Corrugated fence, part 3

One of the items the birthday bunny brought me this week was the Walthers corrugated fence kit. While looking at the kit I thought I might be able to use the wall as a template. So I could turn this,

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Into this,

Using these,

The piece on the right is my solid 90 degree steel weight. I used it to press the aluminum nice and flat. Then I used the wall as a template to press the indentations into the aluminum with the wooden handle of a paint brush. Better than free handing it.

I then glued the fence to the frame in the kit with CA and used white glue to attach the entire piece into a piece of white poster board as a backing. The poster board won’t be seen.

Another different idea was using Hob-E-Tac instead of white glue to attach the brush and other growth. It takes about 10 minutes to dry tacky and then it’s just a matter of pressing the small clumps into place.

The final result looks pretty good.

 

 

A rare Heritage unit sighting

Because Jacksonville is at the southern end of Norfolk Southern system it is rare for us to get any of their Heritage units down here. So when they do the local rail fans swarm. Such was the case Saturday when word spread that the Virginian unit was headed this way. I had not gotten that one before so I decided it was a good day to hop on the scooter and head for Simpson yard and catch some shots.

First picture, just coming in. There are several rail fans just off to the left.

Next shot, across the grade crossing.

Finally just passing me. I wanted to get a full shot of the locomotive but waited a bit too long.

Once it was passed we all headed up to the southern end of the yard for a few more pictures . I opted to shoot a little video.

NS 1069

 

So another one in the books. I think that’s 5 now. Don’t know if I will ever get them all.

Corrugated fence, part duex…weathering

Everything has had a chance to dry and set up so now we need to dirty up the fence and add lots of bushes and vines to make it look like it’s been there for 100 years. I started with some pan pastels, raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna and some black.

Now time to add some underbrush, vines, weeds and whatever else I can use.

And the end result? Well not quite the end result. Had to step back and give it a good looking over. Don’t worry about the white you see. That’s just glue and it will disappear once it dries. Have to trim the vines along the top a little once they dry.

Once it all sets up we shall plant it. That’s for another day. Signing off for tonight.

 

Building a corrugated fence, Oct 17

Decided to work on a new project tonight. A corrugated steel fence to go around what will be my scrap yard. Never done one before so I thought I would try some heavy duty aluminum foil. Turns out it’s just not sturdy enough. My wife gave me one of her disposable loaf pans and suggested I try it. Hmmmm.

First step was to cut the bottom out since that appeared to be the flattest and smoothest part.

Once I saw that this was going to work, I started to work on the support structure. I decided on 6×6 styrene strips for the posts and 2×6 strips for the support beams that would hold it all together. I made a template with some foam core by laying down a strip of masking tape then marking lines every 10′ for the post holes. I used the tip of a small screw driver to make the holes, which was just the same size as the posts.

I cut my posts to a little over 9′ long, so to have a fence that was 8′ tall.

Next step was to insert the posts, and glue the cross brace across the top making sure it lined up with the line I had drawn across the posts at the top and bottom.

Set that aside to dry and now it was time to work on the corrugation. I trimmed the bottom of the pan so all sides were nice and square, then used a small square and a pencil to draw depressions in the metal. I was going to measure each line precisely to get them lined up perfectly but then I just did it by eye and that really was close enough, given the scale.

After all the grooves were drawn, I cut the piece 8′ tall and used some CA to glue the sheet to the posts.

This is what it looks like without any weathering. That comes later. After gluing both pieces to the fence I used my handy dandy favorite clamps to get everything glued up and set overnight.

Once it’s all weathered, I will remove the entire fence carefully from the template, then use the holes to mark the location on the layout where the fence will go. Glue it in place and then start on the next section. By the way, that section is a scale 80′ long.

 

 

Building a girder bridge

I needed a small bridge to cross over a canal I had cut into the layout. Now I could have gone to my local hobby shop and bought one. But after looking at numerous pictures on the internet it didn’t look like it would be that hard to build. So I grabbed one of my favorite building mediums, that being No Trespassing signs, the kind you can get at your local hardware store for a very cheap price, and began laying out the dimensions.

I decided the best look would be a bridge that was a scale 65′ long and 10′ high.

Next I needed to cut the vertical girders to size. Bring out the trusty Chopper, set the length to 10′ and slice pieces of 2″x 6″ styrene to length. Normally I would have used some U channel but I didn’t have any. So 2″x 6″ for the base and 2″x 4″ for the sides of the girders.

Next, after having drawn the center lines for each vertical brace, I used a little styrene cement and carefully glued the girders to the side plate, making sure they were nice and straight and evenly spaced.

After the flat base part of the girder was dry I added the 2″x 4″ side pieces to make the completed U girder.

I then added strips of 4″ x 12″ to the top of the bridge plates.

Now it was time to add a base. I had a bridge deck from another bridge kit in my parts box. So I cut that to length and started to glue the side plates to the bridge deck. I quickly discovered that the width of the deck was a little narrower than what I liked.

And since the train was just coming off a curve when it enters the bridge, I decided to add a small walkway to the side of the deck to make it a little wider and allow a crew member to disembark from the locomotive to flag the grade crossing. Got to always consider the crew, you know.

Once everything was dry and ready to be handled, it was time for weathering. I had just bought some Pan Pastels and figured this would be a good project to try them on. I used Burnt Sienna, Red Iron Oxide and Raw Umber to create the rust effects on the sides with a bit of black powder on the edges.

One thing I may still have to do, carefully, is round the ends a bit as they are a little too square. But overall I do like the look. Need to add a couple of bridge supports underneath each end and really that will about finish that project. The water under the bridge will wait for another day.

The Layout track plan, October 11

The track plan has changed several times over the course of this year. Having only room for an L shaped layout as it is in our spare bedroom, I have tried to devise a plan that is simple to operate but has plenty of opportunity for operations. Lance Mindheim emphacizes car spots, not industries. You can have a dozen industries but if each one only has one car spot, that gets pretty boring. But having half a dozen industries and each one has 2, 3 or 4 car spots and those car spots are for specific types of cars, now you have something interesting. For example, a Frozen Food distributor. Maybe it has 3 loading doors. One is for incoming frozen products, so thats a reefer.One is for incoming containers, boxes, crates, jars etc. So thats a regular box car. And one is for outgoing shipments. Again a reefer. Then you also have a spot somewhere next to the building for a tank car carrying some other ingredient that the business needs. So you have 3 different types of freight cars for one industry. Much more interesting.

I only have six industries, but those six,  have a total of at least 18 car spots! Not too bad. 2 operators could stay very busy, one on each leg of the L. Now if I can persuade the management to allow me to add a movable yard to one end, now I have even more operations because now I have a place to actually build a train to go out.

The possibilities are endless. But for right now this is what I have.

Working on the railroad, October 11

I have done quite a bit of work on the layout since September but have not really provided too many updates. So here is my chance to catch up.

First order of business is to say that the layout is not going to be based on Goose Island after all. As I started constructing it I realized that Goose Island just did not offer enough operational opportunities to be very interesting. Just 2 or 3 rail served spots at the current time. Not enough to keep my interest. So in keeping with the proto freelancing aspect of model railroading, I took some of Goose Island and modified it more to my liking. So that means the railroad does not yet have a name or really a location. I do have 2 Milwaukee Road locomotives, but that does not mean I could not get a 3rd of some other line to my liking. And also to stay in the freelancing arena, I am using fake names for my industries. Such as Lee Kee Boats,

Lowe Quality Manufacturing,

and Sam and Ellas Meat Packing,

I do have one actual company but its not actually on Goose Island although its pretty close. Morton Salt will be the big customer. My printer ran out of ink so I have not finished the roof yet. Yes, that is photo laminated metal roofing. I have been using that technique in several places and I really like it.

Here are a few more pictures of the layout from different view points. So that’s it for now.

Railroad Update, October 10

Well its been a wild week thats for sure. Hurricane Matthew came blasting through Northeast Florida last week, leaving a trail of destruction behind him. Fortunately we were spared any damage thanks to be far enough inland and away from the eye wall. Never lost power or cable. 

That should have given me plenty of time to do some railroad work but I was pretty much glued to the Weather Channel keeping a close eye on where that boy was headed.

Once I finally did spend a little time working on the layout, after the storm had passed, I had one item I wanted to create and have always had on my model railroads. A dog park. Had just the right spot for one on the current railroad.  The Frank Young Dog Park just needs a few trees and a couple of benches and of course a lot of dogs to enjoy it.

 

I started with pieces of snipe signs, cut a scale 8 feet high, to be used as a base layer. Then I took scale 2 by 12 strip styrene and cut them to 8′ lengths and glued them onto the base layer to simulate a board fence. Then painted and weathered them a dark brown color. Once everything had dried, I then glued the walls to the layout with hot glue and let everything set up.

Once that was done, it was time to get some grass and some brush to give the dogs something to run on. A layer of white glue, full strength spread with a paint brush, then grass, sand and dirt sprinkled from a home made shaker bottle. Took pieces of Woodland Scenics underbrush and bushes and glued them along the fence line. Since the pictures were taken I have also added a small pond so they can get cooled off in the summer. And added 2×12 caps along the top of the fence. I have to add a few shade trees and a couple of benches plus a gate and of course some dogs and the dog park will be complete.