Recent content by Donn Welton

Tight Turnouts I am surprised at how tight the turnouts are going into the fueling station. Or is this just an illusion due to the angle? Now a totally unfair question: Can you guess what this might be in a model turnout? #6? Cheers, Donn

Adding rocks I have a related question to the last: how would you add pre-cast rock faces? Would you recommend doing that before or after you use your technique?

What seems to be missing in this thread is this important question: what kind of rock is one attempting to model? Well defined strata work well for sedimentary rock; using the tiles as a base to which one applies a fair amount of plaster, hydrocol, etc., would be better for igneous, etc. rock...

Many thanks, everyone. This is a real help. Donn

I have just finished phase 1 of getting my basement ceiling in order for a train room and have a large number of scrap pieces of Armstrong ceiling tiles left over. I have seen somewhere that the edges make interesting mountain sides or "cuts". The ragged edges look like they have potential...

Brakie, Is installing the Soundtrax DSD-AT100LC in your RS-1's difficult? Where do you mount the speaker and could you do this without cutting away part of the metal that is used to weigh the engine? A brief list of the steps you took to mount the decoder and the speaker would be a help to...

Web site for DCC One of the very best places to find information on DCC that is both readable and rich is on Loy's Toys. The address: http://www.loystoys.com/dcc-topics.html Especially helpful is the discussion of turnouts. Cheers, Donn

Thanks, Jim, for your suggestions. I just finished painting the walls today and decided to do them a uniform blue. I am hoping that when I go to mist the mountains, as Gavin suggests, that this will help lighten the horizon and give good contrast with the sky above it. If that does not work...

Cueing off Gavin Miller's thread in the academy on painting a backdrop and distant mountains, does anyone have any uggestions as to how one can paint water (in from of those lovely mountains)? The Rutland's yard in Burlington, Vermont was on Lake Champlain, with the mountains of New York...

I have read Galvin's excellent account of painting clouds on a backdrop but have two questions. Is the blue first painted on the backdrop a uniform blue or should it be darker at the top and lighter as it descends to the earth? If the latter, how does one achieve this without a spray gun using...

Can you tell, Gavin, from the photos as to just what material is that is used for the benchwork and what the thickness might be? It looks like a thin plywood to me and not more than 1/2". I would like to use 1/2" to save on weight but the two sheets that I bought recently are three play and...

Getting to the photos I was hoping, Gavin, that the pictures alone might carry enough information to be interesting to you and others. But I now realize that the address only gets one to the home page. Try this: 1. http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/html/framepage.htm 2. Click on Fotos 3...

Light benchwork On the issue of light wood for benchwork, take a look at http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/html/framepage.htm and begin with earlier weeks (on the bottom). What kind of wood and how thick do you do you think this is? As I am about to begin benchwork I am wondering whether...

For a facinating week by week documentation of the building of the Minatur Wunderland layout in Hamburg, Germany take a look at http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/html/framepage.htm The benchwork is especially interestng. Donn

Middle Island I would like to straighten out the middle island ("move west") as you suggest, Cid, and also make it 12' long. That might also allow me to double the track after the bridge (on the left side) and thereby have a passing track in front of Middlebury Station that would continue...