Superior & Seattle Railroad Build (Volume 2) Started 2/25/17

[S&S RR]

Beautiful Aspens!

David


Thank you.  How is your vacation going? I assume your spending a couple weeks in Onekama this year. I may head up there later this week if it cools down.

[S&S RR]

Great looking scene John.  Keep the updates coming.

Jim

Jim


Thanks for following along and the kind words. It's good to have some progress to report.

[S&S RR]

So pleasing to the eye (s). John, thank you kindly for sharing.
ed

Ed


Thank you for the kind words and it is my pleasure.  I hope to have another update later this evening.  I've been busy.

[ACL1504]

John,

Love the trees. Ya'll did a great job in the placement as well. Looking great as usual.

Tom

[S&S RR]

John,

Love the trees. Ya'll did a great job in the placement as well. Looking great as usual.

Tom

Thanks Tom. Wayne Olson does the spotting from the aisle while I do the planting. It works great. We sure have planted a lot of trees on this layout.

[S&S RR]

So, today I started another build. I hit a snag with my design work for the town of Sellios - I need to know exactly where the river is going to run through the scene. On the South side of the River is going to be the town of VanGelder and on the North Side will be the town of Sellios. Bob VanGelders Treadwells Textile is going to be planted in the area where I'm working on the scenery.  I needed to assemble the base so I could establish exactly where and start setting up the elevations. So I got out the red box and built the base. I think I may just keep going with this build since I have everything out of the box and on the workbench.

[S&S RR]

This is the area where this build will be placed.  The siding for the Mill will come off the track at the base of the aspen trees. All of the rest of the elevations will be built down from this point. The river will make it's way to the backwards through culverts under the tracks.

[S&S RR]

Here is the view as we pan back a little.  The plaster will be removed for this Treadwell's baseboard.  Originally, I was going to have a roadway running up the mountain side - but as all good model railroaders do - I changed my mind.

[S&S RR]

I'm going to need more castings for the pond and spillway than Bob provides in the kit.  So my first step with this build is going to be to make some molds of these castings. I really like the big stone castings Bob used for this kit. I can see these castings also being used in a few other places on my layout. I will take some pictures after I remove them from the molds.

[S&S RR]

Here is a picture of one of the large stone walls that Bob supplies with the kit.  As you can see from the picture, I made molds for the retaining pond castings along with the main mill building.  I have a kit bashing project in mind for a second set of castings.

[S&S RR]

[S&S RR]

In the process of getting the castings out of the mold I managed to break one of them (about 6 pieces). It gave me a chance to try out a new tool purchase. I bought a top for one of my work benches with T - slots.  It will serve as my gluing bench. The T - slots have special clamps and jig components that allow me to clamp buildups squarely.  I used it for the first time to hold the broken casting. I sure like the way it works - you will be seeing a lot of this in my future builds. It sure is a lot easier than all the weights, squares, and bar clamps. If you look in the top, right, corner of the picture you will see another setup where I started gluing the castings together for the culvert.

[deemery]

I have a cabinet with a plywood top and T-Track, that I use for my machine tools (modeler table saw, drill press, etc.)  I use the T Tracks so I can reposition the tools when necessary.  I never thought about using that as a clamp setup!

dave

[S&S RR]

I have a cabinet with a plywood top and T-Track, that I use for my machine tools (modeler table saw, drill press, etc.)  I use the T Tracks so I can reposition the tools when necessary.  I never thought about using that as a clamp setup!


dave

Dave


It works great and it's a very fast setup.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looks great, John!

Another one of my favourite kits out on the workbench.  Yippee!

Cheers, Mark.