HINTS AND TIPS - THE FOLLOW ON
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If I designed my layout again… Pt 2
By Harvey Miller
I am generally quite pleased with the versatility of my layouts design from an operators point of view but from a visual perspective I wish I had been able to make the front of the layout a very long gradual curve rather than a relatively straight section. A couple of inches extra width and a slight realignment could in fact fix this but a house move is pending so it is on the “to do†list… if that modification will fit with the layouts new location!
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Using Grout as Asphalt or roads Pt 1
By Rob Spangler
I use precoloured grout for all my road work/asphalt areas on my layout. Grout works about the same regardless if it is pre-mixed or you mix it yourself and comes in a coarse style and with sand added to create a smoother surface. To some extent, all grout finishes can be sanded if you need to address surface irregularities, but doing so changes the texture.
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Using Grout as Asphalt or roads Pt 2
By Tom Farrell
I have used sanded and unsanded grout in my scenery since I was a young modeller.
Mainly for Roads and rocks as well as barren un-grown areas with a few Tufts.
It is really interesting when you use sanded grout to create a gravel road and depress grooves in it while it is still drying. I then use unsanded grout in a slightly different tone or two for the wheel depressions. This adds natural shadowing and creates the seeing is believing effect on your layout.
And the thing I liked best about grout? … It dries flat as all get-out.
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Cleaning around Fine Details Pt 1
By David Wolfe
I discovered that soft makeup brushes are a pretty safe and effective way to clean my locos and rolling stock, thanks to my mothers’ suggestion.I have one that is bushy for cleaning things without a lot of fine details, (like the roof of a passenger car for example) and I have a fine tipped one for getting around small details or into tight spaces.
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Cleaning around Fine Details Pt 2
By Several Modellers
I use a soft bristle brush, sometimes a short blast with a can of air. The wife also does this to clean off some of her little porcelain and glass knic-knacs. I have some detailed locomotives, and cars, and I have not damaged anything with an air can or the brush. (Michael Wise)
I find it is best to do the cleaning outdoors, or at least not in the layout room. I use a 3/4" soft-bristle brush.
If I'm cleaning structures, most of which are not easily removable, the brush, in conjunction with a shop vacuum, is my choice.
For track and non-fragile scenery, I use the shop vac with its supplied brush attachment. (Wayne Toth)
Last edit: by xdford
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Scale Width of Roads Pt 1
By Several Modellers
The roads on my HO scale railroad would never qualify for any real highway specs. I use a variant of selective compression to avoid filling my limited space with roadways. Typically, my roads are about 3 inches wide. I do not allow parking on most of my roads, but there is room for vehicles going in both directions to stay in lane. (Kevin Beasley)
I have visited layouts or seen photos of layouts where the modeler's city scene has full width streets, to scale - and it is jarring how much space they take up. Impressive to be sure but one street becomes dominating, and a simple complex of streets crossing each other starts to leave very little space for trains.
My goal is to make the streets and highways plausible and to try to capture the sense that a business district street is wider than a residential street which in turn is wider than the alley where the garage is. The goal is not to be inaccurate, but to strike a balance between accuracy and the fact that even a good-sized layout is actually capturing a pretty puny portion of the area modeled. (Dave Nelson)
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Scale Width of Roads Pt 2
By Dave Starr
A real two lane road has 10 foot lanes in either direction and enough shoulder to park cars on both sides of the street. In HO that makes 20 feet for the two travel lanes and 16 more feet to allow parking, say 36 feet. That comes out to 5 real inches, which sucks up a lotta room. You can squeeze things down. Real automobiles have a track of 4 foot 8.5 inches. Allow a little more width, say 5 foot for cars, and in HO that comes out to about 3/4 real inches. Make it one inch, and you have a two lane road that is only 2 inches wide, but no room for parking on the side of the street.
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Source of Interior Suitable LED Lights
By Ben O’Malley
For building lights, I wait till Christmas and buy festive lights.
You can get a string of 200 warm white for under $10 at Bunnings here in Australia and should be on a par with that wherever you are in the world.
The reason I use these is that they have a different body shape that actually radiates the light, unlike a normal LED where the light only shines out the end.
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Making Removable Mountain Tops
By Mike Lehmann
Traditional methods such as making a sawcut into hard shell or framing have their place, when it comes to accessing hidden areas in the event of a derailment. However I do not think there were consistently good liftouts before extruded styrofoam (the pink or blue stuff) came on the scene. It is cheap, light, and sturdy. I tend to use it for all my scenery, but you can use a piece that's just the right size to fill the hole where you need it to go.
Any gaps can be taken up by foliage. I use a thin layer of Plaster of Paris to keep the weight down and any cracks can be
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Modelling Dirty Windows
By Bill Appleton
I work in N Scale but even so I wanted to avoid the see through look of clear styrene in my building windows. I brushed a thin coat of Woodland scenics scenery cement on the back of the clear window material.
After drying it was fairly transparent and added a subtle dirty look. With a very light touch you can rub off areas to give the centre of the window a clear look leaving a slightly fogged edging. Looks like the effect can add even more impact to HO size. I compared a dull coat sprayed and a glue coated pane and the glue one looks much more realistic. If you want to make it dirtier to block the view in just add a second light coat.
Last edit: by xdford
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Making a Poly Tunnel Greenhouse Model
By Trevor Gibbs (with thanks to Sparky)
You could make a Poly Tunnel Green house model ubiquitous to backyards and garden allotments by hardening wire and using plastic bags cut to provide the cover.
Start by stripping suitable sized copper wire and hardening it. You do this by placing one end in a vice and using a power drill, hold it reasonably tightly and start spinning the drill chuck while holding the tension. You would think the wire would twist all over the place but it spins on itself and becomes quite rigid. Try to stop spinning before the wire actually snaps, usually just out of the drill chuck or vice.
Once the wire is hardened, shape it to size over a round object such as a conduit pipe, steel rod or broom handle or can depending on the size and scale you are using and wanting. This will get the ovals consistent. Then glue the plastic to shape as the cover. Voila, one poly tunnel!
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Cutting Foam - with a jigsaw
By Tony Feldmann
No matter what you cut foam with, once it starts clustering up on a sharp object, it starts shredding and tearing for a nasty unclean cut. I even have that happen with a razor saw. Little by little, a thin slice at a time you can get through that stuff with a blade but foam is tough. Too much retention to cut all the way through it with a blade.
A fine blade jigsaw has always been the best tool I have found. I have heard a hot wire works well but I don't like the fumes and if you pause with a hot wire it just keeps melting the foam unlike if you stop with a jigsaw.
(A Note from Trevor - The fumes given off by foam subjected to any heat is quite toxic but in low enough levels that if you keep the area well ventilated it is a minimal problem. You are not going to cut enough foam to make your own copy of Wunderlandz. Foam is tough because at a molecular level, like most plastics is harder than steel and you will blunt a jigsaw blade fairly quickly. Cutting with a jigaw means that you will have fine foam particles in the air as well. I suggest that a mask or respirator would be your minimum protection and your safety comes first!)
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Cleaning Trains? Pt 1
By Several Modellers
I do not think cleaning after each handling is a good idea. I clean my stuff usually only right before I photograph it on scenes or dioramas. I do clean my hands before handling the equipment. That should be all you really need to do. (Kevin Bateman)
I always wash my hands thoroughly before handling trains, and never allow food in the layout room - any food which you manually pick-up with your hands will leave residue on your hands, which you don't want to transfer to your models. In my layout room, though, drinks are okay,.
If you need to clean locos or rolling stock after handling, in most cases you'd need to disassemble it - better to wash your hands prior to handling things, or, if you have particularly oily or sweaty hands, some nitrile gloves will keep it off your models, yet still allow good tactility. (Wayne Toth)
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Cleaning Trains? Pt 2
By Several Modellers
My Best Advice to clean hands before handling your trains instead of cleaning trains afterwards. (Glen Thompson)
If your trains are left in situ on the layout, there is available a large freight container type box which can sit over your locos when not in use. They are not available where I am but I am contemplating making some card or foam core boxes that can sit on the locos that are not covered by the roundhouse when not in use! (Trevor Gibbs)
I have been cleaning the dust off of quite a few items this week as I pack up the workshop.
I regulated my air supply to 25 PSI, and I use a blow gun and a soft make-up brush. This seems to be working very well, and no damage so far. (Kevin Bateman)
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Engines Stalling on Points/Turnouts Pt 1
By Kevin Beasley
Peco turnouts in particular have a problem at the frogs. The rails which come into the frog are sometimes too close. When a metal wheel tread crosses the frog, sometimes the wheel bridges the gap at the frog, resulting in a short (as distinct from a stall.) You can cure this by painting a short section of the frog with nail polish.
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Engines Stalling on Points/Turnouts Pt 2
By Several Modellers
Peco INSULFROGS have this problem, Electrofrogs in general do not.
Engines stalling are more likely a short than a loss of power. Even a 2-8-0 plus tender is a far longer pickup wheelbase than the length of an entire #4 turnout, no way is it losing power, unless the pickups are bad on either the loco or tender, or the loco to tender connector is not fully plugged in. (Randy Rinker)
An 0-6-0 of a friend kept stalling on an insulfrog point where I found that the front wheel was dropping into the frog and lifting the rear wheel on the same side lost momentary contact and stalled. The problem was solved by using a shim on the base of the point frog which was made with a thin shim of plastic (Ian Hewett)
Insulfrog frogs have a tendency to wear at the “pointy end†causing dropping over a protracted distance which can affect longer wheelbase locomotives. I would be considering replacing these with an electrofrog point or building up the frog with a plastic insert. (Paul Wedding)
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Keeping your model building sociable Pt 1
By Several Modellers
I use a “Pilot Deskâ€. It is a lot like a roll top desk but smaller and the top folds outward to give a larger work area. The drawback is that I've begun to model in On30 so things take up much more space! To help, I put the desk next to a bookshelf where work in progress while parts and/or motivation arrive ;-) (Neil Erickson)
Consider a laptop work table! There are several designs out there, you can take it just about anywhere. (Lou Jamieson)
I use a roll top desk in the living room for any "clean" work. I think it works out great!..I usually end up listening to whatever TV series the old lady is binge watching, occasionally glancing at it . It is also a good way to work on your models while staying part of the family. I have tried other options like a regular workbench, and I ended up missing the convenience of the roll top. Another bonus, even if you are in the middle of a delicate project you can just close it, leaving you work covered and safe (Greg Gleason)
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Keeping your model building sociable Pt 2
By Several Modellers
I have, in the past, made use of a cupboard designed for housing/hiding PCs. I added a couple of carriage bolts to lock the slide-out keyboard draw, and used that as the actual modelling bench. Plenty of space to store tools, materials and some reference materials, etc. (Simon Tuckwell)
I used a stand for a piano keyboard and built a top to fit. It is narrow but portable and easy to place in front of a lounge chair or higher depending on what I feel like sitting in at the time. ( Bert Fielder)
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Using Wire as Hose
By Several Modellers
It is quite common to use wire or wire insulation as a model for hoses, whether it be used for garden hose in the back of houses or heavy duty hoses for fire trucks attending that burning Tax Office popular many years ago or unloading oil tanks, filling loco fuel tanks etc. However the sizes are often not quite right for the application.
1 inch in HO = .13†or .3mm approximately in OO 1†= .15†or .5mm in O scale (7mm) = .26†or .6mm
A typical garden hose is 19 to 25mm (3/4†to 1â€) Fire hoses are typically 6†(150mm) thick but flat like ribbon unless they are actually being used, Fuel Hoses for Locomotives are about the same but will be reinforced so they will retain their shape.
A Micrometer will verify the size of the wire but bear in mind that because it is a relatively small detail and you will be seeing it from a reasonable distance, you will have a fair bit of leeway with the size you use.
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Making “Flat Earth†a bit less flat!
By Trevor Gibbs
No area on Earth is perfectly flat for mile upon mile. I like many others have a single 4x8 layout based on MDF and Canite (an Australian local board similar to Homasote and Sundeala in other countries). While I have 2 mounds and a spur type hill as lineside decoration, I intend to use shavings of foam board, polystyrene offcuts and slithers of either to create small outcrops or raises in the earth in between tracks to avoid a billiard table effect in those other areas. A coating of thin plaster allowed to dry should be enough to break the cycle of the flat.
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