Terry's Layout

[starfire700]

What will you use for trees and shrubs? I use bottle-brush and green-painted pine cones mainly. Also cut up some loofah for hedges and trees on a stick, like Lionel did for their plots.

[Terry]

Giggling like a moron he writes, "I've been saving trees for a few years."

I have tubs of them. Big tubs.

All brands from cheapie Life-like to great looking individually handmade ones.

Here's grass and dirt:
 

3 tubs of trees:
 

 

Close up of neater trees:

The mountain is a bit harder than I expected so i'll have to drill holes for the trees with the cordless drill. Actually that's good because it will spread some of the brown plaster dust around the base of the tree.


 

[Terry]

Here's the mountain becoming more like a mountain.

Before I started:

I scrubbed the whole thing with wire brushes. The big garage floor brush worked well. I pushed a little hard in a few places and the plaster cracked which looks pretty good.

Then I put some watered down black ink in a spray bottle with a half clogged nozzle and spritzed the whole thing. This nozzle caused splattering and droplets. After that dried, I did it again, and ran a wet brush over everything. It looks great.

Here's some pictures:

 

Here's the same area as the before picture above:

 

Here's the rest of gthe mountain working around clockwise:

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow I'll add some more color to the exposed rock areas and start with the grassy meadows on the plataeu.

[Terry]

From this point there will be dramatic changes in the layout. I now have enough done that I can work on two areas at once. I'm doing the station area and finishing the mountain.

Here's the station area:

 

The cardboard box is the size of the pedestal for the station. They'll be concrete parking lots along the edges of the layout, and the whole are will be filled with the 156 platforms.

Here's the area masked off for roadbed:

 

Here's the area painted with gray paint and covered with sand:

 

The next day I swept off the loose sand and then top coated it while working more sand in. I also did a strip of the mainline with just one coat to see if I can work the sand into the first coat.

Here's both with the tape removed:

 

I don't see a big enough difference to warrante doing two coats. The station area has defects where I removed the tape. I doubt that will happen as much in the areas with one coat.

In the future I'll do one coat with sand worked in.

The mountain road:

I was going to do a plaster road, but that's a mess. I looked at using cork, but that didn't look good and won't handle the curves. So I did a dirt road. I mixed dirt and brown ballasts togethr to get about 10 quarts of material and then embeded in into the tan paint.

Here's the mountain after I put a dirt road down and reclaimed the excess:

 

 

 The edges of the road will be defined by the grass. I'll touch up the areas that look thin with  diluted white glue and an eyedropper.  I have about a quart of mixture left.

[Terry]

After reclaiming the dirt from the mountain road, I started putting grass on the mountain. I mixed up about 3 gallons of green and about 10 quarts of brown, and had shakers with large brown and green foam on hand.

Here' a picture of the green bucket:

 

The spray bottle has diluted white glue with a few drops of dish soap in it. The dish soap allows the mixture to seep into holes. The spray bottles last about 3-4 hours and then the sprayer breaks. They don't handle the thick mixture well.

The mountain is done by painting the flat area between the mountain and the road, and then spritzing the area above or below with the glue mixture. Then large foam is blown on, then the small dirt, then the whole flat area coated with the green mixture. The flats are tamped down into the paint.

You can paint over areas that were already done. Or spay more glue on and throw foam.

Here's the south side before the excess foam was reclaimed:

 

 

 

That's the whole three gallons of green mixture and about 5 quarts of brown.

After sweeping and vacuuming the excess I had about 1 1/2 gallons of green mixture that had more brown in it than the day before. I'll add more green to the bucket and do the other side. By using large amounts of mix, I can make areas of the layout shift color. Small mixtures result in a checkerboard pattern that is not realistic.

Here's what it looks like after reclamation:

For the slopes where I want exposed rock, I can just brush harder with the broom to reveal more of the rock underneath.

The reclaimed material with more colors added was used on the north face of the mountain. The 3rd sprayer died, and I didn't have another so the area from the cliff face to the post has nothing on the slopes.

Here's the north face before reclaiming excess foam:

 

 

[starfire700]

You have made substantial progress. It is a relief to get to the point that dramatic changes can be made. I am also getting to that point on my layout.

[Terry]

Last night I did some testing with road mix. Here's what will be concrete parking area beside the station. I have concrete colored paint, but want to avoid using paint on the roads because I fear damage to the Tootsietoy wheels.

 

I have a bunch of boxes of Faller road material. Based on what I did last night,  I think one package of the plaster with 7/8ths cup water and the dye pack will make about 10 feet of 5" wide blacktop road.

Here's the Faller Road material and a test of what I can do with tape. The roadway is sandable, but I make it flat by spritsing it with water and running the trowel over it very lightly.

[Terry]

Since the last update, I did the lights for the Schoenhut town.

 

Because I can't get underneath here, I ran the wires for the lights in grooves I cut with a circular saw, then I put plaster over the cuts. The plaster will add a bit of texture to the flat area too.

Here's some shots of the trees planted on the mountain. I'm hooking up the houses and streetlights and then planting the trees as I work around. This is the south side:

 

 

 

I'll finish the south side all the way down with the pine and spruce trees with some others mixed in. The north face will have a more desolate look on the slopes and deciduous trees near the houses.

From looking at those pictures, I need to put some grass over the bases of the deciduous trees. I'll do that and add some cars and people.

I started out using the new trees that are $2-3 each, but went back later and pulled many out and replaced them with good used trees I had. You can't tell from 6 feet away which trees are which.

I also made sidewalks for the station area from strips of 1/8" masonite.

I was going to cut styrene strips for the sidewalk, but couldn't find the styrene or the little table saw. I found some brick sheets, but the powered coping saw was missing a part.  The saw had never been out of the box or set up.  Micro-Mark said they'd send me the part even though I have had the saw for 20+ years.

I have lots of Micro Mark tools and have never been disappointed with them.

[starfire700]

It looks like we are in similar states of progress on our mountains and lighting. I will have to get some current photos posted. It really looks good when the finishing touches of landscape, buildings and lighting bring it all together.

[Terry]

Here's what I got done over the weekend. Mountain is done, but I'm still missing a few Lionel houses. I did unpack more stuff and found peacock and cream 58 lamp posts, but not the maroon and brown ones I was looking for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the station area with the Masonite strips I made for the sidewalks laid in place. I have to glue them down and paint the whole parking area.

 

 

The streets didn't come out well. The Faller dye packs had congealed so they were not usable. I did  manage to mix up some black plaster, but there were lumps in the plaster that when worked out, left lighter areas after it dried. I'm thinking I should be able to just wipe rubbing alcohol mixed with india  ink onto the surface to darken it. Or maybe just water color paint.

Here's a close-up of the street before and after I misted it with plain water.

 

 

I also did all the roadbed on the north end of the layout. Based on the time it took me to do that, I should be able to get all the roadbed down this weekend and start on the grassy areas.

[starfire700]

I don't recall if you said where you got your trees, or if you made them. You sure have a lot. Most of mine are vintage, that I have had a long time, for many layouts. Most had Christmas snow and red bases, so had to be painted green and bases removed. The old trees are also very brittle and the needles fall off if I look at them sideways.
Looks Good !

[Terry]

I got the trees when I bought trains. The really cool looking pine trees are made by Grand Central. I got a dealer case of those last summer. The old ones from prior layouts became a lump in a box and most weren't usable.

Over the weekend, I finished the roadbed except on the end where the swamp goes. I ran out of the cheap Home Depot masking tape and bought blue Scotch brand masking tape at Walmart. The blue tape is much easier to work with. Well worth the few cents extra.

Sunday night I vacuumed and cleaned up.

Today I spent 3 hours putting grass down on one end. I start with a bucket containing about 3 gallons of green mixture and a second bucket with about a gallon of brown. I paint about 2 square feet of area using a big brush and a tight brush to cut in at the roads and roadbed. Then I dust the brown  mix along the edges of the roadbed and roads, and pour the grass mix on top of everything. Then I swirl it around and tamp it down with my hands.

I'll vacuum the material that doesn't stick up later and pour it into the green bucket. I used about 2 gallons today, and will get about a gallon back. It will be browner than what I started with so I add more green to the bucket and start again.

Any bare areas will be tan from the paint and can have grass added with white glue and water.  After the track goes in, I'll put trees and shrubs on as I put the buildings on.

Here's pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This seems easier than working an a layout that is on legs.

It's coming together.

[Terry]

Here's where I'm at right now:

I put grass down with brown paint rather than glue so if the grass comes off the paint looks like dirt. On one side and end the paint wicked up into the grass and turned everything brown. I went back over it with more grass and white glue. On  the other side - the side with the factory in the pictures - the tan paint worked well.

On some of the photos you can see where I added more grass because it's thicker. I'll add more when I put the buildings in to vary it.

You can also see where I touched up the gray roadbed.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I'm going to touch up the black roads, and work on the marsh area. Then I can move the track onto the layout so I can work on the station area.

 

 

[Terry]

I did the sides of the marsh area with a box of something called permascene. I had a paper bag of it that I used on the mountain, and liked. This was in a plastic bag inside a cardboard box.  This was different.

It took a week for the material to dry - water was seeping out at the lower edge. Now I go down and push at it and it crumbles away. I'll have to strip it all off and redo the area with plaster.

 

 

While I was waiting for the crap to dry, I started going through the switch machines. It takes about 20  minutes to either make a machine good and usable or reject it and start on another one. I have dozens of 022 switches I can take motors from.

[starfire700]

Are you going to fill the marsh with some kind of clear resin?