okhere is my progress shot set. Just some quickie low light snap shots. I just want to say that this is what happens when you sneak down to the train room every other night and lay one piece of flextrack and one switch. Before long you have an oval. Then you get some long spurs. Soon I'll have a reverse loop. And a freight yard and a engine track and a industrial district. and ... and.... Well you get my point.
Geeky - two things: Um, who took the pictures if you are "sneeking" That table is waaaaay to neat. Haven't you learned _anything_ from looking at my work? sheesh. kids these days.
Geeky, You layout is looking really nice. I know you must be excited about the progress. Good work! It looks like everything is going well.
Now that's what I'm talkin' about, YEAH! That is truly some great progress Geeky! I've got a roll around stool you'd love or one of those funky kneel on computer chairs? Good item to keep an open eye for at flea markets and thrift stores. I'm not real proud of that track work, it shows me I'm not as far up the scale as I'd like to think I am Fortuneately this whole section is not a key element of the layout as a whole, so if it is eventually decomissioned it will not be a big deal. I got the ground foam spead and some trees planted. While I was at it I took the oportunity to add another pass of patch n paint to the edge. This time I had a 6" trowel to float the whole edge in one pass. It is just the layers of foam will patch, sanded and paint. I'm quite happy with the results. The road still runs where it did, it just now angles down instead of further up and has successfully opened up new angles to railfan from.
Thanks guys. Grey, I do sneek, but about a half hour into track laying the wife pops down to see whats going on. she took the snap shots of me messing around with my track alighnment. (Read as De-Nolanization.) I just bought a patch that says "pray for me, my husband collects model trains" It will be part of her valentines gift. hutch I'm ecstatic over this layout. Most of all I am excited about having a room where it gets to stay set up all the time. Balou, Believe me I had plenty of switches that looked like that on my current tracklaying. One still has a slight bend and I am luckt that the trains seem to track ok over it.
I began laying out the track tonight as can be seen in the following photos. The main purpose of this is to see where and how the dioramas will fit in. This way I will know where to cut for the next layer of foam. I still have not decided if there will be two loops or if I will extend the track to the other end of the layout. This version shows the inner loop right now.
But Tompm!! What about the other modules? Don't they fit in there somewhere. It would be bad to leave them out. I am recovering from the open house last weekend. Here are the two blocks of my DPM buildings I have painted this week on the Downtown project. I want to put street markings down next. That will help on the appearance.
Tom, It's really cool to see the dioramas start to come together. Another version of modular construction. Flash, Great job individualizing the DPM buildings so far. Is that sheet styrene for the sidewalks?
Everything is pretty much back in place. Started adding some details to the scene. New view of the track. This is an angle not available before the reconstruction. Does anyone make road stripe decals? Seems that would be the best way to make passing lanes etc...
Maybe some sort of chart pack tape or rub on transfer would work for roadstripes. good question though. I was just looking at flash's pics. his roadstripes look good maybe he'll let us in on his secret.
I just use a fine paint pen. Generally I only use it once as after a single use, the paint will flow too freely. The stripes in my pictures are away from the front of the layout, so I don't worry about too much accuracy. There will be a lot of weathering on them anyway. I use a straight edge to make the long straight stretches. Some make a point of accuracy for the stripes in the era they are modeling; I just use the rules of the road today. For instance, there were probably not too many yellow stripes in 1930. If you are modeling a special road like an interstate, those have very specific markings that should probably followed. I do try to not stop the paint pen before I pick it up so that it will not leave a paint blob. My highway marking expert here in San Antonio uses masking tape to mark the beginning and end of a stripe so that it makes the stripe perfectly square. Here is what Orphie Neathery wrote to me about making streets: After I painted the whole top of the plywood gray on my town module I laid the city blocks in place and made a slight pencil outline of the block on the gray paint. Then I took the blocks up and could see the outline pencil marks. Then I knew where the streets were. I then drew yellow center lines, white crossing lines, and white parking lines with a paint pen. Get the smallest tip paint pen at Michael's. Start and finish each center line on a piece of masking tape. That way you avoid the small dots at the beginning and ends. Yellow center lines are solid but do not cross intersections. After the lines were all drawn I used black chalk to make the oil streaks on the center of the roads on each side of the center line. Rub it in with your finger. I also made some oil spots at parking places. Basically I just dirtied the gray up a bit. After all that, set the blocks back in place and WALLAH, Instant streets. The blocks will cover up the crosswalks ends so you don't have to be as careful with those lines. There's no crown using this method but it sounds a lot easier that what you described with all those levels of styrene. I am sort of doing that plus a few ideas of my own. I want to do parking spaces and crosswalks with a white paint pen this weekend. Hope this helps.
I used paper cut to size to place the parallel parking locations. This allowed me to move them around. The streets in front of the station are one way; I don’t have any signs for that yet. A paint pen was used to draw the white lines all the way across the intersection to make cross walks and parking places. I need to decide if I am going to do any more pavement markings. If not, then time to weather with the airbrush or chalks (or both). At the far right edge of the photo, you can see the white plastic "blocks" and where I added a small street in front of the station. I have signed up for the layout party twice before and failed to follow through. It is good to be doing something instead of just watching this time.
Tom: It looks like those modules will gradually come together like a jigsaw puzzle. I always liked the individual modules. Have fun. Stay cool and run steam.....
Ok everyone, final push. Finish date is a week away. We can always extend if there if people want to. Valentines day was our target completion date so lets see how much we can get done by then! Good luck and thanx to everyone for participating!
