Unfinished Business

As 2015 draws to a close, it's only natural to look back at what was accomplished in the past year and to think about all that still needs to be done. The TMMC has come a long way this year, with the entire mainline now complete through the expansion areas, a more logical layout for the town, and scenic work well underway in Rainbow Caverns and Hanging Rock. Still, there's much yet to be done. So many projects in fact that at times it can be a little overwhelming and I start to wonder if maybe I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. Thunder Mesa isn't really a very big model railroad, but the high level of detail, scratchbuilt structures, animation and lighting effects means that progress can be rather slow at times. Still, my enthusiasm for the project remains high, and there are a number of projects that I'm looking forward to tackling in the new year.

So, without further ado, here's a look ahead at some of the TMMC's "unfinished business" that I'd like to get done in 2016.

Geyser Gulch

This lone, temporary trestle bent has been standing in for a real bridge over Geyser Gulch for longer than I care to admit. I've drawn up plans for the bridge, purchased materials, and even figured out a way to make "Old Unfaithful" geyser erupt in the background. I just need to make time to finally finish this signature scene.

Thunder Mesa Mill

Just to the right of Big Thunder Creek stands this paper mock-up of Thunder Mesa Mill, based loosely on the boarding area structure for Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. This is where all of the ore from the mines at Calico and Big Thunder Camp gets processed before being shipped out to the wider world. As such, it's pretty important to the economic lifeblood of the railroad. It's also a signature scene that really helps to establish the story of the railroad. Replacing this mock-up with a fully detailed, scratchbuilt structure is high on my list of priorities for the new year.

The Backdrop

Don't be fooled by the pretty photos I post, most of the walls around the TMMC layout are still embarrassingly bare. I've been using temporary backdrops for most photos and Photoshop composites for the really arty ones. But help is on the way. The above image is a low-res version of a digital painting I created that will be printed upon 3oz vinyl scrim and then affixed to the layout room walls. This will give me a seamless sky backdrop that wraps around three sides of the layout. Landscape features like distant buttes and mesas will then be painted on 1/8" hardboard and mounted between the 3-D layout scenery and the sky backdrop. This should make for some dramatic scenes that look like they go on forever.

Thunder Mesa Town

Hoo-boy, there's loads to do here. Other than the depot and Big Thunder Saloon, nearly everything in town is still in the paper model mock-up stage. As usual, I'll have to take it one structure at a time and finish what I can. It's highly doubtful that I'll get all those little building done in the coming year, but I would like to make a good start on the scenery and ground cover and then tackle as many of them as I can. We'll see what happens.

Turntable and Engine House

Well, at least the water tank is finished (but that might be moving to Hanging Rock). The current turntable here is unpowered and a hold-over from an earlier version of the railroad. I'd like to replace it this year with one of the fine A-frame TT's from Kitwood Hill Models. The engine house is planned as a white-plastered stone structure to harmonize with the adobe structures of nearby San Lorenzo. Time will tell if that plan pans out or I decide to go with something else. Obviously, the turntable approach track and engine house tracks are waiting for more permanent structures to be built. All of the track in this area needs paint, ballast and final detailing.

Rainbow Caverns and Big Thunder Camp

These two go together because one sits right on top of the other. I've made some good progress on the interior of Rainbow Caverns this year, but as you can see the exterior scenery is still far from finished. I'd like to finish the rest of the interior scenes this coming year and complete the rockwork cave openings on the exterior. As for Big Thunder Camp, it's planned as a major mining scene with several scratchbuilt structures. Sounds like a good candidate for my 2017 list. In 2016, I'll be happy to get the final track laid up there and all the wiring done for the lighting and animation to come.

Natural Arch Bridge

This is the connecting bit of scenery between Hanging Rock on the left and Rainbow Caverns on the right. It shouldn't take very long to finish up this scene once the branchline track to Big Thunder Camp is laid across the top of the bridge.

Hanging Rock

This scene is still a little less than half finished, mostly because the plans are not yet 100% firm in my mind. Olson & Furlow's place still needs LED lighting installed and a few more outlaw figures. A small depot made from an old combine car is planned for the near side of the tracks, while an ore tipple, shack and water tank will probably be against the cliffs on the other side. There's much more rockwork to be finished and a couple of tunnel portals to detail too. The tunnel interiors will be a project all their own.

Calico

Last but not least is the portable On18 Calico mini-layout that so far exists only in the planning stages. This almost qualifies as a substantial model railroad project all on its own and I could probably spend most of 2016 working on it and nothing else. The latest plan, shown above, is slightly simplified from the earlier figure eight scheme proposed. It hews a little closer to the Knott's Berry Farm inspiration now while promising to be easier to operate. My tests with N scale/On18 mechanisms told me that they didn't much like the 6% grade I had in mind before. This flat, simple loop now gives me room for an underground "Glory Hole" mining scene and some animated blasting on the other end. I have no illusions about finishing Calico in the coming year, but I would very much like to make a good start on it and at least get some On18 equipment running. Once again, time will tell.

To 2016 and Beyond

Once again I would like to give my sincere thanks to everyone who has been following along with my modeling efforts on the TMMC. You guys are the best and I'm just getting started. I wish each of you all the blessings of the season, a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. Feliz Navidad, amigos! Adios for now.

Lone Rock: A Canyon Country Diorama

The Lone Rock diorama was built to demonstrate rock carving and coloring techniques, and also to serve as a model stand for outdoor photography.

The Lone Rock diorama began with an email from Joey Ricard over at Trackside Scenery. When Joey's not working on his fantastic On30 Spruce Coal & Timber Co. layout, he's producing an awesome series of how-to modeling videos that you can watch over on YouTube. So when Joey asked if I might be interested in contributing to an upcoming video about modeling rocks, I was more than happy to agree. Joey's videos are always fun and informative, focusing on both tried-and-true and new-and-innovative techniques. Just my kind of project.

The idea for a stand-alone diorama that could be taken outdoors for photographing models had been percolating in the back of my mind for some time. Joey's video suggestion was just the push I needed to dust off the idea and get to building. I could document the build with video and photos as I went along, and wind up at the end with the photo-diorama I'd been daydreaming about. I wanted something simple and scenic, with a short length of track and one distinctive rock formation as center of interest. Most of the build is covered in the resulting video (below), so today's post will focus mostly on additional details. Here's how it all went together.

The 12" x 24" diorama started with a simple frame of 1" x 2" MDF and three layers of 1.5" white polystyrene bead-board. Some 1" thick gold polyurethane foam (Balsa Foam) was roughly shaped to form a single, towering butte. 1/2" plywood was cut to shape for track sub-roadbed and glued in place atop the foam. The white foam was shaped with a hot-wire cutter, and a small stone culvert made from Balsa Foam was created to bridge the gully. I used Loctite Power Grab construction adhesive to glue everything together.

The butte was carved from hard density Balsa Foam. This is a commercial version of the same gold urethane carving foam used by Walt Disney Imagineering and Hollywood special effects model builders. It's available through better stocked art and craft dealers.

A short section of the 1/2" plywood sub-roadbed was cut away and a chunk of 1" thick Balsa Foam was used to form a small stone culvert. The arch was created with sandpaper wrapped around a small bottle, and the stones were carved with a hard 5H pencil.

Using photos of rocks from Monument Valley, Moab and Sedona, Lone Rock Butte was carved from Balsa Foam using mostly a #2 hobby knife. The butte was then glued to the base with Loctite Powergrab adhesive. Four bamboo skewers between the butte and the base add additional strength. See the video for more details on the carving process. My part starts at about the 8:40 mark.

Sculptamold was used to blend the butte into the base and to form an embankment along the sub-roadbed right of way. A soft, wet brush is handy for smoothing things out.

Since there would be scenery below it, the stone culvert was finished early and installed flush with the sub-roadbed. It was painted with acrylics and the mortar lines were filled with spackling paste.

Midwest HO scale cork roadbed was glued down with yellow carpenter's glue before just about everything on the diorama was given a base coat of golden-tan flat latex house paint. Then a length of Peco On30 flextrack was cemented in place with Powergrab adhesive.

A wash of diluted India ink was sprayed onto the butte to darken cracks and crevices before final painting was done. Inexpensive craft acrylics were used to complete the paint job. Colors like raw sienna, red oxide, burnt umber and unbleached titanium were applied wet into wet, working from darker to lighter tones. See the video for a more complete rundown on the painting process. Painting and finishing starts at about 12:45 on the video.

The track was painted and weathered using Joey Ricard's easy techniques featured in this video from TracksideScenery.com. First the track is painted flat black. I masked off the diorama for this and did the painting outside with some Krylon spray paint. Next the ties are painted with a light tan acrylic. I used Apple Barrel "Khaki." Then the rails are painted with rust colored chalks suspended in 70% isopropyl alcohol. The final step is to give everything a good dusting with black and dark brown chalks. There's no power going to this track so I didn't bother to clean the paint off of the railhead. On powered track I'd use a Bright Boy or paint thinner to clean the railhead after painting.

The basic ground cover is Polyblend Sanded Grout. I mixed it up with a little water to form a thick paste and then just stippled it on with a cheep paintbrush (don't use a good brush for this! You'll never use it again). The erosion lines were pressed in with a pencil. The grout does a good job of representing soil while also filling and smoothing any remaining gaps in the foam base. This color is called "Sandstone," appropriately enough, and it dries a couple of shades lighter than it goes on. The wet grout generally stays where you put it but I also wet it down with a misting of diluted matte medium to lock it in place.

Once the grout had set overnight, the final coloring was done with light washes of acrylics to blend and unify the grout layer with the rock carving.

Real dirt and rocks were sprinkled on and then glued in place with white glue and diluted matte medium.

The track was ballasted with local sandstone, held in place with diluted matte medium.

Woodland Scenics "Field Grass" was used to make clumps of desert grasses and weeds, held in place with dabs of Aleene's Tacky Glue. Any loose fibers were later cleaned up with a shop vac.

A few more bushes and desert plants finish the diorama. The juniper bushes are Super Trees from Scenic Express covered in Noch dark green foliage. Clumps of gray sage were made with Woodland Scenics medium green bushes, lightly sprayed with gray primer. The prickly-pear cacti are castings from Pegasus Models. Lastly, the 1" x 2" frame was painted flat black to match the fascia on the Thunder Mesa layout.

Building the Lone Rock diorama was a quick, fun and rewarding project. Even if you don't have room for a full layout, I encourage anyone to try their hand at a small diorama like this. It can be finished in a week or so, and it's a great way to learn new techniques or to experiment with scenery ideas. I'll close out today's post with the finished video that Joey and I put together, and with a few photos taken outdoors in beautiful Sedona, AZ.

Set-up for photos in Sedona, AZ.

A small diorama like this is great for photographing models outside in natural light.

That's it for this project. Questions and comments are welcome below. Adios for now, amigos!

Foam Scenery on the N Scale Pagosa & Southern

Using Floral Foam and Foam Paste to Model a Rocky Cliff

Scenery work has begun on the N scale Pagosa & Southern! All of the rock work in this photo was modeled using dry green floral foam and my special recipe foam paste. Backdrop added in Photoshop.

I want to keep things very light and portable on my N scale Pagosa & Southern shelf layout. To do that, I've set a goal of using little or no plaster and that has led to experimentation with more foam scenery techniques. I've used Balsa Foam to carve many of the rock formations on the On30 Thunder Mesa layout and I wanted to see if I could also get acceptable results in N scale using far less expensive green floral foam. (Note that I am talking about the dry green floral foam here, often used for silk flower arrangements, and not the "wet" foam that absorbs and holds water.) In practice, the green foam can be carved like a less dense version of Balsa Foam. Fine detail is not really possible and the resulting carvings can be fragile, but I have found that when they are painted and properly blended the results can be quite convincing. I've also found that mixing the resulting foam dust with matte medium creates a very useful modeling paste for blending the rock cravings and other scenic elements together. This foam paste shows great promise and could be a handy scenic material for modelers in all scales.

Top view of the sceniked area, also showing a bit of the staging shelf at left.

Making Floral Foam Rocks

Hobby knives, a sharp pencil, a razor saw and other tools have been used to carve a hunk of dry green floral foam into a rocky cliff wall. The cliff-face on the P&S was made up of four separate carved pieces cemented together and blended in with my special recipe foam paste. 

To seal them and add strength, the carvings were painted on all sides with tan latex paint.

A wash of diluted black acrylic was brushed on to darken all of the cracks and crevices. 

Each section of the cliff-face was then painted with acrylics. Here, a base of dark grayish-tan is being applied. 

Successively lighter colors were then brushed over the surface of the rocks, allowing them to blend and mix with previous coats. Rocks don't have a uniform color in nature and they shouldn't when modeled either. The final color is unbleached titanium, dry-brushed on for highlights.

Here, the first sections of rock carvings are in place and blending has begun using foam paste. The bottom of the creek bed has also been boxed in with 1/4" foamcore and the Kato truss bridge has been painted and weathered with acrylic paints. The tunnel portal is a Hydrocal plaster casting from Woodland Scenics.

How to Make Foam Paste

I stumbled on the idea for foam paste when considering what to do with all of the little bits and piles of dust left over after the carving process. I mixed a little bit of the dust with some matte medium to see if it might be useful for blending rocks together and was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked.

Making foam paste from green floral foam and acrylic matte medium is a quick and easy (if somewhat messy) process. It is basically a mixture of glue, foam dust and pigment and the resulting paste has a grainy, sand-like texture that is great for all sorts of scenic applications. It can be used as a sort of zip-texture ground cover, a gap filling adhesive, and a spackle-like compound for blending rock carvings and castings together. Once dry, it is strong, light weight and can be painted, sanded and carved. Tools clean up easily with soap and water. Working time is an hour or so (depending on how liquid one makes the mixture) and a 1/4" layer will cure completely overnight. Here's how I make it:

First, smash up about 8 oz of dry green floral foam. This is easy to do with your hands or with the butt of a screwdriver. The goal is to create a uniform powder. Yes, it gets everywhere but is easy to clean up with a shop-vac.

Next, pour in about 6 oz + -  of cheep, craft store matte medium. The ratio is about 4:3, foam to matte medium but you really just want enough to wet all of the foam and make a paste.

Stir very well until all of the foam dust is mixed with the matte medium.

Add pigment. This is optional but makes it quicker to work with if it already matches the scenery colors on your layout. I'm adding about a tablespoon of inexpensive raw sienna acrylic paint here.

Mix well again until you get something like peanut butter. This foam paste is now ready to use. I mix and store mine in old jelly jars with airtight lids. It can last for months.

Working with Foam Paste

Foam paste can be applied with a paintbrush, a flat stick or a finger. Here I'm using a wooden stir stick to fill and blend the gaps between two rock carvings. The foam paste sticks very well to most surfaces and dries with little or no shrinkage.  It can be thinned with water or more matte medium if desired.

A thick layer of foam paste was slathered on to glue separate layers of the cliff-face together and to fill gaps around the tunnel portal casting.

Using a wet brush, it's easy to blend the foam paste into carvings and other scenery. In the foreground, a small hill has been created from floral foam and will be covered in foam paste.

Foam paste can also be used to cover ground areas with a convincing soil texture quickly and easily. Just stipple it on with a brush for a form of zip-texturing. Here the foam paste is being applied right up to the edge of the Kato Unitrack roadbed.

For the creek bank, hunks of floral foam were shaped and glued in place before being skinned and blended together with a layer of foam paste. A little water on the brush makes it easy to feather edges of the foam paste where it meets other scenery.

Once the foam paste had cured overnight, colors were touched up and blended with acrylic paints, and various ground foams, trees and other scenic materials were cemented into place.

Finishing Up

Trees, ground foams and other materials from Woodland Scenics and Scenic Express were used to bring life to the scene. With the cliff-face completed I can next turn my attention to modeling the creek where more floral foam carvings and foam paste will be used. I'm working from left to right on this little shelf layout, with the goal of completing about a square foot of scenery before moving on to the next area. I'm pleased with the results that can be achieved with inexpensive floral foam and excited about the possibilities offered by foam paste modeling.

A train bound for Wolf Creek exits the tunnel. More work will be done to blend the Kato Unitrack into the scenery but N scale Colorado is starting to come to life.

That's about all the news from N scale Colorado. Next week I'll return to Thunder Mesa country with an update on that layout's progress. As always, questions and comments are welcome below. Thanks for checking in, amigos. Adios for now!

Big Thunder Creek: Part II ~ The Bridges

Click here for part I

Three bridges now span the rocky chasm of Big Thunder Creek. It looks like a clear, sunny morning in Thunder Mesa country but a storm could boil up in the afternoon and send a flash flood cascading through that dry creek bed.  Time will tell...

This past week saw a lot of progress on the layout with the completion of three railroad bridges across Big Thunder Creek. Up on the Calico High Line, a small stone arch crosses the creek where it's narrow at the source, while farther down, a rustic 20' king post truss does the job on the mill spur. Near the front of the layout, a 48' wooden trestle on the main line spans the wide, clear pools below.

Follow along with the photos to see how each of these bridges was constructed and installed.

The Stone Arch

The stone arch bridge is little more than a fancy culvert, carved from a block of 1" thick Balsa Foam. The arch was shaped with some medium sandpaper wrapped around a small plastic bottle and the stones were scribed in with the point of a hard 5B pencil. HO cork roadbed was glued to the top to bring it flush with the track.

Here's the stone arch painted and blended into the surrounding rock-work. The Balsa Foam carvings are painted in shades to match the surrounding scenery using artist's acrylics. An undercoat of Buff Titanium (a very light tan) is brushed on to seal the carving and represent mortar. A stiffer brush is then used to dry-brush Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber on to the faces of the stones. Finally, a very thin wash of Carbon Black was brushed over all to darken and blend everything together.

The King Post Truss

The deck, trusses and abutments for this bridge were assembled separately at the workbench before everything was put together directly beneath the existing rails on the layout. This photo shows the simple foamcore jigs that were used to assemble the deck and trusses.  Kappler 10' suger pine bridge ties were used above 12 scale inch (1/4") diameter dowels to build the deck. All wood was scribed with a razor saw to simulate age and grain before being stained with a mixture of Kiwi black shoe dye thinned with 70% isopropyl alcohol. My method for creating this stain is to simply empty nearly all of the dye out of the Kiwi bottle and then refill it with alcohol, replace the foam applicator top, shake well and it's good to go. 

One of the truss assemblies under construction. A king post truss is about the simplest truss one can make. It was a popular design in the 19th century for crossing spans of about 20' or less (any longer would require something stronger like a queen post truss).  The beams of this truss are a scale 8" in diameter and notched at the joints.

The completed deck installed beneath the rails. A few dabs of thick ACC were applied to the bottoms of the rails and the deck was slid into place. Blocks of foam were used to support the deck from below while spikes were driven into pre-drilled holes. A tiny dab of ACC on each spike guarantees they won't work back out.

Next it was a simple matter to cement the trusses into place and add a little colored chalk weathering. The iron plate supporting the king post came from a set of Grandt Line narrow gauge boxcar details. A few strategically placed nut/bolt/washer castings complete the bridge.

Overhead view of the 20' king post truss. This bridge is about as narrow as a narrow gauge bridge can be. The caboose just visible at right was used to check clearances and my widest rolling stock just squeaks through with only a scale inch or two to spare.

A pair of wooden retaining wall bridge abutments were also built at the workbench, again using Kappler ties, NBWs and 1/4" diameter dowels.

Installing the abutments beneath the bridge was a little harder than I thought it might be. But after a little cutting, fitting, re-sculpting and cussing, both abutments were cemented into place and the scenery blended in around them. 

The 48' Trestle

The Big Thunder Creek trestle started life as a Hermosa Creek Truss kit from Goldline Products and for quite a long time I had intended to build it as designed. In fact, there are many photos of the bridge in various stages of completion in older posts on this site. However, once the real planning for scenes around Big Thunder Creek began it became apparent that the bridge as built would be a little too overpowering. My solution was to remove the trusses and modify the bridge deck into a low slung trestle.

The first step was was to remove the bridge from the layout and then cut down the ties with a razor saw, shortening them from 16' to a more trestle appropriate 10'. The masking tape marked ties not to be cut so they could be used to support fire-barrel vestibules. 

Once again a simple foamcore jig was made to aid construction of the 10' high trestle bents. Scale 12"x12" lumber was used for the posts and beams, and 6"x8" stock for the sway braces. The wood was distressed with a razor saw and stained with Minwax Dark Walnut pens prior to assembly.

Since this trestle sits in water, stone footings were carved from Balsa Foam. Here a hard 5H pencil is used to carve the mortar lines between stones.

The carved Balsa Foam footings and abutments were first painted with a sealing coat of Buff Titanium acrylic paint. Here a stone retaining wall is also being painted.

Once the base coat was dry, Raw Sienna was dry-brushed on to the faces of the stones.

Individual stones were then picked out with earthy, contrasting colors like grey, Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna.

A completed trestle bent ready for installation. Each bent was detailed with 24 nut/but/washer castings and weathered with colored chalks.

Oops! It turned out that one of the trestle bents would stand right on top of a large boulder already sculpted into the creek bed. A portion of the scenery was cut away so that the bent's stone footing could be blended into the rock work.

Here's a nifty trick I learned for mixing up small batches of plaster or, in this case, Sculptamold. Pour some into a ziplock bag, add a little water, seal, then squish vigorously until well mixed.

When ready, snip off one small corner and squeeze out like a pastry tube. This works great for hard to reach spots where you don't want to mess up existing scenery or details.

Here both bents have been installed and fresh Sculptamold worked in and blended around the left abutment. The deck is not attached at this point, just floating on the bents so that it can be removed for detailing of the creek bed.

The big boulder has been repainted to match and blend with the existing scenery and real rocks and dirt added to the creek bed.

The creek bed stones were collected from real creek beds in Sedona, AZ and near Silverton, CO. The rocks and dirt were cemented in place with matte medium and white glue diluted 1:1 with water. The fire barrels are painted castings from Rusty Rails.

Here's a view from below Big Thunder trestle. From here I'll continue to detail the creek bed, adding more rocks, junk and some plants before pouring the Envirotex resin "water."

More to Come

Looking at our plan shows there's still much to be done before this area of the layout is finished.

That should just about wrap it up for this week. I hope everyone is enjoying this build and that my explanations are clear. As always, any questions or comments are most welcome! If all goes according to plan, the next week or two should see the addition of cascading waterfalls and crystal clear pools to this scene. Thanks for coming along. Adios for now!

Click here for part III