Back from a break

Excuse my absence from blogging for a couple of weeks, I have been otherwise occupied.

A distraction, My 1926 Ford Model T

With the purchase finalised, and the garage tidied up so that the car will have a place to live when it is delivered. I can set to and get back to work on the layout. There is after all, an exhibition to go to in less than a month.
Where have I got to on it then?

Trees

I have been working on some trees in autumnal hues using Woodland scenics armatures and fall tones  fine leaf foliage. If the trees were to stand alone I wouldn't be happy with them but as they will be grouped together I think they will create the correct feel once dulled down with a spray like Testors "Instant weathering". I'm not after the vivid colours of a bright sunny autumn day, but the subtle tones of a cloudy day. like the picture below. Admittedly, taken whilst it was raining but you get the idea.

My preferred autumnal hues.

Encouraged by the success of my brake van project. I decided to attempt scratch building some goods wagons. Starting with a pair of bulkhead flat cars, which is a style of wagon I like.
The donor wagons for this project were the peat wagons that came with the original set that I ordered.

Busch HOf Peat wagons, the start of the project

I carefully removed the body and quite simply added a new deck and ends from Evergreen embossed styrene sheet. With a bit of strategic strapping and bracing from angle and strip. They look the part most certainly.

A couple of Bulkhead flats, a simple project.

So now I have a British outline goods train, albeit a very short one yet. I'll pair them with the Heywood Tops and see how they run.
With all this stock, I will need a stockbox to take the trains to a show well protected. To that end I decided to take the plunge and see how my theory that a fishing tackle box as a stock box would work out.
There are multitudinous designs and styles out there and in the end I plumped for this one, the Plano "Lockjaw". A very tasteful name I'm sure you'll agree.

An unfortunate name for a useful box.

The top layer of the box could hold up to 24 pieces of stock. More than enough for me for the moment. Whilst the deeper tray underneath will take myriad of tools, and even the Busch battery controller.

Things do fit rather nicely.

To cushion the delicate items of stock, I cut the protective foam cradles that the rolling stock was packed in to fit the adjustable pockets of the top layer. As you can see they fit admirably well. With plenty of room for the scratch built projects and a couple of other items I'll come to in another couple of posts. I'm most definitely very pleased with the way this project turned out.
I would expect that such a box would accommodate 009 stock and N gauge. Maybe even 09 too. These boxes are ridiculously cheap. I paid $10 (Seven quid if you're in the UK) from Menards, (A DIY chain here in the US) and this was the expensive one. You could get a basic simple one for under $4. A sound investment.

Saturday, a busy day. (1)

My wife has left me to my own devices at home today, so I'm busying myself on the layout.
After a week of working on locomotives and rolling stock it was time to get back to the scenery. The first task there was to cover the ground with a base of Woodland scenics turf ground cover. it doesn't take much just painting on some dilute white glue (Woodland Scenics scenic glue) and sprinkle on the ground cover and let it dry.

Starting the earth cover. Notice I covered the track over to keep it clean

Ten minutes later the job was done.

Then while that was drying I decided to work on the roads. For this I was planning on using Liquitex texture paint.

It looks like this small jar will last a while.

 This product is taking a long time to dry. So I then turned my attention to my station platform.

Platform base. 

If you remember, the platform was constructed as a tray, here's why.

The tray was filled with white glue

This was then filled with Woodland scenics fine light grey ballast..

...covered with a weight and left to dry.

Finished item.

Looking at the final picture in this sequence I think you'll agree the final effect is quite acceptable. There's a bit more cleaning up to do, but I'm very happy with this.

The textured paint is still not dry yet, (I did slap it on fairly thick). So I need to look for another task.

Things don't always go to plan

Just to prove that things don't always go smoothly on my projects.

It's autumn/fall here in Minnesota and the trees are starting to look magnificent in all their colours, and that set me thinking about the trees on this little creation of mine. I should set the layout in the autumn to take advantage of these colours. 

Strangely, I never really appreciated autumn colours growing up in England. Now, I seem to have become attuned to the slightest variations in colour and shape, and the way the trees loose their leaves. Most modellers are content to slap orange and yellow clump foliage on tree armatures and call it good, when in reality it's so much more subtle than that. 

Leaves don't change colour all at once patches appear in spots while the majority of the tree remains green. The way the trees loose their foliage is not even either a random section of a tree can loose its leaves while the remaining foliage remains green. I felt the need to reflect all this variety in this layout.

But how to do this? Before I went searching for varying oranges, yellows and browns of leaf foliage, I thought about making my own by taking some Woodland Scenics fine leaf foliage and colouring it by soaking it in acrylics.

Before the start

I mixed up some washes of yellows, reds and browns, then mixed the red and yellow to make an orange. Initially, I thought things were going really well. But then as the paper towels started to soak up the paint, the colours began to look less and less impressive, and by the time the foliage had dried out fully, I had decided this was not an option. The yellow colour doesn't look too bad, its the best of the lot. The other colours however were a real failure.

The end result. Not what I had hoped for.

So I guess it's off to the internet to find some other colours.