Cisco Bridges: a new layout concept

[James Costello]

Quite the set James.  Does the Mountaineer stop there, or were you just going all out? 

...every vestibule is full of photographers.   

No stops Gary, but the train does reduce to a crawl through the tunnel and across the bridge, so there was quite a lot of time to go "all out" in. Probably took a couple of hundred photos in that area Scott, so let me know if there is something in particular you need.

The vestibules themselves weren't always busy either, so I was able to spend quite a lot of time down there. The attendants do give running commentary of the scenic hotspots and plenty of notice, so you have to pick your moment amongst the other passengers. I was one of the few within my car that knew that I would see at Cisco though and that certainly helped.

More uploading now too guys

[Scottl]

Now that I am doing scenery, I need some trees.  In the past, I have used Mike Dannemann's bumpy chenille trees, which look OK and are easy to mass produce, but some  's have correctly pointed out that they are rather short.  Also, the Ponderosa pines and Douglas fir in the area I am working are less conical and more open than their colder climate cousins, so I felt that I needed to step up my game.

I have been playing around with wire form trees, inspired by work I saw at shows in Europe, and these are some early tests of the method.  I have placed a bumpy chenille tree in the foreground of this picture for comparison.



The method is simple and everything was already in my supplies:

1.  Make a wire form and twist the branches into shape
1a. I use latex caulking to smooth out the trunk and hide the wire.  You can be sloppy at first, and then when the caulk gels, use your fingers to smooth and shape it cleanly. 
2.  Spray with adhesive and then sprinkle with ground up moss (Michael's sells this in the floral section, you need to grind it).  You could probably use ground foam here, but I hate the stuff and am trying to avoid it.
3.  Repeat 2 until you have enough built up
4.  Spray paint with a brown or gray-brown colour
5.  While wet, lightly sprinkle on long (6 mm) static grass, colour does not matter
6.  Repeat 4-5 until you are happy, usually once or twice works
7.  Coat with paint again
8.  Fluff on fine static grass.  I used 1 mm flock for this, and I just puffed it on lightly by repeatedly squeezing the ziploc bag it came in.  Coat until you are happy with the final look
9.  Let dry.  The mix of adhesive, caulk and oil-paint that I used took a full night to cure.  Next time I could avoid this with better choices.

I'm open to comments and feedback.  I like the height of these trees and the irregularity that is possible with this method.  I also like how they have actual trunks, and they have a much more open and distinct branching structure.  While it takes longer to do these, I find the larger size compensates and you need fewer for a given space.  The materials are all inexpensive and easily found.  The short flock is from a craft supply house, not normal hobby sources. 

On the other hand, I'm not happy with the number of branches with these tests, so my new armatures have more than double the number of the trees pictured.  I also doubled up the wire for making the loops for branches, which gives even more branches.

I'm also pretty unhappy with the long static grass fibres for this application.   It probably is not an issue with larger scales, but I think the grass makes the branches to spiney.  I may skip that step altogether.

So, a work in progress, but one of the last key steps in this project.  After that, all there is to do is to tear down the old layout to make room for the new one 

[Scottl]

My newest armatures prior to cutting and bending the branches.  I have doubled up the wire in the loops in the lower half of these to effectively double the branch density.  These are easy to make while watching TV, about 4-5 minutes each.

[rsn48]

James if you took lots of pics of the Thompson valley and river area I'd love to see those, this area is something I hope to reproduce on my layout.

[Scottl]

Next batch of tree tests basking outside to dry.  This time I started with an armature with the doubled wire loops and about twice as many loops and then a dose of adhesive and the dusting with the ground up moss.  Looks pretty good, but the trunk needs attention with paint.  I think I will skip the static grass, it was the wrong visual texture.



I think I am ready to start demolishing the old part of the layout.  My trains move from Ontario to BC this weekend, virtually that is. 

[PGE_Modeller]

Scott,

I love the look of the tree in that last photo.  Very typical of what we see here in BC.

Cheers,

[Scottl]

I really like that look too and almost prefer to leave it like that and not add fine flock to it.  Maybe a dusting of green spray paint on the moss as it is really too light of a green.  The lower part of the tree needs more branches for fill too, especially for the foreground trees.    I did a few trials with triple and quadruple wire loops tonight and will finish them tomorrow.   Wire is inexpensive and making the armatures is a good time filler watching TV or enjoying a drink on the deck.

The nice thing is all my trial trees are good enough to be background trees, I think.  By the time I work this out, I should be ready for the foreground specimens.

[Scottl]

A few more tests and refinement of the method.  These have more lower branches courtesy of wire loops with triple wire.  The branches are covered with ground up floral moss using adhesive, and then finished with a light dusting of camo olive for deeper green.  It does not show in the photos, but the different greens in the foliage are very subtle and look great, along with the occasional random woody bit that look like pine cones or a bit of bare branch.

The sample on the far left has fine flocking (1mm static fibre) added at the end.  It makes quite a substantial difference to the visual texture, something I don't care for.




These trees are a bit on the tall side, about 60-70', so I need to work on more that are moderate in height (30-50').

[mark dance]

Those trees look fantastic Scott! How long is each taking to build?
Md

[Scottl]

Thanks Mark.  It is a spare time kind of project that gets done in phases, but I would say about 10-15 minutes total per tree.  They cover the area of about 9 of the chenille trees, so on balance, it is probably no more time intensive by comparison.

[Scottl]

Some better shots in the sun to show the colouring.  I did four more trees while taking a coffee break this morning and they are now drying for a few hours.



Here is a close up of the tree, as best my phone can do.  While some of the wire is still evident, the textured brown paint and other colours work well to give a nice irregular and muted wood color.  Similarly, the needles are darker green, but you can see some of the lighter green of the moss showing through. 



Below is the set of finishing materials I have settled on.  The paints are available at Canadian Tire (obviously, in Canada, but they are major brands and should be easily sourced in the US).  Home Depot and Lowes sold other brands of paint and I found them unsuitable for this work.  The Krylon camo paints are all excellent for general scenery work and are dead flat.  I've used them for field instruments for years and they are very durable  Any spray adhesive will work and what I am showing is just what I had in my kit. 

The ground up moss is sourced from Michael's in the flower section.    I grind it up in a blender with lots of water, and then spread the mess on a rag spread out on a cookie sheet in the sun (the oven would work too).  I try to break up any clumps and when it is dry I sieve it through a coarse screen to catch the larger pieces.  It makes great ground cover and comes in a wide variety of muted colours including browns.  It stores well dry (mine was prepared in 2011) in bags or other container.



My daughter made up some armatures watching TV last night and what is nice about it (aside than her interest  ) is that her versions are very different from mine, which gives the final trees some nice variation that is quite natural.

OK, the tree situation seems to be under control.  This weekend is a requiem and demolition of a major part of the old layout.  Anyone want 500 chenille trees?

[Scottl]

Well, it's time to actually build this layout.  Now that the bridge is mostly done, I turned my attention to the space it goes in.  This is my long-ignored northern Ontario layout that has not run a train for at least two years.  Ironically, the part that needs to go is the only sceniced section, but why let that stop me.

So a labor of love, built over many evenings and weekends four years ago, down in 45 minutes.  Not even enough time to finish a beer. 





The rebuild begins tomorrow!

[nuno81291]

from the ashes of the old scenery will arise the phoenix that is your bridge scene....  but really the scene is looking sharp! really flexing the scenery muscle N scale offers us.. 

[davefoxx]

So a labor of love . . . down in 45 minutes.  Not even enough time to finish a beer. 

You're clearly not trying hard enough.    Seriously, looking forward to reconstruction and seeing your incredible bridge scene installed.

DFF

[Scottl]

   After seeing you running trains on your Seaboard Central, I've had a bug to get track laid.

A few hours this afternoon and I'm much closer to being back in business.  I had to rebuild the area where Cisco will go because the canyon is 11.5" deep and the layout is meant to not have any grades.  I will be able to reuse the backdrop material as well, so there is no patching work, just some minor repainting.  I tacked up some fascia board to try out the clearances and I think it will all work.  I was even able to use the same holes in the wall to secure the benchwork- nice!

 

The stage is almost set, the bridge gets to move into position very soon.