Here We Go. . . .Again

While the granddaughters are excellent at working with Ground Goop (per Sassi's formula) and daughter-in-law might be even better, they've done enough of that, I suppose.  So, for the farm pond I decided to go ahead with the goop and allow the "daughters" to do something new!!

Standard formula, 1 part each of brownish latex paint, vermiculite, and celluclay plus about 3/4 part of Elmer's glue and 1/2 cap of  Lysol -- not sure the last ingredient was needed since I'm using it all up at once.

Now for application.  Decided to also start filling in near the Quonset hut/Army Reserve site.

Seems this "dirt" is a bit "redder" than the cotton field.  Maybe it will darken with age. . . .

Also added a few "boulders" since the boys fishing might need a platform. Besides, how can Rock Hill be Rock Hill without some rocks?  Thought I'd get cute with some ruts from the Cotton Gin and a few hoof prints leading down to the pond where the horse goes to drink.  Some of the holes would be enough to swallow a whole leg!  We'll work with it from there.

Maybe I should paint the bottom of the pond before the girls are here to fill it.  Maybe not.

Farm Pond II -- Digging the Hole

Some of the steps in construction of a farmpond are probably NOT going to be too exciting for the granddaughters, so I went ahead and tried a few things to "lower" the pond into the layout.

After drilling a hole to get things started, I inserted the saber saw blade into the hole, and got a good ways around the outline before running into other objects:

Next effort was to use a single blade hacksaw, but that didn't work too well -- for one thing, it wasn't going to make the turn sharp enough:

I had looked for a keyhole saw I thought I had before stealing the hacksaw from The Wife's tool box in the house.  So, I looked again in the workshop when her saw didn't work, to no avail.  Even checked Home Depot and they didn't have a keyhole saw, but they did have a cutter for the Dremel tool.  That finished the job:

Used a belt sander and a rat-tailed file to round over the "bank" of the pond-to-be a little.  At the top edge, the bank is to be trampled down a bit from the horse going to water there.  Hard to tell from photo except for sanding dust on re-railer!

The plywood is 1/2", so I looked for something more like 3/8" to lower the pond bottom and secure from underneath the layout.

Most guys that have used two-part epoxy for "water" warn of sealing all leaks, so I used some left-over clear caulking. . . probably a little more than I needed.  Is has a 7-14 day fully cured time, so I'm on hold for a while.  Here's hoping that's enough caulking so it doesn't leak, AND the caulking doesn't get dissolved by the epoxy.

Testing Static Grass Applicator

Finally pulled out a couple of AA batteries to "charge" the static applicator and decided on a test area on the layout.  There's a bit of a knoll on the far side of the layout that could use a little scenicking.  Until now, I wasn't sure what to do with it.  This is the spot, between the edge of layout and tracks; this is looking from the rear of the layout, tobacco farm on the right in this view.

To the left (from the front) is the tobacco farm and to the right is the blacktop highway itself and part of town.  So, here's the plan:

• Start off near the tobacco farm with a hint of a pasture that will be seen in the backdrop, mostly.  
• The pasture, of course, needs some static grass, but also probably a fence.
• Just past the pasture and fence line, moving toward town, will be a wooded area.
• And then some of the knoll will be left for maybe an elevated city building of some sort.

Started with a bunch of material for the grassy part of the knoll:  green ground foam, earth foam mixture, 0.5 mm static grass, flower patches, 50% water/white glue, full strength white glue.

Painted some diluted white glue on part of the knoll and sprinkled a bit of green ground foam, followed by earth foam mixture.

Added diluted glue to cover the pasture area and then tried out the static grass applicator.  Frankly, I was very satisfied.

Used a few sprigs of orange and red flowers to add some variety.

Next was to try for the small patch of woods.  Materials included:  dediduous trees from two different packages, blended turf, some bushes, some lichen and florist "weeds", more diluted glue and white glue, DIY forest floor leaves and debris, and some heavy duty hair spray.

Again, brushed on some diluted glue and sprinkled a small amount of blended turf to start the forest floor.  Added DIY forest floor leaves and debris plus a few pieces of florist "weeds" with full strength white glue.  Used a scratch awl to poke holes for the trees.  But the trees right "out of the box" looked a bit too green, so spritzed the trees with the hair spray and sprinkled blended turf on them.  That gave a bit more of an early fall look.  Placed the trees in position by gluing with white glue in each hole.  A couple of small bushes didn't seem to bring the woods up to snuff, so a couple of lichen clumps were glued on with white glue.  The woods are beginning to look OK!  This shot is from the front and the woods are in the rear.  The tree to the far left of the clump looks like it's separated; that's because there's a gully between it and the next tree.  We'll put some epoxy water on it with a little puddle at track level when we pour the farmpond.

Farm Pond -- Design and Zapper

Made a trip to Boone, NC, with two granddaughters and parents.  While older granddaughter, dad, great uncle, and granddad took a short hike on the Appalachian Trail in VA, younger granddaughter joined mother and great aunt to local Ashe County attractions -- cheese factory, 50-cent Cheerwine machines, museum, etc.  Check out previous post about Ashe County Museum -- VERY nice HO train layout.  The AT group returned worn out, chilly, and pleased; the Ashe County group came home wanting a "water feature" on the Blacktop Crossing!

Plans so far are to create a farmpond between the cotton field and the cotton gin.  Not a lot of room, but enough, we hope.  Proposed scene would be something like this:

Oops, photo should be rotated 90 degrees clockwise!

Got into a sequential vortex of sorts:  farmpond to be surrounded by horse pasture, horse pasture to contain shed (already constructed), horse shed needs a few bales of hay, DIY hay bale calls for short static grass glued to piece of balsa wood, there will be plenty of static grass left over, maybe can use it somewhere else on layout, but need static grass applicator, so here comes DIY applicator.

Lots of folks on Internet seem to like using bug zapper for DIY applicator, and brag about less than $10 expense.  Ordered zapper and picked up strainer at Ollie's -- cost must be less than $5!!  Pieces:


 Alligator patch cord, solder, hot glue already available.  Haven't tried out applicator to date!!

Outlined pond on plywood by poking scratch awl through paper drawing.  Not sure yet how to make clean cut to allow lowering pond AND sealing sufficiently to use epoxy "water".

Most supplies are on hand:  ground goop ingredients, toothpicks for fence post, 1 mil copper wire to try to use for fence line, a few Woodlands Scenic trees (obtained at discount at Hobby Lobby), a couple of young boys fishing, epoxy water, etc.  Just waiting on next visit from granddaughters, although hope to have pond "lowered" by then.

Ashe County Museum

Visited the Museum of Ashe County (NC) last week to see their HO layout -- turns out the railroad is only a loop with one passing siding and one dead-end siding.  The scenery is OUTstanding!

http://ashehistory.org/index.php/gallery-item/virginia-creeper-train/

The layout is about 30 feet long with about four different eras and four local communities modeled.  The work was done by several local townspeople and the number of scenes is amazing.  Besides that, each modeler has positioned him- or herself in a scene somewhere!  A builder can be seen with a clipboard near a house under construction.  A law enforcement officer's patrol car (1949 Ford) has pulled a yellow convertible with a blonde driving (the other modelers asked if he gets her phone number and he says, "No, and I only gave her a warning").  An artist that has done a mural downtown of the Virginia Creeper can be seen with his easel set up to paint that very same mural picture.

The officer has pulled her over!

Downtown in the 1950's.

The Virginia Creeper arrives but rumor is they coasted through town to keep from getting soot on the fresh laundry -- note that "Mom" is waving as the train approaches around the bend.

I suppose this might be the junkyard that the "Greaser" on the Blacktop Crossing uses for his parts cars!

Obviously, the time of the year is Fall in the NC mountains.  No puffball trees here; every one of them has a trunk!

This layout is worth viewing.  The rest of the museum is unique, as well.  The emphasis is what happened in Ashe county that is of note -- not just a collection of old "artifacts".

More Clean-up

With high hopes that the plastic cover will help keep the dust down on the layout, an attempt was made to clean up the dust layer that has accumulated.  Basically, that meant removing anything that wasn't glued down and vacuuming as much as possible:

Look closely between the spur just to the right of the cotton field and the inner oval track -- the dusted/vacuumed portion is pretty evident (it's darker brown)!

So, vacuumed as much of the remaining plywood and tracks as felt safe to do.  Then replaced the removed pieces after dusting them with a 1/2" soft bristle artist's brush.

Replaced the plastic cover with continued hope. . . .

Loose Ends

Company is coming over for dinner before long and The Wife has offered a tour of the barn as part of the entertainment!!  That presents a couple of issues since the barn houses the train layout.  For one, it probably should be running so track and locomotive wheels need cleaning.  For another, something a bit more prototypical than sliding the throws on the turnouts would be good -- I just happen to have six ground throws!  And, for another thing, the layout probably ought to be vacuumed a bit and dusted.

Fortunately, the granddaughters had given me a track cleaning pad and holder as a gift.  I pulled out some 70% isopropyl alcohol, wet the pad, and wiped it around the tracks.  Yep, there was a good bit of crud on the tracks:

That got the switcher running around most of the layout without a hitch.  Then I wet an edge of a paper towel and ran the front wheels and then the rear wheels of both the switcher and the F-cab locomotive over the towel a few times.  A little use of the "eraser" and some fine sandpaper and the switcher was running around all of the track at a setting of 1 or 2.  The F-unit needed about a 4 setting to not hesitate, but we can work with that.

The ground throws were not as easy to install as anticipated.  Seems the model, 202S by Caboose Industries, doesn't attach directly to Atlas turnouts, but I either didn't get or have lost any adaptors.  Rather than spend the time to go across town to the hobby shop, I just took out the Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel and removed some of the throw bar (or whatever it is called).  To connect to the ground throw, I drilled a small hole (my drill bit set number about #60 which didn't match up with Caboose Industries' 0.055 inches recommendation, but it worked).  Two small brads (used elsewhere to attach track to the layout) and we were in business:

Well, not quite in business, yet.  The downward-facing pin on the ground throw protruded into the cork bed material.  But, a small grinding burr on the Dremel and enough cork was removed to allow the throw to moved full length.  Well, yes, I did cut small pieces of cork bed to place under the throws -- turned upside down so the angle on the edge would fit the similar angle on the track bed.

I can count six turnouts with throws.  Wouldn't you know it, there's ONE more turnout left.

Oh well, looks like another trip to the hobby shop after all.

Now, with all that work completed and visions of dusting and vacuuming the layout before the dinner get-together, some way of protecting the layout from future "contamination" seemed like a good idea.  So, four piece of corner molding about 2 feet long were screwed in around layout and a roughly 5" X 5" block of wood with a 3/4" hole in the middle for a 2-foot dowel provided a center support.  A large sheet of plastic, and the protection is in place.  Looks like a clean piece of plastic would be a good idea!

Maybe I can use the two uprights on the rear of the layout for a 1/8" hardboard backdrop holder.

For the sake of catching up on other work on the layout, I did install wood "timber" grade crossings a week or so ago.  I just happen to have some "black" stain I used on a pair of Adirondack chairs left over, so the timbers got a grayish stain.  To get the timbers to fit, the outside pieces had to be ground at a bit of an angle (to allow for the molded in spikes on the ties).  Then I glued them with some Woodland Scenics Scenic Accent Glue.  It seems to be working OK, but I may need to go back and use glue that is a bit more permanent -- let's wait until we add ballast. . . .