10/6/18 Layout Update, Search light signals working and CTC Signal System Complete

I just want to add to the compliments you have received about your layout Mike. There is a lot of thought, creativity and attention to detail that went into this layout. The dam is an example of this.

Seeing the early photos of your benchwork and following the progress through your updates makes me appreciate all the work that has gone into this layout. Thanks for sharing.

Steve Tapper  

Looks great!  Please post more pictures.  The wall and dam are very well done.  Maybe a safety line and buoys behind the dam?  rubber wine corks painted orange? 

Amazing; great craftsmanship. Love the lake & dam.

I love the guy in the inner tube below the bridge.  the dam came out great.  first I have seen anybody do that. a great idea.  The design is great for the room.  you can see all the angles and easy to access parts.  it makes me think on how to design my 2 car garage layout because I have the center post.  Super detail!  thanks for sharing

Chris

The rock and water really came out fantastic Mike. Great Job

I am sure this old hat for many of you, but I was pretty excited on an area my wife and I completed over the last couple of weekends (been a while since any progress on layout).  We picked up one of the tippi foam cutters to build walls with a brick pattern 24' long (3, 8' long sections ) for the back of layout.  I think they came out really nice.

Staring with the pink foam Pattern

Giving them a texture with round handle dents and melting off the shark edges of bricks

Painting them dark grey and then working in rubbed light grey in certain areas for a more weathered look along with some green scenery grass

Area before the walls were placed

After installation

Incredible.  I just saw the whole thread for the first time.  The water, dam, retaining wall - all of it top notch.  I saw the demo on the tippi foam cutter - looks like it works better than advertised. 

Thanks for sharing.

Mike....those walls look fantastic!

Alan

Looks Awesome Mike!

Hi Mike,

That looks fabulous, well done just like all of your work!!!!!!

Thanks,

Alex

Hey Mike,

Well done! The new walls look very real. The layout is surely coming along nicely. Thanks for posting.

Alex

Tippi foam cutter.  going to watch it

Chris

can you show me more on this step?

"Giving them a texture with round handle dents"

Killer work all over!!

You are coming along just fine Mike. A really nice layout with many interesting features - you should be proud!

Thanks for the update Mike. Your walls as well as the layout look outstanding. Great work!

Thanks for nice comments all.

J Daddy

Here is an example before the sharp edges are taken off of the pattern (I just roughed in the pattern for a test piece

With tool there are many tips, I use the bigger loop shown below

I drag the loop centered in the mortar edge shown below.

My first pass shown above, is  a little sloppy.  Once you start doing it, you get feel for how fast to draq the tool across, not long enough, not enough gone, too slow, and you end you end up melting huge holes.  I did a few more passes shown below.  I think the key to this is that there is none of the original plane left of the foam, just texture.

Then I randomly hit the surface with round edge, I used my dry wall saw handle for this.

ONce  a few random dents are placed, the results are shown below

Mike, Thanks for showing me you "secret" I am going to try this one out.

I carved my foam the same way you did, and I needed that stone surface look, I added drywall compound, then painted it. but I am going to try you method.

Thanks!

J daddy i like your wall also, different look.   

i use ross switches and gar graves flex track.

Wow, am I glad I came to this sub-forum, today, for the first time! This whole thread is a gift of information, and the layout is spectacular ! You have created a very happy place which appears exactly suited to your smile. So, I am very happy for your success, Hump Yard Mike. Thanks for sharing the whole experience with us here. It is especially inspiring to see the obviously measured care and careful planning you exercised throughout.

FrankM.

I too just came across this thread. Mike I want to thank you for sharing the step by step process with both excellent prose and photographs.

I have very little experience with detailed scenery and this is exactly what I am looking for to help the STBL (Soon to be layout)

Love the detail and as Joe mentioned the railroadiana looks great.

all the best,

Paul

Fabulous job Mike!  I love the lake and dam and the brick wall too.  Turning into one heck of a layout.

Thanks for sharing.  First time I saw this thread.  I'll make sure to keep checking back.

Just completed my small town on my layout (well almost complete, still missing windows and interior lights).  My layout theme was not really set up to have a down town, so I made it into one of my corners.  Only room for one way streets in this town.  A series of progress shots are shown below.

My wife Leah did both of the three story buildings and the red two story in the front row (Ameritown kits).

Hope to have the rest of the icing area completed soon.

You do not mess around. Every post is a joy to see. Very inspiring. Nice work.

Very nice job Mike! You've done a magnificent job on this project.

Steve Tapper

It's been a while since you posted. Almost forgot how beautiful your layout is.

Mike, 

Just curious, how do you get to these remote areas of the layout to work on them? The layout looks great.

Very great work!  I especially like your "water."  My only suggestion, with the greatest respect, remove the pictures off of the walls or much better put up a back-drop so that the visual integrity of your scene is not disrupted by a life-sized painting.

I have seen so many amazing layouts with absolutely outstanding scenery that was "tarnished" by objects in the background, i.e., destroying the visual integrity of the scenery.

Even a simple back-drop of pale blue if preferable to nothing.

REGARDLESS, your work is fantastic!

I would like to know what you do to the pink foam after you lay it out to make it look so realistic?

That corner looks great Mike.  You and your wife did a fine job on those buildings.

Thanks for the update.

It would be very difficult to build this in the corner, so I actually built the entire module on my work bench and just placed it into the corner.

Regarding the sidewalks and street, I cut the sidewalk out of Masonite and painted them solid white, and then dusted them with brown and then grey paints, so they appear speckled(as described Dennis Brenan's hi rail book).  To finish them up, they were scored to give them sidewalk relief cracks.   These were then glued onto the painted pink foam.

The streets are plumbers putty tinted with black to give the light grey color.

MIKE REALLY NICE WORK HERE. THANKS FOR SHARING THE PHOTO'S

Hi Mike,

You and your wife, are turning out some really beautiful scenes, your entire layout is simply awesome and very well done. !!!

Hope too see you guys at York!!!!

Alex

You and I both are very fortunate to have wives that are into the hobby!  My wife does awesome painting.  I wish that I had the artist touch.  Really great work!

super job on the ameritown buildings one of the best jobs i have seen

Mike.....really exceptional work! Well done.......I look forward to seeing more....

Peter

PS:  That scene in your corner is very well done!  Best of all it "hides" the corner on the wall.  I always try to "round" where and when I can.  Going for easy on the eye!

Mike, 

Your work is first class! What a pleasure to follow along. I look forward to more updates.

Andy