Ah, thanks. I have some track and Styrofoam coming up in a new project, and last time I made a mess of it- lot of melted Styrofoam! Hardly looks "wung," or "winged," but rather rather surgically designed and implemented! I would consider myself the King of Wing, and endured a lot of trial and error before I discovered the internet.
This took a lot more time than it should have, but I've now cut down the fascia to the, umm, "correct" height. Whenever I get to these bits, where I need to make a decision and start irreversibly cutting, I end up stalling while I pretend that I'm planning how I'm going to do it! I just started looking at various pictures of fascias online, and using a pencil I drew and erased lines where I would cut it down. The thing is, I don't exactly have a plan for what the actual elevations will look like in my table except for that brown areas in my computer track plan. Even then, I never quite calculated exactly how high all that brown area was supposed to be. So, in the end, I made sure that the river bottoms were cut at the right heights, and then started drawing those pencil marks as best I thought they would go. At the far end of the table (closest to the camera), I've the fascia high, since I figured it would look neat to have the tunnel entrances go through a "pass" before becoming tunnels. I figured a nice big hill would be nice right at the tunnels too. A big plus here is that it also cuts the line of sight into the tunnels. I don't want anyone to be able to see the staging area from the front. Well, in any case, the terrain will have to conform to what we have here, I can cut more, but I certainly can't add anything back. Time to cut the tunnel and staging area access holes!
Looks great Stephanie!!! Thank you for posting the photo. You have made a lot of progress on your layout. I'm getting ready to install the fascia Masonite on my layout, seeing yours helps. Joe
Thank you Joe, but just a quick correction.. it's Stephane, not Stephanie! The name is French, just imagine the last e isn't there. Despite my best efforts, the lumber on the bench work wasn't quite straight. I found that to make the fascia perfectly level vertically wasn't entirely possible (when measured with a bubble level). I did my best and using a few slivers of wood for leveling window and door installations helped keep the worse parts "good enough".
Sorry for the wrong name, Stephane. I'll be more careful with names, will double-check in the future before I type. Joe
By the way, are you French? Ooops....just saw on your profile that you are from Montreal. Some will say we are cousins then (I'm French, but live in the US)
Right, French as in French Canadian, not from France! My name is actually spelled Stéphane, with an accent, but I never actually write it out with the accent.
Looking forward to your progress and thank you a lot for taking over all pictures often, I much appreciate it. Also, you and I think his name is Country Joe, who has the O scale thread win's awards< ( for threads I follow ) as the cleanest layouts ever Can't wait to see the future updates! Can we see the tunnel access photo's too please! When you are ready to post pictures again.
Fantastic thread! Thank you. I just spent an enjoyable morning with a couple cups of coffee, reading about your progress and all of the helpful tips you provided too. Sad to see it hasn't been updated further in the last 10 months. Hope all is well with you, Stephane!
My last post was in January?! Seems I completely forgot to update this with some of the later photos last spring! In any case, thank you very much for your interest Penner! Don't worry, the layout (and thread) are not dead! It's just that I work full time, and have twin girls that have way too many sports activities in the summer. Plus, it's really a shame to pass the few good months we have for summer down in a basement! The good nes is that I have started working on my layout again, and have made some very modest progress in the past month. But it also turns out that I did work some more on my layout between January and April and it's about time I post some of those pictures, though I have only a few. So lets start! So looking at my last posts, it appears that I never took any photos between January and March, where the above was taken. Probably because it was a messy time. In the above picture we can see that I've started scenicking the tunnels. Yes, I know, it doesn't make much sense, no one is meant to see in there, but I'll know. and if I don't cover the ground in there, it will bug me to no end! But before I talk about the ground cover, first a little about the tunnel walls. I didn't take any pictures of the process, but what I decided to do was to first apply some plaster cloth to the walls, and then paint them grey. Just simple and clean. As for the ground cover, I started with a dark grey woodland scenics fine ballast. Another angle of the dark grey ballast, and a nice shot that shows the wall texture created by the plaster cloth. Another important bit is that you can see that I cut out access holes in the fascia. In back of the table, the entire length of the "staging" area will be open, and the tunnel on the side of the table will also have a small access port; we'll see it more clearly in the next picture... And there, the large access ports at the back. Oh, I'm not sure why I label all my bottles. My wife bugged me quite a bit about that
I did forget to mention in the previous post, that I painted full strength Mod Podge onto the areas I wanted the dark grey ballast, and then used a spoon to pour some ballast onto the glue. I then used a fan brush to further spread it around into a uniform thickness. I then followed by carefully applying a light grey/dark grey mix of ballast to the tracks. I don't individual photos of the process unfortunately, just the final result. But I did try two techniques. The first involved spraying 91% alcohol to wet the ballast, and then attempting to spray a diluted mod-podge mixture (1 part mod podge, 2 parts water, a drop of dish soap), but what a mess the scenic glue was making! So I instead used an eye-dropper to soak the same scenic glue into the ballast - muuuch easier to do, and rather quick too! Interestingly, placing the ballast is about 80% of the time needed, while the actual glue part is quick. I only did half the staging area, up to the point shown in the above picture. Or at least, that was last spring. In the past month, I was able to work two or three days on the layout and got the second half of the staging area ballasted. Turnouts are tricky, and last spring had I written this, I would have said were really not much of a problem. However I did start a new thread a few weeks ago seeking help with the two turnouts that started acting up. The help I got in that thread should prevent some more problems for the remainder of the turnouts down the road. Short story: keep ballast away from the moving parts of the turnout! The above picture was taken when I was cleaning the track after all the ballast was put down and dried. I ended up with some plaster, paint and glue on the rails! And that's despite using masking tape to cover the tracks for the messy parts! The rerailers I placed "just in case". Not sure if they'll ever make a difference, but since the staging area is out back of the table, even if there is an access area I figured it wouldn't hurt. In the pictures, the ballast appears to be darker in places, but those are just unfortunate shadows from the fascia above. And here we see the access port on the end of the table. Should anything derail in that tunnels, it will be accessible. Only about 4 inches of tunnel is closed off.
With the "east" end of the tunnels and staging area covered in gravel, it was time to start with the first level of cover. Here in the above picture I used cardboard templates to figure out the shape of the table and to cut the foam to the correct dimensions. We even see where one of the woodland scenics tunnel portals will be placed. The part I was cutting in the first picture? We see it here, right at the end of the table, with other pieces of foam connected to it to raise the mountain by an inch. I will later be adding another layer on top of that, which will be where the second level of track will go. At the back of the table, more layers of foam will form a mountain/cliff that will close off the staging area roof. A hot wire cutter and knife will be used to carve out the inside of the tunnel and the staging area to leave as much 'hand space' as possible. And that's it for now. I did not take any pictures yet of anything I've done since I started working on the layout in November (which isn't much). I'll see about taking some updated pictures of my current state, and really look into taking more pictures as I actually accomplish some of the work!
Stephane, looking great!!! You are at the same place on your layout as I am. I've been working on ballast and adding more tracks to the Boston Mountains Sub Division. Like you it's hard to find the time to work on the layout sometimes, life keeps getting in the way. Keep up the good work and let us know how you are doing. Joe
Bonus! So during the summer, I wasn't working on the layout, but I was in fact working on something related to the layout. I bought a 3D printer (Anycubic Photon (back in February) and then went through the process of totally geeking out over the new toy, learning first Tinkercad, then Fusion 360, and generally printing a mess of different things. Here are a few of the things that I figure will eventually make it to the layout! I eventually want to have some sort of mine on the layout, possibly nickel or zinc concentrate. We see a lot of these here carried in covered gondolas, and figured it would be a nice project. So this is my first draft, with microtrain trucks. I do have it painted and decalled, but having a lot of trouble photographing the black and white model. I need to setup a little diffusion booth I think. Now I have to print 11 more of these, but with the layout not yet ready, I'm not in a hurry I want another industry on the layout to be a heavy equipment manufacturer. The file for this model was taken from the internet, but printed by me.
Well done, Stephane! I have been planning my set-up for almost two years. In my case, the actual realization of getting it from paper to real life will have to wait until the first kid leaves the nest -- probably not for another year. So until then, I must live vicariouly through others!
A really coo update Stephane! Like the 3d printed items. Looking forward to following you progress this winter. Enjoy!
WOW! I am grasping a lot of ideas now! Especially with the side paneling. Can't with to see when this is done.
Nice progress, Stephane. I haven't looked in on this thread for a while. Things have certainly progressed since my last look. Are you using Mod-Podge as an adhesive on all your ballast? I was wondering how it compares to diluted white glue. Also really like the covered gondola. I also use Fusion 360. Not as nice as softwares like SolidWorks, but not nearly as pricey and does the job. All in all, your layout is looking very good! Don't see any sputtering here now.
