Fin.

In a test before the show, a short circuit was discovered in the point to the siding to the loader. This meant that feature could not be used.
The layouts appearance at the Granite City Train Show had to be cancelled at the last minute.
Fail.
Will be taking an extended break from the hobby now.

A weeks worth of work (6)

Welcome to the last week of work on the layout.
Well, pretty much the last week. I have 5 days (nights) to work on the layout before the Granite City Train show on Saturday. So by the end of today the layout has to be very presentable so that I can spend the next week completing the wiring trouble shooting it, making sure everything works OK. So that I won't look stupid at the train show.
The plan I laid out at the end of last weeks post was to work on the train storage cassettes for operation. I made them from 5mm foamcore board. They were pretty easy to put together if a little laborious to construct.

Making the cassette1) Size up the stock for it. This short cassette is for the railcar ONLY

Step 2) Glue everything together. Even the track is glued in place.
Gorilla woodworking glue, being the adhesive of choice on all aspects of the layout. 

I made two cassettes for the freight train that will drop off the gondolas to be loaded. Even though these will be short trains. In On30 the cassettes are big.

It's longer than the layout!

A scenic detail that I found I could work on as the glue was setting was my pile of pit props. These were made from dried  Milkweed stalks. The are very straight and dry out a good weathered colour.

Milkweed stalk "pit props"

 The dried stalks that I cut to a scale 6' length yeilded 60 props. Which in my naivety thought was plenty. Until I stuck them together. An ordeal in itself. I glued the singles into pairs. The those pairs into fours so they were easier to glue together in a pile.

The mine boss is disappointed that he only got an order of 60 pit props.

It could still be a bigger pile.
I had agonised over the colour of my ballast for quite a while, before settling for a mid tone buff. Too darl a ballast would make the pale ties stand out too much. Too pale a ballast would make them difficult to see.

I think it's the right colour ballast

A ballasting technique video.

With that, I was pretty well there. This is mostly acceptable to me. I need to add a few woodland scenics trees to hide the exits offstage. If I had more time I'd find a more realistic tree but because if time constraints. I'll use what I have. Besides, using things that you buy off the shelf in your local hobby shop should show anyone can produce a nice presentable micro.

A pretty general overall view

So, five days left. I need to get everything wired up and working properly. Then tidy up the presentation. Hopefully everything goes according to plan and I'm not left pulling all nighters to be ready for the show. The Granite City Train Show. Rivers Edge Convention Centre. St Cloud, MN 

A weeks worth of work (5)

Is it five weeks already? I'd better get working!
It really feels like I've done nothing much this week, though I have done a lot of work on the scenery.

Work on making the PECO crazy track look better.

The first task was to improve the track. I love PECO track. I wouldn't use anything else, and this time I've been making an extra special effort to make it look more realistic. I've spent a lot of time looking at track, and many sleepers/ties are a variation of greys rather than browns that the track is moulded in. To start with I scribed into some detail into the grain of the sleepers than after a spray with light earth I added some washes of greys acrylics. Then when that dried I wash some of my Indian ink/alcohol weathering mix pick out the grain in the ties. After painting the "chairs" and rail a rust colour things are starting to look OK.

Looking better.

Now I find myself agonising about what size and colour of ballast to use.

The other major task of the week was to get on with the ground covering. Nothing much special here. I have plenty of Woodland Scenics turf products of various sizes and shades. So it was a given to use those to keep the costs of the project down. 

Who remembers a few years ago when reversible pot toppers were discovered as a cheaper source of grass tufts? I bought a topper to use and I thought it was about time I used it. It looks a little bright on the layout, so it needs a little toning down in places. But I like the effect. I might go out and see if I can finds another topper.

Reversible Pot toppers. Remember those?

Once its broken up and glued oil place it looks quite acceptable.

One task that went a little easier than I thought but still has a few issues, was the working loader. If I was an expert in trigonometry I would have been able to calculate the prefect angle and length of chute. But instead I had to guess...

Finding the right length of chute.

It works! But not perfectly. 

Luckily, guessing was relatively easy. But the loading is not perfect. The material I had been using for loading was Woodland Scenics Talus. It has no weight, so emptying by gravity is minimal. The friction of the Talus on the cardboard structure of the bin overcomes the gravity so I'll need to concoct a shoving stick to help empty things or find a heavier loading material.

Though the weeks work didn't seem all that much, on reflection I achieved quite a bit. Aside from Ballasting and fixing the mine in place, the cabinet is exhibitable. I need to add trees and mining detritus around the site for atmosphere and I need to put my wife on the task of dirtying the figures I have. As for me next week I'll have to work on the off stage storage. 

A weeks worth of work (4)

So to the scenery. It's a small cabinet, so there won't be much to it. I could get away with a totally flat baseboard. But right from the start I decided that I wanted to have the track come down to the grade crossing. Contours would be minimal so I just cut some 10mm foamcore to a rough shape and then covered that with lightweight spackle. It's a method I've used for many years and have no problems with. 

Scenery work. Foamcore and sparkle.

The thing I was most concerned about was the grade crossing, and building the trail up to the level of the track. Not that this was a smooth surface, it could be rutted no end. But I still took a long time to do it. I was definitely more careful than usual.

Trail built up to the surface of the track. Or close to.

With the spackle down as my scenic base, I was in the what I call the snowscape phase. Once that sparkle dried I covered the landscape with woodland scenics ground cover. I was feeling very positive.

Now it looks like a landscape.

On to the road/track surface. I had a plan of using liquitex textured paint that contained glass beads. I could slap this on really thick and carve ruts in it indicating road use.

The textured paint. The glass beads are a bit regular in size.

Here you can see ruts being carved into the road surface.

As it sets it becomes clear and then I paint over it. For a base cover I used Raw Siena, as good a base colour as any.

Even with a coat of raw siena, the road looks like its a sticky cloying, clayey mess

By now I was flying, and next was to apply some basic ground scatter materials. Woodland Scenics fine and coarse turfs of varying hues. There's still a bit of work to do on this. Add some longer, rougher grasses and a muddy yard surface. But all in all this is looking quite acceptable.

So far so good. I'm really impressed. I love the way the Trackside Scenery backscene looks

What should I look to do in the coming week? I really should get the working loader loading. That's pretty important I think. The layout will be pretty dull without a working feature. If I can get mine structures completed as well that would be a bonus. 

Still, the way things are looking, I'm full of confidence.

A weeks worth of work (3)

Here we are, week three and I kinda think I'm where I want to be. Though the project is being built to a deadline. It's quite a distant deadline. 

This time I find myself in the position of having a relatively decent amount of time, so at times my attention wanders. This was an attention wandering week.
The way the whole fits together is the baseboard has to go in before the sides, before I can put the back scene in place. If that makes sense. So I had to be totally sure that I had everything done that I wanted to do, because once the baseboard was fitted in place there was no going back.
The weather meant that I had to wait until later in the week before the rain stopped so I could spray the track. So that have me a chance to work on the mine head gantry. Another jig and that went together quite adequately.

Mine head gantry. it looks like a lot of work but wasn't too bad.

Once the weather was nice enough to spray paint outside, and the paint was dry. The baseboard could be fit in place and everything assembled.

It's all put together!

For quite some time I'd been concerned that the loading bins would need a making a bit thinner as the clearances between the track and legs was minimal. So because the whole structure was very strong, I cut the rear legs off to give me an extra 1/4" clearance. If I'd thought about it. I could have laid the track a 1/4" further away in the first place...

A quick bit of surgery

I said my attention wanders and one such wandering was deciding to make the window frames on the winch gear building myself. They're not perfect but as you can see from this view they're quite adequate. Plus once they are painted black they'll be less noticeable.

You won't be able to get much closer than this to view the layout so the window frames will be fine.

This view should give an idea how the finished cabinet will look.

There we are then, three weeks in. Everything seems to be going to plan. I’m not going to make any plans about what I’m going to work on in the next week, it might be the storage cassettes it might be scenery. 

A weeks worth of work (2)

Week 2 of the project draws to a close. So it's time for an update.
I'm not sure if I've got as far as I planned on doing this week. I had other commitments early in the week and I was feeling a tad under the weather over the weekend, so all the curtailed progress. Still I'm really pleased with what has happened this week.
As I spent all the previous week working with baseboards and track. I wanted to spend this week on the structures, To see if they were really going to fit as well as I hoped they would.

The winding gear building

The first structure was the winding gear house. This was nice and easy, a simple box that I covered with Clever Models downloadable textures. It's my first experience with those and I'm quite pleasantly pleased with the way they look.

The hoist drum.

The house drum seen through the open door.

Just for fun, I decided to add some interior detail by way of a hoist drum. Nothing too detailed, Just something that creates the right impression when you look though the wide open doors. There will probably be a few other details added later like a desk and chair.

Bin structure from foam core board

Timber superstructure

Looking about right so far.

The only other structure is the loading bins. The idea of constructing the open timber superstructure filled me with a little apprehension, but a simple jig helped get things straight. As the individual elements went together so easily, my confidence got the better of me and I tried to push on before the glue had set fully. But I only made that mistake once.
OK twice.
But with the gorilla glue properly set, everything went together nicely. I studied the pictures of the Banta kit as I added the bracing. It's not an exact copy, but as the model sits in the back corner of the cabinet, as long as it looks right. That's fine by me.
Onto week three, I have a back scene from trackside scenery that I hope will be installed in the next few days. Then  I can lay the track, wire everything up, and who knows, I could be running trains by the end of the week.

A weeks worth of work (1)

Week one is done. It's been quite a productive week, and I think I'm pretty much where I planned on being.
The baseboards are constructed. The central APA box for the model and the two fiddle yard boards. Construction of them went well and I have a much better looking product than I expected.

Joins between baseboards are level

They fit together squarely and snugly.

As I don't have much stock and this is a small layout with short trains, train handling will be by individual train cassettes.
The track was cut and soldered together as one unit. with dropper wires soldered in place. The track is not going to be laid until I get the back scene fixed in the cabinet. The backscene has been ordered from Tracksidescenery.com.

The track plan. Full size.

The locations of the Kadee uncouplers was decided on. I have a selection in stock and I used under the track, in track, delayed action and non-delayed on the scheme. They fit in place well and seem to work.

Uncouplers

The final task I've started on this week is the construction of the mine itself. As I mentioned in an earlier post this was going to be the Banta Modelworks mine. But as I have no experience of making wooden kits and this one needs cutting and shaping to fit, as well as being made to work to load the gondola cars. I decided make my interpretation of the kit using my favourite material. Good old cardboard. The card structure will be covered with downloaded texture papers from Clever models. As I'm working to a deadline I want to be working with materials I'm comfortable with.

Cardboard structure model worktop.

The better things progress, the more my confidence increases. If you're interested in following day by day reports you can find those on my Model Railways of Ian Holmes Facebook page.