Quick update from this weekend. On two separate occasions I went out to the train room to work on my shoofly turnout. I started by forming cork roadbed, turned upside down, to fill the gaps between the mainline and the shoofly. Once I had what I wanted, it was glued in place and I set 123 blocks on it. As you can see from the above, the second visit included using pink stuff spackle to cover the work I put in place and then to smooth out the transition from the new inserts to the main block of foam. I'm looking forward to seeing how this looks tomorrow night. Until then, thanks for checking in. M RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
This will be short. Scott and I each finished the spackle on our respective turnouts. Here is mine: After last night's work, I sanded things smooth, then added where needed and also used the spackle to cover exposed areas, like foam I used for contouring. Here is Scott's: His area is actually down grade from mine so we need a bit more elevation. The last thing I want are train cars rolling into the turnout when they should be idle. So he's used more of the shim than I did, by quite a margin. He used spackle to ease the transition to the foam and a small amount to create contiuring, mostly roadbed shoulders at the end of the shims. After that, we spent the night doing odd jobs. I cleaned the workbench and sorted a slew of 2-56 screws Rey bought for me. I'm fairly certain Scott did a run around with the new GMD-1, but I could be mistaken. Odd jobs, hmmm... Anyway, not as much progress as I hoped, but we had fun doing it. Until next week, thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Here's a couple of updates on the shoofly scene. I marked the edge of the track that will be closest to the aisle. I used a preliminary spacing of 2-1/4 inches. That may change as we put down the track. I then taped all the existing track area and using my hot wire foam cutter, contoured the front edge of the foam. I then taped off the fascia and filled any gaps with spackle. The next step was to start painting the scene a basic brown to cover the spackle. Don't want any of that pesky white showing through later! I'll let the front edge spackle dry before doing anything else today. That's it for now. More later. Thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
We had a full crew at the RGW tonight and made good use of it. Rey was putting the finishing touches on the Seattle Yard by powering the two frogs. At night's end when he ran our lighted wheelset through each leg and the results proved the tortoise reversed the polarity, we all high fived. As for Scott, Doug and I, we again tag-teamed the shoofly. I started the evening by finishing the fascia edge sanding then painting the entire area brown. Then Scott and I test fit the track and once satisfied, tacked it temporarily in place. We ran our test train back and forth several times before moving on to the next step. Scott then put in a set of feeders. Once he finished, Doug and I started ballasting the entire area. That took quite a bit of the evening, but before we called it a night, we started hitting the area with 50/50 solution. I try my best to leave clean ties, it's always fun to look at it when wet and see the results. One final note, there was one area where the track did not sit flush with the subroadbed. It was an easy fix though. I packed sand into the void before the ballast. Once it's covered up nobody will even know the difference. I merely weighed that spot down to assure adhesion. That's it for tonight. Next week we'll begin working on the road and the backdrop. Until then, thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Here's a quick update from today's progress. I am trying to make quick work of the shoofly scene, so every chance I get I want to get out to the train room. Today I added more ballast along the tracks then ballasted both turnouts. I use 50/50 white glue and water for all non-turnout track, but I use 90/10 mix of water and matte medium for the turnouts. The matte medium is easier to work with along the points and throw bar; as in should you glue them in place, you can pop matte medium, not so with white glue. After that process was complete and given a couple of hours to set, I came back in and started to put back scenery, using real dirt and full strength white glue. Along the north side of the shoofly I added a buffer of fine sand to cover up the vertical edges of Scott's shims. I only did the relatively flat surfaces for now. Later I will cover the flat surfaces and blow real dirt and then turf grass on the more vertical surfaces. Here is how the scene looks at this point. I'll head back out after dinner to give the dirt a shot of the 50/50 mix. More soon. Thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Here are tonight's photo updates. Put down ground foam of different colors and sizes, then hit the entire area with 50/50. Then immediately started working on the road. First, the subroadbed layer which is graded dirt. Then at the other end, on top of the subroadbed layer, the aggregate layer (gravel) and the intermediate layer (crushed old asphalt). Everything to the right of this picture will be the asphalt later, multiple layers of styrene painted asphalt gray. Each layer will ultimately have equipment consistent with the progress of the road. That's enough for now. Thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Greetings from Arizona. Here for a couple of days, needed some sun! Ventured out to the garage tonight to work on the PMBL. Just so you can reference the layout design here's a look. There has been one design change, I took out the crossover to building 5, Pelikan Office Products and moved the access point to the lower right of the town. Tonight I started laying out the track centerlines. I started with the mainline along the wall. Later I added the spur tracks along the wall and garage door. In the foreground of the left hand main, you can see I also started laying out the rough locations of the turnout frogs. Once I had an intersection point, I worked out the radius point for the mainline curves. The inside curve is 30in and the outside curve 32.25in. After drawing the curves, I needed to fill in a couple of spots where the curves traversed mid air. A couple of quick cuts on the miter saw and a little glue fixed those. As that set, I worked out the layout of the yard tracks. There are 5 in total. I'm using a spacing of about 2.25in between each. The temperature here is fabulous. It was 70 when I started and still is 64 as I call it a night. I could get used to this....thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Another successful night in the books for the RGW Crew. Scott and I continued our progress on the shoofly scene. Scott added switch stands for both of the turnouts on the shoofly. On the West stand he needed to dig into the hillside, while the East stand was a fairly easy placement. While he was doing that, I made up the asphalt road template. I started with a paper outline, trimming and adding here and there until I had the profile I wanted. The new road will be everything to the left, while the existing will hit a dead end just before the tracks. I then took the template to the workbench and cut the pattern out using 1/8 balsa wood. Once I was satisfied with the profile the next step was a light sanding followed by coating both sides with varathane. As the profile dried I placed it under wax paper and weighed it down to prevent cupping. Once dried, the profile will get a coat of course molding paste, sanded and finally painted with German grey to simulate fresh asphalt. While that set up, Scott and I started visualizing the pipe and culvert installation scene. No definitive plans as yet, but it was fun dinking around with the props! We were short handed tonight so that sums up the extent of our evening. We appreciate your interest. As always, thanks for checking in. M RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Here's a quick update from the weekend. The primary road has had two coats of varathane and now one skim coat of Golden Course Molding paste. The single layer section of the road is still drying from it's second coat of varathane. Finally, started getting ready for Tuesday. Any ideas what these are for? Until then. Thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Only a couple of projects to review tonight, first Scott spent the evening installing, then fine tuning the switch stands for the shoofly. He started by painting the bases cement gray, but in the end, the fine tuning required some chiseling of the wood base, so he'll add touch up later. By evening's end the work train was running through the shoofly with ease. As for me, I started the evening sanding the main road and adding a touch up of Golden Molding paste. Later I sanded again, but also put down the first coats of paint. The single layer section, once painted, revealed some irregularities, so I'll add more paste to it in the next few days. As for the double ply section, I started by painting the older pavement Tamiya JN Grey. Eventually I'll weather it with darker grays. As for the new pavement, I used Vallejo Dark Sea Gray. I gave everything two coats, and included a sealer at the intersection. That's just gloss black, about 2mm wide. I made sure to seal the light gray with one more coat of varathane before calling it a night. I did this so I can use wet on wet (wet paint over a water base) to give the old road more colors and stains. I'm not covering the new pavement as it's supposed to be brand new. The last thing I did before turning out the lights was glue the road in place. It's now sitting under a mishmash of 1x4 boards, wax paper and 5 lb hand weights to assure adhesion to the subsurface. Fingers crossed. Until next time, thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Back at it for a bit. First, I got the single ply asphalt layer sanded, painted and glued down. Then started stain painting the old road. It starts with water, that includes a few drops of flow aid from Liquitex. Then splashes of color. In this case part Vallejo USAF light gray and Gray Blue. I have another 2 colors to go (Earth and Dark Sea Gray), but this one needs to dry first. So I'm off to another project. More later, thanks for checking in! M RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
A lot to cover on a full evening at the RGW. After nearly a month in Florida, Reynold returned and completed the Seattle Yard project. He wired up the final turnout and the frog routed power perfectly. Then for good measure he dropped 3 sets of feeders in the yard throat. I think he's thrilled to be done laying on his back for most of a work session. I started my contribution last night. I was lucky enough to have a Bragdon rock mold delivered in the mail. Many thanks to Joel Bragdon for the assist on that. I prepared the hydrocal, then hit the mold with a skim coat of mold release. Then I filled the mold and called it a night. Earlier this evening I pulled the rock formation from the mold then took it over to the shoofly scene. There I started breaking it into smaller pieces and hot gluing it above the fascia. Once I was satisfied with the result, I turned it over to Scott to fill the gaps with more hydrocal Here is a before and after of one section. Here is a split view of the entire rock formation. When Scott finished, we taped everything off for the painting phase. Our painting method is simple, 5 highly diluted colors; granite, anthracite, black, green and burnt sienna. We use large spray bottles and lightly spray random streams into the rock. Once done with the first go around, we let it dry for a couple of days before doing more specific color sprays. By next week it will have vibrant color combinations and be ready for scenery. Well that was about it for tonight. I'm tired. Cya next week. Thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
On a slow night at the RGW, let's actually go back to the weekend where the sun actually poked it's head out for a few hours so I took the opportunity to start making more large bushes for the bare areas on the layout. I use pillow batting stretched thin and torn up into smaller pieces. Then give it a heavy dose of flat black, Hunter Green and then highlights of light green and medium brown. Once it dries I flip it over and do it again. Then it becomes a ground foam show. Medium green coarse colored by light green mixed and finally dark green leaves. Here it sits in the greenhouse drying, while I await delivery of more green leaves. To fix the ground foam to the entire piece I drench it with cheap hairspray. Once the leaves get here I'll add them and we will start placing these pieces around the layout. As for tonight, I started by putting in the backdrop behind the road, only to realize in hindsight it wasn't really the look I wanted, so I'll go back to the drawing board on that. I did however, decide to move it north of the road and behind the rural housing scene. It really works back there when combined with the scenic trees. I have several more feet and will look to find locations to add it as well. As for the rock formation along the shoofly, I added colors three times since last Tuesday. On Saturday I added a darker gray to make the scene pop. I am pleased with the outcome so far. Before calling it a night I added fine ground foam to simulate moss and grass growing on the rock surfaces. After sprinkling it on the rocks I took a fine brush and moved it around to avoid too many large patches and once satisfied, hit the entire formation with hair spray. The next steps will include bushes and other scenery materials on the perimeter and in some of the crevices Well that's it for tonight so until next week, thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Tonight's work session consisted of Scott, Doug and I tag teaming the backdrop at the shoofly scene. Scott started everything off by selectively trimming off part of the grass edging along the lower side of the backdrop. Meanwhile Doug and I worked on leveling the middle section of the new road. In a test fit before trimming, it was clear there was a substantial dip in the middle section of the road. So Doug and I started by adding play sand to fill most of the area, then we waited for Scott. Here was the area before installing the backdrop. Once we had the backdrop in hand, we test fit it a second time, made a couple of final alterations; specifically cutouts to accommodate the brackets holding up the upper shelf. Then we added double stick tape and began the install. About half way down the line it was clear the backdrop could not be installed level. So I cut it along a section of the trees and we taped that section in place. Then started again with the second piece. When all was in place, we came back and added more dirt and gravel to hide any parts of the backdrop that did not touch the base level. Here's how it turned out. After it was in place, we hit the new scenery with wet water and 50/50 glue. Now we will let it dry and take stock next week. Overall I'm very pleased with the transformation of this scene. I hope you are as well. Until next time, thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Back after a week in Oklahoma visiting my son. Had a great time building a fence, watching baseball and women's basketball and many other adventures. Before I left, I was able to set new foliage along the north wall. Now that I'm back, I set my sights on extending the road scene. Specifically the "old road" on to the backdrop. Using 1-point perspective, I drew the road on to the backdrop. Once I was satisfied with the drawing, I started the painting. I used several colors, blending them as I thought they needed to be, and using multiple brushes to add the effects I wanted to see. Here is the nearly finished product. I will try and match the pale yellow grass for the next paint layer. As the paint was drying I started adding more foliage to the rock outcropping. By the end of the evening, I started fiddling with the machinery. Nothing for certain so far, but it's coming along. As I was doing this, Doug and Rey were adding feeders to the old programming track so that we can do programming again on the main. They made excellent progress, including adding a switch in the fascia. Having a mainline programming option will give us back the flexibility we've been lacking for some time. Well that's enough for one night. We appreciate your support and interest. As always, thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Busy night on the RGW. Scott and I completed the shoofly scene, but the process actually started this weekend as I came across a paint mixing program that let's you use hobby colors like Tamiya and Vallejo to create an infinite number of colors. It's called Color Mixer (CM) in the Google Play store. As I mentioned last week, I wanted to match the pale yellow color of grass along the tree line. According to CM that color best approximated "pear". By selecting unmix, it then breaks the color into it's parts as shown here: This view shows percentage of each paint in the mix, but the radio button at the top allows you to switch to parts; so it shows specific number of drops to use while mixing. After mixing the specified colors in the proper percentages, I came up with this.... Once painted on the wall, it darn near matches the existing color perfectly. I'm a satisfied customer. Now to be fair the full access version cost $5. That allows me to select the hobby paints I have in my kit, directly from the paint libraries, creating a custom library. It's fantastic. Back to the road, we filled in a couple of empty spots with selected tree cutouts then called it good. We began staging the road equipment and enhancing individual scenes with dirt, rocks, and gravel. There isn't enough space for everything I own, but I put out a couple extra pieces just for show. I am very happy about the evolution of this scene. As I mentioned back at the beginning, I never liked this stretch of the RGW, but I sure do now. As for Doug and Reynold, they completed the install of the programming track. The final touch was adding labels to the switch. All in all, it was a good night on the RGW. Two projects now moved to the 'completed' side of the ledger. In the next couple of weeks Rey and I will tackle the turntable indexing and the storage tracks it leads to. All other tracks, thanks to Doug and Rey are now in complete working order. The turntable is the final piece to complete in Renton Yard. Thanks for checking in! M RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
That road construction scene looks great! A great mix of equipment too. Nice work! The Color Mixer app looks really interesting as well. thanks for the tip on that.
