HINTS AND TIPS - THE FOLLOW ON
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Installing Newly laid rail insulators and new insulating gaps Pt 2
By Several Modellers
I use plastic rail joiners for new track work and two-part epoxy if I have to cut gaps in existing travel work. (Rich Alton)
Some "Old Heads" in this great hobby have used the plastic clips from bread products.
From the information I have read, make the gap(s) with your method of choice, then cut pieces from the bread ties and fit them into the gaps with CA.
Shape (file) them to match the rail profile. (Jack Johnson)
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Lighting Intensity on a layout Pt 1
by Greg Michaels
In nearly every case of modeling lighting I prefer to err on the side of dimmer is better than overly bright. However there are some variables to be considered and the main one is how much ambient room lighting you will have when creating your night scene.
Having lights that are obviously too bright, unless you're modeling a Kiss or Pink Floyd concert, will give a toy-like impression to the visitor. I've found that folks that peer into dimly-lit model structure rooms are more curious and tend to look longer to see the details within.
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Lighting Intensity on a layout Pt 2
by Kevin Beasley
I model the Transition Era so I prefer the softer warm glow of incandescent lamps. I usually get 16 volt lamps and run them on a 12 volt bus. This keeps the bulbs from being too bright and greatly prolongs their life.
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If you want to use building interiors… Pt 1
by Chris Hannaford
I don’t model for super detail but I have some fairly obvious open fronted windows on houses close to the layout edge. I took some photos of my own kitchen, lounge area and bedroom walls as flat as possible. This then gives the inside of the model the painted wall, any paintings, cupboard and wardrobe fronts and details such as beds taken from a perspective that looks like the interior is fully detailed.
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If you want to use building interiors… Pt 2
by Brian Thompson
I use printed photos cut to fit inside my buildings.I then bend the photos into semicircles which gives a false impression of perspective inside the windows.which are a bit clouded anyway and makes the inside look very detailed. I model in OO so on a 20 cent photo, I can fit two images for the room and cut it in the long side centre so each detailed area cost me 10 cents!
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If you want to use building interiors… Pt 3
by John York
I set my interior pictures back about a half inch from the front and that gives the interior scene a bit more depth than if I put it up right behind the front glass. I'm happy with the results.
All my printed interiors are in structures at a 90 degree angle to the layout edge so the viewer never looks directly into them. If I had a structure facing the viewer and up close, I would consider a 3D interior but so far that has not been necessary.
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Colouring Asphalt
by John Durham
I have had good success with tile grout, both powdered and ready-to-use in a tub. I like it because it has a good long working time but still creates a nice hard surface.
Asphalt can be made as dark or as light as you want and still be realistic. When it is first laid, it's almost pitch black but within a few months will turn charcoal gray. After a year, it has pretty much faded to a light gray. For my roadways I go for the aged look but I have a few parking lots made to look like they were recently paved.
To get the faded look of older asphalt, I initially paint them a medium gray, then apply white weathering powder. After the powder is applied I use a dry paper towel to blend it in. Lastly I create the dark oil streaks down the center of each lane using grimy black, again using a dry paper towel rub to blend it into the surface.
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Weathering Track
by Steve Dewar
For weathering track I use spray paints as follows:
- Mask delicate bits of points!
- Overall spray of grey primer
- Red oxide primer from the sides (towards rails, inside and outside)
- Camouflage brown Matt sprayed from directly above (sleepers) and then wafted around sleeper ends (to cover any red oxide overspill)
- Scrape paint off top rails with a coffee stirrer, then clean off with Magic Track Cleaner*
Pretty quick, but smelly - I do my track outside before laying!
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Colouring Track
by Clifford Jones
I used paint pens to weather the sides of the rails, which get into the rail web nicely. For the trackbed I used neat poster paint pigment which is much cheaper than modelling weathering powders. As I wasn't going to be handling the track, I didn't bother fixing the pigment and left it loose on the trackbed, but when I use ladies' eye mascara as weathering on my stock (again much cheaper than Tamiya powders which I used to use) I use artist's pastel fixative to fix it in place, cheaper than weathering fixative, which should fix your paint pigment in place if you want to fix it.
You can get multiple shades of brown and black from pigment suppliers online for not a lot of money. Just brush it on gently with a soft-ish brush, assuming your ballast is well fixed (incidentally I mixed black, brown and light grey ballast with wallpaper paste and once laid gently dribbled water with a tiny drop of washing up liquid to activate the paste. It fixes the ballast but doesn't set like concrete unlike PVA, so if you ever want to relay the track, you won't need a Kango drill to take it up). Using a variety of browns, with black where engines drip oil such as at stations and signals, will give a nice variation.
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Sticking Paper Shingles
by Shane Coulter
For adhering paper shingles or brick paper you can use white glue (Pva) or a glue stick. Double face tape is another method friends of mine have used. The white glue applied very thin also gives you time to position the paper exterior. Some of us would paint the balsa a grey or black in case a spot shows through the shingles somehow..
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Problem with Pony Trucks
by James Dennison
I have a 4-6-2 that shorts out on a particular spot of track only going in one direction, forward, reverse is fine. When I turn the room lights off and carefully observe what is going on I can see a spark on the lead wheels of the pilot when it reaches this particular point. Here is what I have done to troubleshoot the problem:
1.Tested a second 4-6-2 over the same section of track and going in all directions and it runs through with no problem, as did a 2-8-0.
2.I checked with the NMRA gauge the tracks and pilot wheels and everything is in gauge.
3.I removed the pilot from the troubled locomotive and the locomotive runs fine over the track with the pilot wheels removed.
4.In addition, the removed pilot runs fine over the track on its own.
5.I carefully inspected the removed pilot and can see no obvious flaw. I also compared it closely to the pilot on the 4-6-2 that is running fine and see nothing unusual.
6.I cleaned the track in the problem area, but that did not help.
I took out my multi-meter and checked for continuity to try and determine how the pilot wheels were shorting out. Basically, I discovered that if the front right wheel was pushed up and touched the frame of the locomotive a short would happen. In fact, at this spot I saw that the paint was rubbed away. I went back and checked the track and at the trouble spot I saw once I got down at eye level that one rail was indeed higher than the other, barely noticeable. I slipped in a small styrene shim and the problem goes away. That was a fun waste of two days, but I guess I learned!
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Bi Directional LEDs for Signals
by Trevor Gibbs (Melbourne Australia)
I have a number of working colour light signals home made at both ground and upper levels which I have lit by a single Bi Directional LED.
The feed in for this is a small Alternating Current and I have two switches governing each of them. The AC has one line in with two diodes in reverse direction to each other, one which will give a half wave positive feed and give a green light while the other gives a half wave negative and gives a red light. So far so good and maybe that is enough for many of you. There is very little perceptible difference between the half wave in this way and using a reversing switch.
The second switch feeds in straight from the AC to the LED, effectively shorting or bypassing the Diodes. The Feed of Red and Green together at a frequency (in Australia 50 Hz) produces a very plausible Orange-Yellow tone which does as a Caution signal. If you have room on your control panel, a three position rotary switch could also do this.
So those of you who do not want to make oscillator circuits because you feel as if you are electronic klutzes but know a little about electricity now have no excuse… so get out your soldering irons!
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Joining Styrene Sheets for Roadways etc Pt 1
by Rich Alton
I have had good luck using transfer tape, a very thin version of double sided tape, no thicker than ordinary "scotch" tape (and indeed 3M is a manufacturer of it). Since it has no solvent or liquid component distortion and marring of surfaces plays no role. Sometimes I apply it to both surfaces for a really solid bond, but then it tends to be "one chance and you're done."
Scribing the gaps between concrete sections probably results in a more realistic slight gap than using separate sheets anyway. By the way sometimes you can get sheet styrene rather cheaply if not free at a sign shop – their "mistakes" or leftovers.
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Joining Styrene Sheets for Roadways etc Pt 2
by Mark Pruitt
For seams, try using a doubler on the back made of .010 styrene. Then you can fill the visible seam if you want using styrene putty (Squadron and Tamiya are two makes). After filling, sand the putty down and when painted the seam disappears.
I did this on my backdrops (though I used a .080 doubler for the joints between sections for strength - thickness wasn't an issue) and the seams are invisible.
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Using Beaded Styrene Packing on a layout Pt 1
by Richard Bell
I built my last railroad with it and my current one. My layout base is beaded foam too. There is little mess if you use a hot wire cutter. Also for areas that are too far from the edge initial cuts are made with the kind of knife with the break off blades fully extended. I have sawed it also and the mess is not that bad.
You will have to cover the foam though and for that I use plaster cloth which you can get for cheap if you look, one layer is fine in most cases but a lot of people don't know how to use it without a mess. You get a tray and put just enough water in it to do a few strips. Cover your track and stuff but you can just use a cloth for that. Just dip the cloth and apply to the area you want to cover with the most plaster side up (yes most cloth has two sides).
Then you smooth it over with your hands, I keep a towel nearby to wipe my hands..
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Using Beaded Styrene Packing on a layout Pt 2
by Fred Wright
I used it 40 years ago as a base to lay plaster cloth over. Actually held up much better than corrugated cardboard commonly used then. Drawback is the mess it makes cutting or breaking. Extruded foam avoids much of the mess in carving by using a knife without a sawing motion. Packing foam makes a static cling mess regardless of technique. And the packing foam melts/burns worse than the extruded stuff in the presence of heat.
A Note from Trevor - Similarly to Fred, I also made a spur hill, a rocky outcrop and a small hill from beaded foam and it has held up well with a light coat of plaster over it. I have also built or helped build two small club exhibition layouts, both of which are still fine. The biggest surprise came from a fellow exhibitor when it came to pack up time and I picked up both halves of a 9x4 one in each hand, once buildings and trains had been removed. He was quite shocked at what was/is possible!
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Mixing Paint Colours Pt 1
by Wayne Toth
Whenever I mix paint colours, I use what I call "the brushload method": dip into one colour as many times as needed, then clean the same brush, then work in the same manner adding whatever colour(s) I think will result in the colour I'm seeking.
I'm not sure why, but I usually come up with the proper mix fairly quickly…maybe intuition, or just plain luck. I keep records of all the ones that I use regularily, mostly for locomotives or railroad-owned structures.
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Blending Backdrops in a Small Area Pt 1
by Kevin Parsons
I am a big fan of cutting trees into half profile, and gluing them to the backdrop. Most of my back scenes are less than one inch in depth. Any kind of built-up ground cover can work on the surface of the back drop.
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Blending Backdrops in a Small Area Pt 2
by Jeff Hornblower
Assuming you plan to have hills on the backdrop, a very realistic looking transition is to place 3D hills in front of the backdrop with steep drop-offs on the backdrop sides of these hills. The resulting gap between the tops of the 3D hills and taller 2D hills painted on the backdrop give a pretty good illusion of greater depth. Trees and shrubs planted on the steep drop-off side of the 3D hills further enhance this illusion.
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Cutting Trenches in Foam
by Mark Pruitt
I had to cut uniform depth trenches to clear my roundhouse inspection pits. I took a yogurt cup and cut it down to the correct height, then taped it onto my hot wire cutter.The effect was that of a collar around the tool that kept the depth consistent. Worked great!
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