techniques

I must be crazy

It seems that I just can't get enough of hand laid turnouts! Which is odd, because it's a pretty tedious process making them. And yet, here I am, a month later building a crossover for Raparapa. Now that trains are running, the Operations Dept has been fairly vocal about how inefficient the current system is. With a small crossover at Raparapa, they argue, trains on the second track would no longer need to reverse half the length of the country to get back onto the first main line. A fairly compelling argument I have to admit, so with that in mind I fired up the computer and drew up a template for the crossover.

Templot to the rescue again, which means about 3 minutes of drawing the turnouts, another 3 hours adjusting the sleeper spacing in 50,000 different dialog boxes, and then another 3 hours trying to convince it that just because I have a black and white printer, doesn't mean I shouldn't be forbidden from changing any of the export options. But at long last I ha a 1:1 ...

Making snow

To prepare my module for snow I started the slow process of building up a base for the snow. To start with I wanted the snow nice and level with the tracks, as per the original inspiration photo. I grabbed the nearest caulking gun and squirted out big fat beads along the track, then with a putty knife and some water smoothed it off nice and level.

To simulate piles of plowed snow, I crushed up some dried plaster and embedded it in the caulk while still soft:

To disguise these mounds I mixed up some sloppy plaster and drizzled it over the top. Much sanding, filling, more sanding, painting, smoothing, sanding followed. At the same time, I experimented with snow materials:

Woodland Scen...

My first scratch built turnout

Relations between Utrainia and the United States of America have recently taken a turn for the worse. Aggressive foreign policy against Utrainia has seen stiff economic sanctions put in place, which has forced the Finance Minister of Utrainia to acquire vital railway equipment from elsewhere. The Kato Corporation of Shinjuku, Tokyo have become a leading contender of motive power, passenger equipment and building supplies, and the Utrainia Rail workshops have been tasked with the remaining construction projects.

In case none of that made any sense... I have been buying model railway supplies for many years from the US through Modeltrainstuff.com. While finalising my latest order from them a few weeks back I was absolutely gobsmacked by their shipping changes; $US50 for $150 of products! Their shipping charges have always been high, and I often had to pay $20 to $30 for a large order, but now their shipping charges start at $40 for a single item. For a loco, a third ...

Under pressure

I've been doing some work on casting lately. When I first started casting it was a revelation, but then I realised that I was getting tiny little air pockets in the corners of many of my castings.

To get rid of these took very careful mixing, careful pouring, careful prodding in corners of the mold with toothpicks, and then a bucket load of luck. Out of about 20 castings, only 4 came out with no noticable air pockets in the corners; a rather poor success rate.

I did a bit of thinking and decided there were two ways to get rid of bubbles:

More luck, or, Using a vacuum to remove any trapped air from inside the resin before casting.

I tried using a vacuum to degas the resin; it ended badly. I poured the mixed resin and poured it into a sy...

Rockfall shelter progress

I did more rock carving on Sunday, but soon got a bit bored of that. It's a pretty slow and tedious process, although it's really starting to look the part now.

I decided instead to tackle the rock shelter. My masters had dried by now and were ready to be turned into molds.

Step one is to attach the masters to a smooth base, and build a fence around them. I'm making these molds upside-down, so the flat surface at the bottom will become the top where I pour in the resin. These are just simple one-piece molds.

The fences are cardboard, hot glued in position. As long as it's water tight that is all that matters.

Step 2 is to mix up some silicone. I have some highly accurate jeweler's scales which I use to measure out the precise ratios, and a 100 pa...

Rocking rocks

Well the queen of Utrainia is away for the weekend, which means it's back to bachelor living for me and the cat, and the bulk of the weekend has been spent in the garage, bag of plaster in one hand, empty pizza boxes in the other!

During the week I went on a collection trip up the road to get some suitable soil. I tried to turn this soil into a clay-coloured paste to cover the raw polystyrene, but instead I just made mud. Mistake #1!

Correcting this mistake, I made a new paste consisting of: "Deck and Pave Grip" (very very fine sand), acrylic modeling paste, water. Mixing these together made a nice gritty paste that I used to cover the polystyrene and blend the rocks into the scene. This worked well.

I then glued the first tunnel into position and filled behind it with boulders. The boulders were easily made: take one zip lock bag, some old plaster castings and a hammer. Put plaster in bag, seal, bash. When done you should have a good variety of plaster rocks.