Checking your blog, comments on the smaller layout thoughts. Bigger is not better, more can be less. Remember, don't be a slave to your layout. You're supposed to have fun with it, not labor continually with it.
Last night I got the ceiling tile painted and sealed. Just used some cheap brown mismatched paint I snagged for a $1. Then this afternoon I got the track painted with some rattle cans of Rustoleum. Used a mixture of Bronze, London Gray and Nutmeg. Next up, gonna continue painting the backdrops.
Doing this always has me curious, about the post-painting operation. What did you need to do, to clean the rails such that engines would operate, reliably?
I used to let the paint dry and then gently scraped it off with a utility blade. Later I watched a guy use a rage dipped in mineral spirits or paint thinner, then he wrapped the rag around his finger and wiped the majority off before the it dried. Makes a lot more sense and much easier, D'oh! I just wrapped it around a small block of wood and got both rails at once, some use a track eraser wrapped with the rag? Once everything dried I used my Perfect track eraser and rubbed any residue off the rails. For the turnouts I took a little drop of heavy oil, Labelle 108 I think? I dribbled a few small drops on any moving point and on one side of the points then snapped them over. On the open side of the points I rolled up a small piece of paper towel and packed it in, this acted like a mask, like I did here. After a quick rub down I had trains rolling pretty reliably.
Growing up in the Joliet-New Lenox area, I've always loved the Rock Island. Really like what you're doing !!! You did something that's new to me though. You cut the roadbed back to the ties. Is this for scenery/"groundscaping" ???
Thanks Run8! The short answer is I'm not a fan well manicured mainlines. I plan to bring the vegitation right up to the ties for the most part in areas so I don't want to spread the ballast wide and then have to cover it up with weeds. Boxcab is right, I'll let the ballast form it's own shoulders, just like it did here. However the track on the left will repersent a fairly fresh addition. If I left the cork wide or used MidWest, then it would be that much wider. It's really not much different than what Kato did with their Unitrack. Here's a couple of examples of what I'm after. And this is what I did in Malvern as well, although this is a branchline, I kind of want to the same low maintained look on the mains, I think it helps adds to the persona of the road I'm modeling. I still need to go back and add weeds between the two tracks.
That was my guess. Now I get it !!! I'm also a big fan of the MC/NYC/PC branch that ran through my area (now the Plank Road Trail). Some of that PC line literally looked like a REALLY big train set up in somebody's back yard !!! What you're doing looks very "Rock Islandy" to me, although a "few" miles from where I am. LOVE IT !!!
I finally stepped in to some uncharted territories for myself. I got started painting the backdrops in Haskell and Malvern. I used these two colors. The first layer. The second layer. Once they had dried I went back with a cheap 1" brush and stippled more of the darker paint onto the darker hills to break up that crisp line. Then I took a tip from Dave Frary and misted a bit of white paint on the distant hills to define and give them a bit more depth. More on the blog... Next step comes the clouds and the foreground trees...
I got after the clouds today. Clouds have always been perplexing to me. Most say they are easy but there are as many different ways of making them as there are clouds. While watching something on FaceBook the other day where a painter used nothing more than a rattle can and stencil he made some pretty realistic clouds very easily. While I've know of stencils I never really looked into them before. I found several videos on YouTube showing how some made them and how they used them. It seemed pretty simple? I made mine from a sheet of black poster board I got from Wally World for $0.97 and cut down into smaller sections that were easy to hold and maneuver. On one I cut out the clouds with a knife, the rest I just tore out sections randomly. Then I folded the top portion over 1" or so to give me something to hold them with and also to keep them a bit more rigid. It also acted like a shield from any over spray. Then I loaded my airbrush with some thinned down cheap hobby acrylic paint. More on the blog...
Looks near perfect to me... time you get some scene busting architecture and scenery breaking trees in the profile will be great. Dave
That is something I have pondered doing? I may have to do a little more studying and see if I can get a believable storm brewing off in the distance somewhere?
That'll be a trick! I have seen a couple very well done, and quite a few nicely done. I'm still too chicken to do the painting. Pinching pennies to buy backdrops......
I hear ya! I was really contemplating buying some drops, but since my backdrop was only 11" it's hard to find something that fits nicely. I found some 9" tall drops, but I didn't want the line at the top, nor did I want to cut my drops down. I found several 12" and taller ones but wasn't sure how to cut them so I didn't loose the clouds or some of the actual land mass. So I bit the bullet. So @badlandnp, when are you coming to NE again?
