Weekend Update 1/13/2008

[Greyryder]

By the way, the lead paint comments were a joke, you all let it go right over your head.  You may not be aware, but there have been several stories in the past couple of months about Chinese quality control, at least one of which involved the use of lead paint. Obviously children aren't going to chew on a steam engine.  :

As long as it was made in Hasbro's factories, and not Mattel's it should be fine.

[RockGp40]

I rode behind one of these this summer up in Ames, Iowa - very cool.  I'll post the pics in the Proto Photo folder.

Yup, the owner/parent company of the Iowa Interstate Railroad has had two QJ's for two + years, (#6988 and #7081 are the numbers, I believe) and there were plans for this company to get more of them. I wonder if this was one of them.

[asciibaron]

i decided to rip out my layout.  we are moving stuff around in the family room and i'm relocating my layout to a nook that is currently my wife's computer area.  drop ceiling and recessed lighting will make for a much better layout than the dark corner it's in at the moment.

this is a positive.

-steve

[shark_jj]

Lashedup, I really like the look of that grass on your modules.  How was it achieved?

[Caleb Austin]

Nice stuff guys. Heres an pic of an old photo diorama.


By atsflamy at 2007-12-01

[lashedup]

Lashedup, I really like the look of that grass on your modules.  How was it achieved?

I used Silflor static grass applied with a Gras Master static device. You can find both available at www.scenicexpress.com/

Static grass is available from a variety of different companies including Woodland Scenics, however the Silflor stuff matches their other products and is a bit more vibrant than the Woodland Scenics stuff. I'd stay away from the Noch static grass as it literally has red, yellow and bright green fibers in it that don't look bad from a distance but look nasty up close or in photos.

I usually mix a few colors together. I'm still experimenting with it, but so far I'm happy with the results.

[DKS]

I'd stay away from the Noch static grass as it literally has red, yellow and bright green fibers in it that don't look bad from a distance but look nasty up close or in photos.

Interesting; I actually like the Noch static grass because of the "oddball" colors. When it's used as weeds, as opposed to grass, I think it captures the effect of having different kinds of plants (including dead ones) all mixed together in the brambles. This is a view of my first James River Branch Z scale layout; the man is a Z scale Preiser figure for size reference, so the photo is in pretty tight.

[img width= height=]http://lh6.google.com/dks2855/R2KlwvwJS9I/AAAAAAAABoA/VxbF2BImINU/s800/IMG_4624.JPG[/img]

A slightly longer shot showing the scenery under construction. I would apply very fine ground foam to the surface of the static grass to make "micro-shrubbery."

[img width= height=]http://lh4.google.com/dks2855/R2KlsPwJS7I/AAAAAAAABnw/KDWHVerqRdc/s800/IMG_4622.JPG[/img]

Zooming in on the above for a better view of the "micro-shrubbery":

[up1950s]

Wow David , the rock face looks so good I started to get nervous thinking about it ... I almost fell off a mountain in Hawaii .

[tom mann]

Yeah David, that photo looks great.  One of the very few times that a figure looks real - and in z scale!!

[DKS]

Yeah David, that photo looks great.  One of the very few times that a figure looks real - and in z scale!!

Thanks. At first I was bothered by those grey blobs in the Woodland Scenics vegetation. But after a while I started to realize it looks just  like the ubiquitous and dreaded tent caterpillars we get around here.

[lashedup]

David, that looks great! I hadn't thought of adding fine ground foam to the tops like that.

If you look at the grass in this photo (the strong sunlight washes it out a bit) you can see bright red, bright green and bright yellow fibers:



I'd rather mix my own or layer it up with colors I can control.

[Chris333]

Hey make your own static grass machine:

http://racooke.com/images/HOW%20TO/Static/Making%20a%20Static%20Grass%20Applicator.pdf

from here:
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=95255