Here is the second half of my village, again I have mounted the buildings onto a balsa deck so it can be worked on as and when is necessary, I have also installed lighting into the pub and fire station, so the village can be in illumination.
I have made my own street lamps from the stem of a cotton wool bud, a screw cap and an LED with a resistor so that I can run the village on 12 volts with the main feed being used to connect the village electrics which is on to a 5mm self adhesive copper tape, which is hidden beneath the village mounted onto balsa boards. The boards are 3″ wide and 1/16″ thick, which provides an excellent kerb depth from the road.
Once installed I will get a few pictures to you if the one half of the village as well. Then it’s onto the other side, so more to follow.
I would value again as I asked the other day when I sent you the first lot of photos your reader opinion please.
Andy”
“Hi Al . just dowloaded a new video showing a few changes again , and adding ballast , then painting the tracks and the ballast , and to finish off adding grass and underbrush ….
Something to watch anyway with this cold snowy weather we are having
I know you only post photos and videos of layouts but I could not resist sending you a photo I recently took at the Clark Art Museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA.
I send it because so many of the modelers I have seen on your web site over the years craft wonderful layouts through mountainous territory. So I though this photograph of an actual railroad cut through the mountains might inspire someone! I can send you a jpg file if you are interested!
This is an antique Albumen print entitled “The Royal Gorge, Grand Canyon of the Arkansas River, Colorado” which was taken around 1880 by William Henry Jackson, an American landscape photographer who lived from 1843 to 1942.
After working for the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories as a landscape photographer, Jackson moves to Colorado where he was commissioned by railroad companies to produce promotional images such as this one for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
Brian’s been in touch with is HO shelf layout construction:
“Hi Al,
Here’s how I started my new layout.
I put this together starting in May, of my “layout” to present time.
Building a double deck U shaped point to point shelf Layout in HO scale – 3 foot narrow gauge – Hon3
This is where it all started in May 2016 in a standard car garage of 20ft x 10ft. I had to put in a drywall 6ft in from the garage door for a storeroom accessed from the front. This left an area of 14ft x 10ft for my layout. Train room is accessed from a door in the right hand side back in the first photo. Curtains were replaced with horizontal blinds. At the window will be my work desk with a view out to the Knysna lagoon. Not sure how much work will get done with a view like that.
First photo is the garage from the entrance.
Second photo shows the drywall. Needs a rhino board covering on this side.
The decision had to be made that there would be no connection between the upper deck and the lower deck with a difference of 15 inches between the two levels. A gradient between the two leves would be too steep and take up a lot of real estate (space) and a helix to connect the two levels is out of the question. (it would take up an area of 16 square feet minium).
Next was to figure out a workable height of the lower level from the floor, now 47 inches. (made my previous layout too low and was not happy with it at 40 inches) The upper level is now at 62 inches which is just below my eye level. My eye level is at 67 inches.
In the photos below of my HO shelf layout construction, I had to make sure that there was enough packing space as well as book shelves under the layout for other “model stuff”. I put the top shelf in before the start. (The highest one)
HO shelf layout construction:
Once the shelves were fixed in place, I drilled holes in the cross braces for the buss wires. At this stage I felt that I had to put the facia boards on to get a feel of how the layout would look. The blue light at the top back is for night time operation when the main lights are switched off.
A panoramic photo of the layout prior to putting strip lights under and behind the facia boards. In the photo below, my Red Hook Warf kits will be placed in the new bigger harbour area on the lower left level.
I put LED strip lights in place right around the layout. The top levels have lights behind the valances attached the top shelves. (Photo below) The clear rubber tubing split lengthwise was put under each valance as a protection against banging my head against the lower edge of the Masonite.
Once all the buss wires were in place and connected to both levels, the plug in points (3 sets of twin express Net) was inserted into the facia in appropriate places. These are for my Lenz DCC system. I have three controllers (throttles) and can be plugged in any of the plug in points around the layout. Although they are all on the front of the lower level facia board, the upper level is operated from all of them. The lower level boards are two foot wide and the upper level boards are 1 foot wide. All have a layer of 3 mm cork over 12mm plywood.
When the decision was made to not connect the two levels as the upper level was going to be a logging operation whereby logs would be cut and loaded on the left side (camp 4) and the taken around to the right hand side of the layout to the yard. There the log train would be sorted and then taken to the sawmill. (This section is still under construction) The photos below show how the track was marked and laid out according to the track plan to ensure clearances were maintained. The Spar tree for loading the logs can be seen in the foreground.
For the HO shelf layout construction, plaster covered polystyrene was used to form a background hill and was painted a tan colour. Woodland scenics ground foam was added and glued down.
Ground cover (sifted builders sand) was added as a test to see if it gave me the right effect that I was wanting to achieve. I was happy with this and carried on doing the rest of the logging area knowing that a lot of it will be covered with all sorts of debris such as grass, bushes, wood shavings and sawdust.
In the photo above left, a tall pine tree was added to partially hide the shelf bracket holding the shelf above. Right picture has more ground cover and trees added. All the smaller trees are from Woodland scenics and the tall pine trees are from Grand Central Gems. Another tall pine tree was used to hide the line of light reflected on the wall at the far end created by the upper light strip.
As a rough ground cover mainly under the trees in the background, I used a chopped up mixture of four different colours of Lichen from Preiser, different shades of glade grass and placed quite a few tree stumps from various suppliers around the area.
Next came the necessary facilities such as water, oil and sand for the locomotives. On this logging level, I run 2 three truck Shays, 2 Heislers and occasionally a 2-6-6-2 logging locomotive. In the photo below right, I like to have trees in the foreground, as in real life you have to look through the trees to see what is behind them. The coach behind the trees belongs to the Cascade Creek Lumber Co and is used to bring the loggers up to the camp for a day’s work.
A few photos taken around the logging area.
This is as far as I have got on the layout as far as scenery is concerned. This leg of the layout is now fully operational and needs the finishing touches such as figures, clouds on the background and tall weeds around the trees. The foreground has a steam donkey for loading and pulling logs in.
A lot of work still to be done before I get to the lower level. 9 months work from start to its current state.
Regards
Brian”
A huge thank you to Brian for sharing his HO shelf layout construction – hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Amazing stuff.
You can see more of Brian’s posts in the Hall of Fame.
Ray’s been in touch with a great way to make HO scale circus tents:
“Hi Al,
I really enjoy getting your emails and I always get some great ideas from the posts.
I am adding a circus/amusement park to my layout and I have not been able to find a circus tent.
So I decided to try to make one from scratch using different size tooth pics, styrofoam, plaster cloth, paint and other scraps I had laying around.
Here are a few pictures of my results.
Best,
Ray”
A big thanks to Ray – an interesting take on HO scale circus tents.
“Greetings Al,
I have been following your blog for some time now and find it very interesting and informative.
About 30 years ago when I had small children, I bought a HO train set for my son who was 5 or so at the time.
It evolved over time to a small flat lay out with 2 main lines and switching. Never got any further because of lack of space and kids grow up.
We moved 1 year ago so the lay out was completely dismantled. I have twin grandsons who are 9 years old and love to watch model trains run. So I got to thinking, why not resurrect the train that I have and expand it. I am 1 year away from retirement and have more time to fool with this kind of stuff.
Anyway, I must quit rattling on about the past and get to present day. I am building a larger table for the new lay out (144 inches longX61 inches wide at one end and 81 inches at the other end.
I have attached some pictures if you are interested.
The first is of the main frame, the second shows the casters on the legs as this lay out must be moved to work on it.
The last three show the frame and girders finished. I call this “The Storage Area Lay out” for lack of a better name.”
Best regards,
Ken”
“This is my first post, I have been interested in architecture and architectural models ever since a bought my first Alan Downes book, so I have attached some photos of my efforts. I use cardboard scrounged/recovered from all sorts of places, for example, proper brand name cereal packets which use good quality card boxes, I also use foam board, which is lightweight but strong.
Peter”
We’ve had quite a flurry of scratch builds recently – it’s wonderful to see the different ways folk make their buildings.
I thought I’d show Ken’s bench because for me that’s the first step in getting started, and often the biggest step too. Over the years I’ve noticed the posts all have a common theme, once you have a space of your own, you are up and running.
A big thanks to Ken and to Ray for showing us his take on HO scale circus tents.
That’s all this time folks.
Please do keep ’em coming. And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you want to get off the starting blocks.
