Coal Pile

I worked at a coal fired power plant, our utility at the time had 8 coal fired plants. All of the plants had multiple units but only one coal pile, so I would not have multiple coal piles.

Just a suggestion.

I was trying to mask out as

I was trying to mask out as much of the mirror surface as I could so it would not reflect to much of that side of the layout and the aisle,..

...while still trying to show depth with the double roof, and the double face on the left hand side,..
 

backside of the stone arch bridge

Here you can see that the mirror picks of some of the backside of my stone arch bridge
 

I only see this much of the background if I am down close to eye level with that lower deck.

Alternative to a mirror

Brian --

Since your goal with the mirror is to double the apparent size/number of the power plant unit, what about taking a picture of the power plant model, printing it out full-size (so it matches the size of the actual model), and then gluing that to a backdrop where you now have the mirror?

-- Steve

Brian have you seen the steel

Brian did you see the back ground scenes of steel mills at modeltrainstuff. We used a couple here on ours 

I used a sugar mill behind

I used a sugar mill behind this powerplant 

SD Street/Sidewalk Painters

Duplicate fore-ground building

I do realize there are lots of 'stock' background images available but I was trying to 'duplicate' the building I had in the foreground.

I have another spot behind my blast furnace that I was hoping to do the same sort of thing,...but running into the mirror problem as well.

This mirror would also reflect up one of my aisles,...a no-no,.... although it would give a very nice image of the 'in-line 2' furnaces.

So I guess I need to find another way (drawings or photo collage) to get duplicates for the blast furnace and powerplant??

Steve's suggestion to

Steve's suggestion to photograph your model power plant and mount it in place of a mirror is a good one. You can select the background for the photo and even add smoke from the stack. I saw a backdrop some years ago (can't find it now) where the buildings were all photos of models. They blended perfectly with the shallow background  and full size foreground models and created a very nice seamless scene. As an alternative, Mike Confalone used a photo of a prototype to extend the size of  a papermill, going as far as cutting open an overhead door in the photo so boxcars could be spotted in one of the buildings. Very convincing scene.

steve's suggestion

Leave the mirror in place for now, masked off like you've got it, then when the scenery is done, photograph it from the best viewpoint, print the photo at 1:1, cut out the portion of the photograph shown by the mirror, then paste up the part of the backdrop you want, replacing the mirror with the cut out, or just papering it over.

Make a bigger half-round pile of coal right up against the mirror so you only have one pile when done.

mirror or picture backdrop

Brian,

some thoughts:  If you  go with a mirror, any angle view will reflect correctly.  If you go with a  printed building backdrop, you MAY run into perspective/ point of view issues that will visually "clash" or not align with the 3D model building.

also, when replicating the coal piles, be sure to replicate the correct "angle of repose" for coal as shown in your photos.  Deviation from angle of repose makes piles look fake.  I have seen otherwise good modelling that is marred by inattention to this issue .

my 2 cents and not an expert.