Scenery Work

I have been playing God lately - in the form of Terra forming and scenery work.  For ground cover I used some soil which I scooped up on my way home from work one day and sifted this through one of those small tea-strainers. 

I also found a pretty good static grass applicator.  You can buy this in a kit and it goes together without any soldering required.  One uses a 12 V DC transformer and the output is in the range of 40KV. 

Being my first attempt, I am pretty pleased on how it turned out and enjoy watching trains pass in this open scene.

The photos show the progress so far.

The following photos with the morning sunlight:

Building a VR Signal Box from Plans

Here is my first attempt at making a building from styrene.  The plans are from Australian Model Railway Magazine and the building is of a two story Victorian Railways Signal Box.
The windows are from Ratio.  It is still far from complete obviously. I need to get some corrugated iron sheets, and the steps to complete the model.
I am quite pleased on how it has turned out.  It has been a joy to build and to see it come together.  The author of the article has done a very good job of explaining the steps to put together and build this signal box.

Making Trees Quickly

I needed a quick way to make many trees quickly as I have parallel tracks which make up my main line run and these tracks are supposed to be miles apart.  Now, I could use 3mm MDF or ply and divide the scene with a blue background, however too many of these partitions seems to ruin the look and feel so I set about thinking of a way to build many trees more as a scenic divider than anything else.

Anyway, the concept I came up with involves a 3mm drill bit and some wire. Simply drill a number of holes into some ply and then cut some stiff wire to different heights.  Then add some of this material - the name escapes me - but I found it in a fabric sofa between the lining of the cushion and the covering.  Unfortunately I thought I'd taken a photo of this material but didn't.

The material is white, so grab some paint, either black or brown and apply the paint.  Then apply leaves when still wet.  After the leaves are sprinkled on, I simple spray some 3M Super 77 glue.  Within an hour I had a bunch of trees which produce a pretty good scenic divider.

Some photos to show the steps.

Track Cleaning Car

One major issue I have is dirty track and stalling locomotives.  No matter what I do, I cannot overcome the issue of locomotives stalling or lights flickering.   Even after I clean the track, a few day later, the locos are playing up again.  I think this is due to the layout being out-doors and the variation in temperatures and humidity.

I decided to build my own track cleaning wagon this morning.  Using an old Bachmann Oil Taker as the wagon, I build the following vehicle which can be seen on the video.

Hopefully this will help with keeping at least the rails clean.  I used masonite as the wood for the cleaner.  Gave it a few laps on the layout and it seemed to do the job as the Walker didn't have any issues once I ran it on the cleaned track.

 I am tempted to build another one and use both on a works train.  It's pretty crude but it seems to work.

Darren's Place

It is simply amazing.  That is Darren's layout - his HO gauge NSWGR masterpiece.  The scenery is executed perfectly - not a blade of grass was out of place! and the scenes follow on beautifully.   Not to waffle on too much, here see for yourself some of his brilliant workmanship.

Throw a match ?

Not having a static grass applicator and the wish to have tall grass I got thinking on how best to model tall grass.  Since the season of the layout will be late summer, I want to model a dry summers environment.

I had some branch netting which I bought many moons ago and thought of the idea of making tall grass and securing this to fly netting.  I think it looks pretty good although it took me a very long time to individually plant the grass into the mesh.  Each mat took me about six hours to do.

I ran out of the branch netting but luckly I had some jute and proceeded to make grass from the jute.  Now I have ran out of jute so tall grass making has stopped for now.

I haven't permanently secured the mat to the benchwork as yet.

What do you guys think?  Is it too long or does it not look any good?

Pass me the Plaster...

Now that I have my track-plan bedded down, I have been totally consumed with scenery and have more time to think about scenery and do some work in this area.  I have gone with the cardboard strip method also know as Hard Shell scenery I believe.  Yes, there are many ways to do scenery, and I like this method as advocated by Joe Fugate in one of his writings.  As he says if a mistake is made, it is reasonably easy to remove the scenery and start again.  Also, it is very cheap, with only a hot glue-gun and hot glue sticks required, and you need to cut some thick card-board strip which cost nothing.

The only issue I find with this method is the use of a Hot Glue gun.  When hot, the glue creates alot of glue-strings.  It's little messy but not too much effort to clean up.  On top of the cardboard strips, I use 1 inch masking tape then apply a plaster mix.  This one is used on Geoffs' layout and is really an excellent product to work with.

I have also put some more time into the trees, trying to make them more fuller and real.  I think I am getting there slowly.  Now I cannot stop to admire the beauty in the wild trees when I go for walks or when driving. 

Here is a brief video showing the progress so far and some photos of the trees.  Off-course this is not completed as I would like to add grass, fences, more trees, some water, shrubs and more earth hues.