Kurve: Extension Storage case

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Here's a little finger exercise to get my mind off other things going on in this country. A small box connects the rest of the Kurve module to Slim Staging yard. While I built a storage case for Kurve a while ago, today the extension finally got its respective case. I'm using hardboard with glued and stapled strips of wood. I made the case high enough to leave room for some bushes and small trees on the hill as a transition to the trees on Kurve.

The main motivation for building the case is to protect the scenery from damage and dust while the module is stored in the garage. 

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings (5)

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Last week I ballasted track. This weekend I gave the rock face a quick dry-brush for highlights.
For the steep hillside next to the rock I'm planning for low-flung weeds, creepers, ivy, small bushes, and small trees. Today I started with the weeds and ivy. This is mostly Scenery Express Superturf. I love that stuff. It has a nice texture and irregular body.

Kurve: Storage Case

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Now that scenery work has started on Kurve, I need a way to protect my work from dust and accidental damage. It's time to build a storage case.

The first step was to separate the little extension piece from the main module, cut rails and scenery, and put it aside. This makes it much easier to build the box for the rectangular main module. I cut 12" wide strips from the Lauan plywood sheet I used a few weeks ago to make the module sides. I also cut square strips from a 1/2" sheet of plywood to stabilize the edges.

I started with the end sheets, and then fitted the sheets on the long edge of the module. I used wood glue and staples to attach the Lauan sheets to the edge strips.

I'm one 1x2 ft sheet short to close the top, so I left it open for now. It turns out the two sheets already in place make nice handles to put the cover over the module, but I need better support for the edges.

This build took a surprising amount of time, so I didn't get much else done today.

Kurve: No more Pink Foam

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My goal for today: No more pink foam. My Scenic Express order arrived yesterday with a Heki Flokstar XL, which I put through its paces today. I'm quite pleased. The Flokstar is more powerful than my homebuilt Grassinator and easier to handle. The cable to the grass hopper could be a bit longer. I tried grass fibers up to 6mm length, and they land on end, standing nice and straight.

I started with the inside hill.  There will be tress on top, so this area should be thick with undergrowth.

I moved on to the hill on the outside of the curve. There will eventually be trees here as well.

With ground cover the cut looks quite nice already.

Since I was on a roll, I took off the painters tape from the track and painted the rails.

Mission accomplished: No pink foam left.

I primed and painted the module sides earlier in the day. This is Craft Smart Dark Grey.

This module started its life as a temporary filler, but with scenery progressing I'm growing quite fond of it.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings (4)

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Whoops. One of the washes I made last weekend turns into a nasty green when dry and viewed in daylight. It's only paint, so this was fixable, but it was annoying and it took a little while until I was sure I got it right. The solution involved washes with Craft Smart Suede and Ivory, and cleaning up the color around the rocks with Golden Brown.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings (3)

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Completed rock face in the cut

I was on the right track with texture, and continued chiseling both sides of the cut this afternoon.

Texture done

When I was done with chiseling I realized that I had held the chisel at a 90 degree angle to the hill side, so that the rock strata are perpendicular to the hill. On both sides of the cut. It's not quite as noticeable on the right side in the photo above, because that side of the cut is steeper, which implies the layers would make a ~60 degree in the middle of the cut, instead of continuing consistently from one side to the other, and the railroad dug through the hill. I'm going to blissfully ignore that mishap, but now you know. There will be grass and bushes to make this less obvious.

Now that I had rock texture that looked about right, it was time to work on colors. I planned to use the common rock face approach: Paint plaster with a somewhat light rock color, add a black wash to enhance the crevices, highlight the edges. For the light rock color I made a yucky mess from acrylics I had available to arrive at a light mustard color (Anita's Sunshine Yellow, lots of Craft Smart White, a little bit of Black, a few drops of Golden Brown, thinned with water 2-3 parts color to one part water). After the base color was dry, I made a wash from Black with some Golden Brown and stippled it over the base color. For the highlights I lightened the base color with white and more Sunny Yellow, added a bit more water, and lightly (not quite) dry brushed the rock in a top-down, bottom-up motion. At this stage the rocks look like this.

Base color, dark wash, and highlights

This is way better than my first try, but still a bit bland and too homogeneous.  Multiple passes of dropping spots of dark wash in random places lead to a more uneven appearance. I made another wash this time from Craft Smart Terracotta, stippled that on in random places, followed by more dark wash in more random places. And eventually I ended up with the look in the lead photo of this post. That's good enough for tonight.

I also remembered a lesson I had learned years ago when building Steinle: The plaster sucks up all water and the appearance can change dramatically when a wash dries. Be patient. Try something, then wait for the plaster to be thirsty.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings (take 2)

I decided to redo the rock outcroppings in the cut because I was not happy with how the first attempt worked out.  This time I worked horizontal strata into the plaster mix with a small chisel. I pretty much just hold the chisel horizontally, make a shallow cut into the plaster, and chip away a small amount of material, place the next cut parallel to the previous cut, and keep going ...

Within minutes I get a much more satisfying rock texture (left and middle) than what I had before (right). This looks much more like the sedimentary rock I wanted to represent here.

Kurve: Module Sides

The hill on the Kurve module is built up from layers of one inch pinkfoam sheets, which doesn't look very presentable, nor is it sturdy. I dressed up the sides of the module with Lauan plywood, which is thin, hard, and lighter than hardboard. I glued the sides to the module using paintable Silicone caulk, and also filled the gaps along the edges.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings

I'm planning to add grass, creepers, bushes, etc to form a rather overgrown thicket on the slopes of the cut. In a couple locations rock could peek through the bush cover, so I slapped some Mold-a-Scene plaster into the scene a couple weeks ago, and worked on the scene on and off in the evenings after work.

Hmmm, yeah, looks like someone slapped some Mold-a-Scene plaster on the slopes of the cut. Maybe this will look better once fully dried and painted.

I'm not quite convinced yet ...

The paint is too dark, and gets darker when enhancing the crevices. I like the effect, but the color balance is way off from what I have in mind, and the crevice effect disappears when the tint dries. The rocks are also not sharp-edged enough. I'll try to enhance the edges, and start over with a much lighter color. Most of this will be hidden under bushes and other greenery when the scene is complete.

Kurve: Basic Scenery (2)

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Landforms are roughed in and got a thin coat of Scuptamold. I added some brown paint to the Scuptamold to avoid the "there's white in my scenery"-effect later when the scenery gets damaged. As described previously, I used a large artists spatula to spread the Scuptamold mix.

The first batch applied on the module. I will need a few more batches ...

The Scuptamold covers up the pink foam layering and allows a better assessment of the landform. ... Before I started I modified the right hand side of the inside curve hill. It's not a major change, but I like this better now.

Time to let everything dry and tend to other projects while my workbench is occupied.

Kurve: Basic Scenery

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After I fixed a power problem with a track piece on the Kurve module and drilled a set of module connector holes, I should have proceeded to work on preparing for Welztalbahn Ops with the new module group.

However, inspiration took another turn and so I pulled out a sheet of 1" pink foam and cut shapes to build up scenery around the track.

I cut rough shapes and stacked them to form a ridge that the railroad had to dig through a cut to lay their track. Once I had the rough shape, I cut off the rectangular edges with a knife. This module will need to fit multiple purposes for the Welztalbahn, so the shape of the hill on the inside of the curve turned out to be a bit odd. I'm planning to plant bushes along the cut, and trees on the top of the ridge to enhance the module's function as a scene divider.

 With the rough shapes in place, I put a locomotive on the track to visualize the effect.

Not bad, but the hill on the right feels too low and not part of a ridge, so I added another layer to bring it almost even with the top of the edge on the outside curve.

Yep. That's better.  Here's a view from the other side. The pink foam sides will be protected with hard board. Here, next to the tracks, I'm planning to keep the hardboard at full height, and turn it into a painted backdrop to complete the impression of traveling through hills, as well as reduce the risk that rolling stock might fall during derailments.

Finally, I glued the layers in place with silicone caulk. I like to use Dynaflex 230 caulk for this. It dries quickly, doesn't shrink, and remains a bit flexible which helps with the next step. I let the glue set over night.

The next day, I'm taking the module outside for the messiest part of this exercise: Terraforming!

Using a  basket rasp, I'm trying to shape a nicely flowing scenery contour guided by the rough cut pink foam outline. A shop vac is super useful to keep the mess under control.

After 30 minutes with the rasp, the scenery base is shaped. It came out pretty close to what I had in mind. I'm still not entirely convinced by the inside hill. Maybe it should go uphill towards the module edge to stress the need for a cut here?

I'm pleased with the outside curve shape.

Kurve: Connecting Slim Staging and Untergroeningen (4)

This winter break I made major progress towards getting the Welztalbahn Extension operational. Two weeks ago I drew an outline where staging would go into a photo. Tonight I ran the inaugural train from Emsingen to Slim Staging under its own power. It's nice when an idea turns into reality.

At the beginning of the Christmas break I set myself a fairly aggressive list of tasks to get to this stage. I completed more than two-thirds of that list. To make this fully operational, a few tasks remain: One track piece on Kurve doesn't have power, and I need to drill alignment holes on the Untergroeningen side. Slim Staging needs a control panel for the staging yard. Side tracks in Untergroeningen need to be finished. Finally, I need to build a new schedule and adjust paper work.

I'm looking forward to running trains on this enlarged layout.

Kurve: Connecting Slim Staging and Untergroeningen (3)

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I mentioned yesterday that I'm reusing old track for this project. That includes the turnout which was involved in some surgery several years ago. Then I needed the turnout to be shorter. Now I needed it to be longer. The solution was to cut away more of the turnout ties, and modify a piece of flex track to fit. The Dremel got quite a workout here until everything fit together. It's not perfect, but good enough for now. Operations with real trains will show if I need to put more work into this.

All the track planned for this module is spiked down. I do have to find a bumper for the sawmill spur on the right.

All the wiring is done, too. Almost ready for Phase 1 to be operational.