I have been watching the progress along the way and really like the ivy growing on the car port and up the sides of the houses. I don't recall seeing anyone do that before, but I love the look. All the little details are bringing it to life. Thanks for sharing. Trey
Ivy growing up the sides of the houses look very nice and are very useful. In case of problems with quality of your work with the kit (too much glue, slit beetwen panels ...) you can hide it behind the ivy.
I like seeing ivy as it gives an impression the structure and surroundings have been in place fro a long time.
Construction month No 5 (May) Part III Properties are getting final apperance with fences, gardens ... End of the day ... shadows are getting longer and longer
Construction month No 6 (June) Part I I made some exercises with different options to make water (white glue, dilluted white glue, Valleyo water, Faller water) The pond is ready to get first layers of water. Finally I decided to use Faller product: Unfortunately after some days (5-7 days) something bad happened - water is not clear any more: I still had some room to add two layers of water - this time the Faller water was ligtly coloured with acrylic paints:
Construction month No 6 (June) Part II I installed all farm buildings in their place: Country road the the meadow was also created:
Construction month No 6 (June) Part III I got some Shapeways trucks painted and placed (temporarily) on the layout:
Hello, Great stuff. I'm very interested in how you used the Hoffman stuff for the switches if you can share some details. I have a couple of Tortoise switchmotors waiting to be installed. They seem so clumsy that I have hesitated so far to use them. They are probably good for H0. How do they compare when it comes to size? I posted a question in an earlier thread about which switchmotors to use in a yard when the switches are mounted very close to each other. I need to find that thread again. I got some good suggestions there.
I found my old thread. It mentions Hoffman switch motors too. http://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/how-do-you-switchmotors-to-the-switches.68993/
Exactly - you can find it here: https://www.shapeways.com/product/N...ts-1-220-z-scale?optionId=40347418&li=ostatus
Very interesting - polishing my technical English ! I will try to find some time to describe my way of working with Haffman switch motors. It will be a challange with the language ! Maybe more challanging than installing working swich motors ...
Love the progress. Thanks for sharing and also for the incredible photos. Any chance of a wide-view photo of the whole layout in one frame?
General information: the baseboard of the layout is 9mm thick and the rails are placed on +/- 2mm layer of foam + double sided tape. As I mentioned before all the job have been done practically after the installation of the scenery includin ballasting the rails (not very wise ). My way of installing Hoffman stuff was as follows: 1.The turnouts were installed without original Marklin switching devices (Dremel was used to cut it off) 2. I drilled manually hole for the wire connecting turnout with Hoffman swithing machine. The baseboard of the layout is 9mm thick and you have to add additional 2mm for the roadbed under the turnout and the rails. 3. Connecting wire (original Hoffman's included - the thicker of two) was bend in L shape to connect with the original turnout switching plastic rod (clear plastic part). 4. I was not able to get the L wire into O-shape connector at the end of plastic rod. I cut "O" connector from the top - get L wire into connector and gentlu glued with CA - gel glue. From the top it looks as follows: 5. The Hoffman gear was installed directlu under the turnout and experimentaly i had to find the correct mounting position - not to high/not to low - in order to allow good move of the turnout's plastic rod. 6. Experimentally I found the best position of speed controller (the screw in the centre of red disc) - as slow as possible but still having enough speed to fully change the position of switch motor. The throw of Hoffman is 8mm and you can not adjust it. To switch Marklin turnout you need much less - half of it - but in my case the wire is elastic enough and the hole in basebord is protecting the movement of the top part of wire to certain extend. As the result - it works now (and I hope in the future as well). Final remark: I will try to experiment with the next Hoffman machine instalation and probably I will add some distance (3-4 mm of wood) beetween switch motor and the basebord of the layout. I expect that the longer wire will have more room for "spring" elasticity and as the result I will be able to lower the speed of switching. I hope my English is communicative enough that you can understand the concept and technique properly. Final remark II: I think I will paint the plastic rod and the top of L wire oily brown or black.
Construction month No 7 (July) Warking on the farm area - area of cow's pasture: Roads to a plot: There is always a place for some old stuff...