Free-moN Staging Yard - 2'x10'

The three little grade crossings:



used Aileen's clear gel tacky glue this time & liked the working time and tackiness.
Seems to hold alright.

Wanted to try a cement road, so just laid some coffee stirrers down, tacking the ends with white glue (and sometimes a spot of CA):



For my roads I tried the same trick on the "Alameda-Belt-in-a-Box" layout: watered down & tinted lightweight spackle.

Man, you think it's too thin, but as soon as it hits the ground, it starts hardening and foaming a bit (or seems like it).
Had to water it some more and pour some gap fillers.
The trick is NOT TO TOUCH IT until it's TOTALLY DRY (like a day or so).

But when it is dry, you can sand it smooth and rub some dirt into it to weather:



My other nifty discovery of the weekend was NEOLUBE.
Yup, but not for steamers.
For staining stripwood replacement ties directly under the points!



Why didn't I think of this earlier?
Not only does it darken the rails and ties, but ensures smooth throwing action!
D'oh!

[cont.]

 

Added mucho trees:



Tried to vary the locale as you go around.
This side is more pine-y & mountain-y (greens, pines, etc.), while the other side is more brown like the foothills (weeds, manzanita).
I also, while doing the static grass on the workbench, briefly joined the sections one at a time to try to blend the sections together and hide the gaps.
(can't keep the seciton together or the diluted glue will seep down & make one big module!)
Not sure if I was totally successfull, but there are distict scenes.

Had a bunch of buildings to build, and so I drew out some simple dimensions for all the buildings at once:



Makes cutting & marking a lot easier when you can just hold the styrene or wood next to the section and tick it off.

For example, here are all the pieces for the depot cut & ready to get stucco'd:



I'm basing the design loosely on the Tidewater Southern depot in Turlock, just because 1) it has a depot and a freight section & 2) I wanted to try stucco & spanish tile roof.
For the stucco, I followed Dave Schneider's technique he shared over on Railwire:



Basically Liquitex "Ceramic Stucco" stippled on, dried, then sanded down to N-scale stucco.
I painted my primer grey first, and then the white, which I think turned out okie dokie.

[cont.]

 

So here you can see the finished stucco texture, as well as the depot mid-build:



I probably could have sanded it a wee bit more, but true N-scale stucco would be very very tiny.

Here it is installed:



Not too thrilled with the size of the "Devil Mountain" sign (the "Turlock" was stenciled right onto the building), so might redo that one.
(BTW, Mt. Diablo towers over the East Bay, so it was either Devil Mt. or Devil's Camp)
(Briefly considered the town name of "Britches"... hmmm... still considering...)

Here's the whole town of Devil Mountain:



Not bad for 9" of space & three tracks!
Still need to put in some trees behind the depot & over the storefronts.
And stuff.
Lots of stuff.

The other buildings are, left to right, Pappy's Whiskey & Dynamite Co., the Tombstone shoppe, Lucy Furr's Pleasure Parlor, and Bub's Saloon:



Will look moocho better when I'm done with it.

[cont.]

 

For the farmhouse I used some scribed clapboard siding I had lying around, sprayed it grey, then misted it with white:



Love those Legos!

0.02" styrene subroof, with RLW random cedar shingles stuck on.
The shingles have some sticky, but I find spraying the subroof styrene with adhesive helps keeping the peel down.



It's only three sides (why model what no one will see?), and I actually had to cut off part of the roof in the back to fit up against the hill.

So here's the scene:



Pond on the left, road up into the trees, then house.
To me it seemed a little bare.
Needed a big massive tree, but I didn't want to make any more oaks (those suckers take time!).
But I did find a WS armature that I bent, painted & "oakified" it.
So now:



Needs lots of junk around, included a rusted 1920s pickup truck.
But a fun scene to pass by.

[cont.]

 

Looks Great

MC,

Everything Looks Great! 2X10 yard is awesome! Baloon yard is awesome! Trees are awesome! I've found Aileens tacky glue to be great for holding down track.

A couple of questions.

1. What do you use to make such fine cuts in your PCB ties.
2. I've heard NeoLube is extremely conductive, did you have trouble with it bridging the gap you cut on your PCB ties?

 

Alrighty, last one! (for now!)

So after ballasting, I took some sections outside for a little last sunlight.
Here's the oaks in the keystone section:





Should be a nice scene to watch trains roll through, one way or the other.

Trackside shot of the depot burning in the sun:



And the farmhouse enjoying the rays:



So I need to finish ballasting the main (raised inner track), and I'm debating whether to ballast all three tracks, or keep the lowered two passing tracks in cinders.
Hmm....

So tomorrow: more trees, more bushes, more ballast, more....

Thanks for looking.
All & any comments & suggestions appreciated.

 

Thanks, Greg.
Your Industrial Lead is looking great, too (especially the benchwork so far: nice drawers!)

All the cuts I make on or around turnouts / PC board ties are with the Dedeco Thin A/O separating disc.
They offer them in boxes of 25 & 100. Get the 100.
Given that shipping is a bit stiff, and that they snap at a sneeze (or even the thought of a sneeze), plan on breaking the first 10 within a week.
After that you learn how to handle them (and take them out of the Dremel every time you finish cutting), then they'll break only once every month or two

As for the NeoLube: I slobbered it on both PC board ties and wood replacement, and no problems.
After I soaked everything, I remembered the conductivity thing, and so got the multimeter out & it was still fine & isolated
But as I always get very antsy trying to paint around the points, Neolube was a brilliant idea.
I had already given the turnouts a BlackenIt bath, so they're not super shiny, but the NeoLube takes care of the points and wood ties great.
Hopefully it'll stay that way!

 

Thanks, guys.
I can't take credit for the Lego idea: I first saw PW&NJ use some, and then there were some articles in some mags (MRH?) about using them to reinforce buildings.
They are definitely handy!
(Just need to watch out when using them as squares for CAing styrene building sides since the Legos are plastic, too!)

So the Great Train Expo is a little over a week away, and, until the Bullfrogs show up, I'm pretty much done with the staging/return loop.
Added a bunch of tufts, some more trees and bushes, finished ballasting the main & cindering the passing sidings (I think I'll leave it like that for visual separation).
The main thing was making two more oaks to fill in the background around the town of Devil Mountain:





Still need to add a few details like people, crates, a bench for the depot, redo the depot sign (too big & it bugs me), scatter some sandy grout, and find a place for the lone "holy freakin' cow".
Maybe build an old wire fence somewhere.
But pretty much done.

Also realized that this staging loop, when broken down, gives me 5 separate dioramas for photo shoots:



Will be easy to take outside on sunny days for some better photos than this one!

Also cut & drilled the plywood endplates that will allow me to "box" corresponding sections with scenery facing in for storage & transportation.
So after today I can box these up and find someplace (?!?) to store them while I go gangbusters on the Effett Yard staging module and hopefully get back to the Shoo-Fly module and get a vineyard and bridge-building scene in there.
Nothing like a show deadline to light a fire under your rear!

And, of course, a video:

[video=youtube_share;8za35S-VrUM]http://youtu.be/8za35S-VrUM[/video]

Sorry about the whacky lighting.
Hope to have better videos at the show next weekend!
Hope to see you there!

Thanks for looking.

 

Moocho more details, including peoples:



Under a hot California sun Dudes waiting for the train and a pair struggle to throw up a crate while Hank has no problem throwing up the crate of whiskey he drank at Bub's Saloon:



The lady's from Lucy Furr's Pleasure Parlor are taking a break from the heat inside and looking very lively next to Mr. Krypt's wares on display in front of his store:



[Look like Hanks still heaving]

And looks like the sun's going down but the train has yet to arrive, and passengers & crates just waiting to get out of Devil Mountain:



And waiting, and waiting...

[cont.]

 

Also tried out the endplate:





When I realized that I somehow mis-measured by about 4" [D'oh!] and left a lot of light between the sections.
So tomorrow I'll chop off 4" and then the sections will be a lot closer together (9"x16" or so).

Those 4" on two modules will make a BIG difference when packing all this in the car next week!

And in my newfound quest to discover new uses for the miracle that is NeoLube, I think I got a winner:

Staining Trip-pins!

I don't know about you, but every time I toothpick some paint onto a shiny trip pin some always ends up in the coupler and makes it a bit sticky.

But NeoLube not only stains the pin dark, but helps keep the coupler action moving faster than Lucy Furr.



You can also see how I weighted down the Atlas gons as I replaced the Accumates with MT's.

All in all, a groovy modeling day:



Thanks for looking.

 

Ya know thats just wrong on so many levels !!

You do more in a day or weekend then most of us do in a year !!!

*BTW...looking awesome as usual *

:sweat::rats:

 

Deadlines / shows are great motivators!

Bullfrogs finally showed up, so I spent yesterday morning building 5 and the afternoon installing them.
No foam on any of these sections, so, like Effett Staging Yard, there's 5 1/2" of space underneath and I use wood-block spacers to get the Bullfrogs down so the control rods pop out under the shelves.
Can't clamp the spacers, so in the past I've tried tacking with a screw (which sometimes actually pushes the spacer up or to the side) or even holding it in place with blue tape while the woodglue dries.

But, in a flash of madness/insight, I thought of a solution:

Woodglue on the inside, with CA on the edges!



The CA would cure and hold the wood block in place while the woodglue dries (providing one of the strongest Bonds on the planet, and without steroids!).
Would it work?
Would the two glues touch each other, setting off a massive explosion?
Would the bond at the end be enough for the constant pushing from the Bullfrogs?

So I pushed the block against the ply, held for 30 seconds, and:



Everything turned out hunky dory!

Woodglue dried well with blocks firmly pressed (held?) against the ply.
Bullfrogs installed and firmly in place.

After this pict I installed all the control rods, so it's ready to rock!

You'll notice that the bottom Bullfrog is not wired up:
That's the wye and doesn't need the frog powered from the Bullfrog as it's not isolated and so part of the auto-reversing circuit.

I did, however, install the microswitch just incase we wanted to install throwbar-controlled signals to remind operators which direction the wye is thrown.

Also very important:



I cut off all the screw tips that were sticking inside.
As the modules get handled a lot, and not always by people who know (or remember) where the ouchy points are, it's courteous and nice to remove any possible causes of bloodloss.

And got all the endplates recut and bolted together:



I'm Gorillla Gluing the bolts and washers to the endplates to ease assembly.
The bolts go right through the holes for the alignment dowels, so it's all good.

Takes up way less space on the workbench now!
Though it's going to be quite a Tetris puzzle next week trying to pack it all in the car.

Well, off to help another Free-moN Friend with some scenery & static grass.

Thanks for looking.

 

"Sorry, guys: can't help set up. Gotta shoot this video of you setting up!"
I'm on it!
:teeth:

 

And take away my excuse? :wink:

Thanks, but I have no idea when we're setting up.
We're able to get in the Friday before, but I might be the only one there.
So it might be a mad Saturday morning scramble.

One of the hallmarks of our "club" is being very "relaxed" in planning and organizing.
(We put the "loo" in "loose group of like-minded modelers")
But it always seems to work out in the end

I think the show starts around 10, so sleep in, get a good breakfast, and come on down at your pace.
Heck, bring a cool (DCC) loco and unit / passenger train and take 'er for a spin!
Bring your iPhone, download the free WiThrottle, and run yr train from your phone!

Hope to see you and anyone else Sat or Sun 10-4!
(there're always some bargins to be found with the vendors as well, if you know where to look) (or what to avoid )

Cheers!