That's some nice looking trackwork. Whose truss bridge is that? It looks like the Plastruct bridges that I bought which I'm going to turn upside down. I chose not to use solvent based paint since the basement is not well-ventilated and the smell gets into the house and is not appreciated by my supportive spouse.
Allan, I'd love to publish in the magazine. I've written enough text in this blog alone to produce several articles. I do feel that most of what I'm doing are well-known techniques. Once in a while I do something out of the ordinary, but often I'm implementing things of which I've read or have been told by folks who are reading the build thread. A perfect example is the swing gate which was inspired by Clem K. While I chose to incorporate L-girder construction using lighter members, it closely follows his gate in that it is hinged on one side with a piano hinge and supported by two, in-line, fixed casters set on the radius of the hinge line. The interlocking switch is my own design, but the timing circuit it controls was offered by another reader. And so it goes.
Perhaps you can give me some guidelines about what I should be watching out for.
I was hoping to write an article about scratch-building the Victorian NYO&W station, but I won't get back to that project until some of the landscaping is done.
Meanwhile, the grandkids and I did some more serious ballasting today. The older one tried his hand at using some weathering powders to add some character to the ballast. At first he was a little heavy-handed, but got the hang of it and produced some interesting results. Meanwhile, the 8 year-old did some serious production. He fully understands what we're trying to do here and was able to be on the platform working on the track obscured by the control panel. I spent time ballasting two switches. 2 down and 24 to go. I was very careful to get no ballast in the area of the moving points. I'd rather have no ballast there then to have a stone foul the mechanism and cause a problem. I think the switches look terrific with ballast. It takes a good day for the Matte Medium to set up. We ran out of it and will be making a run tomorrow to replenish my supply. The paint should arrive early next week and we'll be back in the painting business.
Here are images of today's progress. The right-hand track is the weathering experiment.
Any suggestions on what type of landscaping should go in the between-track areas?
Both boys commented that the ballasting makes it no longer look like a toy train setup, rather it looks like you took real railroad track and hit it with a 1:48 shrink ray. That's just the reaction I'm looking for. Both these kids "Get it".
