Got to go play on Keith Schaber's Blue Mountain Layout today! Working on Hinkle Yard staging/reverse loop. Caught a couple SAR Dash 9's east of Kamela.(Point helpers) Should have the layout running completely in a couple weeks! It will be so cool to get it fully operational!
Well guy's, you're doing very nice job. Here's a couple of pics i made this weekend: the layout is on it's way but still a lot to do. ant here's the cars I decorated these past days... first decorating session... [ June 06, 2005, 06:08 AM: Message edited by: Bourkinafasso ]
It's a matter of manually arranging Woodland Scenics clumps. They come in various sizes and colors. Jeanne and I use lots of white glue to arrange them. So it's nothing special, just some attention to detail.
Ahhh, I keep trying to clup "coarse turf" together with white glue, and I usually end up with more stuck to my hands than cluped together.
I know, I'm late. Hectic weekend. Great pictures everyone, very welcome thread to look at and relax. I did get a little bit done. First, installed the decoders in the second Kato AB set of the Santa Fe F7's, speed matched and took them for a spin. Man, are these nice. MT's on the pilots and Unimates for the rest to close up the coupling distance. Then we have this, Any guesses?..........Under the blue cover is a SoundTraxx DSX sound decoder, speaker and enclosure and two capacitors. The decoder is first generation EMD and after playing with the CV's it sounds pretty cool. So, where is it going you may ask, On this, A 53' flat car. it will fit between the stakes that will go in the sides. Kato caboose trucks will get track power and I figure with the stakes, some tie downs and a bit a weathering it won't look to bad. The sound is really cool, throttles up with the units, air let-off at idle and the bell and hour sound great. I'll post a pic of the finished product once I get the trucks.
Chad: I've put the DSX Soundtraxx DSX sound only decoders in 50' boxcars, using Kato caboose trucks, a 5/8" speaker and one capacitor. This give me another alternative besides the many DSX decoders that I mount under the benchwork with 4" inch speakers. Sound is great on a model railroad. BTW, The Kato F-7's look great. What decoder did yoou use for the F-7's? I have a set of Kato F-7's (ABBA) in the WarBonnet paint scheme. I have to install the decoders in these. Stay cool and run steam.....
Thanks Bob, I used DZ-143's. Mill out the frame to form a pocket for the decoder to sit in. Since the light board is a bit tight I drilled and tapped a hole in each frame halve and used an 00-90 screw to attached the power leads.
Chad: I'll use the Lenz 521W. Where did you cut the pocket for the decoder? Stay cool and run steam....
Try using 3:1 thinned glue (3 water: 1 glue). I will make my own clumped foilage out of regular ground foam (coarse). I put some in a container and then add a small amount of thinned glue and stir it up. Keep adding the thinned glue until it is all coated (don't add so much so that it becomes soupy). A little goes a long way. After it is all coated, lay it out on some wax paper or a cookie sheet or something non-porous to dry. After it dries, you can break it up into clump sized pieces and you have clump foilage. This method does use up a lot of ground foam so be warned. You may not think it is economically feasible for you ($$$). It wasn't for me until I started making my own ground foam.
We use a number of methods. The first is to lay out a line (or squiggle or pool) of full strength white glue, and then place each clump on it--keeping our fingers out of the glue. This can be a two- or three-step process. Once the first layer of clumps has dried, we'll put glue on the clumps and add another layer. We're not real particular about arrangement, as nature is pretty random. If a clump falls over, we'll wait and put a third layer on. The second method is to take a clump, put a small dab of glue on it, and place it on the layout. We don't push it down--just place it. Again it may take two or three passes, building up reasonably sized bushes, Occasionally, we'll brush an area with glue and scatter clumps around. This really works best for the undercover (weeds and small bushes), and we do have to spray it with thinned glue to make sure it stays down. Then we add bigger clumps as above. We actually use Jeanne's "Special Glue," which is a mixture of Woodland Scenics tacky glue and white glue, with a little bit of water--perhaps 10 percent. Jeanne mixes it up until it's "just right." With about 300 square feet of layout, we've gone through many bags of WS stuff! Spread out over two years, it's not been a painful expense. We do make most of our trees from weeds, and also use them as bushes and clumps. Jeanne's also developed a method for applying foliage to vertical cliffs, but that's too involved to go into right now.
