progress pics

[J&A_RR]

NOTHING TO SEE HERE... MOVE ALONG

a little bit-o-progress. I am going for a commercial area on the outskirts of town. trim out work on the warehouse and oil tanks will begin tonight along with scenery around them. I painted straws for pipes and the tanks are oatmeal container cut in half. the warehouse is cereal box. my first scratch built stuff. but hey, my biggest fan is four years old so he is excited about anything. please make suggestions on other stuff to use for scratch building. again this 4X8 layout is a commercial warehouse zoning on the outskirts of town so that we can go into some hilly scenery with trees and what not. tanks and building are not in there final spot.

what I am looking at for ideas

 

[J&A_RR]

the front

 

[trainwhiz20]

J&A,

That looks awesome! I love the tanks. (I take it they're coffee cans? or something similar?) Very creative!

I know some companies make seperate window and door castings you can choose, and you can apply these to you scratchbuilt structures.

You could use those little coffee straws as smaller pipes/loading tubes for RR cars, for liquids, such as oil. It would certainly be cheaper than buying Walther's Interstate F&O like I did!

Another industry could be just a loading platform, which is easily constructed from basic styrene or a small box painted a concrete color. Throw a worker, forklift, some boxes, park a boxcar on the spur, and you're all set!

Some ideas. But it looks like you're doing just great without any help! Keep us updated. Wonderful progress.:thumb:

 

[J&A_RR]

I promise all this will come together soon ops: but a question first....

what does 12 inches translate to feet in HO scale? I am making a grain elevator from scratch and have made the silos 12 inches tall. Not too worried about being to scale that much but was curios how tall those would be in HO scale.
Thanks.

the silos just have some primer on them, but I have six total and will work on the rest tomorrow and post more pics.

sorry we are going slow, hopefully not boring ya'll.

 

[J&A_RR]

still need some work on paint and detail but here's the work in progress.
I have a new found respect for you that scratch build all the amazing scenes I see on here. I have not the time nor the patients to tackle the projects I see on here. I look forward to doing it right(layout that is) next time when the boys are older and can really help. That is of course they continue to like trains but who knows. I know I will.
again, this is only a test pic, nothing is in it's place right.

 

[Drew1125]

Looking good John!
Nice work on those trees!
:thumb: :thumb:

 

[Ralph]

what does 12 inches translate to feet in HO scale? I am making a grain elevator from scratch and have made the silos 12 inches tall. Not too worried about being to scale that much but was curios how tall those would be in HO scale.

The ratio between HO and the real world is 1:87 so your 12 inch silos are 87 feet tall. they look just right in your pics. How did you get such nice seamless caps on their tops?
Ralph

 

[cabdriver]

J&A, your layout is looking awesome! :thumb: :thumb: I can't believe you made those grain elevators from scratch -- they look great! I like the weathering you did on them.

 

[Matthyro]

This is when a layout gets really interesting. Good progress John and boys

 

[J&A_RR]

How did you get such nice seamless caps on their tops?

the silos are thick cardboard rollers that I cut down to size. the thickness made it easy to glue the caps on top which are cut out from cereal box. I did cover the side of the silos with brown paper bag to cover seam on them.
thanks guys

 

[jasbourre]

Looks good keep up the good work.
I was wondering the same about the "nice seamless caps on their tops?"
Thanks for the answer.

 

[J&A_RR]

finally got the hill done. I want to add a few more trees and some more ground covering. need to make a run to the LHS.

 

[J&A_RR]

the barn is something I am working on for a small farm scene in another corner. I don't even know why I am keeping the lifelike trees around. I think the fall color ones will look nice with the barn.

I added six inches to the lenght of the layout for the hill. the track was all the way up to the edge not allowing any scenery except in the corners. I badly want to put in a background soon to hide the bare walls in the garage that need painting themselves. one day.. one day

 

[J&A_RR]

as you can see, there are some good gaps in between the tress that I want to fill with more trees. they are so easy to make it is nice knowing I can do as many as I want.

 

[Matthyro]

Looks to me like you just need some underbrush to fill the gaps guys. Nice photos.