This evening I applied ground foam on modules 06 and 07, some of the areas where left alone because there will be another feature in the flat spots. After that I made six telegraph poles. Cynthia and I are making trees for a little bit and will add them to the layout tomorrow. Joe
Yesterday evening I installed a turnout for the track closest to the back of the modules 06 and 07 and trees that Cynthia and I made. Today I finished working on soldering feeder wires on the same modules and Cynthia and I made some more trees. Will post photos in the morning when the Sun is out and a video soon with Frisco RS2 #551 with a few railcars. Joe
So far I have installed a piece of track to the turnout for the stock yard or oil depot on module 06 and took photos. Later this evening I will do touch up paint on the bridge. Joe
How tall is a telegraph pole? Yesterday Cynthia made some more trees while I made a few 35 foot telegraph poles. After that I installed the trees and poles on the layout and did some touch up paint on the bridge. The poles are about 30 feet tall after installing. The trees are made from Nandina seed pods with the berries removed and foam foliage from Woodland Scenery. The telegraph poles are made from Q-tips with small diameter dowel rods with the tip cut off. Cynthia gets two Q-tips with a cleaning kit for taking care of her trech but it will only make two poles. The next TV tray project is going to be scratch building the stock yard on module 06. Need to find a new source for Q-tips, first place to look would be a pharmacy and ask for sterile Q-tips. The coal trestle was made from the same material. Joe
This afternoon I made one section of the overhead valance to install some lights over the layout. It will be over modules 04, 05, 06 and 07 and it's made of 1x3's and a sheet of 3/16 inch Masonite 24x96 inches in size. It probably won't be until the first of the month before I can install it. Will look at LED's for the lights. Joe
I started working on the stock yard this afternoon and have one section done. Have some things I want to do on the layout and after that I will continue with the stock yard. Will post photos later tonight. Joe
I cut out two bases one for the stock yard and the other for the oil depot, after that built another section of fence and a gate. Didn't get a chance to work on the layout in the back bedroom like I wanted to but should be able tomorrow afternoon. Have run out of the material for the stock yard so it's on hold for now. Shouldn't take too long to get back to work on it. Joe
JOE...where did you get your pasture fencing ?? !!! Ahh I clicked on it and looks like ya made your own....dang
Surprise Surprise I had just enough styrene strips to make one more fence only had a piece about an inch long left over. One board is in two pieces that when I painted it the paint covered up the splice. Did some touch up paint on the bridge and tryed to do a video but found a couple of dead spots on the track. Will fix it tomorrow afternoon, Cynthia and I got out for a couple of hours and between that and working on the layout has wore me out. Going to call it a night soon after I catch up with what is going on with you guys and the folks on the Frisco website. One last thing I wanted to show you what a Nandina seed pod looks like in the last photo. Joe
I reconfigured the stock yard to make the most of one pen and was able to use what I cut off to use as a short fence at the back of the base along with another gate. On an identical base did a test fit for the oil depot, only have two large tanks right now and plan on adding more tanks, piping, loading platform and a warehouse type of building. Most of both industries will be scratch built and are interchangable to add variety for operations. Joe
Looking good Joe. I especially like your idea of making two interchangeable scenes so you can very the layout. Cool idea. I finished a scratched stockyard for the club layout last summer. Same idea as yours for the fencing except I used bamboo skewers and styrene strips. Lot of work = lot of fun. Carl
Thank you Carl for your compliment!!! I've enjoyed working on the stock yard, coal trestle and the Arkansas River Bridge projects. Really like scratch building, most of the work on those projects were done on a TV tray while I sit in my recliner. Don't know if that is lazy or smart but it works for me. My future scratch building projects are an ice house with a loading platform,, loading platform for the oil depot, saw mill, coal mine and the Frisco Passenger Depot in Ft Smith Arkansas. There is probably more, the ones I mentioned are what I can think of right now. There are three areas that are interchangable, module 04 will be a grain mill or ice house, module 06 will be a stock yard or oil depot and module 08 will be a saw mill or coal mine. I use quarter inch Birch plywood for the bases and have just enough to do all three areas. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to cut the bases for each and fix the dead spots in the track, it's too late to work on it tonight. Sorry guys I will try to make a video tomorrow evening when the Sun is shining through the hobby room window. Joe
