Eastern Tn logging on the DG CC & W RR 1928

zathros

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Epic build, and layout. The water is awesome, maybe add a fine water aerator, like used in fish tanks, that way the water is frothy/bubbly as it comes down those rocks, like real falls. Fantastic instructional, and detailing of the your build. You explain everything you are doing so well. This sharing of knowledge makes this a fantastic thread. :)
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
Water doesn’t scale well. Pour water in a clear glass, and look at it carefully where it touches the glass it curves up some. This effect is called surface tension. If you look at a real steam, it is pretty much invisible, but in an HO stream, the effect would be 82 times larger.

Then you have the color issue. Clean water is clear, but water sometimes appears blue, reflecting the sky, or green, due likely to microscopic plant life, or brown , if carrying sediment.

Lastly you would have evaporation, the water level would need to be tended carefully, and your layout would be exposed to more humidity, increasing the chance of mold or mildew.

Real water is an idea that won’t die; folks have been chasing it for years; it’s a lot of work, has some built in problems; and never looks as good as it sounds..
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
Through shaving one rock face with a knife, and belt sanding the other; I got the bridge to fit properly, One of the rock faces cracked in multiple places, but these are so old they date back to when Tom and I could get fabudrape. The plaster bonded to the fabric , and that left me with a cracked rock face, rather than a pile of rubble.

I was able to flex the cracks, squirt hot glue in the cracks, and then flex them back in place. I Gabe the rocks in place, with some white glue to hold them in position till I do more scenery around them.

Before the bridge gets put in position, I’ll want to paint the backdrop, as parts of the bridge are 1/2 inch from the backdrop , so it will be impossible once the bridge is in place .

Got a lot of scrap lumber, but I’m not going to use oak or pool

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Also I took a niece of foam scenery extension off the old mountain, and started the working it for an HOn3 display stand.

I added a grade crossing, it needs some ballasting, a building, some guard rails along the cliff, and perhaps a tree.



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zathros

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Moonshine works really well for water, but always seems to disappear, and fast! Water has been a problem, and anything thinner evaporates that much quicker. ;)
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
One of my favorite bands ever is Goose Creek Symphony , a raucous hillbilly country rock band.

They claim “ Moonshine’s not as clear as water guess that’s why it why it makes you High.

The old setting of the Cave Cove Bridge had the shorter group of pilings on a cribbed log base. I’m trying to be as quick, clean, and easy as possible here. The old bridges shorter pier had benchwork under it, bet getting the height perfect with wood would be tricky, so I propped it up temporarily with a stack of dense foam. I’m sheeting the outside with foam cut from the bottom of grocery store meat trays. The sides I will try to trim to be a close fit against the rock wall, then I will either carve rocks in the foam, or make foam rocks to glue on the sides.

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Bill Nelson

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Working on the base for the shorter pier; it’s masonry this time.

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The foam makes it easy to get a perfect fit against the uneven cliff.


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Fitting the 1/8 inch foam top.


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Adding some of my foam rock strips made from meat trays, most of the indentions between the stones are made by impressing the lines with a screw driver, faster, and more regular than carving then.

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The stone work is done.
And painted, just waiting for it to dry.

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Bill Nelson

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Was busy with family obligations most all the day, and then had to take a nap.


When it was time to go to bed; I went up to the RR room.


Started refreshing the paint on the recycled rock faces, that had faded some, as well as had some chips and cracks from storage, or the violence needed to reshape them to fit their new location.


Well with the paint out, I thought I’d paint the first coat on cave cove lake. Next thing you know I’m sketching in the backdrop.


My backdrops are painted on Masonite, or the Sheetrock wall. The base paint is Sherman Williams interior Latex Brisk Day, which gives a nice sky color, that I can work lighter in places. And darker in other.


I paint on the latex walls with acrylic craft or artists paints. To start with , I water them down, and aim at a near water color effect. Later I come in and work in more detail in places, ButI prefer the backdrop to be a tad fuzzy; a lot of times with the awesome photo backdrops; the back drops have too much detail; and pull the eye from the RR to the backdrop 947343C3-6A78-4333-AD9B-4FDE23FD70AA.jpeg



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This last photo is one of my backdrops I’ve worked some detail into, Aiming at atmospheric perspective, where as things get farther away the are less sharp, with lighter colors, with a little gray and blue mixed in.



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zathros

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I think you need a "still" somewhere hidden in on of those buildings just off the tracks. Sure would look purdy! :)
 

Bill Nelson

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There has been a still on my layout for 38 years or more . It’s one of those woodlands scenics white Metal kits. I had it in my old Gizzard , in the middle of one of the loops , but very well hidden. I’m thinking Dr Tom had operated on my mountain for something like 12 years before he noticed it.

Right now, on my new Gizzard, I have it on a rock formation just across a stream from log camp. Passenger trains go down that spur to get turned, so they can back into the station at State Line, to save time and aggravation turning the locomotive and the head end cars on the turntable.

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Wasted a lot of time today, although I did a lot of planing. Will Fly to visit the wife, and she will ride back up with me in her old car, and will stay here for a while, before flying back to Texas, where she will start driving her parents car, since they don’t drive anymore, and she has to use it when she takes them places, as they have trouble getting into her car.

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After farting away most of the day with a combination of important planning and then wasting an impressive amount of time, I built 12 linear feet of benchwork, in four 3 foot sections. The two for the lowest level on the back aisle, are two foot deep and three feet long. The two of them will but up against the end benchwork, all ready constructed, and will reach to a few inches of where the cave cove bridge’s benchwork is.

The other 6 feet of benchwork, also in 3 foot sections will fill in between the completed end section of the lowest level of the central peninsula’s end benchwork, and the benchwork where I all ready have a switch for the return loop in place, and wired with a reverser for the return loop, and two switches, so the return loop will have two tracks, to serve as a passing siding, and or Staging.

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Having so much fun! And my moonshiner, his name is Jerry Jack Jones, another of my many Grateful Dead references.
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
If you listen to the other songs on that album , there are several train related songs on that. The Dead started playing in bars in 1968 but did not have a recording contract for a long time because they insisted on having complete artistic control. they played at Woodstock, but it wasn't recorded, so nobody knows about it. In i972, they had this crazy plan to do a u
European tour. They didn't just take the band, they took thier roadies, every bodies families and thier whole crew, so the tour was not a money maker. The plan was to pay for the tour with sales of the live album. Only they had technical difficulties , and no song from the whole tour was useable. they had to cut and splice tape from several performances to get any song into any kind of usable form, I didn't know this for many years, this has always been one of my favorites, the dead Liked long songs, one of the reasons they didn't get much air time. some of thier stuff is heavy psychedelic rock, but a lot of it is derived from folk music, Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist, and nominal band leader, ["you can call me boss, just don't ask me to make any decisions".), was a skilled bluegrass banjo player, others in the band had blues, and even classical backgrounds, so thier music was at times all over the place. The early 70s was probably my favorite era, but they were always interesting, a live concert fills 3 Cds, and they taped almost all of them, so there is more music available than most bands could dream of.
 

Bill Nelson

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Got the benchwork in for Montgomery Furnace. Shifting my track plans on the fly has caught up with me and most of my remaining Code 83 switches are left hand.

I do have one right, and two wyes, so I can muddle through Montgomery Furnace, I may be using some surplus code 100 switches in the log camp at flea Creek. I’s going to be at 18 inches off the floor, so most folk won’t be looking at the track.


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Have been looking for my favorite level. Kept looking in the RR room, but as I got the worst corners cleared out, it became clear it wasn’t there.


Found it with the tools I had used to rebuild the front porch floor and porch posts. This level has a level on one side in an adjustable circle. One can set it on an unlevel surface, set the adjustable part to be level, and you can match that angle perfectly.

I use it to insure I don’t build a grade steeper than 3.3 %. Here is is set near Tom’s bend , a known 3.3% grade. The Bible to the right is set level, at a 3.3% gtade.


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Here it is on the end of the narrow gauge, where it is about to transverse about 16 feet of sloped ceiling on the east wall, making a fourth level in this area. A string marks the slope to a short bit of sub roadbed behind the water powered saw mill.87C0F247-310A-44BE-A935-827B8882857F.jpeg


Where the ceiling changes color to the left, is the skylight opening.






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Here the line shows clear to the existing sub roadbed for the narrow gauge . Now I have the string for a reference, I can use a stud finder to mark the studs. And start cutting out brackets to support the narrow gauge main. It will be slo going , because I will need to pre drill the brackets, and paint them to match the ceiling before I put them up.

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Bill Nelson

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Very odd, I just uploaded a photo off my phone on my On3 Locomotive shops thread without a problem, but files off my phone are too large when I try to post on my main thread.


Yet I posted this photo off my phone with no problem.


Most of my recent photos don’t show

Did Y’all break Zealot? Can you fix it?
 

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Bill Nelson

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Ok a photo loaded! The roadbed @ Montgomery Furnace.


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The mainline in the logging area.


Some pictures off the phone will load.
Some won’t8CA9457C-DA5F-4487-A414-1712BCE65317.jpeg

Naturally, the most informative photos, are the ones it says are too large to load.

My standard gauge mainline is completed, with all the switches in for Montgomery Furnace, and. The log camp.

The return loop and it’s passing siding are in , but the photo won’t load.

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The old Cave Cove Bridge is in place, this photo is one I had posted earlier, but the link seems broken.



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Making a joint between a code 100 switch and code 83 flex track.

If this seems random it is, as whatever photo will load I can show. Don’t see how two consecutive photos taken withe the phone makes one too large to upload, while one will upload.


Fun to post something, but the story suffers, as I can’t show the best photos.
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
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The completed code 100 code 83 joint.

I have code 100 in the return loop at the bottom of the helix nook, and at the switches on the left (north) side of the log camp, as I’m out of code 83 switches.
 
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