Oct 2010

Here is my work for October on the roundhouse area.

I built a company house for the corner and scratch built the fence out of balsa strips

I started to put down some texture just south of Coleman on the climb to Lachoochee.

Aug - Sep 2010

I have not had a lot of time to spend on my layout with the new baby on the way and all but here are some pics in any case.

Construction of the level crossing in the corner at Wildwood has started. I used extruded foam that I cut into 1mm sheets for the road surface. I gave it a black base coat for starters and landscaped the sides with drywall mud.

The second coat was grey and after it dried i started scribing the lines into the foam. I used curved track sets to scribe the curved lines and to cut the center piece of foam.

July 2010

This month some more work was done on the end of the 1st peninsula between Coleman and La Choochee and i got my wife in on the act to help paint the backdrops



This is just south of Coleman, you can see the fascias have been marked but still need to be cut.

This is the other side of the peninsula where two storm water drains will flow into a body of water. I used cardboard strips with plastic screen and drywall mud to build this area.

Here you can see the area unpainted. The culverts are from Woodland Scenics.

Over the weekend my wife Emma got going on the first part of the Wildwood backdrop. For this to happen I had to remove the turntable, roundhouse and the car shop.

She used pictures taken on our vacation in Florida as reference.

She has never done backdrops before so the learning curve is quite steep :)

Here is the almost finished product. She still wants to work on the right hand side some more.

June 2010

Now that I'm back from vacation I've finally had time to install my ash pit in the Wildwood yard.

Landscape work has also started on the first peninsula between Coleman and La Choochee.

The rocks were carved out of extruded foam and will be completed soon.

This retaining wall is my first attempt at building walls so don't laugh. I cut 3mm sheets of foam and scribed them with a sculpting tool. The pillars and tops were fixed in place with a hot glue gun.

May 2010

I only had two weeks in May to do anything as our annual vacation started mid May. The plus side to this was that we were going to the US for three weeks. One week in Atlanta to get to some hobby shops another week in Florida to take some pictures of my prototype and visit some college friends and finally a week in Hilton Head for some family time on the beach and some golf.

So all i got done was the roundhouse.

The Track Plan

This is the latest version But it's still not complete.

Apr 2010

The woodwork for the first peninsula has been completed and I have started to lay cork and track from Wildwood to Coleman.
Here you can see track and cork laying in progress. The cork used for the mainline is 5 mm and from Midwest. In the yard of Coleman I used 4mm cork flooring tile.

Here you can see the track laid and fixed down ready for testing. After testing all the track was lifted and the cork was laid.

There is a single slip at the south end of the Coleman to allow access to the industries from the outside mainline. The cork floor tile can be seen in the yard now.

After we pass Coleman the main starts climbing 2'' at a grade of 2.5% round the end of the peninsula to Lacoochee.

Here is the start of the Devil's creek branch line that leads to Cummers paper mill and Devil's Creek Sawmill. The brach line climbs to a height of 6" above Coleman at a grade of 2.5%.

1.5" Wide strips of Masonite board are laminated together in the spline construction process. Spline works really well but it is a longer process because of the drying time of the wood glue. The results are stunning and well worth the effort.

Mar 2010

I slapped some paint on the mock up silos and have finalized the final setup of Wildwood mills.
I have been reading quite a bit about flats and forced perspective so using Photo shop and a scanner I did some tests.

Some came out better than others but that was the whole object of the exercise.

It seems that this one's scale is too big and the one to the right is too small.

All the pictures were stuck to 1.5mm extruded foam sheets with spray adhesive and then cut out with a sharp hobby knife.

Feb 2010

I did a dry fit on the roundhouse base and cut some 1mm extruded foam sheets to use for roads as an experiment.

After that I started building cardboard mock ups of the kits i want to put behind the Wildwood yard. Photo copies were made of the walls with the windows in them and then stuck to cardboard with spray adhesive and cut out. I assembled the mock ups with a hot glue gun.

With the mock ups done I could start getting a idea of what Wildwood was going to look like. Silos could be added in the form of cardboard roll or take away quickly. Buildings can be moved around to see what works where.

Here is a pic with the silos removed form the side of the mill.

Here are some of the mock ups I made.

This building was built at a angle to check the clearance issues on the track coming out of the reverse loop.

Jan 2010

I have started spraying the track in the reverse loop and used Taniya dark earth for the job.
I also started landscaping right at the back of the reverse loop because once the turntable goes in it's going to be hard to reach. The decision has been made to use real rock for ballast that is readily available from one of our club members.

Construction of the Cornerstone cinder pit and tower has now been completed and it is now ready for installation.

I started working on the Cornerstone sand house kit too.

Tree experiments have started, the first ballast has been laid and I have tried some more rock carving but used different colours this time. Here is a picture of my testbed placed behind the tracks.

Dec 2009

Work has been slow over the holidays with family stuff, so not much has been done.
The reverse loop units finally arrived and I could finish the loop. I also spent an evening experimenting with carving rocks out of extruded foam and was very pleased with the results.
I have also cut the hole for my 130' Walthers Cornerstone turntable.

The main power bus for the Wildwood yard has now been completed with all feeder wires installed and the turntable has been test fitted. The reverse loop has has been tested and is working great.

The coaling tower is still a work in progress but the double layer of cork for the unloading bay has been put down. This structure will be removed again and completed in due course.