Hamamachi Station

[Kiha66]

Looks like a good haul!   Now gotta focus on getting the track working so you can enjoy running them on the layout.  Careful not to get too distracted by shiny new trains that you forget to finish the layout!  (I'm guilty of that myself 😁)

[JR 500系]

This will be an interesting project to watch it develop! I love the wood work! Nice Job! And prefect haul there! 

[Drunkenclam]

On 1/5/2019 at 3:15 AM, Grant_T said:

Back from Japan. We had an awesome time again. Here is my haul from the shops. I bought some rolling stock, but not to any particular theme, just what I found attractive. The Tomytec buildings are surprisingly good, but I will probably repaint, detail and generally fix them up a bit before they go on the layout.

 

 

One day we rode the Keihan line up to Kurama in the snow. That was pretty magical and I thought it would be an amazing subject to model. And then by complete chance when I visited Popondetta in Kyoto later, the Keihan rail-car we rode was just sitting there on the shelf before me. 😃

 

That's what we call fate. I hope that was in your haul. Always good to have a train that reminds you of happy times.

[Grant_T]

Thanks for the kind comments. Some more progress for you all. I had a go at arranging the various buildings. I've decided not to use the large abandoned warehouse on this layout because its size overwhelms everything else. That side of the layout will be less built up. I also finished laying the tracks. It's all glued down and will be soldered. I will also spend a bit of time tidying it up, filling gaps and the little track locating holes etc. Then it will get a paint. Finally I pushed some trains though by hand for a rough test of everything. I will wire it up and test properly next week. And then the fun part... scenery!

 

[Kiha66]

Wow, looks great Grant!  Love all these small buildings, and those EMUs look great.  Is the 185 series a tomix model?

[JR 500系]

This looks great! Thanks for sharing Grant! I love how the layout looks, and the carpentry works is fantastic too! Looking forward to its completion!  🙂

[Grant_T]

18 hours ago, Kiha66 said:

Wow, looks great Grant!  Love all these small buildings, and those EMUs look great.  Is the 185 series a tomix model?

 

The 185 is the Kato 5 car set (10-1443). 

 

One other thing I was going to say is that it is nice now having a sense of scale for the layout. I think I have quite a nice space to model the scene.

[Grant_T]

The track is largely finished. It's all soldered together and has the feeders soldered to the rail. I'll wire this for DCC later. I also spent a bit of time filling the track fixing holes and gaps with Vellejo acrylic filler. Then I gave it an under coat of Tamiya acrylic flat brown and flat black. This is not the end of the track painting because the ties and ballast need painting and weathering once the scenery is done. next up I'll let  this dry, and mask it to protect the track from the messy scenery work.

 

[Densha]

Awesome layout, Grant! It really strikes my chords.

[JR 500系]

Wow those rails! I'm really loving it! The colour and weathering is pretty nice, makes me wanna paint my rails too! 

[Kiha66]

Great weathering Grant, really proves sectional track can look just as good as hand laid or flex when done right.

[Grant_T]

And some more progress. I have started on the scenery. The track was masked with Tamiya tape to protect it from the messiness, and then I began on the formers for the hills. Usually I use wood framing and chicken wire, but I think that would be overkill for this so I'm using thick cardboard. Over this will go a thinner card weave and then plaster cloth and sculptamold (hence the messiness). I'll finish the cardboard framework this weekend hopefully (but I did spend this morning organising the hobby room: see the final pics).

 

 

My hobby room (and my various preoccupations beyond trains):

[Thankyu6300]

I'm really enjoying watching this layout come together, and i'm loving the bench work your giving me plenty of ideas.

[Kiha66]

I really like the hills framing either sides of the layout, thanks for the progress update!

[Grant_T]

I've been putting in the hours on this. Hopefully you can see what I'm doing from the pictures without any commentary. It's almost ready for some plaster. On the computer are videos from our trip in 2017. Hopefully we get to go back in August this year for a conference. 😐

 

[Kiha66]

Lotta progress!  I'm loving the cardboard scenery base, I may have to steal that idea when the time comes on my own layout.

[Grant_T]

Pressing on. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

 

 

Up next is the really fun part. 😎

[Grant_T]

I've also decided that this needs a more exciting name than "seaside layout." 

[katoftw]

Seaside Layout Ultra Plus?

[cteno4]

Grant, 

 

looking nice! Love sculptimould, great stuff and light weight!

 

jeff

[Grant_T]

Scenic shell finished. The glad wrap in the tunnel portal is to stop the sculptamold sticking so I can get a nice flush location for the portals. Next up is surfacing the road and platform and carving the rocks on the hills and sea front. It's a bit hard to photograph at this stage because of all the white.

 

[Kiha66]

Interesting idea with the glad wrap, thats a useful tip!  

[Grant_T]

Finally doing what feels like actual modelling. These are the tunnel portals I bought in Osaka Yodabashi. Airbrushed with several brown/orange shades of acrylic in patches and then given a wash with Tamiya enamel X-57 buff.

 

[gavino200]

8 minutes ago, Grant_T said:

Finally doing what feels like actual modelling. These are the tunnel portals I bought in Osaka Yodabashi. Airbrushed with several brown/orange shades of acrylic in patches and then given a wash with Tamiya enamel X-57 buff.

 

 

Wow! That looks amazing. Any chance you could give a more "dummy" level description of how you painted these? How did you do the basic brick and mortar effect?

[Grant_T]

Sure thing. After painting the portals with the patchy brown orange base coat with Tamiya acrylic (it has to be acrylic or it will be removed by the following steps) I sealed with an acrylic clear coat. Then I gave it a wash of the buff enamel which has been thinned with Tamiya's X-20 enamel thinner. This is just painted over the entire piece and left to dry. It might look like you are ruining the portal at this point but you aren't. After it is dry use a rag (e.g. old t shirt scraps) and if necessary q-tips dipped in the enamel thinner to remove most of the buff enamel coat leaving the wash in the grooves and details of the piece. This gives the mortar appearance. It also gives the portal a nice weathered appearance. This technique is technically called a sludge wash I believe.

Edited February 16, 2019 by Grant_T