| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Vagel Keller
Crew Chief
USA
727 Posts |
 Posted - 12/28/2011 : 9:04:39 PM
|
I hope everyone is enjoying the blessings of the Season. The track weathering project in Chambersburg yard last Wednesday led to a renewal of long-dormant ballasting on the standard gauge on the other side of the backdrop, and as of today the entire mainline and siding in the Richmond Furnace area is done except for a short gap of 12" that I'll close tomorrow. Also, the spur leading to the blast furnace complex and future interchange is ballasted with cinders. Here's a documentary photo:
I'm also starting to experiment with materials to replicate, as closely as possible, the texture and color of fill made from blast furnace slag. Here is an embankment covered with a combination of Woodland Scenics light gray medium-size ballast and Scenic Express "Caribbean Sand." It works OK for me, but some of the guys think it needs a bit of a buff coloration to it. Comments? Suggested alternative materials?
Elsewhere I've begun to deal with two places where the gaps in overlapping hillsides leave the flat backdrop exposed. One of the most important to deal with is behind Don's trestle, where the road beneath drops off the face of the Earth two inches beyond the trestle.
I Googled "autumn rural road pictures" and came up with a plethora of free images, one of which was this one; it's perfect for the scene, showing a hard dirt road traversing rolling terrain as it curves generally off to the right toward a vanishing point. And the foliage was dead on with the ground foam puff balls stuck on toothpicks around and above it.
The sceniced road drops off at the blue arrow in the image below, and you can see the road reappearing as it climbs another hill in the distance in the picture. I don't remember whose article I read suggesting a vehicle posed going away to lead the the viewer into the scene, but I'm sure it's a trick that's been written up a bunch of times over the years.
There's some tweaking still to do -- I need to replace the foliage on the "hillside" above the photo that now shows blank earth tone fine turf, for example -- but I'm happy with the effect.
Another gap is the saddle between two ridges behind the ore processing plant at Buchanan. On the old basement layout, I actually had space to model part of a company town, with Russian Orthodox onion dome church and some duplex houses. But here, that has to be "suggested" off scene. I carved a path leading through the saddle that miners coming from their homes behind the ridge would follow to the manway entrance to the ore mine, which is visible from the aisle. The saddle exposes the bare wall below the painted backdrop that I intended to fill in with some sort of 3D foam hillside, until I got the idea of a perspective view of a row of company houses instead. This is an image I found by Googling "company towns":
The backdrop here is still obviously not ready for primetime, but I think this will work very well once the sponge-painted foliage is completed over the dark brown base, with some foam foliage glued around the flat picture to feather it into the painted backdrop. What's realy cool is it's actually a company house in more or less its original siding in the town of Riddlesburg, PA, which is one of the coke fired blast furnace towns in Bedford County that were the inspiration for the merchant pig iron furnace thirty miles east at Richmond Furnace -- the blast furnace there was last in blast in 1937, one year earlier than my layout's era.
So, as I said, "cool!"
Have a great New Year's and I'll see you in 2012.
Vagel |
 |
|
|
Orionvp17
Fireman
USA
2847 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2011 : 9:30:34 PM
|
Vagel,
The improvements look good to me!
I'm not sure about the complete analysis, but I have read, heard and verified (by certainly non-scientific method -- I asked a police officer to participate in an experiment on a module) that a vehicle headed away from the viewer will cause the viewer to notice something else, whereas a vehicle headed toward the viewer becomes the first thing the viewer sees. This was indeed the result of the police officer's experience.
This, as I understand it, has something to do with millenia-old genetic threat analysis code that causes us to evaluate things in terms of friend-or-foe, fight-or-flee. Stuff coming at you is a potential threat; stuff headed away is glossed over as it's not a threat. Any psychologists out there who have better explanations?
Try it on visitors --have them look away, put the car facing the viewer and see what's the first thing they look at, then turn them around, reverse the car so it's headed away, and ask again. You're likely to have the car in the first scenario and the trestle in the second.
Let us know the results of the experiment! 
Pete
in Michigan
|
|
|
|
Tyson Rayles
Moderator
USA
10255 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2011 : 10:13:08 PM
|
| Looks great Vagel! [:-thumbu] |
Mike |
|
|
|
bullbrauch
Engine Wiper
124 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2011 : 11:08:39 PM
|
Vagel,
In the first picture of the car and trestle I was fooled into believing th road curved to the right and out of view. |
Brandan
Living in Colorado,
home of the Rio Grande |
|
|
|
Frederic Testard
Engineer
France
16524 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2011 : 04:36:24 AM
|
| I agree with Brandan, the way the road seems to leave the scene is very well done. |
Frederic Testard |
|
|
|
AVRR-PA
Fireman
USA
4657 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2011 : 06:11:59 AM
|
Hi, Vagel --
Great progress - it will be fun to see it next Wednesday. Sorry I couldn't make it yesterday - but the chance to make a quick $400 by being a medical test subject was just too tempting. (I'm done at 2:30 this afternoon and, oy, will I be glad! $400 is not too much.)
Keep on keepin' on.
Happy New Year to you and Debbie and all my rr-line friends!
Don |
|
|
|
Harsco
Fireman
USA
1107 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2011 : 06:59:51 AM
|
| Vagel....love the results as well as your methods; will have to try your suggested Google search technique for background scenes. |
Edited by - Harsco on 12/29/2011 07:42:58 AM |
|
|
|
Dutchman
Administrator
USA
23277 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2011 : 08:50:57 AM
|
| Vagel, that scene under the trestle sure looks convincing to me. Nice work! |
Bruce
Modeling the railroads of the Jersey Highlands in HO and the logging railroads of Pennsylvania in HOn3 |
|
|
|
AVRR-PA
Fireman
USA
4657 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2011 : 12:45:13 PM
|
Hi, Vagel --
"I'm also starting to experiment with materials to replicate, as closely as possible, the texture and color of fill made from blast furnace slag. Here is an embankment covered with a combination of Woodland Scenics light gray medium-size ballast and Scenic Express "Caribbean Sand." It works OK for me, but some of the guys think it needs a bit of a buff coloration to it. Comments? Suggested alternative materials?"
Not an alternative material but an alternative finishing tecnhique: The military modelers are famous for "even painting the dirt." You could wait until the glue is good and dry, and then try dry-brushing and/or thin washes in various colors. You might want to play with a test piece before trying it on the layout.
Don |
|
|
|
Vagel Keller
Crew Chief
USA
727 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2011 : 1:22:59 PM
|
| Thanks for all the compliments. Don, staining is definitely something I'll try if the raw effect isn't quite right. |
|
|
|
Vagel Keller
Crew Chief
USA
727 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2012 : 5:11:11 PM
|
Holy Cow! It's been almost a month since the last update. Jamissme?
We've been up to some fairly prosaic stuff the past couple sessions: ballasting the Chambersburg yard. Last week we laid down a base of WS "fine" cinders, which in HO scale are about as fine as a golf ball. You can't get the desired effect of a steam-era yard that is a field of fine cinders that turn to muck when it rains and only the rail heads and an occasional tie end are visible. So today we experimented with sifting a layer of dark gray sanded grout over that base, and we really like the outcome.
Here's Don happily sifting a layer of HO instant acid rain (just add water and watch the PRR Freight Car Color turn to orange) over the yard:
After we had about a square foot covered, we spritzed water with a very small amount of denatured alcohol over the area from a pump-action bottle that used to hold eye glass cleaning solution held about a foot away. This is what it looked like as the grout started to dry (the darker sections are still wet):
We both really like the effect of the ties sort of peaking through the muck in this birdseye view. Before we spritzed, I ran a piece of cork roadbed over the railheads to remove the grout that collected there and pushed a gondola with steel wheelsets back and forth pretty aggressively to clear the flangeways. Also, to make sure the grout adhered to the cinder ballast, we went over it a second time with the spritzer.
The end result is very convincing -- better than these crappy iPhone pics show. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll give it the torture test with a shop vac ... I'll let you know how that turns out.
More next time. |
|
|
|
CieloVistaRy
Fireman
USA
4474 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2012 : 5:20:43 PM
|
| Interesting technique Vagel. I'd be interested in a closeup. I used water when I added grout. I never thought about alcohol. |
Arthur
Cielo Vista Railway (on30) |
|
|
|
George D
Moderator
USA
10026 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2012 : 7:38:12 PM
|
I like the look the grout gives you.
George |
|
|
|
AVRR-PA
Fireman
USA
4657 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2012 : 8:34:43 PM
|
I'm pretty sure I learned about using Sanded Grout here on rr-line - wish I could remember who I learned it from.
I was just kind of floating it down onto the layout by tapping on the side of the sifter from a height of six inches to a foot - trying to mimic the way cinders from the engines would float down onto a real yard.
Among other things, it did a nice job of evening out my somewhat lumpy work with the ballast from the previous week.
Don |
|
|
|
bullbrauch
Engine Wiper
124 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2012 : 4:00:57 PM
|
| As i get to the scenery phase I think I'll definatley use this. I'm very glad to see more progress on your layout! |
Brandan
Living in Colorado,
home of the Rio Grande |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
New Home for the Blacklog & Shade Gap Eastern
