Tehachapi, BC

[Scottl]

Beautiful work.  Do you find you end up with a lot of waste plywood, cutting the roadbed like this?

[GaryHinshaw]

Good question Scott.  On the Loop shelf, where almost all of the track is curved, there was a fair bit of waste, but I've been using a lot of that material for the funky beams and brackets that support the Loop, so it's not too bad.  For the rest of the upper deck roadbed, I managed to squeeze it out of ~2/3 of a 4x8 sheet, the remainder of which still has some good real estate for the lower deck roadbed.

My method for doing this is to cut & paste sections of the plan onto a separate 'roadbed' layer in XTrackCAD, then position them onto plywood sheets as efficiently as possible.  Here is how all the roadbed to date was cut out of one 4x8 and four 4x4 sheets so far:



The heap of paper you can see in a few of the photos are the 1:1 printed templates.  This gives me a way to transfer the easement curves to the roadbed.  I'm saving them to use when I "flex" the ME track into shape.

Cheers,
Gary

[GaryHinshaw]

By the way, there is almost exactly 100' of mainline run on this upper deck now.  The plan is to put in a shoo-fly under the Loop to join the two ends and run some roundy-roundy before moving on to the lower deck.  All progress will grind to a halt at that point....   

[Philip H]

By the way, there is almost exactly 100' of mainline run on this upper deck now.  The plan is to put in a shoo-fly under the Loop to join the two ends and run some roundy-roundy before moving on to the lower deck.  All progress will grind to a halt at that point....   

 

[Scottl]

Thanks Gary, I always wondered about that.

Can't wait to see your models running the loops. 

[GaryHinshaw]

A quick ballast and grade soil test:



Here's a reference photo for comparison.  I'm going for a parched late summer look, so the soil was laid down directly over unpainted plywood: I just sifted some very fine soil over a thin layer of glue and pressed it in.  The texture and color seem about right. 

The ballast is not glued in yet, so weathering the track will come later.  One trick with concrete ties is to get the ballast profile between the rails just right.  That will take a bit more practice.   The plan is to get the track ballasted and the grade 'soiled' before putting a scenery shell in place (which will make access difficult), hence the practice run.

-gfh

[ednadolski]

the soil was laid down directly over unpainted plywood: I just sifted some very fine soil over a thin layer of glue and pressed it in.  The texture and color seem about right.

That looks really good.   Which soil did you use?   I used lightweight spackle compound, tinted with latex paint (I also tried pressing in tire tracks from a model vehicle -- only slightly successful).   Once you glue everything down, it's going to get a shade or two darker.

Ed

[Sokramiketes]

A quick ballast and grade soil test:



Here's a reference photo for comparison.  I'm going for a parched late summer look, so the soil was laid down directly over unpainted plywood: I just sifted some very fine soil over a thin layer of glue and pressed it in.  The texture and color seem about right. 

The ballast is not glued in yet, so weathering the track will come later.  One trick with concrete ties is to get the ballast profile between the rails just right.  That will take a bit more practice.   The plan is to get the track ballasted and the grade 'soiled' before putting a scenery shell in place (which will make access difficult), hence the practice run.

-gfh

Colors look good.   Don't forget that you will be flooding the ballast with diluted glue, and it will run into the soil, and change the color.  You can come back with dry powder over the top, but just be aware.  (I've had that problem before)

[wcfn100]

Since you haven't started yet, I'll just say it, I'm not a fan of uniform color ballast.  Mix up some dark and light.

I think this pictures shows where I'm coming from.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=388965&nseq=2


Jason

[GaryHinshaw]

Exactly, Mike.  I'm going to do my best to keep the soil dry, but I anticipate that I'll need to touch it up.

Thanks Jason - I agree completely.  I'll try to achieve that with a mix of ballast colors and after-the-fact weathering.

Ed, the soil is from my dad's house.  He lives in Sonora - a few hours north of Tehachapi in a very similar setting (Gold Rush country).  I think the color is just right, if I can keep it dry.

It occurs to me that I haven't baked this soil yet.  Is that really necessary?

-gfh

[3DTrains]

Gary, our club models So CA and uses play sand we picked up at the local home improvement store. We then press it into tan-colored latex paint which gives a very nice dry dessert look:

http://www.nlandpacific.com/

The light color used is probably closer to the drier regions of San Bernardino to Mojave, but it's easy to change the look with darker colors. While the play sand is extremely fine, we still run in through a tea strainer to knock-out the bolders. A pint of latex goes a very long way and gives a very uniform and natural look. The finish is close to 200-grit sand paper, plus the sand doesn't need baking nor does it contain any iron.

Once the paint has dried, we run a soft house paint brush to remove the loose stuff, and then detail with AZ ballast and other scenery items.

FWIW.

Cheers!
Marc

[Scottl]

Nice colors in that test.

I found that mixing ballast colors generated too much contrast.  My solution was to mix up a uneven slurry of acrylic paint and water (about 1" of paint in a pie plate container) and to mix in the light WS ballast.  When it has soaked for a while, I drained off the paint/water mix and let the ballast dry in the sun.  The result was very subtle variation in color, with occasional darker grains.

[GaryHinshaw]

Marc, thanks for the tips and the link.  I have tried using paint as a base in the past with pretty decent results, so I might give that a try again.  I didn't realize you were part of that Fremo-N club -- there are some beautiful modules there!  (The Flash photo album interface made me a bit dizzy though...)

Scott, I haven't heard of that approach before.  Does the WS walnut shell ballast absorb the paint (to some degree)?  Do you have any close-up shots of the result?

Thanks,
Gary

[Scottl]

Gary,  some of the paint gets absorbed into the shell, while some of the poorly mixed paint "blobs" (for a lack of better term) coat one or more grains.  When it is dry, the ballast has a lot of subtle variation in it.

I don't have extreme macro photographs that show it, but this image gives a sense.  I just laid the tinted ballast down and then used diluted glue to adhere, no further weathering. There are individual grains in there that are dark brown and black, but it is so subtle I could not point to any.  I was aiming to avoid the typical salt and pepper look of ballast that comes from mixing the limited range of colors from WS products.

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks Scott, that's a beautiful scene! But as you say, it's a bit difficult to see the effect you're getting from this technique.  Thanks for posting it though - I need to experiment some more.

Cheers,
Gary