What did you do on your layout today? (N scale)

[bill937ca]

You could cut the existing portal in half and insert a small piece.

[railsquid]

Yup, I considered it then put on the list of not-really-problems to be solved at a later date, got a hill to build first... Did consider it for the other end but due to ridiculously tight clearances to neighbouring tracks it wouldn't be viable.

[keiichi77]

Worked on my fake mountain today, still much more to do but at least it looks like I am getting somewhere. ;)

 

The 3 tunnel entrance side of the mountain. The seam of the lift out section (running parallel with the bridge top) is not visible at eye level, but I took the pictures standing on a chair.

 

 

And finally a shot with the mountain lift out removed to allow access to the tracks underneath.

 

 

I think I should buy stock in Woodland Scenics, this took 7 bags of clump foam and still isn't finished...lol

 

 

[nah00]

Not exactly one day of work but the last couple weeks of work. Finally decided foam hills painted tan needed an improvement and started working on more foliage. Also remembered why I don't really like lichen, the pieces on the mountain dried out really fast. Also not sure how happy I am with the color of the rocks...nature is hard. 

[JR 500系]

I like how the Shikisai looks perfect in that landscape!

[nah00]

Thank you! I was trying to figure out what train would look best and almost immediately I decided on it. Thought about one of the Kashima Rinkai DMUs too. 

[railsquid]

Well this looked good in SCARM but squeezing roughly 4.5 parallel lines on a curve into tunnels is a little tight... Fortunately disposable chopsticks form a cheap but robust way of building up supports where clearance is at a minimum.

Tunnel construction with disposable chopsticks (waribashi) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[Pauljag900]

Good effort there squid,amazing what you can find to use👍👍

gonna be fun cleaning those tracks mate?😂👍

[cteno4]

Love the timber construction! Reminds me of snow sheds in the sierras.

 

jeff

[IST]

17 hours ago, keiichi77 said:

I think I should buy stock in Woodland Scenics, this took 7 bags of clump foam and still isn't finished...lol

 

When you continue it, would you be so kind and could you please do me some pictures about the process? I like your pictures and would like to know how do you use this clump foam. I am planning to make a similarly looking forest in one of my corner modules, but  not sure the right technique. Thanks in advance!

[railsquid]

5 hours ago, Pauljag900 said:

Good effort there squid,amazing what you can find to use👍👍

gonna be fun cleaning those tracks mate?😂👍

 

Highly complex process:

1) lift away tunnel sections

2) clean tracks

 

;)

 

 

[cteno4]

Mad dogs and Californians go out in below 30F weather to sand wood...

 

well i I got warmed up shoveling the driveway today so I set up the oscillating belt sander outside to sand all the new layout girders (very dusty even with a vac attached) sure the neighbors think I’m daft... but they are all nice and smooth now!

 

jeff

[railsquid]

18 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

sure the neighbors think I’m daft... but they are all nice and smooth now!

 

 

The layout girders or the neighbours?

 

Had to think a bit what 30F means in real terms, below freezing if memory serves correctly?

[bill937ca]

25 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Mad dogs and Californians go out in below 30F weather to sand wood...

 

well i I got warmed up shoveling the driveway today so I set up the oscillating belt sander outside to sand all the new layout girders (very dusty even with a vac attached) sure the neighbors think I’m daft... but they are all nice and smooth now!

 

jeff

 

30 F is balmy.  Try -15C (5F).

[cteno4]

Smoothed the first neighbor who walked by and that kept the rest away.

 

I did it as today was balmy, tommorow’s low will be more like  -11C...

 

jeff

[keiichi77]

9 hours ago, IST said:

 

When you continue it, would you be so kind and could you please do me some pictures about the process? I like your pictures and would like to know how do you use this clump foam. I am planning to make a similarly looking forest in one of my corner modules, but  not sure the right technique. Thanks in advance!

 

Sure thing, I meant to do it this time but got ahead of myself, but basically the mountains are made out of pink foam sheets (mine were 3/4") glued together with PL Premium (a construction adhesive) to get the general shape and structure I wanted. To get rid of the box look I use a can of expanding spray foam insulation in random locations. The stuff expands in such a way that it looks very organic with shapes found in nature. The lift out part of my mountain  is a piece of pink insulation foam board standing up with spray foam on in random spots so my mountain wouldn't look completely vertical.  Once everything was dry I painted everything (brown latex paint) let the paint dry and started gluing (PL Premium again) clumps of ground foam randomly (I used light green and medium green mostly with a little dark green)

 

You can kind of make out in my third picture what I did, the spray foam is the yellow stuff sprayed over the pink foam board.

[Kiha66]

On 12/29/2017 at 5:28 PM, keiichi77 said:

 

What did you use for the raised areasin front of the tracks?  (I assume for rice paddies) 

[keiichi77]

14 hours ago, Kiha66 said:

 

What did you use for the raised areasin front of the tracks?  (I assume for rice paddies) 

 

It's 1/4" foam core board I picked up at a dollar store, I just cut it in strips and glued it down to make the rice fields, I then used regular drywall mud the slope them down which is a heck of a lot easier then cutting the cheap dollar store foam core sheets on an angle.  ;)

[nah00]

Was less than impressed with the effect of lichen and seeing keiichi77's work made me realize that WS clump foam looks a million times better then it. So I used the shop vac to take off all the lichen (surprisingly easy and more of indication that it was't the best choice) and tried out some of the foam on one place:

 

Need to break up the straight line look but I like it a lot more, here's the front mountain redone:

 

Finally also add some growth onto the retaining wall around the industrial area:

 

[cteno4]

Lichen is very tricky, needs to be glyceroled just right to be stable and even then it may not hold up over very long times! The couple of times I’ve seen lichen in stores in the last few years (and its rare these days even in craft stores for me)it’s very dry and appears not to have much glycol in it, which means it will dry out fast and also probably change color more.

 

ground and clump foams have really evolved! 

 

Jeff

[Kiha66]

I started another display case diorama, this time loosely inspired by the northern exit of the Kanmon Tunnel.  I also took inspiration from nickhp with most of the landscape constructed on foam board.

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, cteno4 said:

Lichen is very tricky, needs to be glyceroled just right to be stable and even then it may not hold up over very long times! The couple of times I’ve seen lichen in stores in the last few years (and its rare these days even in craft stores for me)it’s very dry and appears not to have much glycol in it, which means it will dry out fast and also probably change color more.

 

ground and clump foams have really evolved! 

 

Jeff

 

That must be why lichen had such a weird smell. I kind of liked it. I used it a ton on my OO gauge layout when I was a kid. I can still close my eyes and almost smell the stuff. Glycol - the scent of happiness. :)

[cteno4]

Ha lol, it’s a childhood layout scent for me as well from the early 70s! Ok as bushes and trees, but to use it as clump foliage requires you to carefully snip out bits and glue them in a particular orientation or it looked bad! Isn’t glycol used as an embalming fluid?

 

jeff

[gavino200]

6 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Ha lol, it’s a childhood layout scent for me as well from the early 70s! Ok as bushes and trees, but to use it as clump foliage requires you to carefully snip out bits and glue them in a particular orientation or it looked bad! Isn’t glycol used as an embalming fluid?

 

jeff

 

Not sure. Usually cadavers and specimens are preserved in formaldehyde, which smells extremely nasty. Combined with mildly rancid muscle and the sickly smell of slowly putrifying fat it's a horrific smell. I remember asking my anatomy professor if he ever got used to it. He said "No, but my children grew up sort of liking it. It smelled like Daddy". I guess association is as important as sensation.

Edited January 1, 2018 by gavino200

[Das Steinkopf]

3 hours ago, nah00 said:

Was less than impressed with the effect of lichen and seeing keiichi77's work made me realize that WS clump foam looks a million times better then it. So I used the shop vac to take off all the lichen (surprisingly easy and more of indication that it was't the best choice) and tried out some of the foam on one place.

 

Ewww, Lichen is so 1970's, I gave up on using it over 20 years ago when I switched to Woodland Scenics Poly Fibre and Coarse Turf, to glue the Coarse Turf to the Poly Fibre you can use cheap hairspray it works perfectly.