The Little Rock Line

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

The tanks look good. It is to bad about the railings, although it is right there on the box in Japanese "bigger railings for added safety".   

[mark dance]

I think you'll be very happy with the GMM railings and enclosed ladders (if you got those).  I am!



md

[Bendtracker1]

Damn Jeff, I missed that!  A little rusty on my Japanese these days.

Mark, Yes I got the walkways and safety ladders.  If mine turns out as well as yours did they should make a world of difference and I'll be tickled pink.

[Bendtracker1]

Finally got some GREEN down!!!
Along with some grout for the parking lots.



More on the grout





More on the ground foam

Next comes Static Grass...

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

must be spring i can see grass.

Jeff

[Bendtracker1]

Spring is indeed here Jeff.
I got a chance to play with some scenery again this weekend.

Installed some grade crossings...



And planted some weeds...





Spring has sprung, more on the blog

[Bendtracker1]

Well I've been real busy on the layout since the last post.
This time I decided to work on the lake near Malvern and get it done before I finished the grass, but I can't remember why?

The last thing I did was to get the ground foam base down and get the sidings to look like they were overgrown with weeds. Next I planned to start in with the static grass........Ah that's why I jumped to the lake because I was waiting for the order of static grass to arrive, duh!

So back to the lake.
This wasn't going to be a very big lake, not much more than just a short amount of shoreline really. I had planned to put one here from the beginning but just wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. My thoughts were to cover the shoreline with trees that would hang into the water, but it turned out to not be enough space between the tracks and the shoreline as the bank wound up a little steeper than I had envisioned.

Then as I was reading through some of the posts, I came across one of Dave Foxx's posts and remembered where he used Kudzu! Perfect!
This wouldn't take up much room and I would be left with enough space between the bank and the first set of tracks! Kudzu is something that I've always wanted to do on this layout from back when I first decided to model this portion of The Rock. Besides how can one model the south and NOT have Kudzu somewhere on the layout?

I had made a small diorama several years ago to have a place to shoot photos on and I also made it a test bed for the Kudzu. Just like Dave did, I used stretched out, Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber and glued it in place over a base of green ground foam. But I used several shades of fine ground foam back then. It looked OK and I had planned to run with it but after seeing what Dave had used on his Seaboard Central, I decided to give it a go myself. Not sure who gave Dave the idea or if he came up with it himself, but it was the right choice!

He used a product from Scenic Express called Super Leaves, which from what I can tell is nothing more than finely shredded plastic, but it did the trick. So thank you Dave for the idea (or whoever gave you the idea).

I also had planned to use Gloss Medium to represent the water like I had done on one of my modules years ago, but decided to try something different this time. I thought I would be brave and try to pour the lake.

So I started with this



And wound up with this



Instead of rambling more, I'll give you the link to the four part series I posted on the blog. At the bottom of each post, there is a link to the following post.

Here's the first one:
Evolution of lake, part 1

[Chris333]

Scenery looks great, hope my water turns out that good.

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Chris!
The water was a cake walk, but one piece of advice..... don't use Quick Water.
Next time I'll try the Magic Water.  Never used it but it's gotten good reviews.

[basementcalling]

Time for some fishing and rail fanning I think. Looks ready to wet a line.

[Bendtracker1]

Uhmmm, yeah I hear ya!
Had a hard time getting things done.  My wrist kept twitching like I was pitching a jig into the dead fall. 
Now I just need to find a couple of bass boats to complete the scene! 

[Philip H]

Uhmmm, yeah I hear ya!
Had a hard time getting things done.  My wrist kept twitching like I was pitching a jig into the dead fall. 
Now I just need to find a couple of bass boats to complete the scene! 

Osborne has a couple of lasered wood canoes that you can shape by sanding that are good.  And i hve a couple of double ended pewter lifeboats I may try to bash into old Sears 12 ft semi-v metal boats.  But if you find a true n scale bass boat . . . .

[basementcalling]

Uhmmm, yeah I hear ya!
Had a hard time getting things done.  My wrist kept twitching like I was pitching a jig into the dead fall. 
Now I just need to find a couple of bass boats to complete the scene! 

I fish from a kayak so I wouldn't know a motorboat unless it ran me over. I did find a couple guys making nice N scale pontoon boat and raft models on Shapeways. A Ranger bass boat would make for a unique touch.

I prefer a good tube or spinnerbait or fluke to the jig n pig myself, but I don't like fishing slow.

[Bendtracker1]

  But if you find a true n scale bass boat . . . .

I'm working on one!

[Bendtracker1]

I prefer a good tube or spinnerbait or fluke to the jig n pig myself, but I don't like fishing slow.

I don't care what's tied on, as long as it's in the water with a fish on!