Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Gone to the Movies!

My son Brent and his wife Camellia came by to visit a few weeks ago.  While Brent was here he made a short video of my model railroad for one of his film projects he is working on this summer.  So enjoy the short film by my son Brent he is quite the film maker.

The Train Builder

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Scenery starting to take shape

I have been working on getting the scenery further along as well as putting in the final section of benchwork and track.


This is an extension to the existing bench on the right side as you enter the layout.  This section is 36"x23" and 43 and 3/4" high. Because there is no wall to attach the bench to it is supported by legs and attached to the last support of the wall mounted section.


Same section as above but from the side.  This area will be open from both sides so no backdrop like the rest of the layout



Looking out of the center of the layout at the new section with the lift out section removed for access to the layout when not operating.



Liftout section installed for operation.



This is the elevated sub roadbed for the new section around to the other side which gives an oval around the room.



Lower section of track will be the bottom of the transfer bin at Hope Well when it is built.  The upper section is the oval for now but will have the top of the transfer bin also.


Sub roadbed for 36" radius curve of oval over lift out section.


The rest is of the scenery work so far.  Most of this area is used geodesic foam from the original layout in Lincoln before we moved to Yuba City.


I cut the used foam and hot glued it in place then filled in sections with sculpt a mold.  I added dry powder paint to the sculpt a mold to give it some color as a base.


This section is to the right of the above photo and is more of the same base scenery material.  This part of the track is one of the switchbacks that was on the VT&S as it passed Hope Well.


More cut up foam base between track and facia hot glued in place.  The gaps will have sculpt a mold filled in to look like rock out cropping's .


Most of the area is ready for painting and final scenery material to complete this part.  The sculpt a mold is fun to work with and very easy to carve and shape as you desire as it dries.


Part of this area is geodesic foam and cast satin resin rock forms.  The gray rocks in the foreground are part of the foam I allowed for when I was working with the geodesic foam resin.  All I did was to allow for some small foam resin to be bubbled up and as it dries it expands to several times it size.  The area between the tracks is part cast satin and sculpt a mold as well as foam.  This is the tail end of the switchback so the upper section of track is about three inches above the lower track.