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September 1, 2010
Backdrop Transitions
The photo on the left shows how I often handle the transition from the layout to the backdrop. First, a distant tree line is represented by tearing off a strip of synthetic steel wool (Called 'Mirlon'. Available from Beaver Tools). Note how the horizon was kept low, no more than 1.5 inches tall, and muted in color. At the base of the synthetic steel wool I worked in some Heki grass fiber mats. Finally, I soften the edges of the grass mats with tufts of Woodland Scenics green poly fiber dusted lightly with ground foam.
August 25, 2010
The Backdrop
For shelf style switching layouts that will be mounted tight against the wall it is generally not necessary to obtain separate backdrop material, just paint the wall. Begin by masking off the area to be painted extending 24 inches or so above the layout. Purchase a light powder blue paint. I don't recommend painting individual 'puffy' clouds on the backdrop as they are hard to do convincingly. Working in some very diffuse clouds works better. While the blue paint is still wet, dip your brush into some white paint and, using horizontal strokes, brush some white streaks into the still wet blue paint.
August 18, 2010
Adding Details
Detailing a layout is an inexpensive, enjoyable, relaxing, and satisfying part of the hobby. Done correctly, detailing can enhance the realism of a model railroad. Done carelessly, the details will look like a contrived caricature of an actual railroad. Simply making the decision, in generic terms, that you want 'details' for the layout and then browsing the catalogs for a grab bag of crates, barrels, and what not and then sprinkling them about probably won't yield the best results. The key is the order you approach detailing. FIRST, look at a few photos to see what details exist on the type of railroad you are modeling. Make a note of them and THEN order your parts. It's a horse before the cart sort of thing. Take a look at the photo above. A quick glance reveals: trash, road signs, pallets, whistle posts, fiber optic cable markers, and electrical boxes to name a few.
Details added to this scene include: rail stops, a pallet, trash, and discarded metal strapping made from slices of electrical tape.
August 10, 2010
Ordinary Scenes
When composing and detailing scenes it's always tempting to focus on the extra ordinary in an attempt to create interest. If realism is the goal however, we often end up with a caricature that isn't that believable if we go too far over the top. Don't under estimate the enjoyment and satisfaction that can be had from modeling the ordinary. For one, there are more examples to follow, just walk outside or study a picture for guidance. The above scene is just a typical gravel storage lot typical of what would be found in any industrial park. This was a lot of fun to put together from detailing the tractors and flatbed to weathering the dumpster to arranging the weeds. It's the type of scene that isn't overwhelming to build and something you can work on an hour or two here and there and have something of value when you're done.
August 4, 2010
Structure Weathering
Let's turn our attention now to the structures. For many, this is the best part of the hobby. When choosing which structures to include, a decision needs to be made as to the ultimate goal. Do we want to pick structures based on their individual interest and uniqueness or do we want a realistic cohesive theme. There is no right or wrong answer. This is a hobby after all. If individual interest is the goal then it is simply a matter of browsing the product offerings and purchasing whatever catches our eye. If realism is the goal (and there is no shame if that is NOT the goal) then a different approach must be taken, an approach where we model what is there. An approach where we model the ordinary and typical without cherry picking.
Regardless of which path is taken, there is no single weathering technique that can improve the look of a structure than the India ink/alcohol wash. The wash not only tones down the surface of the structure but also adds contrast, shadows, and subtle streaks. Begin by making a relatively dilute wash by pouring 1/2 teaspoon of India ink into a pint of rubbing alcohol (any strength). Pour some of the wash into a small cup and dip the tip of a soft flat ended brush into the mix. Don't saturate the brush, you want it to be moist not dripping wet. Using vertical strokes, brush the wash down the structure without stopping. If you get noticeable pooling then the brush is too wet. If you get a mottled look, wipe it clean with a cloth moistened in straight alcohol. When you're done, seal the structure with Dullcote.
For very light colored structures you might want a weaker wash of say .4 teaspoons per pint. For very dark structures you might want a mix as strong as 2 teaspoons per pint. Other looks can be obtained by airbrushing the mix on. If you use an airbrush, don't linger in one spot too long or you'll get a mottled, pooling problem. Experiment and have fun.
Different methods for applying the wash give different looks. A brush was used to apply the ink wash to the tan structure in the left photo. An airbrush was used to apply the wash to the girders of the scrap mill in the right photo.
July 21, 2010
Grass and Weeds
Heki grass fiber mats were used to line the canal in the top photo. The weeds between the rails are Silflor 'Prairie Tufts'.
Now it's time to cover up some of that bare earth. As the scenery market stands today, the two most realistic means of modeling grass are either by applying static grass or a relatively unknown product called grass fiber mats. To keep things simple and less costly, we'll be going the grass fiber route for now. Grass fiber mats are remarkably easy to work with and produce a very realistic look. Essentially, they are a fiber impregnated gauze. You simply remove them from the carton, pull off a patch, put a few drops of white glue on the layout surface and pat them in place. I suggest the Heki brand of grass fibers available from Scenic Express, specifically parts HK 1576 and HK 1577. Some of the other colors in the Heki grass fiber line are a little too brilliant for my taste. Other brands don't look as realistic to my eye. For weeds I suggest Silflor 'Prairie Tufts' and Buffalo Grass also available from Scenic Express. To apply these, place a spot of white glue where you want the weed, pull one off the sheet with tweezers and place it in the glue.
July 14, 2010
Some Clean Up
Ballast stuck to the side of the rails is pretty unsightly and should be brushed off soon after ballasting.
We've been moving along at a pretty stiff pace lately. Time to slow down, take a breath, and do some clean up and touch up. After applying the ballast your rails likely carry a substantial layer of matte medium, residual paint, and god knows what else. Although I don't recommend regular rail cleaning with abrasives, we will need to do so at this point because the build up is so heavy. Take a Brite Boy cleaning pad and firmly polish the rails. Heavy glue spots can be popped off by gently nudging a tiny screw driver at the edge of the spot. Dampen a rag with alcohol and wipe the rails clean. Examine the rails under bright light from a few angles to see if you missed anything. Once the rail is clean use only soft rags dampened in alcohol or Windex from here on out.
Your turnout points are likely stiff as well. Using your fingers, gently work them back and forth. If they don't move under slight pressure, don't force them. Work an X-acto blade carefully around the edges of the tie rod to break up the glue. If the points are glued closed, gently work a blade in behind them to break them loose. An optivisor can help you see glue any ballast stuck around the points and throw rod. There will likely be some unpainted areas where you masked off the turnout prior to painting. Go back with a small brush and touch those up.
Finally, there isn't much that looks worse than ballast stuck to the sides of the rail (see photo above). Use an old tooth brush to get the looser particles off. Remove the more stubborn pieces with the tip of a tooth pick. Don't rub metal down the sides of the rail as that will scratch the paint. Finally, take a photo, blow it up and see if you missed anything. Errant ballast that doesn't jump out with a quick visual scan has a nasty habit of being very obvious in a photo.
July 7, 2010
Ballast and Soil Base
There are a few tricks that will make your track ballast easier to apply and look dramatically better. As with a lot of things, it comes down to picking the right materials. It's actually EASIER to do it right than to use old methods that don't look as realistic. The keys are: Use natural stone based materials for the ballast and soils. Use dilute matte medium for the adhesive. Use fine mister bottles to apply the matte medium.
Many of the more readily available ballast and soil products are not rock or dirt at all but actually crushed walnut shells, ground cork, or sawdust. These products tend to float all over the place when the adhesive is applied and are too uniform in color. In short, they are hard to work with and don't look top notch after being put in place. Natural rock or soil based products are much easier to work with and look better. Arizona Rock and Mineral is an excellent supplier. Another is Smith and Son (available through Scenic Express0.
Materials
For our purposes, lets use Arizona Rock and Mineral at www.rrscenery.com. I usually call the owner, Phil Anderson directly and place my order. He'll want a minimum order of six bags. I suggest the following:
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2 bags of part no. 138-2 (CSX.SP.Wabash HO Scale) Nothing magic about this mix. Its just a good 'salt and pepper' blend.
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2 bags of part no. 138-1 (CSX.SP.Wabash, N Scale)
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1 bag of part no. 2000 (Industrial Dirt)
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1 bag of part no. 1090 (Earth)
You'll also need one jug of pre-mixed, dilute matte medium from Scenic Express Part no EX0020. Go to a beauty supply store and pick up some mister bottles that produce a very fine mist.
Lets start with the soil base. Take your Arizona Rock Materials above and create a mix of your liking combining the N scale CSX ballast, industrial dirt, and/or earth. Don't use the HO ballast for the soil base. Mask off the areas you don't want soil such as structure bases. Smear a very thin film of white glue on the layout surface. Using a small strainer, lightly sprinkle the soil onto the white glue. Put water and a splash or two of rubbing alcohol into the mister bottle. Starting from about 12" up, lightly apply the mist so that the soil is not disturbed. As the soil gets damp you can work down lower. Next, put the dilute matte medium in the mister bottle and spray it over the soil base. Be careful not to blast the soil away or drench it to the point where there are large puddles. Let dry.
Now for the track ballast. Mix some HO and N scale CSX ballast together in a small cup. Staying clear of your turnout mechanism, apply your track ballast. This is an area where it's easy to add more if you apply too little ballast but a real pain to correct if you apply too much. To be safe, just bring the ballast up about half way on the ties. Use a soft water color brush to brush errant particles off of the rail sides and ties. There is nothing that kills the look more than ballast stuck to the rail sides. Once you have a neat application down, mist the ballast with your alcohol/water mix as before. Follow up with a mist of the matte medium. You have enough matte medium down when you can just begin to see the white of it between the particles. If it is being pulled down into the mix and you see none of the white, you don't have enough down. Don't over saturate though to the point where you have thick puddles that cause the ballast to run. Let dry. Inspect your work and if it looks like too much of the tie sides are showing CAREFULLY dust on a second layer of ballast to bring the level up and repeat the fixative process. It is far easier to use this 'go slow, two layer' approach than try to chisel away a ballast application that was put on too heavily.
June 29, 2010
Painting the Track
With the track feeders soldered to the sides of the rail, we can now paint the track. This is an area where it is just as easy to do it right as it is to do it wrong. It's all about color selection. Using the correct colors will make a dramatic difference in how the layout looks. If you look at the prototype, rail color varies all over the map from tan, to orange, to dark gray. A distinction has to be made here though between model and prototype. As reliable as Atlas and Walthers track is, the downside is that the spike heads are substantially over size. If you paint the rail a rusty orange or light tan, attention will be drawn to this deficiency. If you paint the rail a darker color, the oversize detail is downplayed. So, that's the trick, we'll be painting the track a darker color.
Before we start, Atlas turnouts feed electrical power to the points via an electrical pad at the heel of the points as well as the tip of the points. Mask off these electrical contact areas as well as the throw bar area of the points with small patches of masking tape. Once that is done, take the module outside for painting. The small size of the project is an advantage in this case and applying solvent paints outside is safer on many fronts.
The suggested color mix is as follows: Apply a base coat of Floquil Roof Brown first. Floquil produces this color in a spray can which is handy. After the Roof Brown has been applied, immediately follow up with a light dusting of Floquil Grimy Black. If you ignore this suggestion, and go with Rail Brown, Floquil Rust, or any other lighter color you will regret it.
Immediately after painting the rail (as in a minute or two) clean the rail heads by moistening a small block of soft wood with mineral spirits paint thinner and wiping it across the rail heads. If you wait too long, cleaning the rail becomes much harder. Finally, remove the masking tape from the switches and touch up the unpainted areas with a small brush.
Here are the part numbers for the aerosol paints:
Floquil Roof Brown: Part no. 130070
Floquil Grimy Black: Part no. 130013
June 22, 2010
Wiring
It's time to power up our little layout. Many modelers dread wiring so this is the perfect platform to get a little practice in without being overwhelmed by wires running everywhere. For track feeders I suggest 18 gauge solid hook up wire which can be purchased at Radio Shack or an electronics shop. The 14 gauge power bus wire can be purchased by the foot from Home Depot. Drilling the holes for the feeder wires is much easier if you use a longer drill bit. These are known in the trade as 'aircraft bits' and can be picked up inexpensively online. Pick up a 6" long, 1/8" diameter bit. A more detailed tutorial on soldering and wiring can be found HERE. Wiring is not that difficult if you: use a 35w, pencil style, soldering iron with a CLEAN tip, use liquid solder flux, and use thin solder. Suitcase style tap connectors (Radio Shack part no. 64-3052) make connecting the feeders to the main bus a breeze. You want the 14-18 size connectors.
June 16, 2010
Let's Lay Some Track
After you have your bench work in order and trimmed with a neatly done fascia, it's time to turn your attention to the track. Since your extruded foam base is likely pink or blue, it's a good idea to give it a quick base coat of earth tone paint prior to laying the track. This will make it less likely that the pink or blue will show through your ballast or scenery base. Inexpensive acrylic craft paints will do the trick.
Next, mark your track locations lightly on the foam surface using loose pieces of track as templates. Industrial track tends to have very little ballast profile so we will NOT be laying cork roadbed in this example and will be placing the track flat on the foam scenery base instead. Make up your straight track pieces by trimming them to length with Xuron flush cut rail nippers. Make sure the flat face of the nippers faces the section of rail you want to keep as the other side of the cut will have an un-wanted taper. Even with the rail nippers there are often small burrs on the bottom of the rail at the cut. Run a a few passes along the bottom of the rail with a file to take these off. You will also notice that a few ties will need to be trimmed away in order to make room for the rail joiners. After trimming away a few of the flex track ties slip the specialty Atlas 'end ties' back over the end. The specialty end ties have a notch for your joiners.
It takes very little adhesive to hold the track down. Run a thin bead of white glue down the track centerline. Start with the main track running down the center and set it into the white glue. Follow up with remaining diverging tracks. Take pains to make sure the track diverging from the turnouts follows a clean path without any kinks. Don't solder the rail joiners and shoot for a gap of 1/16" at the track joints to allow for expansion. If you need help keeping the track in place put in some temporary push pins to hold the track until it dries. If you decide you want to move the track later, moisten it with a water/alcohol mix and slide it to the new position.
Xuron flush cut rail nippers assure you will have a square end to the rail after cutting it (left). Atlas end ties are a handy way of filling the rail gaps where track joints meet (center). Make sure your track flows smoothly into and out of the turnouts (right photo).
Here's an example of Atlas track laid directly on extruded foam bench work to represent an industrial right of way. Note the smoothly flowing curves. Note the push pins that are temporarily holding the track in place while the glue dries.
June 11, 2010
Initial Materials For the 'Skills Builder'
Let's take a look at some basic materials to get the 'Skills Builder' up and running.
Bench Work
There are a couple of ways to go for the bench work depending on how permanent you want the project to be. Keep in mind that this could be a pure training exercise to be disposed of after the lessons are learned. It could also be built into something more permanent.
Option 1: Purchase an 18" by 80" hollow core door panel at Home Depot or Lowes. This will run you about $25. Also pick up a slab of 3/4" x 8ft. extruded foam. This is the pink or blue material in the insulation department. Cut the foam board to 18" to match the width of the door slab. Using adhesive caulk or foam board adhesive, glue the foam to the top of the door panel. If you want a nicer, more finished, look, frame the edges of the door/foam panel with floor trim. For the staging cassette, a simple 1x4 (6 to 8 feet long) plank will suffice. If you need the bend leading around the corner to the staging cassette, use 3/4" plywood.
Option 2: The quick and dirty method is to simply use a 2" thick piece of extruded foam and cut it to 18" in width.
Track
For this project we will be using Atlas code 83.
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Code 83 flex track: Part no. 500. 10 pieces (30 feet)
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Code 83 number 6 left turnouts: Part no. 563 Quantity of (2)
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Code 83 number 6 right turnout: Part no. 564 Quantity of (3)
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Rail joiners: Part no. 170 (2 packs)
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24" sectional track for the curve to staging (if needed): Part no. 536 (1 pack) If you want a tighter curve use part no. 535 for a 22" radius curve or part no. 532 for 18" radius
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Atlas end ties: Part no. 598 (3 packs). These hand little pieces slip on the end of your flex track and fill the gap in places you've had to trim back ties to clear the rail joiners.
June 9, 2010
Introducing the 'Skills Builder'
There are a number of reasons for building a small layout. Perhaps you have limited space, limited funds, or both. Maybe you expect to move and don't want to commit to a large project. Often overlooked is that a small, simple layout is a great learning platform. In addition, the simplicity increases the odds of success. Regardless, I'm a firm believer that whatever your circumstances are, there are significant advantages to physically building a layout. Just doing something is a huge morale booster and greatly increases a person's enjoyment of the hobby. Over the coming months I'll be doing a series of blog entries on a layout designed to get somebody started. I've named it 'The Skills Builder'. The target audience will be those new to the hobby, whether they be students or retirees. The project would be practical for those in the military or a student living in a dorm. It is small enough that it could be disposed of when its served its training purpose. As simple as the plan is, it can provide deceptively more operational interest than would appear at first glance. If built with care, it would be an attractive addition to an office or den. As we go along special attention will be given towards keeping the cost low and thus within reach of the teenager on an allowance or retiree on a fixed income. No more excuses. Let's get started building a layout!
