The Atlantic and Southern Build Thread Continued, Part 4

[Pennman]

Tom,

Like the others have said, thank you for your expert rendition and chronicle of how to apply dirt to
enhance sections of your layout. I will be saving your steps for future use.

Rich

Coinciding with your post, (and I hope you don't mind), I saved a lot of information from the now defunct RRL Forums.
I saved a post from our dear friend and expert modeler, Brian Nolan. It is from a thread regarding the coloring of dirt roads. Actually reading it again made me smile and I hope the railroad Brian is putting together in Heaven is as wonderful as his posts always were!

Quote " Darryl, the dirt..boy oh boy..I use different colors all of the time. I enjoy the tans very much because they show up and have rich tones. I very often mix them to create the tones that I like. I also dry brush areas too...or create a wash with Polyscale Earth mixed with a bit of yellow. To me, the ground has to look good because it has to compliment the colors of the structures."

[ACL1504]

Tom thanks for all the info.  it will come in handy.

Jerry

Jerry,

You are welcome and thank you for following along.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Tom very nicely done and thanks for the tutorial; I'll file it away for future use.

Larry,

Thank you and file or copy anything you need.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Terrific tutorial on the dirt roads, I've never been one to purchase dirt but had found that baseball diamond dirt works well when you sift it, I was doing some scenery one winter and found that our lumber store actually carried it. I would use earth colored latex paint as the base and put down the dirt and let it dry and vacuum.

Lynn,

Thanks very much for the compliment. In the past, I've found that the baseball diamond dirt is to orange for me. I have, however, taken a shovel or two from a local playground. After all it is Florida dirt.  I first spread it on a baking pan and bake it dry, this also kills any bugs that may be hiding in the dirt. I then sifted it to get the fine dirt. It is pretty close to what SE sells.

In my early modeling days, I spread plaster and then painted the roads in a tan or gray color.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Hello Tom, wonderful work on the dirt roads and thanks for the tips on how to do them.

Jeff,

You are welcome and thank you as well.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Tom, thanks for yet another great how-to and the additional pictures.

Rick,

You are very welcome my friend. Appreciate you stopping by.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Much to learn from your tutorials, Tom...thanks for taking the time to post
terry

Terry,

Happy to have you on the journey. My pleasure in posting what/how I do things.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Howdy Tom, the landscaping is proceeding well. Thanks for the chronicle.  Have fun, mike

Mike, Howdy,

You are welcome sir and I appreciate you following along.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Tom,

Like the others have said, thank you for your expert rendition and chronicle of how to apply dirt to
enhance sections of your layout. I will be saving your steps for future use.

Rich

Coinciding with your post, (and I hope you don't mind), I saved a lot of information from the now defunct RRL Forums.
I saved a post from our dear friend and expert modeler, Brian Nolan. It is from a thread regarding the coloring of dirt roads. Actually reading it again made me smile and I hope the railroad Brian is putting together in Heaven is as wonderful as his posts always were!

Quote " Darryl, the dirt..boy oh boy..I use different colors all of the time. I enjoy the tans very much because they show up and have rich tones. I very often mix them to create the tones that I like. I also dry brush areas too...or create a wash with Polyscale Earth mixed with a bit of yellow. To me, the ground has to look good because it has to compliment the colors of the structures."

Rich,

Thank you for the generous compliment on the layout scenery and dirt roads.

Anything I put on the forum is in the public domain and all are welcome to copy and use as they wish. With out making money that is. 

I've talked at length with Brian Nolan and others about scenery and dirt. Brian's dioramas were second to none. Darryl is another one to follow.

Tom

[ACL1504]

This afternoon I added the plexiglass to the fascia to protect newly added scenery.







It took me just about a week to do this 14 ft. section of scenery. I have another 24 ft. left to do on the this side.

I'll be doing that at a later date. I have another layout project I need to finish first. More on that as I get to it.

Done for today.

[deemery]

I really like that the Plexiglass tracks the ground line.  I would have just put it straight across the river valley.  

dave

[ACL1504]

I really like that the Plexiglass tracks the ground line.  I would have just put it straight across the river valley. 

dave

Dave,

Thank you. I did consider what you mentioned and I almost did it. I started to cut the straight piece and backed off to measure and cut it to fit the riverbed.

Tom

[jbvb]

A club I was in used 1/8" acrylic to protect layout-edge scenery, but they only needed 6-8" height above the fascia.  Much more and you'd need either thicker acrylic or a structural support to protect the top edge from cracking when leaned on.  My layout has one protector at a corner, but I used 3/16" Lexan and welded its two corner joints with methylene chloride.

[ACL1504]

A club I was in used 1/8" acrylic to protect layout-edge scenery, but they only needed 6-8" height above the fascia.  Much more and you'd need either thicker acrylic or a structural support to protect the top edge from cracking when leaned on.  My layout has one protector at a corner, but I used 3/16" Lexan and welded its two corner joints with methylene chloride.

James,

The plexiglass I'm using is 3/16" thick. I had a spare piece 16" in length and 3" wide. I pulled the two ends together and couldn't get it to break. Also, it returned to the original 16" in length with no sign of it being bent.

Lexan is a brand name for polycarbonate and what I'm using is essentially the same material.

I appreciate your comment, thanks for posting.

Tom
 

[ACL1504]

In his post above, James mentioned that the club he belonged to used the plexiglass on the layout fascia.

Honestly, I didn't want to go the route of using a protector against visitors. However, over the years I got tired of repairing broken items. I even asked visitors to not lean on the layout. In one ear and our the other as some say. So, I had no choice but to protect my work and layout.

This stuff isn't cheap. The Lexan polycarbonate plexiglass I use cost $106.00 for a single pane/sheet of 3 X 4'.

Due to my limited space, my east isle is only 28" wide and the west isle is 34" wide.

The photo below shows the east isle.



I used the plexiglass on the east fascia as my trees come to the layout edge. Even after I installed the plexiglass, I still find broken trees.