Hints and Tips - The first 499

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Hints & Tips No.200
Using Foam As a Scenery Base Pt 1
by Trevor Gibbs (Melbourne Australia)
Polystyrene foam has been mentioned often in this Hints and Tips Column, but some have written regarding the best way to use it.
On my own layout, I have a group of hills which I layered the foam onto. It was then shaped with a hacksaw blade and coated it with a thin coat of plaster, to get the rock texture. On one club exhibition layout, the foam was overlaid with Disposable cotton cloths painted with PVA. After this, it was shaped with a knife and then a rasp file. The layers were glued in both cases with PVA glue and left to dry overnight.
Foam can release toxic materials when cut, but these are not considered harmful in small quantities. In any case, make sure you work in a well ventilated area and vacuum up the foam dust afterwards… which, fortunately, is easy to do.
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Hints & Tips No.201
Super Elevation
By Nevile Reid
I read somewhere recently that super elevation – the banking of track on the curves – was difficult to achieve on a model railway and not really worth attempting. My eyebrows lifted a notch because I have always found it to be one of the easiest of jobs, and the effort – on a larger layout at any rate – is well worth it.

Fix down your track in the normal way – I recommend one pin at least every 2" – and 'road test' it thoroughly. Before adding the ballast, slip a length of micro strip under the ends of the sleepers on the outside of the curve. I find that 30 thou x 100thou strip is ideal and gives a nice subtle banking, but experiment with different thicknesses if you wish. Carry on round the curve. When done, add a lead-in at each end of the curve with about 3' of 20thou (if you've used 30 thou) and 3" of 10thou. Ballast the track in the normal way.

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Hints & Tips No.202
Help With Tools Pt 5
by Bob Heath

Saws - Both woodworking and metal cutting.
Scissors - For their obvious uses.
Screwdrivers - You will need at least a couple, preferable with exchangeable bits, also very small ones for the more delicate jobs.
Set Square - Obvious uses for baseboard building and squaring up anything from platform edges to building sides.
Spirit level - Essential for baseboard and track laying.
Soldering iron - I can't really give advice here as I use a soldering gun but I can say that you need a lot of heat as quick as you can get it. Do not forget the damp sponge to clean the tip with.

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Hints & Tips No.203
Using Trellis As a Scenery Base
by Trevor Gibbs

I had some plastic garden trellis which came in a roll and did yeoman service nailed to my fence with vines etc for a few years. However in the fullness of time it was removed.

Some of my trellising was recycled by using it in much the same was as chicken wire was used many years ago as a scenery base for plaster, when the club made a Xmas layout for a junior member. The top was overlaid with Cotton Cloth in this case soaked in plaster and looked very effective… and we made one 7 year old boy very happy on a Xmas morning in 2006!
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Hints & Tips No.204
An Electrostatic Grass Tool – for pennies!
By Nevile Reid
An earlier hint mentioned electrostatic grass using a make it yourself electronic application tool. The Noch 'GrasMasters' could be expensive for some. However, do not let these small inconveniences stop you having a go at static grass. There is a very simple, cheap and obvious alternative which works, well, nearly as well!

Do you remember those long ago days of childhood when a party balloon, having been rubbed on your clothing, could be 'stuck' to the wall as if by magic? Well, that is static, and if you pass a suitably rubbed balloon half an inch or so above your static grass immediately after you have dispensed it, hey presto the grass stands up! You could pass on saying some magic words though, tempting as it might be!

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Hints & Tips No.205
Help With Tools Pt 6
by Bob Heath 
Steel straight edge - essential when using sharp blades.
Steel scriber - for scribing plaster or card work.
Super Spray a paint spraying system from Phoenix Paints which uses cigarette lighter gas.
Superstrip - from Phoenix Paints, it strips the paint from your plastic models and can be used over and over again.
Tapping drill sizes - the tables accessible cover both imperial and metric threads commonly available.

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Hints & Tips No.206
Unpaved Areas
by Trevor Gibbs

You can make unpaved areas of ground e.g. sand or gravel by using various grades and colours of sandpaper or crushed cat litter glued to your surface.

I wish I had realised this when I built my ground level US Style platform rather than commandeering sand from the local playground sand pit
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Hints & Tips No.207
How to ballast trackwork so that it can be replaced
By Nevile Reid 
Have you ever tried to replace or alter trackwork that has been set in ballast and PVA? There is no really easy way, but if you lay the track and ballast over greaseproof paper it certainly makes future alterations easier!
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Hints & Tips No.208
Help With Tools Pt 7
by Bob Heath 
Wiping your paintbrush, the plain kind also makes good window curtains or frosted glass.
Track Cutter - 
I have no experience of this tool but it has an excellent reputation and if you have to do much track cutting could prove a good investment. Click on the link for more information and price. ( A note from Trevor – consider other experience here from Hint 164 – which is not a reflection on Bob. I personally take the effort to hone my own version of these cutters)
Wheel Puller : Suitable for H0 and 00 wheels. A very nice, well made addition to your toolbox.
Wire Strippers - Some people never use them while others wouldn't be without. 

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Hints & Tips No.209
Bic Whiteout Pens and Road Markings
By Robert Ferus (New Jersey, USA)
I used a BIC Wite-Out corrective pen to make the centre line for the road as well as the lines for the parking lot. It works well and, after it dries, you can clean up the lines with a utility knife. I am going to try white peel-off letters for rail level crossing and maybe for a "STOP" on the road surface itself.
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Hints & Tips No.210
How To Create A Better Localised Appearance – Pt 1
by Trevor Gibbs 

All over the world, loco depots had a number of locomotives of the same class at their depots for ease of familiarity for their crews and maintenance personnel. A different depot could well have had totally different classes stationed there.

You can simulate this by having a couple of each class of locomotive you intend to have that ran from particular depots rather than one of each type. We have all been guilty of collecting as such. At various times I have had two pairs of 2-8-0's (different classes) and a pair of 0-8-0's, 5 identical cab diesels… you get the picture. Just do not make the mistake of having say 2 of the Lickey Banker 0-10-0 engines, 2 "Jawn Henry's",  5 Canadian Pacific E8's (they only had three) and so forth  in your shed.

As your skills progress, you can renumber one or all of the engines you have duplicates of that do exist!
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Hints & Tips No.211
Winter Trees
By Nevile Reid
Trees without their leaves - is something not often done. Using Seamoss, winter trees couldn't be easier - you simply leave the leaves off! If you want your layout to be set in summer, why not try inserting the odd dead tree amongst your healthy green ones - it can be very effective.
Spray the Seamoss brown with a spray can (Railmatch sleeper grime is a good colour), and, if you are feeling ambitious, dry brush the trunk and thicker branches with a light or medium grey. Leave to dry and your tree is done.

 For fallen leaves, a liberal sprinkling of brown ballast into the grass beneath the trees is very effective - I use a mixture of Woodland Scenics brown and dark brown medium ballast. For leaves on tarmac or other non-grass surfaces, experiment with brown scatter materials until you achieve the effect you want.



(A Note from Trevor - Railmatch for example is not a brand name known here in Australia and I have never seen SeaMoss but modellers over the world can use a variety of paints from their local sources for this hint.)


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Hints & Tips No.212
How To Create A Better Localised Appearance – Pt 2
by Trevor Gibbs ( Melbourne Australia)

Using longer trains, you do not see very many where each and every vehicle is of a totally different type. Chances are there will be a unit train or group of vehicles forwarded from one part of the country to another. If the numbers and private owner names of the vehicles are the same, again an illusion could be spoiled.

On North American makes of equipment, the renumbering process is fairly straight forward by using rubbing alcohol or decal solve from Micro Scale and gently removing the numbers. Decals then are used to renumber the vehicles. Although I have not tried it on British outline rollingstock, some renumbering of the fleet could make an effective transition from a collection to a railway. As with locomotives, try to have several common types for the area you model.

And in the mistake line, there is a Great Western Modeller here in Australia who showed another prominent GWR modeller his train of 10 Bogie well wagons, and commented that it made a great looking train and how much trouble he went to to get them. My friend agreed but had to unfortunately break the news to him that GWR only actually had four of the said vehicles…

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Hints & Tips No.213

How To Make a Yard Floodlight – Pt 1
by Trevor Gibbs ( Melbourne Australia)

You will need about 9 inches or so of Brass Tubing 3mm should be good, a small amount of flat brass, 2 High Intensity LEDs, 2 1K resistors and some wire and 2 Bic Biro Tops (?) Intrigued? Read on

Many years ago in my teens, I bought a set of Yard Flood lights, one with four lights and the other with two. I found them again fairly recently and having a broken Light in one, thought it better to replace so I bit the bullet and opted for LEDs. They really look effective lighting up the yard, casting shadows in the right directions etc and with so little power consumption.

I really probably need at least one more and could not get another tower in reasonable condition so I have elected to make my own and one for the club … here is how!

Drill a hole in the centre of the brass plate for the tube to fit in and solder in place. This will be the tower and the platform on which your lights will rest.
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Hints & Tips No.214

How To Make a Yard Floodlight – Pt 2
by Trevor Gibbs 

Cut the clip part of your Bic Biro or similar top off at the end of the cap. While your top is still a half reasonable length to handle, file the rest of the clip which is moulded onto the cap so that is has a flat facet to sit on your platform.

From the end, cut the cap to about 8-10mm long. Glue some clear styrene to one end which will be where the light will be focused. Make a cap for the other end using styrene but do not glue yet. This will be the “spotlight casing”.

Wire up your LEDs with 1 wire up to 12” long. Solder the wire on the SHORTER leg of the LED. Drill a small hole in the white styrene cap and thread the wire and other leg of the LED through it then use some white glue to hold it to the back of the light

Place your selected LEDs so that the longer of the two legs (The Cathode) can be soldered to either the tube or the plate leaving a reasonable degree of movement.

At the other end of the tube solder, another length of wire with a 1K dropping resistor which will run to your power source or if it is like mine to a pair of bus wires running around the layout.

Feed your remaining two wires through the tube and join them or join them before they go through the tube. Paint to suit and you have a tower for the cost of two LEDs, some brass tube and some stuff you might have thrown out anyway!

And in something totally out of the box, here is an illustration.



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Hints & Tips No.215
Making Seamoss Trees Stronger
by Nevile Reid
 Another useful tip for Seamoss is to insert a length of thin piano wire up the hollow trunk.
With care, the wire can often be worked quite a long way up thus strengthening the tree considerably. Leave an inch or so of wire sticking out of the bottom of the trunk to help mount the tree on your layout.

As a precaution, do not use piano wire where children are involved, or where the trees could accidentally come into contact with eyes and faces.


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Hints & Tips No.216

Clearances on Curves
by Trevor Gibbs and Charlie Ramsay 

When laying Flex track in particular, you should take your two longest vehicles or loan two vehicles of the longest wheelbase you can find and check the clearances on curves.

By running around your curves with the end of one coach for example as near as possible to the middle of another coach in close proximity and ensuring they are not close enough to touch.

If you are contemplating buying a longer railway vehicle and you are not sure if your clearances are OK you can buy literally any pair of freight bogies (HO freight ones would be OK and make up a “plate” equal to the floor of the vehicle you are intending to buy. Plywood, MDF or Perspex will do. Mount the Bogies as close to the centre mount as you can and also test this on your curves. The overhang will be the same.

From Brian Macdermott - Further to this Hint, I have found that if my Airfix/Hornby 12-wheeled restaurant car does not hit anything, then things work out fine. For platform edge clearance, I find that the Hornby 61xx is good for checking.
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Hints & Tips No.217
Using The NMRA Gauge
by Charlie Ramsay
The NMRA check gauge is a useful tool for checking platfrom, Bridge and Tunnel clearances, wheel gauge on individual axles and a range of other functions.

While it is HO Standard rather than OO, most HO US sized freight cars cannot fit under the larger OO scale loading gauge. This should give you slightly more than adequate clearances, particularly when dealing with smaller radii double track curves and larger passenger cars.
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Hints & Tips No.218
Straightening Seamoss Trees
By Nevile Reid 
 Somehow there always seems to be a few sprigs of Seamoss left over from every box that are so banana shaped as to be useless. Well, that need not be the case any longer. I mentioned in Hints & Tips No.215 that seamoss could be strengthened by inserting piano wire up through the trunk.

 To straighten a bent tree, feed thin (15thou) piano wire carefully up the inside of the trunk until it breaks through the side. At the point where the wire comes out, cut off the top of tree with scissors and pull the wire through. Now start to feed the wire up into the top section of the tree until it breaks through again. Repeat until the wire nears the top.
The breaks in the trunk can then be sealed with low viscosity super glue. When dry, carefully straighten out any remaining curves by bending the trunk - and the wire inside it - with your fingers.

 Bear in mind that you now have a forest of fragile trees each with a not-so-fragile and very sharp 6" spike of piano wire hidden inside it sticking straight up from your board. Do not use this method where children are involved, or where the trees could accidentally come into contact with eyes and faces.
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Hints & Tips No.219
101 uses for aerosol can lids
By Nevile Reid 



Next time you use a can of spray paint, hang onto the lid! I find them one of the most useful items in my 'tool box' - and they're free!

My work bench is covered in them. Here are just a few ideas -
  • Storage of small items - loose kit parts, electronic components, fish plates, track pins, etc, etc.
    - Dispensers for track ballast and scatter material. I find them absolutely ideal for this - just the right size and shape, and much easier to handle than spoons or commercially available applicators.
    - Mixing pots for glue, paint, scatter material or anything else that needs to be mixed.
    - Holder for syringe, pipette or what ever you are using to apply glue to ballast, and use another one for the glue itself.
    - Holder for Superglue bottles, etc., to stop them falling over. - Rotating Table and handle to hold your locos and rolling stock when painting them. Use Blue Tack to hold in a discreet place.
Believe me, how ever many tops you manage to collect, it will never be enough!
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