Hints & Tips No.1420
  

  Copying a track plan onto your base for marking out track Pt 1
  

  by Jason Shron
  

  I have started doing the cookie-cutting for my yard. My full-size plan is taped to the plywood, and I will cut it out where there are elevation changes between tracks.

I plan on using a pounce wheel, available from a craft shop to transfer track plans to the plywood , running it along my track lines and then going over them with a marker. The marker will go through the little holes onto the plywood. That way I keep my original template and I transfer it to the plywood. 

 Hints & Tips No.1421
  

  Representing a “Limestone Look”
  

  by Corey Simpson
  

  I have a couple of things on my layout where I needed a limestone look. For both situations I used a flat tan paint, then a few washes of diluted acrylic paint. I used yellow ochre and raw sienna. The washes or 'stains' give the surface the mix of colors instead of a solid appearance. 

 Hints & Tips No.1422
  

  Modern Modellers Graffiti source
  

  by Neil Walden
  

  I have found that the ultra fine tipped Sharpie Markers are great for creating gang and grafitti tagger-type markings on railcars, structures, etc You can even make basic signs if you can write small and neatly enough.

 Hints & Tips No.1423
  

  Using Matte Medium Pt 1
  

  by Karl Laing
  

  I get my Matte Medium, a couple of quarts at a time and usually dilute about 4:1 with water, let it sit, then decant off the liquid leaving the solids behind. Thus a quart of MM makes nearly a gallon of adhesive. Not really expensive.
  

  I use mine to glue ballast and ground cover. I also use it to glue flocking on tree armatures. You can brush it or spray it on. Pre-wetting with isopropyl alcohol helps penetration a lot.

 Hints & Tips No.1424
 Using Matte Medium Pt 2
 by Dave Nelson
  

 When making modifications to plastic cars I sometimes need to find a small amount of matching paint and I usually mix up small amounts of Liquitex acrylic paints to do this. Adding some matte medium tones down the slight sheen that pure Liquitex tend to have. That is the actual original intended use of the product – to modify paint texture.

 Hints & Tips No.1425


Concrete Colour


by Jim Szabo


Concrete color is affected by is components, the area of origin and raw materials available there, and it's age and weathering, if available. 

I use Polyscale "aged concrete" as I think it does look like my aged concrete porch pad. But the floors at my local club and gym are a dark gray color, due most likely to a sealer they put on it. My father replaced a portion of his covered porch floor about 30 years ago it is light gray and the rest of the porch is like "aged concrete"- like my porch pad and his is covered, not exposed like mine was before we covered and enclosed it.
   In short, you will have to pick a color that represents concrete to you, or mix together to get the right "color" for you and your area.

 Hints & Tips No.1426
  

  Realistic Looking Concrete By Dave Emery
 

  I have had good luck with titanium buff and a very small amount of olive mixed in. Then I finish with chalks/pigments, to get that chalky look.
 

 Hints & Tips No.1427
  

  Making Steel Bales
  

  by Ray Wheeler
  

  To make steel bales as scrap for an open car load, try using the square end of a socket from a ratchet set (socket wrench) in the size that fits your needs.  When you have mashed enough Aluminum Foil in to make a bale, just push it out from the socket end.  It will probably be faster and make a more square bale than a slip joint pliers method expounded earlier in this series.

 Hints & Tips No.1428
  

  Copying a track plan onto your base for marking out track Pt 2
  

  by Jon Calon
  

  For copying a plan directly to your track base,, you could also try finding the old fashioned carbon paper, and laying it between the paper and your plywood and then running something like an embossing pen or some such tool to transfer the carbon ink to your plywood.

 Hints & Tips No.1429
  

  Copying a track plan onto your base for marking out track Pt 3
 

  by Michael Rozenbloom
  

  I used a dollar store pizza cutter and used just enough force applied to make an indentation in the plywood.
  

 Hints & Tips No.1430
  

  Substitute Springs
  

  by James Skewes
  

  If necessary, a quick  and cheap place I go for bigger replacement springs on models is old click type ink pens. The spring in there fits many needs, and is generally long enough for several replacements.

 Hints & Tips No.1431
  

  Tightening Rail Joiners vs Soldering Pt 1
  

  by Crandell Overton
  

  Many people are of the impression that if you tighten rail joiners, and maybe you will re-achieve conductivity to some degree.  However, I believe it is more likely that you will have simply displaced some 'crud', mostly corrosion or some other contaminant, impediment, that prevents good connectivity at that joint. So, the problem will come back.
  

  You should really consider soldering that one joint, and if another pops up, do that one, too.

 Hints & Tips No.1432
  

  Tightening Rail Joiners vs Soldering Pt 2
  

  by Trevor Gibbs
  

  The blocks on my layout are reIatively short. I too have tightened rail joiners but if I need to make a more permanent repair I use a thin piece of wire and form it into an Omega shape. I then solder it around the joiner. A light dab of paint and the wire disappears after a week or so into the landscape.
  

  The double connective path with the joint and the joiner is usually enough to overcome most problems.

 Hints & Tips No.1433
  

  Rerailing Articulated Locomotives
  

  by Tom White
  

 Except for one locomotive, all of my articulateds are 'prototypically' articulated, that is to say that only the front set of drivers 'swivels', the rear set is fixed under the firebox.  That said, I generally follow the pinch the cylinder rule when I put them on the track, trailing truck first.  With the rear set on the tracks, I adjust the front set using the cylinders as a fulcrum.   Three of my biggest articulated locomotives have pedestal tenders, and I find them very easy to set on the tracks.  If two wheels hit the tracks, the rest of the set seems to follow, and just pinching the four-wheel lead truck puts it on the track nicely. 

 Hints & Tips No.1434


Realistic Brick Walls


by Michael Winicki


 I have picked up several different "red" primers from different stores.  Each seems to vary slightly in color, which is great, because then I can vary the color of the brick from building to building.


Also, because it is a primer, it is not as thick as regular paint, so the brick detail comes through a little sharper.
Finally, it is flat… Which is exactly the type of finish one would need for a brick wall.

For Australian Readers… you may think you are voting for Tony Abbott next Saturday ,,, please don't vote in Rupert Murdoch by stealth!

 Hints & Tips No.1435
  

  Backdrop Fastening Materials and Techniques
  

  by Alan Platten
  

  I use 1/8"/3mm Masonite attached to cleats (screwed & glued) that are attached to the studs with drywall screws. If for any reason it ever has to come down the original wall in the room are not compromised and will just need a little spackle on the holes left behind by the dry wall screws.
  

  My reason for using this size is that it bends real easy giving you seamless inside curves to hide the inside corners of the room.

 Hints & Tips No.1436
  

  Daisy Chaining LED's
  

  by Several Modellers
  

  Many modellers particularly those of us of an age, tend to think in terms of old globes where they could be put in series or “Daisy Chaining” to both reduce voltage and extend the life of the globe. For this reason, many modellers have tried to apply this to LED's to translate a past practice.
  

  It is far easier to run a pair of wires as a wire bus for the globe/LED circuit and place all your connections for LED's between the two wires using a resistor for each LED and in the very unlikely but not unknown event of an LED failing, the fault finding and replacement is a whole lot easier. 

 Hints & Tips No.1437
  

  Bogie Goods wagons that lean
  

  by Several Modellers
  Check to see if the cars and the loose boxes are symmetrically weighted.  If the weight has shifted off center, the car will not only develop a permanent list, it will roll over with very little provocation. - Charles Beckman
  

  It could even be something as simple as a bolster that is not 'square', or parallel with the axles, or it may have some flashing.  Maybe there is some flashing under the car body, itself, and the bolster is just fine.  The flashing causes the car to be forced to one side. - Crandell Overton
  

  Often you would only need to pay attention to adjusting the screws. I have had to do that with rolling stock quite often – Richard Greaves

 Hints & Tips No.1438
  

  Simple Coal Loads
  

  by Dean Carstensen
  

  I only have a few coal cars on my layout.  I carved out some leftover pink styrofoam to fit in the cars, then I shaped them in the basic shape of the load and then inserted two steel finishing nails into the loads on each end.  
  

  Then I painted the styrofoam flat black.  I took a lump of coal I found and crushed it up and used straight glue to attach it to the styrofoam.  None of the coal has ever fallen off.
  

  So why use the nails? Well, now I finally have a use for the Rix magnetic uncoupler device I bought. It never really worked for uncoupling, but it grabs those nails just fine and pulls the loads right out. I can run the cars either loaded or unloaded. Any magnet will do and it is great for load simulation between sessions.

 Hints & Tips No.1439
  

  Making Scale Rope Coils
  

  by Bill Klein
  

  Look in fabric stores for CROCHET thread. It comes in a “jillion” colors and is heavier than sewing thread, and also very flexible. It can be arranged in loops and rolls and it holds knots very well. You can make coils by wrapping the thread around a metal rod, soak it with diluted white glue and slide the coils off after the glue hardens.