"Shoo-Fly" Free-moN Module (2'x6')

[M.C. Fujiwara]

So today I brushed the rest of the module with diluted white glue, got the tan dirt down, used the brown dirt on the shoofly mound for a slight bit of differentiation (newer dirt, or trucked in), and then started putting down the groundfoam and static grass around the cow pasture and endplate:





 Not sure how I feel about the application of the static grass: I need to be able to concentrate it in smaller areas.
 But not bad for a basic first covering.
 Once everything dries I can go back and add some here&there with spots of glue and a vacuum.

 Everything was going great and I was on track to glue down the dirt and get a lot of groundfoam & grass down when...
 My fine-mist spritzer crapped out.

 I tried just pipetting the alcohol onto the dirt in the vineyard and then pipetting the 50-50 glue, but it was just too flooded with alcohol so I stopped.

 So pretty much all the dirt you see in this picture is still pretty loose:



 I brushed glue on the surface before sprinkling, but all the top stuff is loose.

 So tomorrow I need to raid my wife's side of the bathroom cabinets for another atomizer / fine mist thingy or take a trip to the drug store.
 I don't like the trigger spray bottles as they seem to always throw droplets along with the spray.

 I just hope it's not windy tomorrow when I open the garage door, or we'll have a re-enactment of the Dust Bowl, and my vineyard will turn into the Grapes of Wrath.

 But I should have basic ground cover and ballast done by tomorrow night, which will be nice.
 Then I just have to figure out how to make a bunch of oak trees

Thanks for looking.   

[lashedup]

I picked up 3-4 pump mist bottles at Hobby Lobby and so long as I clean them promptly after use they continue to work well.

If you need to limit the application of grass to a certain area, I take pieces of paper towel that I mist with water and either cut or tear holes in them to use as a mask for the application of 2nd and 3rd layers of static grass. Obviously the first layer of grass you can just brush paint on the straight white glue just in the places you want the static grass.

Looks good so far.

-jamie

[M.C. Fujiwara]

My wife surprized me with a willing donation of her super solid fine-mist sprayer, so we're back in the scenicking service.
 This atomizer is awesome & built rock solid (yeay Japanese beauty industry!) and should last for the next 10 layouts.

 Finished laying down & securing the base ground cover (dirts, ground foam, some gravel here & there), as well as flocked most of the areas for grass:



 Left the vineyard area bare dirt until I figure out what the ???? I'm going to do there & how to make the Lush Vineyard.

 Much thanks to Jamie (lashedup) for taking the time to give a mini-tutorial on static grass application techniques, as well as share all his research into all things static grass.
 Still got a long way to go to get to his level of layering, but with his great guide any failure is totally my own.

 Also balasted the "main" and layered some more darker dirt on the shoofly.
 The mainline ballast needs a bit o' weathering still.

 Then, I thought I'd do a VERY SMALL pour of water, JUST for the cow pond:
 


Then, seeing how much Magic Water (tinted with grimy black, bnsf heritage green & some roof brown) I had left, I totally ignored my own advice / better judgement / Jimmny Cricket and thought, "Heck, why not do a pour in the river?"



 Not quite sure if I over- or under- poured it: usually I like to do a very small pour first so it seals the bottom, but it was going in so well I just couldn't stop pouring.
 And for a second I thought it was going to seep under the tape dam (D'oh!) which it probably will anyway as MW can find a crack in a microscopic plumber.
 And then it started soaking in to the dirt (D'oh!)
 Which actually helped pull the stuff back from the dam (ha ha! my planning on the edges being slightly raised worked!)
 But that leaves just some "wet" dirt.

 So I'll have to go back and do another pour later.
 Here's the other side:



 I think it'll turn out alrighty.
 Right now the module's at the stage where it looks pretty ugly all way round (gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette) but I know it'll look decent when all the layers and textures get put in.
 
[The section line you see in the dirt on the right actually disappears when I tighten the bolts underneath: I have them loose while scenicking so I can pull them slightly apart when glue is drying so they don't get stuck together]
 
Now I'm just hoping the Magic Water cures completely before I take the module to the meet on Sunday!
 (Maybe I shouldn't have eyeballed the 2:1 mixture... D'oh!)

 We shall see if I'm in a sticky situation on Sunday!

 Thanks for looking.

[nscalemike]

 I think it'll turn out alrighty.
 Right now the module's at the stage where it looks pretty ugly all way round (gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette) but I know it'll look decent when all the layers and textures get put in.

MC, I beg to differ. These photographs look great!  Maybe not the level of detail as on your box layout but certainly looking good and coming along very nicely!  I'd love to have scenery like this!   Just love it and keep it up!

Mike

[eric220]

+1

[Specter3]

I have to say, it's the static grass. Prior to this innovation at this point in scenery it would have looked pretty sparse. But with the introduction of static grass(and MC's skillfull use of it!) even this early stage of scenery looks really great. It doesn't look like the image in his head he is hoping to achieve, but to the rest of us it looks like someplace real. It's an amazing advancement in model railroading.

Ryan

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Thanks, guys.

I guess I should clarify the "ugly" comment: everything on the layout is "new" looking.
 Pristine grass, dainty bushes, well-groomed ballast.
 So it looks very Toy Train-ish, rather than lived in & worn & real.
 But I hope, in the end, it'll all come together.
Just needs lots more layers & textures.
 
Yesterday morning I planted the fence posts:
 


Used a peice of wood 8 scale feet long as a spacer for the T-pins.
 After planting all the T-pins, I was tempted to leave all those shiny silver pins in, as it looked like a Christo scuplture.



 But I used CA to plant the posts.
 Good thing I had so much scrap stripwood.
 
Then I found a cool graphic of a harp switch stand, inverted the b&w, and then attached it to the fascia to indicate where the turnout control is hidden behind the fascia:
 


[I like how Mt. Coffin just juts up like a green Mont Saint Michel in the background]
 
Painted the paper with Modge Podge Matte to seal it.
 Now I just have to finish mounting the actuator rods.
 
Right about then I realized I had totally caught the stomach virus my son's been partying with for the last 3 days, so I spent the rest of the day in bed or in the bathroom.
 Haven't been sick in 4-5 years, and then I get a pretty harsh bug the day before going to the Pacific Coast Division Meet to take the Train in a Box layout and my Free-moN module to see if it hooks up right to Steve's.
 D'oh!
 
Luckily I was able to sip some gatorade and get some sleep and made it to the meet.
 Before I left I planted some deciduous trees I had made the day before:
 




So that's where it stands now.
 Need to figure out how to model oak and olive trees.
 Especially the oak trees: a few details really place your scene, and I need oak trees for Sonoma.
 I'm guessing twisted wire brushed with sawdust/glue, but if anyone has some good suggestions for oaks, I'm all ears.
 
And now I'm all pooped out.
 My wife's making some miso soup for my son and I, and then it's early to bed for us dudes.
 
Thanks for looking.

[GaryHinshaw]

Really coming along nicely (and quickly!) MC.  I especially love the water and trees in this last shot.:

I have a need for Live Oaks on Tehachapi as well and I've been planning to order a few from SAMTrees:

http://www.samtrees.com/cchanpin4.asp?a_mingcheng=Oak%20Tree%20-%208101

They're kind of pricey, but they have the best silhouette of any model oak tree I've seen, and they might not be too hard to copy.

-gfh

[wm3798]

Hot as a firecracker, Fujisan. 

The fill definitely looks temporary...  will you be adding some cranes and random bridge components to the construction site side to clarify what's going on there?

Glad to hear you made it to the outhouse in time to prevent an onslaught of unwanted "ground goop"...

[James Costello]

MC, how soon after the "washout" event are you modeling?

Have you considered how this effects your downstream area scenery?

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Thanks for the link, Gary.
They are a bit pricy, but good for reference.
Seems like I'm going to have to start playing with wire soon.
Some dude in the Netherlands made some amazing trees with wire and sawdust&glue and aquarium filter material.
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5015&page=5
(post #49 shows some HO oaks)

Lee & James: There will be workers & more torn-up sections of dirt & mud.
 I just need to decide on what stage the abutments are in as they're being built.
(My "story" is that a wood trestle is being replaced by a girder deck bridge)
 
I'm thinking the hill-side abutment will be poured but still have the forms around it, while the siding-side one will have the forms being built around the rebar.  Once those are in then there'll be mud and equipment and workers.
 
I don't know much about the building of abutments, so I'm currently doing some research (having a dad who's a civil engineer and has worked for the highway dept. and the Army Corps of Engineers helps ).
 
So, after some miso soup (which made "miso warm & sleepy"), and 12 straight hours of sleep, I'm feeling much better.

 The meet yesterday went pretty well: Steve Williams brought his Lockhart, TX module (two 5-foot sections in an S-curve) and the Shoofly clamped on and ran fine.
 There was a slight gap between the tracks at the module-meet because both of us had worried about the rails jutting out and filed them a hair short, but it worked out fine (no real "bump" but a fun & prototypical "click-clack" sound )

 Mark Watson came along and brought, in addition to his retooled 4-4-0, fab ventilated boxcars and telescoping boom lifts (http://www.cgnscale.com/), a nifty little HD video camera in a 1"-square box, which he proceeded to place all over the "Alameda-Belt-in-a-Box" layout as well as the two Free-moN modules:

 The first operator, youngster Alvin, blatantly ignored the slow-order signs on the shoo-fly because, as he correctly pointed out: "There are no slow-order signs."
 Not yet, Alvin, not yet.
 (I'll get the yellow & green markers out today)

 You can see Mark's unpainted ventilated boxcars (available at Shapeways http://www.shapeways.com/model/395098/n_scale_ventilated_boxcar_2_pack.html?gid=sg88137) on the Alameda-Belt-in-a-Box portions of the video.
 Those things are awesome: 34' long with great detail. Can't wait to get some for the Mt. Coffin layout!
 They also fit perfectly on a Kato 11-105 critter chassis, so you could have some smaller dummy steam pulling the 1800s cars.
 (Mark used the motorized boxcar as a helper for his Atlas mogul to get through the unpowered frogs of the layout)

 Anyway, a good day (despite the gatorade-only diet all day): got to meet up with Mark (and hopefully gave him the Free-moN bug as well) and my module actually "works", which is always a nice feeling.

 Now on to stringing a fence with wire and start building the abutments that will be "in process" of being built, with one more completed than the other.
 I'm thinking of using screen mesh (same as I used for the static grass applicator mesh) to simulate the rebar sticking out of the wood forms.
 We'll see how it goes.

 Thanks for looking.   

[ednadolski]

MC, you work is truly inspirational, thanks for  sharing   

Ed

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Thanks, Ed, for the thanks.
My Shoofly don't bother me, so I'm glad it don't bother you!
[Sorry, has that one been used yet?]

Not much layout-wise the last couple days as I catch up on everything else I missed while sick over the weekend.
 
Painted some Modge Podge on the cow pond, but then decided it looked too clear and alpine-y, so will peel off the MP layer and do another (SMALL) pour of tinted Magic Water, this time with the proper ratio.
 
My daughter and I did hook up the home-built actuator wires for the Bullfrog turnout control.
 I had glued some small squares of scrapwood to the cross-brace nearest the Bullfrog onto which we would mount the support shaft & brace.
 First gorillaglued / sandwiched some styrene around one end of a small metal "L" bracket, then gorillaglued a short section of 3/32" K&S alum pipe through it:
 


[Yes, that's an outhouse behind them. That'll pop up or poop out on the module later]
 
A major coup d'etat: I thought ahead enough so I did not block the screw hole with the pipe!
 Taught my daughter how to drill a hole at a right angle using the "Orbiter" (I supported the drill's weight, she pulled the trigger).
 Then I found out I had forgotten that there wasn't enough room to fit a screwdriver in (D'oh!) and the Orbiter was too big too (Double D'oh!) so I had to put an extension on the screwdriver and drive the screw in at a slight angle (tough).
 Luckily, before the second one, I remembered the "soap on a screw" trick and that one drove in much easier.
 
Here's a shot of the support tube / bracket with the actuator wire running through it:
 


We also remembered to push the Bullfrog into it's farthest position before measuring the bend in the wire: earlier I had dreams of bending it and then finding out it became a stop, preventing the points from getting thrown (Dream D'oh!).
 
I taught my daughter how to use a Dremel and cutting disk to get the music wire to the correct lengths.
 She thought it was really cool how the sparks flew off the wire.
 (Yes, she was wearing goggles, and I was guiding her hand)
 
After test fitting everything three or four times and mimicing operations, we gorillaglued and crimped the actuator wire ends into the short unit of wire and 3/32" alum tube I'd already installed on the Bullfrog itself:
 


Later I'll cut the vertical wire shorter (less than fascia bottom, as to be unseen) and then attach a button or knobby thing.
 That way you slip a couple fingers under the fascia at the sign of the harp switch stand and easily push or pull to throw the points.
 The wire's pretty stiff, so it'll probably last for awhile.
 If I hadn't had these parts lying around, it would have been cheaper to get the Fast Tracks "Free-mo" actuator / control rod set ($10).
 Probably would work better, too, with less Gorilla Glue.
 
I've been thinkin' oak trees lately, so hopefully we'll get to some more top-side shots soon.
 Thanks for looking.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Haven't posted in the past four days, but I have accomplished: a single tree.
 And not quite sure it was worth it.
 
But first, the turnout control rod update.
 Cut off excess wire, took two pieces of .06 styrene, cut a slight slot in one, and sandwitched a tab with gorillaglue:
 


Here you can see the whole mechanism, plus the relationship to the harp switch stand graphic that indicates the location:
 


It actually (actuatorly?) works pretty well.
 Probably should round the edges of the spacing block to save some manicures any grief.
 
And now: The Tree.
 More specifically: The Oak Tree.
 
Oaks cover the hills around the Bay Area, and so are a key detail to "sell" the Sonoma scene.
 So I gotta gettem right.
 (We'll be the judge)
 
Started with some 16 AWG stranded wire stripped and wrapped around a short section of bamboo skewer:
 


Twisting all those branches were a lot of fun.
 Tons.
 Can't wait to do it again for the other 5-6 oaks I'll need.
 
Then I mixed some fine-sifted sawdust with white glue & water & brushed it on:
 


Added way too much water, resulting in some goopy bark.
 You can see where I thought I could make some branches by sprinking some 4mm static grass.
 D'oh!
 Stopped that quick.
 
So far, not so good.
 
[cont.]

[M.C. Fujiwara]

After that dried, I mixed a better batch of bark (very little water), and touched up everything:
 


Much better.
 About all those blobs on the branches: some snapped off later, some I left, if it looked "oakish".
 
Spray painted the whole thing Grimy Black:
 


A bit too dark, but ok.
 Then "misted" it with Floquil "Concrete" spray paint:
 


Brought out some details.
 
Then, this morning, I started the incredibly fun process of applying Clear Tacky Glue to each branch and attaching small tufts of WS polyfil:
 


Hello, Dr. Seuss!
 
[cont.]