Thanks for the great thoughts folks! Speed Queen is still a viable brand. My sister recently bought a set. They cater to the laundromat trade. Not flashy, but rugged.
Today, bullets have been bitten! After having my wellness check up with the internist, and doing some errands, I got enough shop time to clean up another couple of machine shop fixtures and then did the ground cover around the engine house. The materials rack worked out okay. The saw is good except it has no blade. But I finally got the chip pan and the upper hand wheels printed. I don't care about the blade for this application. If someone wanted to buy one, then I'd have to get that done right. Perhaps some E-Z Line would work? I'm going to put some real metal on the rack after I paint it. Right now I'm reprinting a drill press to get the chuck and spindle to print. It's still a very frail 3D printed part and I may try one more time if this one doesn't work to add some bulk to the vertical column. The rack was a SketchUp download, but I had to thicken all of the parts including framing lumber and shelves so it would hang together.
Onto the engine house. This is a standard Woodland Scenics type ground cover activity save for the use of tile grout tinted to dark gray with acrylic Mars Black tube colors. First step was to liberally paint the area with a dark brown acrylic wall paint and then while still wet start sprinkling on the various coverings. On the grassy areas the first coat was W-S fine brown ballast (n-gauge stuff I suppose), followed up with a green turf and a mixed turf. The gravel areas is a fine gray ballast that has some tonal variations. After all this was even, I sprayed it with "wet water" (99% isopropyl alcohol and water) and then sprayed it with W-S liquid adhesive. In both cases I use old Windex spray bottles. My iPhone lens wasn't sparkly clean so forgive the soft focus.
My recently minted way to do road surfaces is using tile grout darken with acrylic paint. It dries really hard and has a good texture. Any irregularities are going to become road patches with a different shade and texture of black. The ragged edges will be trimmed when it's fully cured next session. This view will be parking spaces and drive to get around to the storage area.
I did the same treatment for the little areas that were connected directly to the yard using that mixed ballast I was using for my yard. The pavements leading to the entry doors are going to receive a separate coat of concrete color after all the rest is dried and vacuumed. That exposed layout edge is going to be the last area to receive fascia boards. It's the reward facing edge of the inside of the layout. At first I didn't think it needed covering, but it's all visible from the left end of the layout. I also have a source for fabric and velcro to make skirting to hide all the underneath stuff. My grandson likes seeing all the legs since it explains how the whole deal works.
I'm going to adde weeds and other vegetation next to the building walls after I removed the Stretch-n-Seal which BTW, has done a good job of protecting the building. I highly recommend it. I use some clumps and tall grasses to put some variety into the scene. The parking area will receive white lines and wheel stops as I did for the refinery ops building. The nice thing about the grout is it's impervious to moisture and won't delaminate like the artist's board did. I used a wide paint edger's tool to screed the grout in one pull. I have all the materials for the chain link fencing except I'm going to have to buy some more bridal tulle at JoAnne's Fabrics to finish the job. I have a little bit, but not enough. I'm going to weather this fencing a little more than I have been adding an overall rusty appearance. I'll finally have a place to put all those 3D printed engines, wheels, traction motors, etc. On Thursday, my MicroLux precision sanding tool is arriving from MicroMark. I bought it specifically streamline the process of cleaning up printed parts. Rotary bits in the Dremel are too hard to control and tend to take too much of the good surface when removing the support remains.
So we're a day or so away from unveiling the engine house and removing all the masking.
