Gary S Wrote:Hey all, although good progress is being made, not much to report from the layout room. Just mundane things like laying track on some unfinished spurs, getting caught up on all the ballasting, and doing some basic terrain features here and there, mostly ditches and culverts. Am also contemplating removing a couple of spurs at the "Hobby Industrial Park," putting more distance from the yard.... a little more room to just run trains in the rural areas.
For those of us living vicariously through you, I say - more pics please! Even if it is the mundane stuff - which we have all seen is not so mundane in your capable hands.
Andrew
Update: Been doing alot out in the room:
Did a bunch of ballasting and added dirt as the initial ground cover on many spots around the layout. Also painted many feet of rail and ties.
Then started on a long expanse of backdrop behind the southern Pacific Interchange. There will be 3D trees in front of the metal building, and to the right, there will be a 3D "backdrop" metal building similar to the painted one. Moving to the right, some trees, a field, and a large conglomoration of buildings. The entire string of backdrop photos is from Mykawa Road and Airport Blvd, with a bit of cropping and artist's license to make things look right and be easier to paint.
[
attachment=20013]
[
attachment=20012]
Put some ground foam down behind the team track to see how it would look. Not glued yet, just playing around.
[
attachment=20011]
Found a place to put the grain elevator, and built the ground up to the proper level.
[
attachment=20010]
Put in a culvert under the spur to the pipe yard:
[
attachment=20009]
Put in a wooden culvert and added lighter colored ballast over the existing darler ballast on a 20 foot long section of the layout that was used from the old layout.
[
attachment=20008]
Ballasted the SP Interchange and yard.
[
attachment=20007]
Started prep on putting a concrete surface all around the RIP track.
[
attachment=20006]
And found a spot for two of Kurt's buildings, these will be used as the starting point for a floor tile manufacturing facility. Will have several buildings of different heights, silos, dust collectors, piping...
[
attachment=20005]
And bought the flooring for the building. Don't know when I will install it, but it should cut down the dust from the concrete floor.
[
attachment=20004]
Welcome back Gary
I was wondering what you were up to and I see you have been very busy. Everything just looks great.
Charlie
Thanks Charlie. I've been monitoring the forum, just not posting much. I've been quite motivated in the train room, as the October layout tour is quickly approaching. I'm hoping to take off a bunch of days throughout the summer so I can get some stuff completed.
Gary, we had a discussion some month ago about doing ballasting or track painting first. You voted for ballasting first because you have a method of painting the tracks later without to much hassle. Could you post some photos of your method painting tracks on a ready ballasted track? Looks like you did it a lot during the last weeks
Thanks for the update Gary! Looks fantastic!
Andrew
Thanks Andrew
Reinhard, at the moment, I don't have any ballasted track that needs to be painted. However, I can take a piece of spare track and take some photos of my method. Will do that tonight.
Gary S Wrote:Thanks Andrew
Reinhard, at the moment, I don't have any ballasted track that needs to be painted. However, I can take a piece of spare track and take some photos of my method. Will do that tonight.
Hi Gary, I for one, will also be reading this. :-) I've been 'over eager' in some cases, and ballasted before I painted. So if you have a great technique , I'm all ears & eyes :-)
Koos
Thanks Tetters
Reinhard, Koos, here is the paint technique:
1/4" to 5/16" flat brush:
[
attachment=20019]
Take scissors and cut half the bristles out, running lengthwise:
[
attachment=20018]
Here's the paint. Cheap water-based craft paint. This is the big bottle that they make. Burnt Umber.
[
attachment=20017]
Pick up some full strength paint, then place the brush in the groove of the track, don't have to be all that careful, and with practice, you can place it right where it needs to be. Then lift the brush straight up (blue arrow), or at a 45 degree angle (red arrow). Once you get the feel for it, you can start moving the brush more and more horizontal (green arrow) to spread the paint.
[
attachment=20016]
Once you have the technique, a time saver is to get more paint on the brush, then put it on the rail in several spots. This requires less brush loading.
[
attachment=20015]
Then take the brush and spread the spots, since I am right-handed, I work from left to right. The ballast in the photo is not glued, because I didn't have any places where I had ballasted track that still needed to be painted.
[
attachment=20014]
EDIT:
This does take two coats to get complete coverage of the shine from the metal rails. The colors can also be varied by mixing black or dark gray with the burnt umber to get different shades. I usually do the first coat in the burnt umber, then make a few color variations which go on at random for the second coat.
Penciled in most of the backdrop I've been working on, and started blocking in the various buildings. Most of these are back in the trees, and only portions will be showing through.
[
attachment=20020]
A quick comment on backdrops...
It is conventional wisdom that the backdrop isn't supposed to be detailed so it doesn't distract from the trains. But, on a shelf layout, we certainly don't have a problem with building a backdrop flat, maybe 1 or 2 inches deep, greatly detailed, and placed right against the backdrop. So wouldn't a nicely painted building be essentially the same as a backdrop flat? So perhaps the standard wisdom isn't quite correct?
Gary,
You are certainly disproving the common wisdom! I'd have to view the layout in person and spend some time operating it in order to get the full experience and draw a real conclusion, but from what I've seen on this thread, I'd say you're making your point quite well.
Your rail painting technique is what I used on my timesaver, right down to the paint color choice, if memory serves. For that case I had layed ties and balast before ever laying rail.
The way I learned to hand lay track was to lay ties in a bed of yellow glue, then after that dries sand down the tops. Once you're sure everything is level, then you gouge, poke and generally distress the ties for age and stain them. Weathering is easy without the rail in the way. Balast comes next - no worries about getting it on the rail! Finally rail is laid in place. Even using 'weathered' blackened rail you still need to touch it up where solder joints gleam. So I painted it in a very similar fashion, except I used a small (#0) round brush.
Another 'common wisdom' you seem to be ignoring (and I'm glad!) is the whole notion of a valance. Hiding lights behind a little vertical curtain only seems to draw my eye up into that well lit space. Maybe I'm too tall for the designs I've seen, but most of the time they just get in the way or create visual clutter in the periphery.
You keep right on disproving conventional wisdom.
It's working!
Galen
Gary S Wrote:...Reinhard, Koos, here is the paint technique:...
Gary, thanks a lot for the tutorial. It works great with your steady hand and hawk eyes. The result is amazing. I did it in a similar way ones when I forgot to paint the rails. It ended up with nasty brown ballast... wrong hand and eyes
Thanks for the painting tutorial :-)
I have to say I did try it myself previously too, a bit like Reinhard, with a number '0' brush, and using some Humbrol Enamel rust coloured paint.
I think your choice of a stiff brush is probably a good thing to try next for me. The usual small brushes are too soft and the brush hairs spread, resulting in paint in places where I don't want it.
I'll give it a shot soon :-)
Koos
