Actually had one hour to work on the trains today. The printer crapped out again. I'm going to have to talk to the manufacturer to find out what's going on. This time the print stopped at 12%. When that happens, whatever's done is ruined.
I got the sewer inlets made. Just scratch-built some out of thin styrene. Much easier than drawing and printing, especially when the printer keeps screwing up. And I wasn't sure how to cut the notch into the finished Heritage Park base without breaking off the delicate stuff. It didn't take long and is convincing.
I cut the pieces out of 0.015" styrene sheet. Before cutting anything, I made pencil marks to locate the street line and the width of the street inlet grate. I cut face and top pieces. The face pieces needed an opening, while the top pieces needs some cross-hatching to simulate the non-slip surface on the cast iron inlets in our 1:1 world. I taped the piece down to the work surface with some double-sided Scotch tape so it would stay put while I scribed it.
I glued the pieces onto the base with gel CA (of which I'm now out of and have to buy more).
I painted the pseudo opening with flat black and the iron with Tamiya Dark Iron. I then dry brushed some A-K Interactive Real Metal cream.
I then added some foliage to simulate various bushes. I used W-S Clump Foliage and some lichen that I had laying around all held with the W-S Scenic Cement.
I put the vignette back on the RR and re-attached the wiring. And then I took more images.
Here are the two inlets as viewed from their respective streets (Front and Bridge Streets).
And here are some overhead shots of the completed foliage.
I left spaces for the eventual park benches… whenever I can get them successfully printed.
And lastly, I took an overhead shot of the whole town showing how it's filled in. I will do the terrain work starting Monday to clean up all the track-to-base transitions. This includes the base edges next to the appliance store and fire house in addition to the Idaho and Heritage bases. I will then take one of my status shots with the Canon on top of a ladder in the same spot as many other shots. I have a photo diary of the entire layout build from the same vantage point… could me a stop action video. Remember, the bare green foam spot to the firehouse left is going to be the Rick House so that site's been accounted for. There are no open lots in town anymore. Too many of my structures were corner properties which forces them to CORNERS. I've run out of corners and had to resort to parking lots to fill in the gaps. Of course without streets wide enough for street parking, having lots of parking lots is sensible city planning.
