Trying to get back in the groove by stacking up some quick wins on my T Trak Modules
Quick win #1 - Backdrop. I’d never found an adhesive that did an adequate job of holding the sky paper to the backdrop. Over the summer, I had to repair the headliner in my project car, and had some left over adhesive. Could this be the solution? YES! Heavy wet coat on the backdrop, wet coat on the back of the paper, press into place, and done!
Quick win #2 - Fascia I used pink foam to build the terrain on this module, but was never happy with how the side of the module looked. While cleaning up the garage, the solution literally fell in my face - 2” iron on birch edge banding! I wrapped a piece of sand paper around a 4”-12” piece of plywood and sanded the edge of the foam smooth and even with the edge of the module. It took a bit more diligence than I thought it might, but eventually it did adhere to the foam. An Exacto knife made short work of the excess. A coat of matte black and ta-da!
Not so quick win # 3 - Scenery. Now the momentum is building, can I tackle a bigger project? The whole point of these modules was to experiment with winter scenery, but its been a minute since I went through this process on the Emory Grove Module. I started with a base layer of course brown foam, hoping that if any of it did peak through the snow, that it would create the impression of snow-laden undergrowth.
Followed up by a sprinkling of course ground leaves - incase any of those openings where on the larger side, something the color of forest floor would be there.
I then gave everything a light base coat of modeling paste. So far so good, so it seemed
This is where I started running into trouble. Thats not poor lighting. The brown foam from Scenic Express started bleeding brown dye into the wet paste. In an effort to get this under control, I sprayed everything with a heavy coat of gloss medium and let it set overnight. The next day, I hit everything with a coat of white craft paint. This seemed to contain the damage, and improved with each addition coat of diluted modeling paste.
Next came trees. Dozens and dozens of trees! Probably about 10 trees short of being able to complete the module. Once planted, I sprayed glue straight down on the tops of the trees, then used a kitchen strained to shake woodland scenics snow straight down onto the branches. I repeated this process several times to build up some accumulation, and will probably repeat it a few more times.
At this point, I did a little work to the track at the tunnel portals. I painted the walls and floor of the tunnel matte black, then came back and added ballast to the floor and sides of the road bed. I sprayed some glue, then gently blew some woodland scenics snow into the tunnel. I was going for the look of snow drifting into the sheltered opening, rather than a hard line. Not my best work, but it will pass.
Lots of touch up work to do, but we're headed in the right direction. More importantly, we're back at it!
