Backwoods NE in Florida

[cuse]

The officers of the North Coast Narrow Guage Railroad went into executive session over the weekend,and by unanimous boisterous approval,  after several rounds of tequila and jelly shots, sends their absolute encouragement to go light up the boilers and crack the throttle open to go full speed ahead ion plans for the narrow gauge portion of your empire!

( They would have encouraged you more, but in an untimely twist of fate, they ran out of tequila, and a few wives showed up with rolling pins to drag their sorry butts home)

Fifth Dave to the right.

Dave, it's ALL narrow gauge - now that the N scale roundy has been excised...HOn30 and HOn3...I've been narrow minded for decades. Frary & Hayden hit me hard in my formative years, even though I watched them (and Furlow and Olson) in the pages of MR like they were pro athletes. It oddly never occurred to me that I could do what they were doing until much more recently.

[Dave Buchholz]

I was of the same mind with  the same people as examples. To this day. I still have the Model Railroad magazine articles that they were featured in.

Additionally, when I was in the USAF in the early 70s, in San Antonio, there was a model railroad above the bowling alley. We added a narrow gauge line to the center section. We used something new at the time, called splined roadbed
 We made lots of sawdust!

 Three of the guys went on to author NMRA clinics, and one still runs an online model railroad academy. Another used stencils for clouds . They were pioneers of sorts, at least in my mind. Jon Lawrenz and Miles Hale come to mind. So I have been blessed to be around, and influenced by some people with tremendous talent. Not that talent much rubbed off on me, but I'm thankful none the less for exposure to what I considered at the time as greatness.

[cuse]

Well, despite the many distractions in my life...mostly good ones...I've gotten the HOn3 loop running (along with the HOn30 level). It's awful nice to hit the button and let them chug around and around behind me - even if I'm absorbed in something else.

Shout out to Blackstone...of all of the manufacturers out there, what they did (albeit briefly) for HOn3 and the hobby in general is astounding. I've never had anything as reliable and forgiving as their steam engines and rolling stock. I'm an impatient modeler and, admittedly, my trackwork and benchwork tends to go together quickly and in spurts but it certainly doesn't hold up to ACLTom's exacting standards...these Blackstone engines just don't care- they run beautifully through inconsistent radii, bumps in the homasote joints, gaps in the rails, minimal feeders, you name it - thank you Blackstone.

They make this sometimes frustrating part of the hobby a breeze for us non-engineers.

Hopeful to get some scenery going soon.

(one of the 'distractions' is working out the details of my imminent retirement in the next handful of months - so that should have a real effect on my modeling priority...one of the others is my return to jiu jitsu, which might have a real effect on my health  )

[ReadingBob]

Nice update, John! Glad to hear things are going well for you.

[cuse]

I purchased a pile of foamcore to re-work my backdrops but I've hit a "decision wall"...

I'm pondering investing in photo backdrops vs a simple paint job. I'm not interested in trying to simulate distant mountains and trees with the usual painting methods - it would be more akin to just "suggestions" of darkness behind 3-D trees and it could work out (as it has for others) because my scenery vision is largely 3-D rockfaces way up the back. I've attached a pic from the beautiful Hangman Creek modular layout to show what I mean.

On the other hand, I've done photo backdrops before and they can REALLY transform a layout like nothing else.

Either way, I love a dramatic early winter gray sky...I've attached a pic of one side of my old layout showing a previous photo backdrop a friend did for me...he, unfortunately for me, sold his biz and all of the big printers he used for wrapping buses and cars.

So, that's my decision assignment for today.

[deemery]

That's a great looking backdrop with a super effect for our layouts that generally have less-than-full-sunlight illumination.  You could call around to find other companies that do car wrapping, to see if they'd do similar backdrops for you.

dave

[friscomike]

Wow, what a great-looking layout.  Nice work.  Good luck with the new backdrops.  Have fun, mike

[Zephyrus52246]

One thing the layout tours at the Narrow Gauge convention convinced me of is I need more than just my painted sky backdrop.  I have one of the Trackside Scenery ones here to experiment with when I get back to layout work.  

Jeff

[Dave Buchholz]

I've supplemented my backdrop with scenes collected from the places I'm modeling. An Internet search can be very fruitful. The Buffalo harbor is a prime example.


There is a program out there called "Gimp" that a fellow modeler recommended. It's an image manipulation app
 I use it to pull corners of the image  in any direction to change the perspective angle of the picture.
. It's pretty handy to have.

Then of course, they get attached to foam core. Keepp in mind you can make +/- % of the original to change to overall size. Seem to close? Too big for the proper perspective Make it smaller by 10-20%. It pushes the image further to the  background of a scene

Fifth Dave to the right

[S&S RR]

John

You need to work harder on that getting out of work for good project.  I thought I would remind you that my vote will be for quality photo back drops. Tom had a supplier he was using but my old age is kicking in and I can't remember the name of the company.

You are going to find it much easier to make progress on the layout once you get that other big project out of the way.

John

[ACL1504]

John

 Tom had a supplier he was using but my old age is kicking in and I can't remember the name of the company.

You are going to find it much easier to make progress on the layout once you get that other big project out of the way.

John

Joey Ricard - Trackside Scenery.

https://tracksidesceneryshop.com/index.php

[IWannaRetire]

I'm really intrigued by the roundhouse in Post 1024.  I like it a lot.  If I understand correctly, it's from an older layout.  Any chance on more photos or information?  i.e., was it a kit or a scratch build? 

Thanks in advance, Mark

[cuse]

I'm really intrigued by the roundhouse in Post 1024.  I like it a lot.  If I understand correctly, it's from an older layout.  Any chance on more photos or information?  i.e., was it a kit or a scratch build? 

Thanks in advance, Mark

Hey Mark,

The red enginehouse you see is from the Hangman Creek modular layout in On3...you can find tons of photos, etc...especially if you're on Facebook. It's an all-time great and the primary reason I made the trip from FL to Seattle for the NNGC a few years ago. I was able to study it in depth and it didn't disappoint. I love that structure and the detail around it is endless. Here's another from my saved photos....every inch of this layout is amazingly detailed and it all fits together so well...

[cuse]

So I placed an order with William from Train Junkies for a somewhat customized 25' backdrop...I plan to mount it to foamcore panels that I've already cut to fit the 5 modules and, I hope, will make for fairly clean attachment with some hot glue to the module frames (I've also attached some 2x2's to give a little more support for the foamcore and a larger surface area for the glue. I've got a worktable out in the barn for cutting & gluing...so now I wait. Here's the proof - I've asked for small shifts to best fit my planned scenery, but this is basically it...My modules are 48" tall, so there will be ample room for dramatic scenery up to and somewhat overlapping the 18" tall backdrops.

[cuse]

I'm really intrigued by the roundhouse in Post 1024.  I like it a lot.  If I understand correctly, it's from an older layout.  Any chance on more photos or information?  i.e., was it a kit or a scratch build? 

Thanks in advance, Mark

Mark, 

I should mention that your handle is what my primary priority is right now...as it stands, I should (should should should) be popping corks in early February if everything comes together as planned. 

then, I'll have PLENTY of time and, even more significantly, brain space and energy for this fun stuff.

John