The Chessie System's Hacker Valley

TrCO Mar 6, 2014

  1. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks for all the great input guys! Scupltamold around the edges and anywhere the flat part of the park isn't, some sanded and unsanded grout here and there. Throw in some static grass, a WS basketball figure set, a road and a parking lot and we'll be right as rain round these parts.

    One other thing I've been working on:

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    In desperate need of some more talus and some rock castings, which means I'm also in desperate need of some plaster of paris. Should be picking up some talus tomorrow afternoon from my (horribly overpriced) LHS.

    that unsanded grout is going to come in awfully useful for many different things... exciting stuff
     
  2. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    Broke out a small batch of scupltamold and got to work on the park, and then laid out where the road is going to run through it and the parking lot to boot.

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    Things are better already :)
     
  3. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    So far experiments with unsanded grout have been unsuccessful. Thankfully, this morning I was browsing through some photos from my first layout (The Nameless & Aimless) looking for inspiration and luckily enough I found some :)

    So I set to work: poured some WS smooth-it, kinda let that dry, sifted dirt over the top of it, glued the whole thing down, and when it's all dry and whatnot I'll break out the weathering powders to turn it into a road as opposed to a strip of top soil.

    This was the 'inspiration shot'

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    Might be kind of hard to see what I'm getting at, but I remember the process quite clearly. So tomorrow morning I'll be doing that while watching City hopefully thump Hull.

    Anyway, work so far:

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    Work to be done includes static grass, some silflor grass tufts, some bushes, a few (well, okay, more than a few) trees, and some colorful dead leaves on the ground.

    So far I'm very pleased with go around #2
     
  4. MC Fujiwara

    MC Fujiwara TrainBoard Member

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    What happened?
    Did you practice on another piece or just dump on your layout?
    It does take a time or two to get the tap-spoon sifting technique down, but I think you'll like it when you're done.

    But if you have another technique that you're more comfortable with, then go for it.
    Thanks for sharing.
     
  5. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    MC, the problem I ran into wasn't the sifting (thanks for the advice on that, worked a treat) but when I came a-misting, everything clumped up, which I guess might indicate too big a droplet but I'll be damned if I can find anything that makes a more atomized spray. And even then, when I tried applying some glue it simply sat on top-didn't even migrate across the surface, just sat there not doing anything.

    So I scrambled emergency reserves and managed to rescue the situation (yes, I skipped the practicing part because I'm an impatient SOB).

    After this morning's efforts, we have:

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    Personally, I'm pretty thrilled. Love the elevation (thank you to all those that prompted that change), very happy with how the road has turned out, etc.

    Good stuff from where I stand.
     
  6. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    With this morning's success I found myself motivated to do more train-ing than homework-ing. Not as much as I had hoped for, but for a while there I sat on my swivel bar stool and just watched the train run around and around lol.

    Anyway, tonight's update:

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    And lastly, for something completely different:

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    (Ignore the background lol)

    Till... later. Maybe not tomorrow. Too many tests coming up this week, so train time may be on the back burner for a little while :-(
     
  7. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    Too Much Time on my Hands

    Small update time. Spent a touch of time wasting time this morning-time in an effort to forget about the three exams I had no time for today.

    Time to get on with it.

    Started with this:

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    Which became this:

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    And also did this:

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    In other news, cut my beautiful road down the middle for the liftout:

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    At least it's a straight line lol.

    As far as the river bed goes, we have a long way to go. Many more washes of various colors, and will probably get some ground in dirt down the middle too. We'll see how things go.

    Cheers!
     
  8. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    So my latest purchases all showed up over the last couple days, which meant I was able to get a'flockin yesterday and today. So far I'm happy.

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    Rubbed some dirt around the edges of the parking lot to fade things together a little bit more, but so far not enough.

    Added some 'dirt' splotches (weathering powder) under where the picnic tables are to simulate ground wear and tear. Shows up pretty good on my end, not so sure about yours...:

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    Now it's a case of blending everything together where flat meets hill, which is going to be in large part thanks to lots of fallen 'leaves' from my overly garish trees :p
     
  9. MC Fujiwara

    MC Fujiwara TrainBoard Member

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    Looking groovy.

    Might want to get some Heki 4mm grasses to mix in the "wilder" areas so everything doesn't look like a shiny WS 2mm lawn.
    You can also brush the grass tips with diluted white glue and sprinkle on green foam (miner's lettuce, etc.) or yellow foam (mustard / goldenrod) and hold vacuum over to thin:

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    After the grass is dry and set you can also take your finger and rub areas to create thinner patches or bald spots.
     
  10. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    There is actually some 4mm flock in there, except all of my flocks are by silflor as I found a greater variety through them. The grass I put down is a mix of 2mm summer, 2mm autumn, and 4mm autumn (which is actually a different shade of golden-brown than the 2mil). I geuss it just doesn't show up to great from my shots lol.

    I do see what you're getting at though, how the grass texture and style changes from splotch to splotch. Will make that something to aim for down the road
     
  11. Primavw

    Primavw TrainBoard Member

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    It does look good, but its sort of hard to see anything in detail since ALL of your pics are bird's eye view. Any chance we can get some closer shots???
     
  12. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    It's Never the Tools...

    This is about as good as it gets for tonight. Got a brand new camera for Christmas, but unfortunately it's the same old me who's using it so the picture quality will be limited...

    Maybe I'll get one or two worthwhile shots tomorrow when the light is better/there-at-all

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    It really is hard to capture the detail that's there :-/ For instance, the road does have profile, it's not just level with the rest of the ground. This would highlight the only limitation of my fancy point and shoot: no way to set the aperture for a better depth of field.

    Anyway, hope this somewhat checks a box lol.
     
  13. Primavw

    Primavw TrainBoard Member

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    It does, thanks. The detail looks great! Very nice scene.
     
  14. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    Thank You!

    Here's the same shot but with trees in the ground and leaves all around:

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    And a couple other angles:

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    That should show up the dirt/worn-down-earth around the tables a little better.

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    And here's one more bird's eye to show the whole scene now that it's 90% done.

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    So, now that's in the books, next up is figuring out what's up next. No idea at this point, but I have an exam Tuesday night and another Wednesday afternoon, so I'm sure I'll use this quandary as an excuse to not study for a good long while...

    Till next time
     
  15. glakedylan

    glakedylan TrainBoard Member

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    looking really good Chris
    thanks for the photos
    I really like the autumn foliage

    Gary
     
  16. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    Been quite the while since I was on this thread: summer weather and the lack of a climate controlled train room down here in FL means no trains for me.

    Good news though, we're moving, to a three bedroom! And one of those bedrooms is all mine, and is now called the train room.

    Moving the layout is going to take quite a while, but I've been busy making sure all the track is cut at the module joints, so it is this that I bring you pictures of today:

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    We get the keys to the new place on the 18th.
     
  17. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Congratulations! Will the present layout need much adjusting to fit this new space?
     
  18. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks!

    The room measures 11'7" wide and the layout should squeeze in with half an inch to spare... should...

    So to answer your question, hopefully not >.<
     
  19. TrCO

    TrCO TrainBoard Member

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    Moving day came and went.

    Here's the room pre-move:

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    My nice big Train closet:

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    Moving in:

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    Setting up:

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    And all done:

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    Sorry for the horrible lighting on that last one, best I can manage for right now.

    Everything went pretty smoothly. Nothing broke during the move and all but two of the tracks line up perfectly. The two that don't line up perfectly do line up somewhat okay, but do cause the odd derailment so some work will need to be done there.

    To get the largest module in the room (8' x 2') I had to remove the 6" foam backdrop, and have decided to leave it off. This has helped open up the room a bit and also opens up the layout a bit.

    That's all for now!
     
  20. J911

    J911 TrainBoard Member

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    Looks good! What radius are your curves? I got that same kind of corner in my room where anything wide is getting the best of me.
     

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