Okay...... I have not been around here long but I am wondering what are some common household items that can be used to build a layout in N? What is a track base besides cork? What is a simple ballast material besides the made up stuff? Hints /tips for simple scenery items?
As far as road bed and ballast, I've personally have not noticed a viable alternative to commercially available products. There are track products out now produced to make it look ballasted (Kato Uni-trak, Atlas True-trak and Bachman EZ track.) One thing I have done is for sidings and large areas like a yard, I've went to the local auto parts supply and purchased cork gasket material in small rolls. Craft shops may have the same product I have never checked. I've never used more than a roll or 2 for this. For scenery items, let your imagination run wild. Spray can plastic tops can be made to look like small liquid storage tanks. I've used PVC pipe for silos for various industries. These are just a few things I've seen and/or used. Check back to this post often as others will have other ideas that they have used or seen. I've been temped to try and take a small soda bottle and transform it into a cone topped water tower. The desk has too many projects now but someday. Enjoy! hmmm I'll have to watch the neighbors place for discarded trees or wreaths. I need to plant a forest here soon. My plastic tree is in good shape and don't wanna buy a new one.
The chainlink fence is made from Bridal Ribbon bought at a Dollar Store. The cement silos are made from childrens medicine plastic syringes I got for free from a pharmacy. The aggreagte bins in the cement plant yard are made from 'legos'. The scrap yard fence is made from US Priority Mail cardboard boxes cut to height and painted silver. The '8 ball' water tower at the concrete plant is and old styrofoam antenna ball with a golf tee stuck in the hole where the antenna would go. The road is made from roofing felt. There are a gazillion things laying around that can be used on a layout...you just have to think 'small'... ;-)
Thanks....... I should look for a cheap Christmas tree for trees. I have a buddy who works on cars. I bet he could find some cork for me. I will have to ask him. Great ideas here.
Clay kitty litter for small rock rubble. Pipe cleaners for saguaro cactus. PVC plumbing tube for grain elevator silos. Especially for big massive arrays of silos. By the way, the 2nd row of silos behind the PVC tube silo mockup is a digital shot of the PVC tubes, edited on computer, repeated and printed out for the background. Concrete box culverts from the caps found on certain brands and varieties of superglue. A cap from another kind of superglue makes little "castle" entry portals for a KiddieLand park.
Some common things I have either used or heard of people using are as follows: There are some types of kitty litter that can be used as a ballast. My Dad used this on his layout. Much cheaper than WS or other mfg ballast. Film canisters from 35mm film can be used for fuel/oil storage tanks. Go to a jewelry/watch repair store and get some old gears from a watch. These can be used as details such as saw blades or other types of gears in a mfg plant. At an Arts & Crafts store you can use Envirotex (type of epoxy resin) for water features. If you have scraps from previous models, you can use the left over sprues or various other parts as junk in your junk yard. On my Dads layout he has an axle from a 1/25th scale model as well as an air tank from a 1/25 scale truck model in his junk yard as well as a bunch of other types of "junk." Keep your scrap sections of rail and ties for clutter left by the MOW crew along your ROW and in a yard. This adds a nice detail to your RR without an additional cost. Also, you can use shell casings from a .22 caliber for culverts on your RR. Straws also work well for this. You can also use straws for a gondola/flatcar load for cheap. These are just some of the things I have used or heard of people using in my 35 years in model railroading. Best Regards Ryan
Many years ago when I was a teenager building my first N-scale 2' x 4' layout, my dad told me to clean the gutters. What I found was very small stones that had washed down from the asphalt shingles. I cleaned them up and used them as ballast on that first layout. Tim
Cat litter is a really good idea for scenery... unless you have a cat. Drinking straws and coffee stirrers have multiple uses. Cork sheets can be found at craft stores, but shop around; even with percent off coupons you might not be getting the best deal. I've seen rolled cork at big box hardware stores. Squeeze tubes of acrylic paint found under several brands are quite inexpensive at big box craft stores. I wouldn't use them to paint rolling stock but they are fine for general scenery work including structures. There are varying opinions about the "rattle cans" of spray paint that are much less expensive than paint targeted for model trains, autos, etc. Again, it depends on what you're using it for.
"Logtrain" mentioned 35mm film canisters for tanks. I found one was just the right size and shape for the tank on a concrete water tower, based on one I found at the abandoned Hitchcock, Texas Navy blimp base. Water towers were built out of concrete during WWII with steel reinforcing to use less steel than an all-steel water tower. Leave more steel for batleships, tanks, etc. Of course, the legs had to be scratchbuilt. N scale railing from HO scale brass ladder stock with some rungs removed. Logtrain mentioned drinking straws for pipe loads. I used thin little coffee stirring straws. Banding was from some kind of tape used to strip model cars I believe. 50-foot 13-panel gon with straight side sill was kitbashed from 2 shorter Lima gons. (There is a 13 panel 50' gon in N scale but it has a fishbelly side sill.) I scratch the fishbelly center sill. Logtrain mentioned old watch gears. I use pieces from the inside of no-longer-working digital devices such as digital watched and medical monitors, and used syringe parts, for all kinds of junk. Real junk = scale junk when used with care. Hard to see but I used a discarded Arnold Rapido coupler on end to represent a drill press inside a tractor repair shop at an implement dealer.
There was a thread in, "The Inspection Pit" about using makeup for weathering cars. You can get very cheap 'sets' after Christmas at various pharmacy chains. These are usually 'gift' sets aimed at young girls / women and around $10 give or take. Foam Trays - I'll be using them for all sorts of things including structures. T-Pins and Long Wood Appetizer Toothpics' are great for holding foam together.
I use cans to mock up 'tanks'. I have used foam coffee cups, (after I drank the coffee), as 'risers' for elevated track. I have used keyboard boxes to store locos and cars I have used clear plastic 'shoe boxes' to store locos and cars Hair spray is great for all kinds of sticky situations but be careful as it might eat foam.
Great ideas here...... I was wondering what to do with my flat cars for loads. Now I guess I better grab a few coffee stirrers and keep the coffee cups as well for risers! I have a bridge and cross over planned for my layout and am not sure how to raise the track. I am still learning.......
Wife I always wearing out nylons or pantyhose. And they come in different weaves some smaller and tighter than others. The nets on my fishing boats are from that and they also can be used for chain link fencing.
As for dirt/talus/various sized rocks...the cheapest way is to go outside and dig dirt. If you're lucky, you can dig dirt at your home, but there are many places where the topsoil is full of clay (or is clay) and organic material. A gravel pit is a good place to go for relatively clean dirt, and usually there are various colors and textures at a gravel pit. You take the material and separate out the big stuff from the small stuff with various screens. Wire colanders and tea strainers do a good job. You can make the big stuff smaller with a hammer and an old anvil (don't use a nice, new one). If you're even luckier and are interested in modeling a specific location, if you travel to the spot, take three or four buckets and dig some dirt there. That's what I do for my Weber/Echo Canyon LDE's...then I grade it getting talus sized rocks down to a very fine dust in three or four colors and textures. I also bake my dirt in my oven at 450 degrees for an hour to kill any bugs, bug eggs, larvae and most bacteria. It also makes it easier to break up with my friendly hammer. Lastly, I have a big magnet that I push around in the dirt, which collects any material that might find its way into your motors. And...it's all free. You still have to buy kitty litter...and it is a very monotonous color and texture. As for making your own ballast and roadbed. You still have to buy your cork at The Home Depot or Lowes or Michaels or at your local gasket shop...and it is very different than commercially available model railroad cork roadbed such as that made by Midwest Cork Products. I've found that rolls of cork I used in the past for yards or large industrial areas didn't hold up over the years. I have had zero problems with Midwest Cork Products cork sheets and roadbed in both HO and N-scale. If I were you, I'd get the cork that's made for the job of being roadbed...not gaskets...or display boards...or wall covering. I've found that real-rock ballasts, such as Arizona Rock & Mineral and Highball Ballast (and others) work best for me. To get them to look "right" if you're modeling a real railroad, you should grade them, removing both the big particles and the smaller particles including the dust. However, I mix in some of my own dirt that I've dug, sterilized and graded to bring the color and texture to where I like it. But, I'm modeling a specific place and time, so I want my ballast to look like what's on the mainline. If you use random dirt or sand for ballast, make sure your run a strong magnet through it to get any particles out of it that could be attracted to your electric motors and ruin a good engine. One of the things I've learned over the years is that there are all kinds of plants out there that look great in N-scale for tree and brush armatures. Every Fall, before the first snow, I go sagebrush clipping on one of the local mountain sides. I also use Rabbit Brush and several other plants that I don't know the names of. My fellow-crazy Gregg Cudworth is always looking for various plants to represent trees and bushes on his basement-filling Nn3 Rio Grande Southern. Some of the best scenery materials are free, but...for the basic heart of your layout...benchwork, subroadbed and roadbed...you should use the real deal...which are proven products, materials and techniques. Cheerio! Bob Gilmore
Cat whiskers have 1001 different uses when it comes to fine detailing. They're thin and flexible, yet have the tensile strength of styrene. I always save them whenever I find them lying around the house Firecracker antenna mast - Cattails (ironically enough) - Cheers, -Mark
Mark's comment on Cat whiskers bring to mind another use that I ran across some years back in a magazine article. Holding cars in place on a slight grade from running away. The trimmed whisker is planted between the rails at spot where a car might be parked but because of a slight grade will roll away. The whisker is flexible enough to allow traffic to pass over it without a derail but just enough resistance to hold a car in place.
I've used straight pins for poles holding up stop signs that I've printed out and coffee stirers for chimneys. I've dryed out coffee grounds for dirt and fields and cuttings from oregano plants at the end of the season for trees and bushes.
I used to buy sheet cork from a home improvement store. About the same thickness as HO cork, and a whole lot cheaper and easier.
