Looks more and more like a layout. I bet with your creative ebaying you'll find a decent switcher before long.
That last picture was of an area 14" square. Taking pictures helps me with balance and perspective. I can study the picture and more easily see what works and what doesn't. The "auto repair shop" is part of a gas station kit I'm building. But, the whole gas station is 5"x7" and is too big to look right with the other structure I have. Poor balance and bad planning. It's as big as the rest of the downtown put together. I did pick up a coaling tower and water tower on eBay today for $26, so the engine service area will start to take shape next week. Now I'll just need a diesel fuel facility and a sanding tower. Stewart makes a fairly nice inexpensive diesel service kit that I'll look for. The major industry in Piney Creek is the big sawmill that serves all the small logging operations scattered throughout the local mountains. The logs are trucked in and finished lumber that is needed by the 1950's California building boom are shipped out by rail. I'll probably have to scratch build most of the sawmill using pictures I'm collecting of sawmills of the era.
I'm back online after the tornado in my area knocked out the internet connections for a couple of days. A few post back I was looking for something that looked like real dirt. After a lot of experimentation I came up with my dirt. It's extremely fine and is almost like a powder, but works and looks great. I brush on some white glue where I want the dirt and then sprinkle it on. when the glue has dried, I gently blow off the excess. I'll take a picture of it later today. If anyone wants a sample of it to try, just PM me with your addy and I'll send a small amount to try.
Post pics so we can see. Good to hear you only lost internet for a while. I used to live in central Ill and saw plenty of big storms. I think the worse was having to go to the basement in the middle of the night and not knowing what was coming our way.
I finished up the gas station kit I had, but it's too big for my very small layout. So I'm going to list it on eBay. Maybe I can get enough for it to buy a couple of more appropriate sized kits. For some reason, dirt doesn't photograph well, although there is some in the back and on the sides of the gas station. If I had more scenic material, it would photograph better in context. I modeled the gas station to look like it needed some maintanance. Faded stucco walls, rusty metal roof, dirty windows, grease and oil in the drive way gravel and weeds growing on the sides and in back.
OK, I tried to take a picture of my "dirt". I sprinkled some on a piece of paper and made a "vacant lot" in the bottom left of the picture. I dropped a weed (cut off a plastic flower arrangement) on it. The weathering on the gas station roof is alcohol and red clay dirt from my yard with a wash of alcohol and black printer ink. The red on the gas pumps is fingernail polish.
That's good dirt. I'd use it as a finish layer over coarser stuff. I need to go find some puddles as soon as it warms up and pick some dirt flakes. just curious about your ebaying. How much do you make on a built up kit? Seems to me you've got a self funded hobby going.
Actually the dirt isn't dirt at all, it's mushroom compost. I have a lot of it for my garden. I dry it and run it through a sieve to get out the bigger pieces. Then I "process" it in a coffee grinder until it's very fine. I then sieve it again so that it all a consistent texture. I could make it by the pound with little effort. In fact, I'm thinking of packaging it and sell it as "Joe Dirt's Dirt" on eBay. I'm also putting together an engine servicing facility that would be appropriate for the 1940's through the 1950's where there was a mix of stream and diesel. It has a coaling tower, water tower, sand storage and drying and a separate sand tower, and diesel fueling with appropriate pumps and a vertical diesel storage tank There will be a couple of small structures for tool and lubrication storage. That last time something remotely like that came on eBay, it sold for over $300. So here's hoping. That would fund a really nice switcher, some rolling stock, and just about the rest of my layout.
I was fortunate today. My little gas station sold on eBay. Now I have $40 of mad money to add a small structure or two to the "empire".
Mushroom compost should be good so long as it's fully "converted". I assume it's what's left after they use manure to grow mushrooms in. So basically you should have inert cow poop that you are using for dirt. It's actually a very good idea.
As long as I don't get a crop of Shiitake mushrooms on my layout.......................... But then, I do like stir fry.................. Here is a picture of how I'd like my track ballast to look like.
Some of the bits and pieces are starting to arrive for my engine servicing facility. The diesel fueling facility is a mostly metal kit with a bizillion very small pieces. And I do mean small. You have to put a valve on a wire that can't be more than 1/50 th of an inch wide that represents a pipe. You also have to clean the flash off all the metal pieces that you can barely see. I'll be 67 next month and my eyes and steadiness of hand isn't what it used to be. If I drop one of these pieces on the floor, I'll never find it. This is going to be quite a challenge.
Been working on my engine servicing facility. It's starting to take shape, but there is still a lot to do. The sanding tower in the picture is unfinished and I have yet to start on the coaling tower, so I used a stand in for the picture. The diesel fuel element is still under construction. When it is all finished, it will be in two drop in sections about 22"-24" wide in total.
I went to town this morning (the big city, population of 800). I stopped by the local flea market which is in a parking lot with 15-20 folks selling mostly stuff from home. And what did I spy sitting on the tail gate of a pick up truck among a bunch of other junk? I'll be dang if it wasn't an air brush. I keep looking at air brushes, but I just can't afford one. So, I asked how much they wanted for it. $20, so I offered $10, and we settled on $13. So now I'm the proud owner of an air brush. Now I just have to find a compressor. But this should make painting and weathering much better. BTW, if anyone has a used compressor "cheap", let me know.
i think you just graduated to fine scale modeler with that purchase. I have never owned one, but did some spraying on some tank and airplane models years ago with a borrowed one. The level of quality between brushing and spraying is pretty amazing and you'll be able to do some really fine weathering on everything including your track. Congrats on a good deal.
I've decided to stop on the 30" x 72" layout and start the big room size layout. I did design the small layout to be part of the large one. I can just drop the small one right into the big one. I will add another main line so as to be prototypical of SP's double main line from Sacramento over Donner summit and down into Reno. My mythical town of Piney Creek is where trains headed over the summit pick up helper units. I will also expand the yard so as to be able to sort east bound and west bound freight. Piney Creek is also where the perpetually underfunded and under maintained Piney Creek RR short line interchanges with the SP. The Piney Creek RR takes care of switching duties so that the SP doesn't have to keep a switcher and crew there. There is always a variety of helper units being dropped off or being picked up. There will be AB units, SD7s, GP7s and an occasional steam unit standing by.
