The Coffee Valley Railroad

Been gettin' things ready in my new house

2010-05-05T12:34:00.000-07:00

I closed on my new train room (er...house) last Friday and have been moving some things in since. I am not moving myself as much as I am things I had in storage. I will doing some remodeling first. As a result, I have had zero time for anything train related. I have, however, started a blog regarding the work I am doing to get the new house ready for move-in and it can be found at http://lornecourt.blogspot.com/. It is not train related but could give you something to read if you'd like. Part of my remodeling effort will be to add more lights to the existing ceiling in the train room and that will be on the blog at some point later. Either way, I'll keep things updated here also.

Update on my new Train Room acquisition

2010-04-12T05:18:00.000-07:00

Well, the offer has been made, inspections done, mortgage applications signed, and now I just wait for everyone else (mostly, the mortgage company) to do their things. Closing is supposed to happen at the end of this month so, until then, I am beginning to pack and shop.

The packing is just that - packing. Nothing difficult there. I'll begin by gathering the tools and such that are stored in my apartment's garage space (which I used as a work shop) then move to packing up the items in my apartment (which includes my Coffee Valley RR layout things/supplies/etc).

Before moving in I will have about 3 months to do some remodeling. The upstairs bedrooms will be painted and some light fixtures will be changed but the biggest task will be retiling the master bath. After that is done the carpet guys will come in and do their thing.

This is all very exciting and I am looking forward to it but the downside is there will be no time for working on my railroad for the summer. The upshot is that I already have a room for my trains and I have to do is move in. Well, that's not completely true...I'll probably rearrange/add lights in the drop ceiling before setting up but that is not a big deal.

This also means that I won't have time to write any more blog tutorials as I have wanted to but stick with me as this is a temporary situation and hopefully by late Fall I will be back up and running. So please do not forget about me - check back from time to time. As fodder, I will post updates on things going on between now and then. Thanks.

I'm buying a new train room!!!

2010-03-30T05:22:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I signed a contract to buy myself a NEW TRAIN ROOM!!!

It is about 14' x 23' (about 322 sq. ft.) and comes with 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, kitchen, dining room, living room with a fireplace, 2 car garage, back deck, and a mortgage!!!

How I Made My Asphalt Roads

2010-02-25T04:51:00.000-08:00

Since construction on the CVRR began one task that ate at me was, "How am I going to make my roads?" And as construction when on, from time to time, I would do some light research into the options. I found many methods to choose from but nothing set right with me for what I wanted to do. In their own rights they were all good but I just never had that feels-good-in-my-gut feeling until one day a saw a single image in Google Images where a guy had used the back side of a roofing shingle as the asphalt road on his HO Scale layout. It jumped off of the screen and hit me in the face - "That's it!!!" The texture was what I wanted...its installation on vertical changes was of no consequence...and I had some old unused shingles out in the shed...PERFECT!!!

I do not have that image's URL or the person's name but I still give credit for the idea to that individual who posted the picture.

Here is my story on how I made my asphalt roads. This blog entry is more of a pictorial How-To than an editorial but I will provide word descriptions where it makes sense.

Now don't get all excited and go climbing up on your roof to get a shingle - that would be bad. Instead wait until your neighbor goes to work and then sneak around back...

On the CVRR the road is not completely flat. There are a few minor ups-and-downs as the road meets the train tracks and there is one large hill as the road goes under the train bridge. Roofing shingles are flexible and the cut pieces conformed wonderfully to these vertical transitions so really all I had to do was start cutting the shingles.

Well, as much as I wanted to I could not start cutting shingles right away - I needed some templates first. Using graph paper I began cutting and taping. The process is quite simple - make the paper be what you want the road to be, place the paper on the backside of the shingle (for my roads the back side of the shingle was the top side of the road), trace the pattern onto the shingle, get a X-Acto knife and make a few light cuts and then break the rest of it apart (as if you were scoring and snapping styrene plastic).

In then picture below I have already cut my first shingle piece and have moved onto making other templates.

The next several pictures show the progress as I continue 'laying asphalt'.

We have reached the part where the road goes under the bridge. This piece utilized a single shingle due to the odd shape. If memory serves I used 3, maybe 4, shingles for this project.

Now here is a series of pictures showing how I cut the last road piece. As I mentioned above trace the template shape onto the back of the shingle, score the line with a knife (2 or 3 passes worked for me), then snap it off.

The edges were a little rough. Because I was going to be joining pieces together I wanted the joints to be as invisible as possible so I used a file to gently even up the edges.

More progress pictures...

Earlier I mentioned that I used 3 or 4 shingles for my roads. That does seem excessive but remember that shingles have grooves cut into them and this limits the size/number of pieces you can get out of a single shingle. Below is a picture of a shingle after I cut a large section of road. You can see how there is not much left for anything except small sections.

OK, I now have all of the roads pieces cut and shaped. Now it is time to paint. Resist the urge to paint the roads a dark gray. The only dark gray roads are those which are brand new. Give them about a year and the color fades to a light gray. Below I have them laid out and ready for paint. The small painted piece in the bottom center was my test piece which I used to test my paint colors on.

I also used the test piece to try my hand at dry brushing oil trails and small sealant tracks.

I mixed together Gray Sky and Black until I got the color I wanted. The Gray Sky was just too light for what I wanted so a little Black toned it down.

After those dried I decided to go ahead and cut the piece for a parking lot.

Time to paint some lines.

To do this I taped off everything except where the line would be. The surface of the shingle is a little rough so be sure you press the tape down really really good.

For reasons that I do not quite recall I used masking tape for the line definitions and clear tape for everything else.

I happen to have had a small can of yellow Testors spray paint nearby. This next part is important so PAY ATTENTION - I sprayed light coats into the air above the piece and let the paint fall onto the piece. I DID NOT spray it directly NOR did I do a lot at a time. Why am I being so clear with those statements? Because if I had sprayed too much the paint would have run under the tape. Remember I said that the surface of the shingle is rough? Well, there are little grooves and those little grooves go under the tape and the paint will, if to much is applied, run under the tape and look terrible. I did a trial run on my test piece and discovered this (I am so glad I tried it on a test piece first!!!). So, again, very light coats - letting the paint dry in between sprayings - and spray up into the air above the piece letting the paint fall onto the piece.

I should not have used clear tape to mask off the piece. If I had used masking tape then I would probably not have missed the 2 spots shown in the next picture. No problem...I still had some gray paint saved. A little touch-up painting and things were good.

Then I did a couple of white 'stop here' lines.

So far my paint job looked nice and clean. Time to dirty it up. Using the black paint I dry brushed those oil lines you see in the center of the lanes. I also made a fine point on a stick and drew some lines which represented filled-in-cracks and some random patch jobs. Then I gave it a light wash of an India Ink and isopropyl alcohol mixture.

In the following 2 pictures you can see the difference the made by the India Ink and isopropyl alcohol mixture (the "Inked" piece is on the left).

I have done all I can do with the pieces not attached and now it is time to put them in place. For this I felt that caulk would work well to hold them (I cannot recall why I didn't use regular glue but I am sure it was a good reason :D ).

Here is my 'spray paint booth'. Yea, go ahead and laugh but it worked. Anyway, this picture shows my parking lot piece waiting to get its spray of the India Ink and isopropyl alcohol mixture.

Time to fill in the joints. To do so I grabbed a tube of wood putty and some small pointed tools. I tried to cram the putty into the joint without getting to much on the surface of the shingle...er, uh...road. I used wood putty because I felt it could be worked well after it dried but, more importantly, not be messy when applying it like drywall mud could be. My hunch was right and it worked pretty good...enough so that I would use it again for the same task.

The following picture shows what I had after I had worked things smooth and before painting it.

I cannot say that I was very happy with the outcome of that job. I knew I would have to do better on the other ones and I did on the next one shown below.

And my 3rd one turned out even better. As the following picture shows the joint line is vaguely noticeable.

And here is a joint down near the bridge. I think it turned out quite well also.

The roads themselves are done. I then built the ground up-and-to them using Sculptamold.

When the Sculptamold dried I then painted it brown.

Now that my hard shell ground is done I can glue my different types of ground foliage down on top of it but that is for another blog entry.

I hope you found this interesting. Thanks for reading.

How I Made My Brick Walls

2010-02-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

The first retaining walls I built for the CVRR were made to simulate bricks and I have 2 places on my layout which utilize these types of walls.

To build these walls I first made a rubber mold of a pre-formed styrene brick pattern wall. Then I used that mold to cast my plaster walls. When taking the pictures of the mold for this blog I was unable to locate the plastic piece I made the mold from. I did, however, find the mold itself and it is shown below. It is not quite visible the photo but there is a small brick pattern in the bottom of the mold. I built the sides of up to about 1/4" so that I can make forms that are at most that thick and are not likely to break while handling them. It will make a form about 2" x 4".

Since the mold was taller than the walls I wanted I cut a piece of balsa wood to act as a divider. By using it I was actually able to make 2 wall sections with each pour.

I mixed a little Plaster of Paris and poured into both sides and waited for it to harden. In the following picture you can see the fronts and backs of my first 4 wall sections.

A closer-up shot shows the brick pattern.

The first retaining wall was to be placed along the backside of my car repair building. The ground sloped down and did not allow enough room for a roadway behind the building so constructing a retaining wall here was a good thing. The pencil lines are rough indicators of where I wanted the road and, thus, where the wall to be.

I took 2 of wall sections and attached them side-by-side to form one long wall. Sorry I do not have pictures of how I did this part so I will have to just use words to describe it...I laid 2 wall sections next to each other, end-to-end, and 'glued' them together with a glob of plaster on the inside of the wall (the part that will not be visible). Then on one end of the long wall and the adjacent end of a short wall I mitered an angle so that they would meet as shown below.

Everything was good so I then attached the 2 mitered pieces together. I held the long wall in place with a C-clamp and positioned the shorter wall in place with a block of wood. This kept the 2 wall sections in place so that I could glob up the joint with plaster.

I know those of you 'experienced' people out there are thinking to yourselves, "...just be sure not to tighten that C-clamp too much because you might break the long piece." All I can respond with is "yup"...enough said about that.

I painted my bricks red using a dry-brush technique.

If you look closely in the following picture, right in the middle of the middle section you can see a vertical crack. Yea, that thing about clamping too tightly...well, I fixed that the same way I attached the sections to each other - a glob of plaster on the back.

So after painting the red in varying amounts I sprayed it with a mixture of India Ink and isopropyl alcohol I get what is shown below.

Time to do the second wall. This one runs the length of Smittie's Junk Yard and Rail Salvage. The process is the same as before.

I then used Sculptamold to build the ground in and around the walls.

I will use scenery to cover the joints where each wall section was attached to the next one. Below is a picture of the first all after the Sculptamold was painted brown and some ground scenery has been added.

I will add more pictures as progress is made so please check back.

How I Made My Granite Block Retaining Walls

2010-02-04T05:38:00.000-08:00

My Thoughts On Retaining Walls

Look around because they are everywhere. From large concrete walls on the side of the interstate to timber walls in a person's garden retaining walls are everywhere. We see them all of the time but sometimes never really see them.

(The above images I found while doing a Google Images search.

They are not mine and nor do I claim them to be.)

In my opinion, one thing that can really kick up a layout scene from "That's a good scene" to "WOW! That's one heck of a scene!" is a retaining wall. Unlike a building, a retaining wall is a scenery element which has the potential to be extremely unique because every layout is unique in its natural scenery. No other man-made element can be so tightly integrated into the natural scenery and be so unique for its given implementation than a retaining wall. Here is what I mean - you can take 10 people and have them each build a layout scene and you will get 10 different and unique scenes. You can then have the same 10 people build/place a building structure on the scene and still have the potential for unique scenes (assuming they do not buy and place the same cookie-cutter Yard Tower building). What you wind up with is a man-made element - the building - placed onto a natural element and, as hundreds of magazine photos have proven, it could be done quite well. But, have each one of those 10 people build and incorporate a retaining wall onto their layouts and now you are going to get a man-made element - the wall - not necessarily placed onto the scene but, rather, incorporated into the scene. Add to that the differences in the 10 different layouts' natural scenes and the almost endless possibilities of retaining wall materials and building methods you are guaranteed a scenic element that is unique and something that no one has built before. Do not get me wrong - I appreciate a well built/weathered dilapidated barn as much as the next guy but tying that element into the scenery can only go so far. That is why my layout (currently) has 3 different types of walls - because they are all around us in the real world and should be on our layouts also.

How I Built My Granite Block Retaining Wall

In this particular situation on my layout I have the roadway going under the train tracks. It goes below normal ground level and results in a variety of places where the earth needs to be held back. My implementation of the curved shapes and the different angles was on purpose - I wanted a final product that was unique, eye-catching, and prompted comments such as "Wow! How did you do that?"

Making the cuts and forming the earth was the easy part. Figuring out how I was going to make and build the walls was the hard part. While working on other sections of my layout I would mull over different ideas none of which stuck with me except for one - build temporary frames and pour plaster in place - and even that one did not excite me all that much.

Then one day while roaming through Home Depot's flooring section I stopped to look at floor tiles. What I picked up was a 1'x1' linoleum piece. What caught my eye was the rough texture of the edge of it. Then the light bulb came on, "Hey! In N-Scale world that looks like stone. If I had a bunch of these cut into little blocks and stacked up it would look like a granite block wall!" BINGO!!! That was it!!! Building a wall in this manner would let me build to any shape, height, or curve I wanted to.

They had several colors to choose from. The ones I was most interested in were gray, tan, and a darker tan. I chose the tan because the gray was too dark and I figured the tan color would be closer to a faded gray look than the actual gray itself. In hindsight, I think I would have been better off with the gray but, none-the-less, I am happy with my selection (and isn't that what this hobby is all about?). The tile was about 1/8" thick and I bought 2 of them.

After some trial and error I determined the following method to work best for making my blocks. (Tip: Linoleum is quite soft and easy to bend and this softness is affected by temperature. A piece which has been out in the cold will be too brittle and will break too soon while one which has been sitting in the sun will be too soft and will not break in a desired straight vertical line. So, work with a piece that is acclimated to a comfortable living environment temperature and not one that you went and got out of the cold unheated garage in the dead of winter.)

With a straight edge, I scored a line about 1/4" wide.

Remember earlier when I said that Linoleum is quite soft? Well, here is where that comes into play. I had to do this with ease...starting at the end, and using a pair of regular pliers, I pinched the tile up to the 1/4" line and slightly bent down as if to break it off. When the material started to bend slightly I stopped and slide the pliers down about a little and bent it again. I keep doing this until I got get to the end and then started over again bending it a little more than before. When done properly I would get a nice crisp straight edge. If not done properly it will just break into some weird shape. I saved everything because odd shapes might be used later.

TA-DA!!! Now I have a strip.

Time to cut the strip into blocks. Using a pair of Lineman's pliers because it has the wire cutting part (and it was handy), I cut the strip into pieces that were about 1/4" long. I did not try to be as precise with making these the same size.

It may seem daunting but the process to get the million-or-so required blocks was not that difficult. Actually, its one of those things you can do while watching your favorite show on TV.

I built a special little work surface to use when building my walls. It is simply one small board with another one attached vertically to the back of it. This makes it much easier to glue the blocks together while maintaining a flat even wall-face.

To begin a wall I would line a couple of blocks next to each other with the front sides of the blocks against the vertical board of my work surface. Then, using tweezers I would pick up a block, put a drop of super glue (CA) on it, set it in place straddling the joint of 2 blocks below it, and lightly press it down with my finger. After a moment I would then get another block and do it again. And then again and again and again....you get the idea.

If you decide to do as I have done here is something to keep in mind - The blocks somewhat vary in width so try to use a block that will result in either of its ends being centered on 2 blocks below it. If you use one that is too wide then you will wind up with the gaps between the blocks lining up with each other and this is not good. The gaps need to be staggered from row to row.

The next several pictures show the evolution of the first wall.

At this point I stopped work on the first wall and started the second one. I held back on taking the first wall all of the way to the end because I was not sure how it would come together with the other walls.

Then I started on the 3rd wall - the one that goes under the bridge. Following is a shot of it being built. Here is it lying front-down instead of up against the vertical board. I decided to try something different in my construction method. Instead of placing a dot of glue onto the block and putting it in place I placed the block in place and then put a drop of glue at the joints replying on capillary action to suck the glue in. It worked OK and is an acceptable method when wedging bocks between others as in the picture below but when building one on top of another its better to put the glue on the block first.

So now these 3 walls were coming together. This happened a little at a time, some work on one wall and then another, such that they all gradually come together as 1 unit. The following pictures show the 2 bottom walls beginning to be 'woven' together as the top wall comes closer to being part of the completed section.

As the following pictures show, I have the first curved wall built and am in the process of weaving it into the wall under the bridge. For this wall, I built it upside-down. Why? Because the top is the longest part and, by placing it upside-down, I can easily add blocks to a flat surface instead of an angled one. For example, in the following picture you can see along the bottom of the curved piece that I need to add more blocks to bring the wall down some more. I did so by turning the piece upside-down and gluing some blocks in place. Simple as that.

As it is, I am able to tilt and slide the entire structure (minus the first wall I started building) out from its place. In the following pictures I am cutting and wedging in corner blocks where the walls come together.

At this point I have done all I can do on the wall structure which would require me to remove it from the layout so it is time to make it permanent and start building the first wall into it.

Time to start on the second side. In the following picture you see a blue thing. I don't know what it is called but it is used in drafting for, well, drafting. It has a rubber skin with some sort of flexible metal inside of it and can be bent and twisted to a shape so that the shape can be repeated elsewhere. I used it to get the shape of the curved walls and then carried it to my bench where I used it as a guide for the building of the wall (remembering to turn it upside-down since I build the wall upside-down).

Almost got it done.

Looks like I can add about 2 more rows of blocks for the part directly under the bridge.

Rounding 3rd base here. Finally around the corner and starting to build up. These last couple of rows were built in place. The only thing I had to watch for was making sure I kept the front of the wall straight and true.

The linoleum tiles have a swirly pattern made into them and, even at the small size of these blocks, that pattern was apparent and undesirable. My solution was to rough up the tile with sandpaper and make special cap-stone blocks from that. Below shows the sanded tile and the final top row of stones being glued in place. All of the walls, except those directly under the bridge, got this final row. It turned out OK I guess. If I were to do it again I would sand it even more.

To secure the walls in place I crammed scrap pieces of foam behind them and drizzled glue. Once that was dry it was time to build the ground. I used Sculptamold for my ground form.

Then, once dry, I painted Sculptamold brown. Here are some pictures as it stands now. I will add more as time goes on.

I hope you enjoyed this article.

Smittie's Engine Shed

2010-01-15T05:44:00.000-08:00

Coffee Valley has its resident junk yard owner who goes by the name of Smittie. Smittie's business is called "Smittie's Rail Salvage and Scrap Yard." Since part of his business is rail salvage - as depicted by the business name - he has a couple of rail items which consist of an engine, some sort of crane car that he rigged together, and a flat car to carry said salvaged items. It also makes sense that he has a shed to keep the engine stored in. Thus, this project - I built an engine shed for him. This is my first scratch-built project (so go easy on the 'new guy'). Honestly, I am quite happy with the way it turned out. I learned some lessons along the way and will share those here as I describe how I built the shed. I hope this will help others as they take their first steps into scratch building. (Please excuse the varying quality of the pictures...I am trying to improve my photo-taking skills.)

I did not spend a lot of time researching and drawing. Actually, I made some rough drawings and liked them enough to get started. I had a general idea of dimensions and used a plastic engine shed kit as a comparison item for size and dimensions. Here is what I started with:

First came the wall frames. I used scale bass wood lumber which was cut to length and super-glued together. I used a bathroom wall tile as my work surface because the glue only lightly sticks if at all. I tape some pieces in place as I glue others. (Tip: Be sure to fold the end of the tape back onto itself creating a tab. This makes it much easier to remove the tape later.)

The 4 main walls are framed.

The 4 walls are now up and attached to each other.

Here I have placed the structure where it will be located on the layout and placed my largest engine to see how things were going. So far, so good. Also in the picture, in the upper-left corner, you can see the plastic engine shed which I used as a reference for the building of Smittie's shed.

Since the front opening will not have doors then part of the inside will be visible. Knowing this I will also scenic the inside of the shed (at least the front visible part of it) so I started by adding some cross bracing to the inside of the side walls. As time goes on I will add more details to the inside of the structure such as shelves, miscellaneous tools hanging from the walls, and various engine parts lying around on the ground.

Now for the side workshop. As before, I framed out the walls first.

The storage room will have doors on the front, a window on the side, and a lean-to next to it.

I gave the framed structure a spray of diluted India ink to give the wood an aged and dirty look. For my mix I combined some India ink with isopropyl alcohol and sprayed it from a used pump-type hair spray bottle. (Tip: Be sure the front of the spray bottle is pointed away from your hand...it takes forever to get that India ink stain off of your skin.)

The framing of the structure is now done and it is time for the siding. I took a big pile of coffee stir sticks, cut them to length, and sprayed them with the same India ink mixture. To do this I dumped them in an old cooking sheet, sprayed them, let them dry, tossed the pile around, and sprayed again...rinse, lather, and repeat until they are good enough.

The process of attaching the side planks is quite easy and goes rather quickly. I turned the structure so that the side being planked is up and horizontal with the table. I then squirted some glue onto a piece of cardboard and used a toothpick as a brush. I dipped the end of the toothpick into the glue and spread some on the frame members for a distance of about an inch. Using tweezers I placed a plank in place and pressed it into the glue and then grabbed another one...again its rinse, lather, and repeat. Here are the first dozen-or-so planks glued in place.

The following pictures, each taken with different camera settings, show the planked shed (and the workshop waiting its turn).

As my grandfather used to say, "...which brings us up to where we are now" and that is doors for the workshop. Using wood scraps I made a couple of doors, shown below lying on the ground, and my method of attaching them - cardboard 'hinges'. Although not true hinges in the sense that the doors will be open-able, they did allow me some flexibility in positioning of the doors. After the hinges were glued to the inside of the storage room I could bend them to a desired final position before gluing the doors on.

I wanted the building to sit on some sort of foundation so set off to 'pour' a concrete one. My plan of attack was to build forms using Lego blocks and fill it with plaster. I did not want the plaster to stick to my work surface so I first laid down a piece of aluminum foil onto a scrap of plywood and taped it in place. Then, using covert operations, I obtained some of my son's Legos and started creating the form. I wanted the top of the concrete foundation to be flat so I formed it upside down. Fortunately the blocks let me create a shape close enough to work - some of the sections were just too wide but I figured I could manage it. In the following picture I show the Lego forms in place.

There was nothing holding the Lego forms in place and I did not want them to slide around once the pouring started so securely I taped everything (gotta' love duct tape!). I was concerned that once the pour was done, and I was handling the plaster piece, that it could easily crack and possibly break. I an effort to limit the impact of such an event I decided to do what real concrete people do and that is incorporate some rebar. So if the plaster did crack at least the item as a whole might stay together. In the following picture, in the right side, you can see some electrical wire which I bent into shape and had ready to place in the plaster as I poured. Once everything was said and done, the plaster never cracked so I do not know how effective my rebar would have been.

And here was have the poured plaster. Things went well and the board was set aside so that the plaster could cure.

Once the plaster cured I pulled the tape off and broke apart the Lego blocks.

Notice the difference between the picture above and the ones below? Remember it was poured upside down so that the top of it would be flat. Looking at the pictures below you can see how the unevenness of what is now the bottom causes the item to not sit flat (and that is OK... I will compensate for that when installing in on the layout).

I placed the foundation on the layout where I wanted it and drew an outline of its shape. Using my hobby knife I then cut into the Sculptamold ground.

To kill off the bright white color of the plaster I gave the foundation a wash of my India ink mixture and glued it in place. I then mixed up some more Sculptamold and filled in the area around the foundation, shaping it as I go. Here we have the final ground shape. The next thing to do is apply some more brown paint.

You will notice that the storage room has a roof on it. Truth be known, I was working on the foundation and the roofs at the same time and not sequentially as this article suggests. Having said that let me show you how I made my roofs. First I made a bunch of roof trusses. Not a lot of work there - just cut and glue. Using the cardboard from a recently emptied Swiss Rolls box I glued the trusses to it.

Here is a trial fit to see how things are going. So far, so good.

I then glued cardboard to the other side and put the assembly to the side for awhile so that I could start on my corrugated metal roof panels. In a future article I will describe in detail how I made them but, for now, a brief description - cut aluminum foil into a bunch of smaller pieces of a desired size, lay a piece across the groves of a metal file and rub it with soft balsa wood such that the grooves in the file forms grooves in the foil, and then dry brush paint with a couple of dirt and rust-like colors. (Tip: Be careful when you later turn the fan on because these things go everywhere and picking them up is not fun.)

I thought I was going to go crazy painting all of those panels but I kept with it because I didn't not want to come up short later and have to get everything back out just to make 9 more. (In actuality, I had to make about twenty-seven more. sigh...) Drawing lines on the cardboard helped me keep my panel rows straight when I glued them on. The gluing of the panels went quickly. I brushed on some glue in an area I wanted to panel and, using my tweezers, picked up a panel, put it in place, pressed lightly with my finger, and then grabbed another one. Once again - rinse, lather, and repeat.

The storage room was to have the same type of roof.

Here is the completed building and this is the best picture I have of it right now. I will get some more and post them here when I do.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. I hope you found it helpful, interesting, or at least humorous.

'Railroad' vs. 'Rail Road' vs. 'Railway' ...which is it???

2010-01-07T05:29:00.000-08:00

I have seen each of the following but have never understood the difference:

- Railroad
- Rail Road
- Railway

When I was coming up with the name for my layout, now called The Coffee Valley Railroad, I debated between using 'Railroad' and 'Railway' and finally resolved the issue with a coin flip. But the question still lingers - what is the difference? Is there a difference? Why would one use Railroad instead of Railway?

I have googled all I can google and have found nothing that addresses this in the slightest bit.

Wiktionary notes that railroad and railway are synonyms which leads me to believe that the use of one over the other might fall back to unofficial meanings or preferences. If so, what would those be? Where does 'Rail Road' come into play?

Can someone - ANYONE - provide any insight?

Thanks

More Pics Of The CVRR

2010-01-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

I plan on posting more about my layout as time goes by but, until then, you can view some pictures that I have already placed on my Facebook photos page:

Coffee Valley Railroad
The Making of Mountains
Miscellaneous Pics
Trees
Couple of Red Brick Walls
Asphalt Road
Control Panel
Granite Block Retaining Wall
Smittie's Engine Shed

How I Made My Sagebrush Trees

2010-01-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago I started to pursue the task of making trees for my layout. I did not want plastic-looking trees. I wanted the look of real wood and figured the best way to get that would be with, well, what else but real wood. I scoured the internet looking for tutorials and such and in those searches I found some images of trees which had been made from sagebrush:http://www.fsmtrees.com/images7/finishedTree2.jpg
http://ryan.skow.org/tutorials/trees/pics/treeCloseup.jpg

Sagebrush is "a coarse, hardy silvery-grey bush with yellow flowers and grows in arid sections of the western United States and Western Canada."

This is exactly what I was looking for but, living on the East coast, obtaining sagebrush to work with is very difficult (it does not grow locally and I did not want to buy pre-packaged items due to the cost). So I figured I would have to resort to Plan-B and shortly thereafter I found another source for trees which I will write about in the near future. Recently, however, I realized that a friend had moved to New Mexico...New Mexico has tons of sagebrush...this friend is a good friend...hum...2 weeks later the mail man brings me a large box of...can you guess? Yup! SAGEBRUSH!!!

Using the Sagebrush Tree Tutorial as a basis for my implementation, here is what I did...

First a couple of pics of the sagebrush as I opened the box.

I grabbed a branch and a pair of wire cutters and got to work. Inspecting the branch I selected smaller-sized "sub-branches", ones that looked about the size of tree I wanted, and clipped them off. Sub-branches which had interesting bends, twists, and other unique characteristics won out over regular looking ones.

The sagebrush was green when it was shipped to me (e.g. not "dead" wood) so there was some leaves which I did not want on my tree (as shown above). Given that, and the fact that these were still "live" items, I decided to dry them out so I baked them in the oven at 300 degrees for about 15 minutes. This would not only dry out the natural leaves it would also kill off any bugs and dry the branches out. Be warned - there might be a lot of smoke that comes out of the oven and an extreme smell that might bother some people so do this when you can have doors and windows open. I placed them on a cookie sheet and in the oven they went.

After they came out of the oven I knocked off the baked leaves and had twigs remaining.

The approach I will take for "planting" these trees is to make a hole the size of the trunk and glue the tree in place (as opposed to placing a pin in the base of the tree as my guide tutorial instructed). Taking this approach into account, I was sure you cut a trunk long enough to allow part of it to be buried in the ground of the layout.

Before I go any farther let me give a run-down of the rest of my supplies. First is cheep hairspray and some poly fiber. The Suave hairspray came from Kmart and was about $2.00 for the can and the fiber was some I had purchased some time back while attending a model train show. I do not recall the cost. This particular fiber is brown which, I felt, would be a good color to use (as opposed to green).

Here is a close-up of the fiber. I looks kind of like steel wool.

For the tree's foliage I used some Woodland Scenics' products. On the left is their blended turf, in the middle is an older bag of a darker green turf, and on the right is their Earth product.

I started by pulling off small chunks of fiber:

Then, using tweezers, pulled each chunk apart into a larger ball shaped piece:

I then place the tree in my Sagebrush Tree Holder of Science (nods to Bill Nye the Science Guy).

I take one of the balls of fiber and stretch it over a lower branch (it is better to start with the lower branches and work your way up). I did not put a lot of effort into securing it to the branch - just stretch it over and wrap some fibers around to help hold it in place.

After placing all of the fiber it may not look quite right and your gut may tell you that you need to add more and to make it look 'better'. Fight the urge to do so.

Take the tree and spray it with the hairspray. Spray from a distance, arm's length, so that the strength of the spray will not knock the fiber off and spray enough so that beads of liquid form on the fibers.

Now it is time to apply the foliage. First I held the tree upside down and sprinkled a light dusting of the brown Earth onto the underside of the fibers. Second I held the tree upright and gave it a sprinkling of the darker green foliage onto the tops and side of the fibers. Lastly, I gave it a lighter sprinkling of the light green foliage onto the tops of the fiber clusters. It is important to note - do not apply too much. You should be able to see through the fiber clusters. Here are several shots showing my results up to this point:

When done with the foliage, I gave it a final light covering of hairspray to hold everything in place and set it aside to dry.

Once the hairspray had dried I took a sharp pair of scissors and clipped off any wild fiber strands that did not look right (some of those wild ones are visible in the photos above).

I was excited about how good the final product looked and it took very little time to do. Actually, this is one of those tasks that you can do while watching TV because (1) it requires little attention and (2) being distracted by the TV are you giving it little attention to the trees and are less apt to try to hard to make it too 'right'.

I will post more pics when I get them. Meanwhile how about some behind-the-scenes shots? Here are a couple of random pics I took while making the trees. First, my photography area:

And my work bench: