Scenery - Structures
Richlawn RR V2 - Background hills rock coloring & foliage
**** UPDATED 5-21-14 **** Trees, bushes, and more trees
**** UPDATED 5-12-14 **** Trees being added along with bushes
**** UPDATED 4/30/14 **** First layer of ground foam added to hills.
It took three days for the carved plaster hills to fully cure. I had to wait until they were cured otherwise it's difficult to color them and the color of the plaster is different uncured. I use the "spotted method" (that I learned from others) along with washes and dry brush highlights.
Scratchbuilt Gantry Crane/Yard Lights
As Joe F has been saying their aren't enough scratch build articles, so I figured I would document my last little project.
I have been slowly developing a little diorama on one of my sidings using Walthers Central Gas & Supply. One of the things that I wanted to add was some working yard lights. Having perused what was available on the interweb, I could find nothing suitable and decided to make something myself.
Are backdrops neccesary for realistic looking scenes?
There will be plenty of areas that I will be using backdrops, especially photo backdrops for various scenes. Those include river crossings, towns with roads that have the road going into the backdrop, buildings in the photo to expand a town or industry, and so on. But for areas that are only have a single track mainilne and are less than 12" in height (measured from lower edge of deck above to top edge of deck) is it necessary to have a backdrop?
Your opinion please on the foilage on my hills
Please let me know your opinion on how to cover the hills with foilage for my layout which is set in the Eastern U.S.
The pictures below are from my previous layout where I used two different methods.
This first picture is using ground foam, bushes, and trees along with rocks.
Preserving history and memories
I haven't posted anything for a while, but I recently finished a scratch building project that I thought I would share here. This is my interpretation of an old depot that was in Fond du Lac, WI. Originally built by the Wisconsin Central ca. 1892, it eventually became part of the Soo Line. I grew up in FDL, and have many memories of this building, both as a boy fishing in the river just behind it and hanging out there with a favorite uncle who was a railfan, modeler and prof.photographer.
In-ko-pah RR: The Dos Manos Jail
Just past the east end of the town of Dos Manos on my 1/24th scale railroad, there is a wiring junction set into the ground between two tracks. Last fall I poured a mortar foundation around the junction box:
Richlawn RR V2 - Working on the background hills - Update 4-18-14
**** UPDATE 4-18-14 **** I've started adding carved plaster rocks to the hills. Please see the details towards the end of this thread.
Truss Bridges
Having looked at a lot of railroad bridges (truss bridges in this case) I have noticed that a huge amount of them are "skewed" (well even the none trusses tend to be skewed)
A good example of this is the C&O Bridge(s) at Hawks Nest West Virginia in the New River Gorge.
However with the exception of brass there are no options for this in HO scale that I know of. (the scale I model so that is what I know about)
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