Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[davefoxx]

Get the colors of the trunk and the foliage correct, and it looks like Super Trees would suffice for those trees.

DFF

[nuno81291]

Get the colors of the trunk and the foliage correct, and it looks like Super Trees would suffice for those trees.

DFF

+1, your proto shot there Mike looks exactly like super tree armatures. As beautiful as Grovedens wire armatures are, supertrees are the bees knees for deciduous looking trees at a fair price point and time commitment. Go whole hog on them; straighten them out (either boiling or soldering iron method, hang to dry after boiling with a weight), dip them in diluted matte medium and have at it with your choice of grey/brown rattle cans. Get some foliage material (noch?) stuff they used to include in starter kit is very nice.

[C855B]

Thanks. I'll get some on order and let her loose with 'em. No rush, tho', given the travel plans.

Friendly kicking myself in the butt to not screw-up the grade transitions into that junction discussed earlier:

[Chris333]

Hey. Don't put any glue right there 

[C855B]

Watch for Extended Cure Times with Glidden Gripper

See that blue block lower right in the above picture? After three days the "glue" was not cured in the center. I noticed the edges were coming up slightly, stuck a putty knife underneath, popped it off... and... crap... pocket of wet paint in the middle. Obviously didn't leave the weight on long enough. Scraped off what I could, re-glued, and it's going to live with the weight for a while.

The plan for the benchwork in this area is semi-cookie-cutter with the foam, and lamination to build strength and thickness. This discovery about Gripper is going to slow down the process considerably. So far it's been successful, but I haven't done large-area laminations 'til this point. I may have to retreat to Gorilla Glue.

[soo]

Just had the thought about using lumber...create a sandwich with the foam laminate in the center.
Screw the wood together to act as a clamp. Let it cure..release the screws and wood...bingo..you have a laminate section. You could make multiple sections at a time.
Y-it

[C855B]

Nifty idea, but I don't need hunks of laminate as a raw material. As you might sorta kinda see in the photo, I'm building a two-layer structure using a flat base already on the framework and then laminating a cookie-cutter layer for the sub-roadbed. The paint can is weighing-down the end of a 1.5" cookie-cutter grade on the 3/4" base. You can see the Gripper oozing out below it. The blue piece that lifted is a riser for another cookie-cutter grade. Gaps between risers under the cookie-cutter are then filled with low-expansion polyurethane foam (Great Stuff "windows and doors").

I happened to have another problem today with semi-cured Gripper letting go. It might be something I'm doing wrong applying Gripper (too thick?), but at this juncture the variances in cure time is slowing things down too much. For anything structural I'm going back to Gorilla Glue, which I know will cure overnight. Gripper is much easier to work with, so it will still be my go-to for scenery building.

Somewhat related... there was some nifty paint on the mis-match/bargain shelf at Lowe's today. Picked-up a gallon of a nice desert-ish earth tone for $10. Next to it were spray cans of nearly the same color (pure coincidence) in a sand texture faux finish... COOL! Color and texture! Tried it first thing after getting back... uh oh.    It was bad enough that it stunk-up the place to high heaven, it dissolved the test foam. I mean really cratered it. It was a nice idea.

[C855B]

Not All Spray Urethane Foams Are the Same

Another hard lesson in the same week. Bucking convention as always , I mentioned above the construction strategy was semi-cookie-cutter with the pink XPS foam panels. So far the technique has been to build grades with strategic risers, then filling the spaces between the risers with low-expansion urethane foam. This worked very well before, and the results are solid.

I specifically mentioned "Great Stuff Windows & Doors" last night for a reason. It was becoming apparent yesterday and confirmed this morning that a competing product I picked-up at a local D-I-Y store, "Dap Touch 'n Foam Windows & Doors" is NOT equivalent, warping the grade with too much expansion. The resulting foam is also very rigid, versus the Great Stuff which has a little give to it. Plus, this morning there was evidence that it wasn't done expanding. It's bad enough already that I am contemplating ripping everything out to the framework in this section and starting over. Maybe a belt sander will even the grade, so I'll try that first.

[Lemosteam]

Why not use your handy dandy sculpting machine?

[C855B]

Great for mountain carving and other organic shapes, too hard to control for precision with the soft material.

Belt sander actually didn't do too badly with one of the warped sections, although once the belt heated up it started taking chunks out. Once that section was flat-ish, after taking a look at everything else distorted by the runaway foam it was evident I'd be time ahead if I could carefully peel off the grade piece. Right decision. It peeled off with a little help from a putty knife. The extra curing time for both the foam and Gripper turned out to be to my advantage in deconstruction. Here's where we stand at the moment:



Once the residue dries I can scrape or sand, make a new slope and risers, and we're back in business.

[C855B]

Compound curve recovery program is about done:



Went together largely per plan, with a few stops along the way. I'm slightly disappointed that two 3/4" sheets laminated do not equal a single 1-1/2" sheet in rigidity. I may have to add joists under this location. Also, while 1-1/2" pink foam is easier to work with than 2", it, too, doesn't have the rigidity of 2", so I will work that knowledge into future engineering.

Notice the yellow dots on the grade in back - that is how spray foam was injected into the void underneath. Sort of like a pink foam Twinkie with spray foam cream filling. Yummy.   There was relief for foam expansion in the gap at the right, you see some of it oozing out.

Last squirts of reinforcing foam:



Not as bad as it looks. The steel and weight will keep the foam from pushing the grade out of shape, and the excess squeezed out the front trims easily with a disposable utility knife. Lightweight spackle to smooth the panel joints and it will be ready for cork roadbed.

EDIT: A useful tip about Great Stuff foam. In the past I've had to adopt the attitude it is a single-use product. Once you start spraying, you'd better do the whole job in one shot, or at least enough to empty the can because once you stop the nozzle will clog. This is why so many cans at the D-I-Y store are missing the nozzle - somebody else wanting to get multiple small uses out of the can. I have discovered it is possible to clean the nozzle while it is still wet. First, use a piece of wire to push the foam residue down the tube, and then do the same to the other end. Then rinse with acetone. If you have a dropper or other small liquid dispenser (I use cheap pipettes), push acetone through the tubing. Soaking may work, too, as the acetone dissolves the foam residue very easily. A 1/8" drill bit can be used to clear the black nozzle on the can if the foam has dried too densely for the aerosol to push out.

Granted, a partially-used can may last two or three days at most, but at least by recovering the tube nozzle you might not feel so frantic about trying to figure out what to do with a partially-used can.

[C855B]

Plugging away at roadbed into the curve in the previous posts. Slow but steady progress:



Received supplies and tools from Fast Tracks a few days ago. I'm pretty happy with the modified Atlas turnouts:



Thanks again to @Mark W for the technique. Much, much smoother in operation than stock. I suppose experience will speed up the points filing. I like how the servo points motor can be fine-tuned to almost no pressure, but still maintain full closure. Easier on the solder joint. Another change was using phosphor bronze instead of music wire for the points link. Easy to solder the PB to the PC board throwbar - I was using CA - so another weak point of the design has been solved.

[Scottl]

Looks good.  Strangely, I was doing the same thing this weekend, trying to fix a few Atlas turnouts with bad points.  I added a few extra PC ties, but in the end, I was also very happy with the outcome and it took very little time.

2018-03-30 14.47.17 by Scott L, on Flickr

[C855B]

Great minds, and all that. I tried a trick to seriously speed-up the points forming - using a Dremel fine sanding drum with the points jig instead of filing. Considering it was sandpaper and not the usual abrasives associated with a Dremel, it had more effect on the points tool than I envisioned. The points looked great, taking less than a minute each, but it was pretty clear I would wear the tool out quickly. Cost:benefit calculations shall ensue.

[Scottl]

I did the points by hand with a file but anything to speed that up would be good.  I assume the Dremel sanding drum would foul up quickly, but I expect that they are inexpensive enough to make it worth using for this application.

After seeing the results, this might become my SOP.  I have a lot of Atlas turnouts and had almost given up on them due to the points, but this improves the function and the looks in one simple operation.  I would say they look better than hand laid as you end up with spike detail and fewer soldered ties.

Having done this bit of minor surgery on the turnout also gives me some appreciation for how well designed and crafted the Atlas product is.  For a mass produced item, there are a lot of parts to bring together in the molds and get right.