Continuing up the branch line. April 23, 2008
Posted by railroadman in 1, Layout Construction, Model Railroading, Trackwork, model railroad, railroad, railroad construciton.1 comment so far
Well I have been doing lots of scenery for the past few months on and off but have come to areas that I can’t proceed until more track work is in place. I am still working on 2 building projects at this time. One to complete Gainesville and a 3 building lumber mill. I had to move a short section of track to better fit in a nice tressel bridge that will be aprox. 2 feet long in total length and will span the valley of two mountains that surround my main town. The tressel itself is in progress as well.
Railroad Track Plan April 9, 2008
Posted by railroadman in Trackwork.1 comment so far
I have been meaning to redraft the final track plan but time has not been on my side so I am posting images of my rough work. It does the job and is to scale but isn’t 100% pretty. The first image here shows Gainesville at the top center with the 6 track off line fiddle yard to the left and Clifton at the end of the branch line to the right. The lower middle shows a scrapped concept of Woodshill and the east end of Gainesville. I have reversed the entrance to the industry where the grade will be more leveled off and repositioned the branch line track work to allow a nice tressel bridge and an additional rock portal. This area is where the mountain range I have just recently finished.
This next image is the other side of the layout room showing Stone Valley and its yard tracks. Walton can be seen in the upper left and Holden should be on the right hand side but is not shown on the draft copy as I added it after I confirmed I had enough scenery room to support it visually.
I have started working on the spline work, roadbed and laying ties up the branch line from Holden to Walton and to Clifton. I will be doing a post shortly showing my spline techniques.
Thanks again for reading and happy railroading.
Pouring, Shaping, Installing, Coloring, and Detailing Rock Castings March 11, 2008
Posted by railroadman in 1, Buildings and Scenery, Model Railroading, model railroad, railroad, railroad construciton.4 comments
I received several emails regarding my rock casting techniques which I really appreciate. So I am returning the appreciation by detailing step by step how I get my rock castings to look realistic.
1. Pouring the Casting – First I pick out a mold that will fit the space I am working on. Molds by the way can be purchased or made like I did. I made dozens of all different types of rocks with liquid rubber latex that is applied in several layers to build the thickness.
The key is the first layer as it holds all the detail so I make sure to brush the latex in every groove and hole on the rocks surface. The remaining layers build the thickness so the mold does not tear when removing it. Now I can create hundreds of castings. Make sure if you purchase molds that you get several as you do not want your rocks to look repetitive. I use dental plaster for my moldings as it is super fine, starts to setup in 5 minutes and can be installed on the layout in 30 minutes. Full cure time is about 24 hours. Dental plaster is very hard to find but if you know a dentist you shouldn’t have any problems. I am sure some of the fine molding plasters out there may do a similar job. I start by mixing just enough plaster to do the mold as I only have 5 minutes to work with it. I wet the mold and pour in some plaster and tap it with a spatula t0 get any air bubbles out and to help it flow into all the detail. I make sure to have enough plaster around the edges as if it is not thick enough, it will chip when I go to remove it or when I am installing it. After I have filled the mold with plaster I leave it to setup but return every 10 minutes to spray it with water as the dental plaster heats up in the curing process. The water keep the plaster from getting brittle.
