I have been busy on other stuff like fixing my old truck.I took a couple of days off and this evening i decided to do a bit on the logging yard. I masked the turnouts and laid it on to the track. in the shots i pulled the mask off. I have to do the rest of the turnouts by hand a bit at a time so as to not screw them up...again. After that front yard is done, i got to make a tunnel under the layout and come up from behind. I have lots to do on the track on the back side of the layout. not looking forward to that. shots below, laters
Well, summers pretty much left but for the temps in Texas. The 100's are still here and its just a couple days till the start of fall. Anyway its getting to the time of cleaning out the layout and starting up again. I am starting out by cleaning all the dust off the layout. Things like buildings and grass trees, anything that can collect dust will be getting a shot of air and vacuum to remove the little fibers left over from the summer. I already got the main clean and running trains on it. One of the biggest things this winter is get the short line to the logging camp cleaned and finished. It hasn't had anything running on it since i laid that track out last year. One other thing is the corn crop. I am late but it needs to be planted and grown out for the cattle this winter. and some sweet corn for the workers would be nice too! I got out that box of corn and started cutting. I have a couple of shots of that. Time for more fun. shots of the corn below, Hope everyone had a safe and happy summer, Smoke
i had to take a few days off to take care of family so i finally got the fence down earth down and the first of the rows of corn planted. Its not as easy as i was hoping for, but it will work. a shot below, smoke
hehehe, yes its late but i get it done when i can. now the cattle will have food this winter. Have the next section planted now. Once it drys i can do the last section. its slow going to try and get the rows correct. There is a couple places that i found that shifted and i can't move them without breaking them so i am gonna leave them alone. Another thing i am going is air brushing the layout to get rid of the dust. The trees and roofs were looking like a shower of light snow on it. Next year i will cover it for the summer. I also came up with spots of over-spray on the roofs of the buildings that i need to fix. Its always something.. Shots below, Smoke
its coming along. i haven't done anything all summer with it and i didn't cover it up i painted some of the roofs and am fixing the engine house, so its fix patch and build all at the same time. I'll get it up and then this winter i want to get the back side done. its not had anything done back there in over a year. have lots of things to do with it so well see how much i get done with it. one shot of the engine house repairs.
I got the engine house finished and painted installed. looks good. I can get my two stack engines in there and vent the fumes with no issues!! shots below, Smoke
been cleaning up the sawmill. its starting to really show its age. its a 10 year old kit. Not sure what i would replace it with. may leave it here for now. I need to go to the local neighborhood Hobby Lobby for supplys to finish it and put it back on the layout. Shot below.
Well, no matter what i did the roof wants to bubble up and it floats so i stripped the roof off. now getting more stuff to fix it up. I guess all the years of heat and cold and travel in the rv have taken its toll on the glues and paint. So i am striping it all the way down and putting it all back together. the plastic roof under the paper was in need of gluing as well. I looked and they still sale that kit but i can fix it right so i am going that way. I am changing the paint on it to as some of it is peeling off. gonna go back to the red that the boiler house and kiln dryer are. so they will match at least. can't remember why i changed the color but it don't matter. once i am finished it will not look the same anyway. have a couple of the shots of it apart. still trying to find where it needs to be tore apart more. I am really surprised that the glues didn't hold better. shots below, Smoke
The plastic i used Testors. the roof was paper and used Aleenes tacky. its funny that there was like three places where the tacky didn't hold and it like bubble up. I have stripped it all down and right now i used 91% Alcohol to wipe it down. I used Acrylic paints for the walls and windows before and am planning to use that again. the tacky came off kinda like hair? Thats what it looked like. I got it all off and am going to use Liquid Gorilla glue to redo the roof. I will use a different kind of plastic cement other than Testors but not sure if the Gorilla glue will work on the plastic to hold it together or not. it should work for the paper to plastic but not sure about plastic to plastic. The roof needs to be covered as the original plastic roof had patterns molded on it for where things were to be attached. I had to modify the sawmill to fit in a certain area and the plan they gave wouldn't work. I used the black paper to cover that up and to make it a tar paper style of roof. I had thought of taking the plastic parts of the roof off and using balsa sheet to make the roof parts. I just don't want to mess the building up anymore than it is. If there are some better glues out there for what i am doing Please let me know. I just need to have it not fall apart in a couple of weeks or years...
Smokey, I've used a glue stick to glue paper to plastic and had good results. It's very easy to use and holds well. I haven't had any issues with it. We are moving fairly soon and my glues and other supplies are packed away right now but I found this photo on the web of the type of glue stick I use. It's an Elmer's glue stick but I'm not sure if it's this one. I got it at either Walmart or Michael's.
Gorilla Glue is like any other Super Glue. It has worked fine for me when gluing plastic parts together. JMO
Be careful, Gorilla makes different kinds of glues. Some are like super glue (cyanoacrylate), and some are polyurethane, which requires moisture to activate, but once cured is waterproof. They may make other glue types too. Polyurethane glue is moisture-activated, and foams up quite a bit while curing, which also makes it good at gap-filling. That also makes it a poor choice for adhering thin laminates without a press. Polyurethane glue requires harsh solvents to clean up, and harsher still to clean up once cured. It can be thinned for specific applications, including durable finishes.
Gluing paper can be a bit of a challenge. If possible, I would practice with it on some scrap materials. If your glue has any moisture, such as Elmer's does, you must use as little as possible. Too much can actually wet the paper, which will then wrinkle and bubble. If you can, some sort of weight atop the paper will help minimize any wrinkles.
Looking at your roof, I am wondering if you couldn't use chalkboard paint on it? It looks like a matte gray color and if you draw the lines to mark the sheeting, look like tarpaper.
