Electric Railroad Gazette
OCT, 1999
We're back! It's October, we're back from our California Coast Vacation, and back to the railroad. I got everything ready and finally got started on making the "Grand Canyon" mountains. Casting the resin, then the foam, then shaping and cutting, then screwing into the plywood to hold it secure, they cementing the edges with "rock hard" Durham's water putty. I also used about 5 tubes of waterbase calking from a calking gun to fill bigger gaps and places where flexibility is needed.
(I found that the flexible baseboard calking is troublesome when you need to remove a piece. It stretches like sticky bubblegum, whereas the Durham's water putty makes everything "rock hard" firm. It cracks easily, though, but will make a clean break, so it's easy to put the removed piece back in place later.)
Anyway, I used the "Grand Canyon" type rock castings for the sheer walls of HO scale, and used a more "desert" type rock for the N scale rocks. Then a finely detailed rock for the farthest Z scale mountains. It's taken forever it seems, and I haven't even started painting yet.
I was putting in the tunnel portals after the rock walls were finished, when I realized I didn't have enough retaining walls. I ordered some mold rubber from Brandon Enterprises, and bought some retaining walls from the local hobby store. I built a shallow wooden box, divided it into parts, and glued various retaining walls and bricks down inside the box with a hot glue gun. I had to shave the backs of some of the walls before gluing them down so they would sit flat. I still had a few cracks, which I filled with plasteline putty.
Anyway, waiting for the long process of molds, I began organizing the tables underneath the layout. I found they were too high, so I lowered one to 22 inches, and it worked great. I then build 3 more mini underneath desks under 3 more sections of the layout, and they worked great. I made thinner drawers, 3/4 inch plywood tops, and the biggest, "art" table, was rounded so it wraps around you when you sit at it. This is where I put my "new" airbrush. Did I mention it? I got this Paasche double action airbrush with a very small compresser and a box of paints for $100 in the Recycler. Had to drive all the way to Topanga Canyon. Anyway, I took it apart and was surprised at how many parts it had. They were all there, fortunately, but the tip was damaged, so I bought 3 new tips at the hobby store.
On the left of the "art" table, is where I build the buildings and keep the parts while they're under construction. It's great. I got another 4 foot double flourescent light and hung it up under the I beams of the layout. Wow, the extra light really helped.
I then got 1x4s and built about 50 shelves all the way around under the layout, and everywhere I possible could. There's plenty of things that need shelf space in this hobby.
And finally, I built a mini workbench for the sander, grinder, and other power tools, under the Laguna Beach. It took weeks to build all these desks, shelves, and stuff, and the rocks and tunnel portals and retaining walls seemed to have gotten delayed.
Stay tuned