I figured out the reverse loop lol. I took everyones comments with a grain of salt hahaha ..... Man I have had to re-configure my layout though which has been a bit of an issue, just had to do a little back tracking. I have some glue drying at the moment for the last section of track I'm going to be adding in. The last few weeks I have been focused on this bridge I've been scratch building. I'm pretty impressed with the shear weight that it isn't and the strength that it has. I used Balsa wood and Bass wood together to create it. Yes I know it is BIG lol I will be doing some painting and getting that portion of the layout ready to add ground cover and other scenery type objects to complete this section. Thank god I have a week off coming up !! Woooo Hope you all are doing well !!
Thank you sir @Kurt Moose Nice Signature. My grandfather was the one who gave me the addictive love of trains haha Very cool !
My Dad grew up next to the Great Northern in Monroe, Wa. He loved trains and ever since I was little, we were always trackside!
Badass!! I love hearing things like that. Has anyone ever stained balsa wood ?? I was considering painting the trestle but if I do I’ll lose all the wood texture that it has so my second thought was a nice dark stain. I wonder if they have custom stain colors ....?? Hmmmm lol
Yes...you can stain balsa wood. It will however soak up the stain pretty quick because its so porous.
@gmorider Thank you very much! @mtntrainman I'm doing it then !! Cross your fingers !!! Maybe I should put India Ink on it too ....
Wow !! I made it to the third page !! hahaha It's sad that I haven't been on here in so long. I have been periodically working on the layout though. New job happened. Then Corona Virus hit LA and everyone is freaking out so I had to be inspector gadget and get TP and water. Between it all though I was able to get some work done. This bridge I'm staining is going to take longer than expected. Painting every surface was a lot more work than I anticipated. It is going to be well worth it though. The color is beautiful. 1st things 1st !! In order to even place the bridge/tressel I have to finish some of the land cover that falls underneath it. I'm using a technique I picked up from youtube and altered it a bit after trying it on a sample piece. It works out good and the texture is really nice. I also built up the mountain area for the evil witch's house !!! One other issue I ran into was figuring out how to actually get the train to turn around on the same loop. Many nights I stood in front of the layout with a beer that had a hole at the bottom and thought ..... how am I going to do this..... as it wasn't in my original track plan. I had to do some mediocre adjustments. The difficult part was putting these 2 switch machines in accurately since 1 side of track was going down and the other was rising up. This took a lot of adjusting and troubleshooting. If there was one thing that I will not forget about building this layout this will be it !! You can also see in pictures above that the big mountain is going to have a pass through which is going to be pretty neat IMO. Any who! I'm working from home. Pretty nice actually. I'm just glad to be working. Hopefully I can get some photos of the trestle on here later. Enjoy !!
If you use stain on the balsa, like noted, it will soak up the stain quickly. Additionally, since it soaks readily, use a shade or two lighter, to offset the effect of the stain soaking in faster. A dark stain like walnut may turn out almost black on balsa. Use sparingly and wipe off promptly. By all means, test the stain on some scrap balsa to get a feel for how the color turns out. Just some experience from staining softwood projects.
I may have gone to dark .... but I'm LOVING the look and it will fit perfect for what I'm doing. I should have stained it all before I put it together but hey! I've never scratch built a bridge before lol I'm glad I took your advice on the dark part. Originally I wanted to do a Mahogany sort of color. The stain I got though is great. Its workable and is water based I think. One of the few stains I can use inside without upsetting anyone hahaha So 1st coat of stain on the Trestle.... where the hell did they get the word Trestle from anyways ?!?! Cheers and happy Friday !
I have to upload this !! I'm setting up my layout to be versatile between DCC and DC. So with that said I got bored the other day and hooked up the DC system and ran some of the first trains I ever bought!! These Suckers are quick !! haha.
I know they need to slow down haha ! I almost had a heart attack when I ran it. I was not expecting it to take off like a dragster ! Yes I had a few sets of those tracks and tunnels myself... They flew off the track if going to fast. I have to be really careful when I run them that fast or I might need a catcher in the future. Eventually you will see a normal running train with a regular tree and normal looking mountain I promise! Though I have came up with an idea for a spooky caboose that is launched from a loco.. More on that later !
This is my 5th day inside ..... Dear god hahaha! This is my current mood. I need to do some more trimming since I'm going to have a path going up to the witchs house. Pretty exciting to have one of the portals and mountains glued down. Finally starting to "see" some progress. I think I've spent a lot of time recently doing a small bit of backtracking and re-configuring track, which I am still doing, It is not perfect lol I still get derailments from time to time. Also the dam Atlas switch machines..... ugh .... Never again ! I also bought 2 atlas pieces of rolling stock. I don't like em I am learning that Atlas products are sub par. Including ! My locomotive. I realized the front truck clip broke so the plastic truck cover hangs low!! First the pair I bought the motor was bad. Now the second one is falling apart! Keep in mind ALL ATLAS !! What kind of models are they selling!?!?!?!?! Very unfortunate.
