Garage Layout

[DeckRoid]

I found out why all most pics went bye bye... my internet folks killed off all .jpgs from their server because someone was keeping icky pics there. They sent an email saying sorry. Oh well.

I will do a quick review. I had a radio program where I had local musicians come in and do interviews and play a bit. It was a nice studio, but the radio station decided to sell to a large corporation.





Here are the construction pics.

 

[DeckRoid]

Then I started to lay some track.









Of course, the layout would change 3 or 4 times before the final one.

 

[DeckRoid]

Then I had to get some new-ish locos and rolling stock to run, so I hit ebay and the LHS for the sales. Note the wife not too sure about what I am doing...

 

[DeckRoid]

For Father's Day, I got some gift cards to the LHS, so I wanted to see if I could get a lift on my layout, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted.

This is a good lesson: Have a clear and concise plan before just gluing and laying track everywhere.







After a while trying to figure how to attach a mountain to this layout, I decided to take it all out and think about what I really wanted to do and which railway I wanted to model. It took me about a month of rethinking and planning before I started again. While going through some old family photo albums at my parents house, I found the Northern Pacific line. I remember my family talking about the NP and how they would ride the North Coast Limited.

 

[DeckRoid]

I had the Railway I wanted and the layout. Then I started scenicing one corner as a test to see what it would look like.







Then following Gary S.'s really captivating tree making tutorial over in The Academy, I did these.





Then I had to plant them. I just had to, even though my test area was not permanent.

 

[DeckRoid]

So that ended up looking really nice. Or so I thought for a beginner. I have seen some folks here who are true masters of the Scenic and I preform Kow-Tow to them all.

 

[DeckRoid]

I kept putting off building my mountain/tunnel for a long, long time. I was real nervous about attempting to go there. I didn't want to hash it up and have a real ugly thing on my layout that would be 1.) an eye sore and even worse 2.) an embarrassment.

It sat like this for the longest time.



Then it was like for a couple of weeks while I read everything I could on how to proceed from the cardboard form.





Then after reading TrainClown's great tutorial in The Academy (a running theme, no?) I came up with this.



This was 2 layers, and I put a 3rd on this morning. I think I will 2 more paper layers then my last layer is going to be cotton sheets that someone in my club suggested to me. St. Vinnie's has great deals on plain white, flat sheets. $1.00!!

 

[DeckRoid]

While out shopping one day with the wife, I found these plastic trees at a craft store. They were in the cake decorating section and sold for .69 cents per package of 5 and .59 cents for 5 smaller ones. I bought a few then hit the LHS for some Conifer foam. Got home and sprayed 'em brown with some paint, then did the hairspray/foam thing and poof! Trees for my mountain.






Did you bring the bread crumbs?!?



I liked the way they came out, so I went back and emptied the shelves. I still have 10 more bags to get thru! I think I will like having the tamaracks interspersed amongst my wee forest.

I have no name yet for the mountain beyond Mt. Lookatthat. The smaller trees are going to go further up the mountain for forced perspective. I ordered an N scale radio tower with red LEDs that slowly come one then fade along with a small N scale outbuilding to put next to it. I will try to find an early 50's N scale pickup or something to put there.

I think it's coming along nicely. I am having the time of my life doing this. My daughter loves it, but she is 2 1/2 and loves everything... my wife likes that I am home and doing something crafty instead of zoning on the Tube.

Anyhoo... more to come. I just keep adding to this post so as not to clog up the Gauge with 3 or 4 posts.

 

[jesso]

Your mountain is turning out great! Have fun with the trees, they are looking good. Can't wait to see more pictures. Make sure your get pictures of your mountain with the white sheets!

 

[Ginns]

Wow! Those trees sure came out lookin great, and they are the right price :thumb:. I can't wait to see what you do with them on the mountain. I think it is always good to jump into things, you can usually even come up with something that looks pretty good :mrgreen:.

Ginns

 

[nachoman]

A few of those conifers look like they got hit by bark beetles. Nice detail! And they all look great.

Kevin

 

[wickman]

Coming along nicely , with that foam board base I bet ( if you wanted) you could carve out a nice river and add a custom made old bridge.

 

[Pitchwife]

DeckRoid, your cake decoration trees are a stroke of GENIOUS!! :goldcup: I did a 5 minute Google search for them and came up with these.

Novelty items for cake decorating

Christmas Picks and Novelties - Country Kitchen SweetArt
and
Plants & Trees Cake Decoration

and I'm sure that there are more just the same. I also came up with this airbrush for cakes!

Kroma-Jet Compressor Only: Bakers Tools

I haven't priced air brushes very much, but that seems like a very good price. And if it will use food coloring it should handle acrylics just as well.

Who knew? :wave7::row1:bounce7

 

[DeckRoid]

Thanks for the feedback. I will indeed post pics when the ripped sheet is covering the mountain.

As for rivers and such, I have thought to do it, but I am practicing on a spare sheet I have and its not coming out well. I messed up when I put the foam down. Its the wrong kind. Beads. However, I am starting to think that with this paper mache thing, I should be able to form a bank that I like.

I have the crumpled aluminum foil painted black already to go, but I still have to make my openings. I am of two minds here. Make the openings THEN put the final layer on, or wait and do that last? I don't want to have my mountain abruptly start and end; I think it should start out small and grow, maybe 4 or 5 inches away from the tunnel opening. Any input?

George

 

[Go Big1]

George, your layout is coming along nicely. Well done! :thumb:

 

[DeckRoid]

As promised... Mountain Pics











George

 

[DeckRoid]

Here are s'more of Mt. Lookathat.











George

 

[DeckRoid]

I applied the last layer last night. Ripped up sheets, actually there were 2 layers of sheets. I could still read the newspaper underneath!

This morning I sprayed it all with tan-ish spray paint I found at the local hardware store... another kind of LHS, I guess...

Then I used the same wallpaper glue I used to put the newsprint and sheets on and sprinkled Earth Tone ground foam to put down a simple layer.

After this dries, probably tonight or tomorrow, I will put a few trees in to see what it looks like. If it starts to come together, like I hope it all will, I will add some deadfall and other colors and in one spot I will add some wee gravel I sifted from dirt last week.

And what mountain is complete without one of these bad boys?





I tried to capture what the top light is doing, but my camera and I are feuding. The top light slowly lights then fades then a slight pause then it does it again. Its an Iron Penguin product that my Ma-in-Law got me. (who knew she liked me so much?)

I painted it red/white/red/white/red like the ones I see around my area, but I wanted the older style fading light as I model Fall 1955. Its an N scale tower, and I am going to find an N scale building to put up there with it to house the controller for it. Maybe even put a truck or something up there as well, or maybe even tower workers hanging from the tower itself... hmmm... maybe.

Anyhoo... that's all so far. More to come.

George

 

[DeckRoid]

Here we have Tree Planting Day 1.









Soon to come, Tree Planting Day 2.

But first I gotta get more trees ready to go. Not a hard task, by any means, but just tedious. Cant wait until I get to ballast again...

George

 

[DeckRoid]

As you can tell, I am slow at updating my layout stuff. But that's about to change. I now have 6 overhead shop lamps instead of just 2. That means, I will no longer going crazy about lighting, now I can concentrate on going crazy over layout stuff.

When I last left you, I had just planted roughly 70 trees. Well, I don't have a GOOD picture of my wee forest on top of Mt. Lookatthat yet, but I will soon. This is after planting 125 more...

Here is what I do have:





Here is a before shot of the depot:


And here it is after they graveled the parking lot: