Keith is right, I'm wrong - never have seen a ripe goldenrod attacked by anything. Thanks for the reminder Keith, could help solve my "lack-a-trees" problem - I still think I'll spray them with Lysol or Pinesol.
Dave, I do like the lysol/pinsol idea. I was even tempted to use bug spray. I sent some goldenrod to someone and I was worried that they would open a box full of bugs. Keith
Museums keep lots of freezers around for killing off bugs in fragile natural materials. Just pop the stuff in the freezer for a good 32 hours and all the bugs will be gone. One of the major disinfectants in lysol is alcohol. The alcohol evaporates fairly quickly after you spray it. So it may not be a good bug fighting agent over the long haul. Loco your scenery looked really good on that layout, the trees in particular. They kind of look like long needle pines like we have out here in colorado.
Keith: The goldenrod arrived in good shape with no bugs crawling around. Here are some of the Goldenrod trees on the JJJ&E in the switching yard: Stay cool and run steam.....
A couple of things on my hollow core door layout. Since I have put done the turf grass mixtures etc... with a base glue, how do I get the extra to stay down so my engines won't grab the loose turf particles? I can't remember the mixture of water to white glue, and will it make clumps of the wet stuff? I haven't even run an engine yet for fear that they might not work long because of sucking up the loose turf and grass scenery particles. I haven't glued the track down yet so I can completely remove the track in sections if I need to while working on getting the scenery to stay on the layout. Right now in some areas just the air conditioning coming on is causing some ground turf to move around.
Sounds like not enough glue? This is really worthy of another thread, but the way I do it: Spread around dirt, and maybe rocks, talus. On top of that gently sprinkle fine foam (grasses). Add small/medium bushes, place a few boulders. Then I wet everything with an eyedropper full of cheap alcohol. I don't like the spraying technique. Then I similarly wet everything with Scenic cement (or you can mix up white glue and water if you like). Allow to dry, then vacuum up everything that doesn't stick. It will look absolutely horrible until it dries about 24 to 48 hours. The nice thing about landscaping is you can keep going over the same area until it looks right. Just keep practicing until find what works for you!
I use a mix of 30 to 50% white glue, the rest water and a couple of good shots of dish-washing detergent. I too have had trouble when the white glue went below a certain percent. Normally pre-wet with a mix of water and alcohol before applying the glue mixture. Just did about 8 ft. of track around noon (ballasting the main line). Use a spray bottle, just point it upward and let it mist down till the foam or ballast is pretty wet.
My mix of white glue is 50% glue and 50% water. Before I spread the glue/water mix with a medicine dropper, I spray iso-propyl 91% alcohol over the area. This helps "wet" the area and makes it easier for the glu/water mix to be absorbed. Stay cool and run steam....
Even though I'm primarily the N guy, Tina has a small three rail O on two hollow doors. It started out a single 36X80 door holiday layout, grew to an additional door as Tina's Christmas Train is 11 cars long, and was never taken down after Christmas. I have since added width wise two closet doors to give us 4 feet by 14. The track is all 042 with 072 turnouts. The easiest way for me is to use 1x4 lumber secured to the bottom and have those folding legs screwed to the 1x4's. MR has done a few layouts like this. I also added furniture levelers in the legs as well. I built a nice N scale layout like this years ago and Tina's brother has a N layout built the same way, maybe he (THarms77) can post a pic of it.
Bob, Nice work on the switching yard! I am glad those were bug free. traingeekboy, Thanks, now I need to make some bigger ones for the HO. I am a big fan of Colorado/Utah. Keith
Very nice looking layout I hope (THarms77) post his pictures too. I am getting a lot of inspiration and ideas from these layouts. I have never worked on my layout as much as I have since starting this post and getting ideas. It's been sitting on a bare door for almost 2 years, with just track...ugggg. Come on folks, keep me going...give me more reasons to actually work on my hollow core door layout, and get it looking some what like a layout, and not a bare door...please! I have the right half with actually ground cover, etc...and went and purchased a few additional buildings yesterday after seeing all these nice layouts. Of course it will take me some time and changes to get close to what I think it should look like. But I can add things during the Fall and holidays, and change things in the future.
For years I had been under the impression that to have a nice layout, one had to have more tools than Norm Abrams, and build massive, around the wall benchwork. Then I found a book in the early 1990's that showed a really nice layout, complete with code 55 N scale track that featured a dual main line, a tunnel, a town and some industrial buildings. It was a 36X80 hollow door! I had just sold a bunch of my nitro powered RC aircraft and had about $500.00 credit at the local hobby shop so, off to the book store for the book, the lumbar yard where I found a door for $5.00 and then the hobby shop for cork, track switches, buildings and a nice Kato E-8. That was when I got serious in model railroading, and never looked back. The HO Tyco, AHM and brass track were replaced with Athern, and in N I just bought the Atlas and Kato brands. With the book in hand, I had the mainline done that night and was running trains. These are great as you don't have to invest a bunch of money on lumber and tools. I too used book cases for my legs and stored all my books, cars and loco's there. If you can, take phot's as you go, we would love to see your progress!:thumbs_up:
Shortly after we moved into our new home, my younger son decided (in a fit of uncontrolled anger broght about by his older brother slamming his bedroom door in his face) to punch through aforementioned brother's door. He learned later (after a few well-placed swats with my old Western belt applied by the missus on his caboose) that the wrong decision was made. The damaged door is one of those funky composite types, and it's been replaced with a similar door. Voila- one ready-made layout surface! All it needs now is 2" thick foam glued on top, and it's good to go! In another thread I started in this forum, I showed two different trackplans for a 30 by 78" hollow-core door. With the door being 2" wider, I can fiddle a bit with the curves.. All I need now is the time to get started!
Here's the URL for that thread in question: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=78142 The plans are about the middle of the thread (second & 3rd page, I believe), so some scrolling is advised. They're modified plans from other folks, adjusted to fit my givens & druthers.
I also was under this same impression. I had 30+ years of purchasing track, cork road bed, a few building, etc... and some locomotive power, only to get it started several times and then taking it back down and packing it away and repeating this for a very long time. I purchased the hollow core door about a year ago, and could never get past just laying the track and occasionally running trains, thinking that it was above me to go any further, or too complicated, or a million reasons I told myself not to try to start the scenery etc... Then all of a sudden I decided to make it simple so I wouldn't get overwhelmed. I completely took up all the track (none of it was permanent), completed the road bed I had started over a year ago. It took me about an hour. And only replaced the minimal amount of track so I could run the train around one mainline, and minimal switches. After that I just started to add ground cover etc... in small sections to see how it would work. And guess what all the stressing out I had done about this process was for nothing. The main reason was I decided to do small amounts and have the entire plan flat ground for my first try. No mountains, nothing that I had to clean up for days or curse at because I hadn't done it right. Just some Elmer's glue, ground cover, paint brush, and lightly adding the different types of cover and blending colors. I got so excited it was so easy I had half the hollow core scenicked in 2-3 days. So if your are finally starting that small layout...take it from me ,keep it simple, and learn and enjoy on a small scale and then tackle the large projects, like tunnels, real looking water, bridges, live volcanos, on your next layout. I am really grateful for all the people that posted ideas, help, and pictures to finally get me pumped up and going. I'll try to get some pictures posted in the future for eveyone. Don't expect the Mona Lisa A big thanks to all,
I would agree about the simplicity approach. I found that after reading MR I felt like I had to do a layout that would really impress people with how unique and special it was. Just building a layout wasn't good enough. I was always deviating from the norm and being a little bit too experimental on my approach. Now I have a very simple layout. Just some ovals and some spurs and yard. No grades, no tunnels, no bridges. But so far i'm having fun.
EAds RR Layout Here is my n scale hollow core door plan. I will also try and upload another picture that basicly shows the layout over a year ago and just basic track on a hollow core door. Tell me what you think?
Looks like a plan to me. The only thing I'd keep in mind about it is, there appears to be quite a lot of hidden track (dashed lines), make certain that that hidden track is easily accessible.
That track is not hidden as the entire layout is flat. I had put those dotted lines in there for piers/risers that I had and was going to use them but decided I wanted a complete flat design for my first layout on the hollow core door. I also didn't want my stuff falling off the layout anymore than it had too. I am trying to upload the pictures right into the post but can't figure it out yet.
Are the spurs on the left side intended for an industrial area? They look kinda weird to me. Also, you may be able to fit a small yard in to the gap on the lower left corner between the main and the branch. Perhaps a smal engine facility. Eric
