Franksville Wisconsin N-scale modutrak module buildout

[lashedup]

Some more progress although not much of it is very glamorous... 

Track is down and aligned and Mike wired up the Franksville North module:



I set up a photography table to start taking photos of various module pieces so we can get a build manual together. Mike started posting some of the beta material up in the modutrak forums at http://www.modutrak.com/forums/

In addition to the wiring, the Franksville North module got its land forms cut, sculpted and the first layer of lightweight spackling down:



Having the prototype overhead printout has been nice to work off of. I've done some basic flushing out of the creek:



and the pond:



I stripped and reprinted the HP Hansen's mill decals to add the white background elements in the logo (photo later). I'm also continuing to work on both the Oil and Fuel depot building and structures. I did paint a few detail pieces:



The mailbox stuff I ordered from Shapeways and the trellis is a GC Laser piece that I added Silflor flower elements to. I also added some basic view blocks to the house I'm working on so you can't see completely through all the windows.

More as it comes...

[Chris333]

Wondering what you use as a guide to make the elevated embankment for the ROW. What is the degree of the slope.

[wazzou]

It should be roughly 45 degrees but it looks steeper than that.

[lashedup]

Wondering what you use as a guide to make the elevated embankment for the ROW. What is the degree of the slope.

I use the edge of the plastic base at the head of the foam cutter and rest it along the top edge of the tracks. Then I slide it at a consistent rate and angle (mostly) to cut through the foam. In this picture I used the edge of the cork and tracks which moved it out further to leave room for signals:



For this current module I'm working on I reduced the angle a little bit to get myself a little more real estate to work with. This module will have a lot of dense undergrowth, bushes and trees and I'll be able to soften that angle a bit visually so it looks ok. I should see what the angle is on both sides and how far away I am from 45 degrees.

The more of these modules I do the more I realize what I need to be anal about and what isn't as critical. Ask Mike, I was ridiculous in measuring and overthinking everything in the beginning and in the end it is all fine. I still sweat details because I want it to look good, but if I keep over thinking everything I'll never get anything done!

[milw156]

Hey Jamie, have you seen this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/MILWAUKEE-ROAD-freight-passes-the-Franksville-WI-depot-1977-railroad-slide-/171271710135?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27e096e5b7

Rick

[lashedup]

Hey Jamie, have you seen this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/MILWAUKEE-ROAD-freight-passes-the-Franksville-WI-depot-1977-railroad-slide-/171271710135?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27e096e5b7

Rick

Yeah it is amazing the stuff that keeps popping up online. Thanks for the tip. More photos are always nice!

PrimaVW - Sorry man, ment to respond before and forgot!  Yeah I grew up around trains as my dad had them at our house growing up. Got away from it for a LONG time with cars, bikes and other things. Now that I have family it has been fun to play with this stuff with the kids (although I play with it a lot more than they do). It is nice to work on something different and I have fun with it. What are you driving these days?

Painted the pink foam today (which is always a nice step). Photos tomorrow.

[lashedup]

Update -

Painted Franksville North:



Also put drainage pipes in place:



Over by the house I'm doing some prep work and experiments to see if the static grass can be trimmed down using this:



Which gives quite a difference (although maybe not as visible in this photo):



More on the static grass later...

I also need to model algae bloom in the creek and potentially the pond, so I'm doing some experiments to see if I can replicate it a bit. I carved some foam, painted the carved areas and then poured in some Woodland Scenics instant water. Then I used a drop of Burlington Northern Green paint and used a tooth pick to try and stir it up a bit. I used different amount of paint in each one and different techniques to stir it up. These photos show it wet, so we'll see what it looks like when it is dry:





It will sit overnight and we'll see what I have in the morning.

-j

[Chris333]

That algae might be duck weed, but either way it looks the same.

[wazzou]

Looks like pickles.

[Dave Schneider]

I thought it was the local Pitch and Put, but the Franksville Giant Pickle roadside attraction is also believable.

Jamie, looking good as always. Maybe a bit too saturate?  I think of the algae as being more towards something like Weyerhaeuser/Forest Service green.

http://blog.cleanwisconsin.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Blue-Green-Algae.jpg

Best wishes, Dave

[lashedup]

The photo saturation is a little higher than real life, however id probably add a few drops of yellow to the mix to tone it down. Here is one photo:



If you do a google image search on algal bloom you'll find the green color is all over the board. I'm curious to see if the color changes at all when the water dries.

- Jamie

[lashedup]

So my algal bloom experiment mostly dried. I poured the water way too thick and it bubbled oddly, shrank in weird patterns and generally looked like crap. On the module I plan to use magic water anyway and I'll do multiple thin pours. That said, I now know what I need to do and I think it will turn out pretty well. Here is how it looked when it dried:



So I took a lame stab at trying to carve the lightweight spackle with a razor blade tip to make flag stones for a patio behind the house. It turned into a mushy mess and not at all the way I hoped, so I decided to try and use the Silhouette Cutter to try and make a cut stone/flag stone patio out of styrene. I used the Silhouette software to hand draw rock shapes. I drew each rock individually and let the lines be a bit more random with some overlapping. It turned out like this:



I told the cutter to double cut each line and used a shallow cut setting on the blade so it didn't trench it too badly. In the end I was able to bend and snap the patio out of the styrene and it retained the jagged edges. I then primed it with Kilz, gave it a wash or two of a tanish/grey watered down paint mix and then hit it with alcohol and india ink wash. I also attempted to use a toothpick to smear a very thin line of CA between a few edge cracks and sprinkled very fine sifted ground foam to try and make it look like weeds. Overall I'm fairly happy with it:



So I finally got around to doing the static grass around the house. I used 2mm Silfor late summer static grass and painted it in where I wanted it. My plan is to have landscaping around the house at the front and flowers on the sides, so I left room for that. I also plan to add a picket fence in the back yard as well as a large custom oak tree with a tire swing.  Here is the static grass still drying right after I completed it (you can also see the failed experiment to carve the rock patio):



Here is what it looks like with the house in place. I added flower boxes to the front windows as well:



I still need to trim down the grass with the trimmer once it dries, so the grass will be a little shorter when it is complete. The patio is temporarily in place here:



Thanks for looking! 

- j

[Chris333]

The bubbling in the water might be from the foam:
http://tracksidescenery.blogspot.com/2014/02/failed-water.html

[lashedup]

Yeah Skibbe mentioned the same thing to me thanks to a disaster on one of his original curve modules. Interestingly I haven't had that problem on my module using Magic Water. Mike used the Woodland Scenics stuff (which is what I used here). Plus I poured this half an inch thick which is usually way too thick. The shrinkage does odd things with the water that thick, plus it *still* isn't totally set up after two days - I can push my finger into it with decent pressure. This may be why the outgassing is forcing more bubbles? The bubbles couldn't form if the material was completely hardened. <shrug>

My plan right now is to pour a thin layer and let it completely set up. Then another thin layer that I'll add the green/yellow paint to and let that harden. Then I'll go over it with gloss medium as a final pass. I still have to occasionally go over my other creeks and such with gloss medium to keep them fresh looking.

-jamie

[wazzou]

It looks like all of the pigment from the paint actually sank as it cured.  Is that what really happened Jamie or am I not seeing it correctly?