1'2 Challenge?

[Philip H]

the ridge tiles are just single lines cut along the seams of the brass sheets once I go the main parts cut.  Thus they curled up end to end and had to be laid back down.  I agree they are wonky, but I may just have to live with them rounded over a bit as I don't foresee cutting individual tiles out and laying them down.

[Philip H]

Creeping along to the Sloth of the Year Award, ballast starts going down:

[pwnj]

Creeping along to the Sloth of the Year Award...

Now now, let's not get hasty about... umm, not getting hasty.  Bringing up the rear, here's my entry, the Herndon Depot.

This is the location I'm modeling (not the scene though, but it would be nice to do a snow scene on here sometime).  Herndon Depot on the old Washington & Old Dominion Railroad line in Northern Virginia.  I plan to model a scene later in time (50s-60s) but will include the old dairy loading platform on the left side of the tracks, probably very weathered.


This is what I'm starting with, a leftover piece of masonite that was actually already cut to 6 inches by 2 feet, perfect for this project (see, it wanted to be built!).


I tinkered with the placement of the switch a bit until it occurred to me that with a slight adjustment, I could make this little diorama into a microlayout.


Her's a test shot, just to see some of the photo potential.


That's how it sat for over 4 months while other priorities were dealt with.  Then I started back up on the project.  Scored some foam from Home Depot just by asking if they had any damaged product I could use on a model railroad project.  Here it is glued down and ready for test-fitting.


Digging out some roadway and adding a hill.


Recruited the "crew" to help with the dirtification process.


Got it all wired up and ran some tests... and more tests... etc.  The depot in the scene is a test print of cardstock model I designed, based on the prototype.


Next up, I used a scrap of foam to test out ballast application.  Here it is in place before gluing.  The caboose is a test print of a cardstock model that is included with the depot above (it's the caboose that's in town now, an old N&W unit painted for W&OD).


Here's the dried result.  I'm very happy with it, and the rail weathering technique that I used (brown sharpie, let dry, then black sharpie here and there, smudged with a paper towel) looks pretty decent.


Also tested some WS fine ground foam grass.  Yes, I know it's too flat looking (looks like a train display on a golf course).  I just wanted to see how it would sit and what the coloring would be like.  It's a work in progress.


Next, I built up the road crossings with some cereal box cardstock.


Then this morning, I grabbed the little tub of spackle and mixed up some asphalt.  I mixed 1/3 cup of lightweight spackle with a little more than a tablespoon of black acrylic craft paint, and a half teaspoon each of dark gray and brown craft paint.  It'll probably dry lighter, but I think that'll work out, otherwise I'll just tint it after it's dry.


Here's a close-up of the road crossing.  I used some pizza cutters to cut the grooves and will block sand the rest of the road surface when it's completely dry. 


Next steps?  I need to build the "final" version of the depot and size up a placeholder so I can scenick around where it will sit.

[SharkNose]

Looks great, PWNJ. You make 1 square foot really look like something. I think it's that 3rd dimension that does it.

[delamaize]

I was starting to wonder if me and Pud were the only one who were actually building and finishing!! lol
looking good so far

[rswinnerton]

Ive been working on mine, but the CRHS train trip has me swamped.

[pwnj]

More progress.  I sanded down the asphalt early this morning.  Overall, I'm happy with it.  The color wasn't as dark as I was hoping for, so I chose to paint it darker.  Also, some flecks of dried spackle from the lid had dropped in the mix I was making and didn't get dyed with the paint so I had some spots to deal with.  One nice thing about doing the pavement this way is that (other than the flecks, d'oh!) the spackle is colored all the way through, so sanding and shaping is easy.



The spackle was VERY EASY to work with.  I just mixed in the paint (black, some dark gray, and a touch of brown... will use a little more black next time) thoroughly, then applied it like cake frosting, shaping as I went.  Make sure to apply a bit more than you need so you can sand it down to your final shape.

Here's what it looks like after the painting:





After it dried completely, I took some fine sandpaper and scuffed up the paint a little, allowing for some of the gray plaster below to show through.  I'll take more photos of the results of that soon, but I'm very happy with how that turned out.

[pwnj]

More progress to report:

What I'm working on now is the depot.  This is the upgraded version with several tweaks and improvements, most notably the siding is based on a print of photos of the actual siding.  I'm very happy with how it's coming out so far.  Can't wait to finish it!



I also whipped up a fire hydrant out of some leftover sprue and a MTL truck washer.



It's no DKS hydrant, but I'm happy with it (and can't beat the price!).

[pwnj]

And some more progress! Got the last of the windows installed and attached the wall sections, with the help of my patented wall-squaring jig



Next up? Cutting some thick cardstock for a base, painting it a nice cement color, then gluing the depot to the base.

[pwnj]

Just for fun, some roundy-round action on my square footer:



And here's how that might come in handy at a train show:



Now back to digging in the dirt...

[DKS]

Well, this is certainly new for me, especially having been in Z for so long. A little back-story: some of you are aware that I took my Z Scale James River Branch layout to Denver for the National Z Scale Convention, only to have it trashed by UPS on the return trip. That really affected me deeply, and I was desperate to do something constructive about it, rather than just huddle in a hole and feel sorry for myself.

And now for a little back story to the back story... my last permanent layout was the N Scale White River and Northern, which had to be dismantled in 2001 owing to a move.  I salvaged what I could, and gave most all of the structures to Rick Spano. I did, however, keep some pieces of my favorite scenes, one of which was the lead-in shot for the 2000 GMR article. (Even more bizarrely, the handlaid Code 40 switches on the diorama were salvaged from the never-completed predecessor to the WR&N.)

Now, flash forward to the one-square-foot modeling challenge here on Railwire. Just for giggles, I unpacked all of the bits of the WR&N I'd saved, and arranged them on an 8 x 18 inch chunk of Gatorfoam, and managed to recreate the bridge scene from the old layout, but with one little twist: instead of including the truncated bit of double-track mainline that would have run across the front corner of the diorama, I used a heavily-modified version of the enginehouse I was commissioned to manufacture for the Pine Creek Railroad. The result is still in keeping with the spirit of the WR&N, which was, by and large, a tourist line; essentially I simply transplanted the enginehouse scene to a space that would otherwise be "wasted" by a uselessly short hunk 'o Lehigh Valley-come-Conrail mainline.



What you see in the image above was done inside of a day; that was only possible because all of the "hard" work was already done; I simply had to reassemble the components into a new space, and I used the one-square-foot challenge as the basis for the project.

Incidentally, I'll be taking this diorama to the National N Scale Convention in Medford at the end of the month to enter into their diorama contest (under the title, "Somewhere in New Jersey"). Also, I will be giving a clinic on animation in N scale. And if that's not enough, I'll be introducing two new N scale kits, all at the same time! I must be utterly insane...

[bbussey]

Nice.

[Guilford Guy]

+1

[pwnj]

Insane in a good way, DKS.  Holy mackerel!

[Catt]

Gee David, I thought being insane was normal in this hobby.