Cobblestones From Scratch (O Scale)

So I've been trying to come up with a good way to do cobblestones from scratch. Experiments included gluing down lentils to have the 3d cobblestone look (and perhaps I'll continue this line just to see how it goes). Lentils have issues though for modeling sake -- For one, they don't take well to water and tend to shrivel up when they have grout or something with heavy water content brushed over them. They're also a bit bigger than I think I wanted for O scale.

My other line of experiments have been with plaster. Initially I was casting a square piece of plaster, then breaking it up, gluing it back together, then grouting it (a lot of work indeed). After a few tries of these other methods it hit me it would perhaps just be easier to carve the shape directly into the plaster.

Enter attempts #5 and #6:

Attempt #5

Attempt #6

#6 is getting close to what I've been looking for. The painting was done in these steps (all paints acrylic like you'd get at your neighborhood craft store):

• Did a wash of light gray over it
• Did a wash light light green over it
• Did a wash of burnt umber + light green over it
• Dry brushed black
• Dry brushed white

The color shown in this photograph is a bit off from how it looks in real life (less orangy in real life). Washes were created by combining the acrylic paint with water and mixing well (about a 15:1 water-to-paint ratio).

Red Mountain Panorama, CW Cross, 1900

Red Mountain Panorama, CW Cross, 1900
Originally uploaded by Rocky Pix

Found a crazy good resource someone has assembled on Flickr. Very cool that they've gone ahead and labeled all of the places in the photo (click it to see all the labels). Of interest is the bottom left of the photo where the famed Corkscrew Gulch Turntable was barely squeezed into the landscape.

This defiantly fits into the 'there's a prototype for everything' category, and will certainly serve as some inspiration on my own cramped layout.

Durango & Silverton: A Quick History

I finished Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge: A Quick History by Duane A. Smith this evening, leaving a 5-star review on Amazon.com. For being a history book (which I anticipated would be really boring) I actually found it quite a bit interesting. The author tells a lot of the early history of southwestern Colorado (durango and silverton towns) through the eyes of the citizens by using local period newspapers, and of course the ultimate impact the narrow gauge railroad had on the area.

Problem!

So I hit the first roadbump railbump in my railroad. My Bachmann On30 hopper's can't make it around the turn without the wheels dragging against the coupler box. See here how the wheels are up against the coupler:

Another Scenery/Trackplan Mockup

It will be a miracle if I actually decide on a track plan and do it! Here were some more scribblings about what might be possible...

Another Scenery Mockup

Another scenery mockup showing the On18 mining line (upper level) and some of the structures. I decided to move the locale of my railroad a bit north to the more Colorado area (hence the sudden appearance of the pine trees in place of cactus and tumble weed).



And here's a picture of me and my wife...

On30 Hopper

Forgot to mention, I have 2 Bachmann Spectrum On30 ore hoppers on their way. I figured I'd need at least something to have my 0-4-0 diesel pull while testing.

Trackwork & Scenery Concept

I'm still waiting on the DCC system. I have a Digitrax Zephyr on it's way.


Too bad the powersupply is backordered (so when it gets here it won't be any good until the powersupply arrives).

I don't want to get too far into laying track until I have a chance to test (with the DCC) what I've already laid. Here's the progress on track so far:



Nice and straight!


I also began working on a little conceptualization for how the buildings and scenery would look. I found an old photo of a colorado town that I had in my head of doing something like.



I tried sketching out a little scene of what it might look like fit into my railroad.

Benchwork and Roadbed

Wow, got a lot done today. I decided to keep things small, and stick with my original track plan (57x5" x 22"). With that, I finished the benchwork (for the bottom level) and finished laying all the roadbed. Next step: track work!

Layout Draft #2

Some thoughts for a better layout. I really need to improve my understanding of 19th century mining in order to better design and layout the buildings required. This certainly won't be a final.

Britomart in Black

Primered and flat black. Actually, I had done a more fancy paint job, but it turned out to be a really ugly glossy cherry red (like something you'd paint a car) instead of something you'd paint a train. I ended up re-primer'ing it and starting over.

Britomart Update

I finished the construction of my first On18 Britomart scratch build. It's unpainted at the moment, but here we go....

The engine in action:

The completed build:

Time for painting!

On18 Steamer

I decided to take on a little project this evening: an On18 steamer. It's built on top of a Bachmann 2-6-2 Prairie, modified to 0-6-0. Thus far I've only got the basic chassis and cab completed.

Prototype:


Model:


compared here to the bachman 0-4-0 gas mechanical On30:


aaaaaaand here's my work bench which is getting more and more crazy messy:


it might look something like this when it's done:

Styrene Railbus

This morning I began my scratch built railbus in styrene. I had previously made a prototype with paperboard (seen painted in rust). I'm now giving it a shot in styrene, hopefully making it the correct scale this time.

Completed On18 Flatcar

I finished painting and assembling the flatcar this morning.



Being both the first styrene model I've built, and the first one completely from scratch I learned a few things.

1. A truck that "swivels" shouldn't go on a car with a single truck. After studying the design of other cars I have I see this is the norm.
2. Figure out how the couplers are going to fit before building the entire thing. Oops.

Styrene Scratch Building

I finally got around to trying out scratch building with styrene. Ok ok, first attempt it's nothing fabulous (and it's unpainted at the moment). Here's my flatcar in On18: (and these are bad pictures too, but you can still sort of see the wood detail and nail heads)

Track

I also decided on the track for Foggy Bottom: Code 100, Peco ST-240/ST-241 #2 turnouts.