Rugg Manufacturing - SRMW Kit 170

[Pennman]

Vince,
Since "meeting" you online last week, today I stumbled upon this construction. I must admit the structures
and surrounding scenery looks rather good to me. I think you are an exceptional builder. Once you figure out
your anticipated placement, I'm sure that the buildings will look perfect along with the surrounding scenery.
I enjoy building structures, but scenery is my downfall.  I need more experience. I will continue to follow along.
Keep up the great work.

Rich

[vinceg]

Hi guys,

My apologies, guys -- I let the thread sit too long. I have been focused on fixing up problems elsewhere in the basement. More detail on that in my Monee rebuild thread (which I have yet to update.).

Rich, thanks for the kind words. I also love structures. And, as you can see in my Monee thread, I haven't exactly hit it out of the park on the terrain side. But, that's all ripped up now and a nice backdrop is going in. I have been watching videos from people like Luke Towan and others. I have a static grass applicator and a new awareness of some more modern techniques and I'm ready to take a chance again (wait....is that Barry Manilow I hear off in the distance?). Will probably be a couple of weeks before I can start making some progress there.

In the meantime, I do need to get back to Rugg with some of the basics like a few more vents in the roofs and lights over doors, etc. But, as I mentioned in an earlier post I will hold off on finalizing the diorama until I know exactly what I'm going to do with the positioning of it. More on that soon.

[vinceg]

Greg, thank you.

[vinceg]

Mark, you're right - spinning the dio is the right thing to do if I can improve the view. My favorite side the north side - the side with the brick extension with all the roof stuff on it. Nice shot of the shingles, the brick stack, the dormer, etc. I also like the wood deck on the side, though, so I wouldn't want to rotate it so much as to make that difficult to see. It also occurs to me that rotating it to see more from the front (which would be clockwise as a bird would look down on it) would then make the "back" more parallel to the spur track and perhaps create an easier loading area layout.

Even if I don't rotate it, it seems like the stucco building crowds the main structure. That doesn't happen on Bob's diorama (the SRMW web site) because he made his base much bigger. It just occurred to me tonight that I could put the diorama in place and them move the stucco building further away (off the current base). Of course, I could just delete it as well. More to think about.

I wish I had the discipline to try a mockup as you do. Even the drawing you posted is amazing....I can see how it would help with planning. Since I'm about to undertake the design of an entire town, it seems like a mockup or at least a drawing would be a necessity.....especially since there's some topography to consider.

[vinceg]

Jerry, I don't have a table saw - only a radial arm saw and a few hand power tools (saber, circular, reciprocating). But, it just so happens that I'm getting some help on my backdrop work. and HE DOES have a table saw. So, if I'm going to do something, now would be the time. I need to hunker down and figure out what I'm going to do.

Not sure where I'll head with this but I do appreciate your report on having success with the table saw (as well as your concern with any other type of saw).

[vinceg]

Tom Langford, thanks. Yeah, I think it's going to look nice when it's in place. I'm hoping that six or 12 months from now, I will have a nice looking town (Monee) that includes several of these kits and some decent terrain modeling. After seeing all the great modeling on this site and in-person at NNGC, I've gotten very "hungry" with respect to scenery.

[vinceg]

Tom Boyd, thank you. The build has taken much longer than it should have, of course. Some of that because of my day job, some because I don't work on it every night (need to spend time with my sweetie), some of it because I spend a lot of (too) much time practicing new (to me) techniques, and some of it because the kit was probably a little too difficult for my current skill level so I spent a lot of time test fitting and refitting and thinking and rethinking because there were many things about which I wasn't sure. I am hoping that going forward, I'll be able to bang these babies out in a few days.

Kidding, of course, but I do expect build speed to go up significantly.