Smash them rat tails and make some beavers. Course that means you will need to build a dam, which will be a great fishing hole! The Super looks pleasantly approving of his higher perch.....
Had a little practice with the Beaver pond before so hopefully I can avoid the mistakes I made with the last one. Supplies are due tomorrow so hopefully this weekend I can start some hard shell. Last two trestles are almost done except for the boards and rails on the fire barrel platform. I am going to try and tint the hard shell as I go to save on some painting. Once the hard shell is on and dried then some roadbed for the upper area and I will start cutting down those bridges.
Above and below the Beaver lodge are two Beavers. Probably what you are mistaking for bottles. I beat on the HO Rat's tail too long and thus both are way too big. Also my 2nd try with Cattails. And I wasn't too happy with those. I just thought of my answer though to that problem which I will try out when I get to that phase again.
Awesome work John! That looks like it will be fun to finish. But how will you keep that nosey boss away from operations? You know how management gets!
A really comfy bed made from an old queen sized pillow below a window where he can watch boidies and sun himself, and plenty of catnip.
Finally finished up the trestles. All were made from the curved trestle kits shown. I just made the sections straight. One trestle (the long one) from the one kit, and the two smaller from the 2nd kit. Then I turned my attention to developing the water powered mill site. Had to cut out a recess for the water wheel and then carved the channel to connect to the pond. I am going to either run a sluice from the waterfall behind it or a pipe to get the water to the mill wheel. Then I redirected my attention to making a foam box to hold the rock molds level since that has always been an issue in leveling them. Now I can do multiple pours in multiple molds with them being held level until set. Simply no more than some of my excess foam from the layout cut to fit the molds. My supplies came in today so possibly tomorrow I will start work on the hard shell. I messed up though and forgot to order the Atlas bridge expansion so I will revisit the bridges and decide which will be a candidate to expand to a double track with what I have on hand.
Finally something other than white and blue. Adding some hard shell at last and adding coloring to the water for the plaster wrap. Messy work. Stuff is set up in less than 10 minutes but not completely dry. Hopefully I will get to the mine area this afternoon. Going a basic gray color there along with the stream beds that are cascading down hill.
Well getting a little better than all that glaring white. Woodland Scenics Stone Gray is being added to the water to wet the plaster hard shell material. And I used some Rit Liquid Dye to color for the hard shell for the pond. Supposed to be a dark green. If that is a dark Green I'll eat my whole set of long flannels plus socks. Called the expert, AKA the Missus. She states not a dark green. It is a dark something but who knows what. Classic case of wrong stuff in the bottle. So I will try again tomorrow with that. Doesn't show well on the camera but that bit of carving on the foam is showing through. 2nd coat going on some areas tomorrow but now time for all to thoroughly dry. Tinting the hard shell is going to save me some work in the end for scenic colors. Tonight I will start cutting down some bridges. Can't find a short enough double track span or anything else short enough.
With color added, it is now much clearer now how the terrain will appear. When all white I could not quite see what was happening.
Almost a switchback in fact would be fairly easy to convert to one. The plan that this is based on back in the ealier part of this thread had that track just heading up and ending nowhere. I believe the designer originally had it as a track to just tuck a loco or train in when another was coming up the hill. Still might end up being a switchback.
John... You gotta slow down man !! You almost have a new layout with multiple bridges done. In the same time period...I got some grass down at the 'Log Cabin Motel'...and some headstone markers planted at the cemetery behind the church. You making us all like like lazy bums...LMAO !!!!:teeth:
Usually when I have a fairly clear picture in my old mind, what's left of it, I tend to work fairly quickly. With time out for a late brunch, maybe a shopping trip, stop and watch Adam 12 at noon, and then downstairs by 4 PM to get the cat dishes washed for their evening feast, and to slave over a hot stove for the Missus when she gets home. While supper keeps warm in the oven I watch Emergency until She gets home then turn on some quiet music to dine by. If I have a new Clive Cussler book or a new book by Baldacci or Patterson, I take regular reading breaks. When It finally manages to get warm enough outside I'll spend time in the garden. I really only model about three or four hours a day and not every day.
I find with the track being laid for years now...its tough to wanna finish scenery. Everytime I go out there...I turn the power on...gets some trains running..and end up just sitting at my workbench watching the trains...LOL. I find that in order to do any scenery work...I have to put the trains in the yard and park em. Otherwise when I lean over the layout we have locomotives and cars everywhere when they hit my 'dunlap' gut... :teeth:
Went looking for small bridges, length wise, and came up short. Everybody must assume that everyone models big honking river crossings. They seem to forget that all railroads cross hundreds of small streams to every one river they cross. And my small streams of 25 feet wide and under are typical of a lot of those crossings. So took matters into my own hands and submitted an Atlas bridge to the indignities of a razor saw. Plus I needed at least one short double track bridge so a plate girder bridge went under the saw to yield a double track bridge. Added a thin styrene strip at the bottom of the joint point and a wood walkway on the top. Cut and spiced the supports also for both height and width. The fun comes tomorrow when I see if I can section out two of the truss bridges for the other two crossings. I will have to do some fine cutting there to pull it off. Toby the young 11 pound male is checking out the hard shell and wanting to know when the fish go in the pond. He has a tendency to try and eat almost anything he finds so after he ingested a few pieces of scrap foam and trip to the vet was necessary after he developed a digestive issue. I guess I can add that to the cost of the layout.
Culverts. So many folks never have a single one on their layout. Bridges do make for a nice scenic effect. But a well done culvert is also nice.
Culverts are in my scenic box. Just not the time to use them yet unless I finagle one into the mill water supply. I could possibly incorporate two or three into a replacement for one of the bridges though. Hmm.
Boxcabs comment on culverts got me to digging in my scenery box this AM and decided that it was easier to notch out the roadbed a bit and install some culverts than to cut down and rejoin some bridge sections. A double set of stone culverts at the top mainline and a single culvert down at the mill discharge channel. I also set in the first bridge supports on the lower main for the cut down double track bridge.
