roofs are what is known as composition roofing, otherwise called tar and gravel. Roofing felt is applied to the sub-structure with the joints sealed with tar, then the entire roof is covered with tar and a layer of pea-gravel.

Wayne