Carving a rock face, first pass

Since my last post (about covering the helix), our Thursday night round robin group - the Gandy Dancers - were here, and when I told them of my plans to cover the exposed pink foam shown below with fascia board, two of them ... Carl Schoeneberg and Rick Pfarr ... encouraged me to carve a rock face. Both said, "Give it try ... just carve away with picks and blades and sharp tools, there's no magic." Carl sealed the deal when he added, "If you don't like it when you're done, you can always cover it with fascia then." Made sense. Friend and great modeler Dave Abeles said in his outstanding blog (https://onondagacutoff.blogspot.com), "There is no way around it - with layout construction, sometimes you just need to make a decision, and move on." Also made sense.

Here is the foam covering the helix as it was when the Gandy Dancers were here. At the far left, one can see where the "front" of the helix was covered over a year ago by John Ellenbracht of St. Louis, and nothing had been done since then. About a month ago, David James of Brecksville, Ohio, stopped by and finished covering the scene as seen here. Finally, I picked up a bread knife, a paint can opener, a screw driver and even a two-pronged tool for digging out dandelions and set about "whacking" and cutting. A good thing to assist the completion is the fact that I have three deadlines to at least show some progress. David is passing through August 7, on his way to the NMRA Convention in Kansas City; the Gandy Dancers return two nights later for a regular meeting; and I committed to doing a "mini clinic" on covering a helix in late September for the Gateway Division (St. Louis) of the NMRA.

This is the first pass at creating the rock face. Admittedly, there is a long way to go. I need to do some serious "gouging" next, and maybe even glue on some rocks that I have on hand. One of the issues will be to not carve too deeply on the foam just left of center in this photo because the railroad helix curves out very close to the outer margin. Following the additional "whacking and gouging", I will paint washes, add ground cover (dirt, bushes, grasses, etc.). I think I am glad that Carl and Rick urged me to try this.

It's a couple of weeks later, and I've done some more carving - note the indentation in the center of the photo. It takes me a while to move forward on tasks with which I have little confidence, and this certainly qualifies. I've also placed several cast rocks in locations to break up ground cover, trees, etc. I've put it off as long as I can so now, ready or not, it's time to bite the bullet and start painting.

Here's the first pass at painting. I mixed two colors - Garden Gate (an olive green) and flat black - roughly 3/1, painted the foam and immediately gave it a coating of sifted real dirt, topped by a light dusting of Woodland Scenics course turf (dark green). Tomorrow, I will give it a light misting of a white glue and water mix (50/50) and work to knock down any shiny spots. Obviously, this is only a first step, to be followed by heavier ground cover, bushes, and trees. I still have to paint the rock face on the vertical side, but that has to wait until the upper regions are complete.

Rock faces, created with Woodland Scenics rock molds and hydrocal are in place. Neighbor Joe Voetter is the molder for these. They're glued with hot glue. Next comes the painting and ground cover to blend them in. That will be followed finally by trees ... lots and lots of trees. It's starting to come together, and every day gets a little closer.

Covering the helix continues

Covering the helix  was partially done a year ago, but a good amount was still exposed, and that exposed area was the first thing visitors saw when entering the room.

Not a pretty site!

This past week, David James -- readers of this blog are well aware of what he means to the P&LE -- stopped by on his way home to Brecksville, Ohio, from a meeting in Kansas City, and completion of the coverup was started. The first phase is the addition of 3/4" plywood on the end, and then the stacking of the pink insulation foam comes next.

David James building up the foam covering. Yes, there is a helix under there.

Basic foam work complete.

Next steps are to cover the pink foam with Sculptamold, paint, ground cover (dirt, various shades of green, course and fine turf), and trees ... lots and lots of trees. The dirt will come from a woods close by, the turf is a Woodland Scenics product, and the trees are Scenic Express SuperTrees. I'm off to a "dollar" store to purchase bowls, sheet trays, spatula, etc., since I've been warned about pirating such items from the kitchen. Check back in a couple of weeks; the goal is to be complete by then.

Let there be light ...

It's been well over a year since I've posted on this site; not much work has been done on the P≤  what has been done did not lend itself to photography ... or even reporting, for that matter. But, I'm getting back to the railroad and expect to report progress here with some regularity. Here's the first in what is planned to be noteworthy advances.

I have long agonized over how to light the lower level of my two deck railroad. In January this year, an American Flyer modeler named Gary Brandenberger of St. Louis presented a clinic to the Gateway Division monthly meeting regarding the use of LED lights for many modeling applications. One was the use of  LED strip lights. SHAZAM! I thought. Further discussions with Gary led to me purchasing three 10-meter long strips of Daylight White lights by ABI through Ebay and we (primarily David James of Brecksville, Ohio) got them installed this weekend. The three strips, about 32 feet long, were sufficient to light the approximately 100 linear feat of the lower deck. I should note the three strips cost a total of about $90, and took less than two hours to install.

This is the staging yard with the room darkened with the exception of the new strip lights.

The lights come with self-adhesive backing, and although some suggest reinforcing that with a glue of some sort, they seem to be holding well without. My railroad is open grid, built with 2 x 8 sections. The strip lights are attached to the bottom of the 1 x 4s.

The strips are the white light seen in the top third on the photo.

The above photos are with the room lights turned off to better show the lighting provided. The following photo is with the room lights turned on, which will be the normal lighting when running the railroad.

We also hung a couple of helicopters "flying" over Howard Mountain to honor a friend and a grandson, but photos will have to wait until more scenery work is done to the mountain later this week. There's a lot of work to be done on the railroad, but the lighting issue is solved.