Blending leaves

[Chris333]

lol can I wear this hat:
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/302/667/e28.png

[Spades]

 What happen to Ian? I know he switched to HO and RW has a forum for that. His modelling always looked good.   


(or was given it, thanks again @Ian MacMillan).

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I think he's just busy with work.

He hired onto Pan-Am Southern.

But he's been slowly working on stuff (misguided in HO as he is...lol).
https://www.facebook.com/nscaleconrail/?fref=ts

[wazzou]

I think he's just busy with work.

He hired onto Pan-Am Southern.

But he's been slowly working on stuff (misguided in HO as he is...lol).
https://www.facebook.com/nscaleconrail/?fref=ts

No more Cop?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I think he's doing that too, on occasion.

[Ian MacMillan]

Wooooooooooooo ghost from the past here.

Yes I hired onto PanAm over the spring and it has been taking up a lot of my time lately as I was on the spare board over the summer...6 days a week mostly with a "hidden" 7th day off...they really like to work the federal law and the 24:01hr clock reset so you feel like you work 15-20 days straight. Good money but never had a clue what day it was and I spent most of my 10 hrs off sleeping. Now I hold a regular road job and have a set schedule, so it's much easier and I've been getting some time back for modeling. I work mostly on the old B&M's lines around Boston and the west end to Mechanicville, NY.

I'm still a cop, working my old municipal job a few days a month part time to keep my certification current. I still run the RRPD ay New England Southern as well.  I really am liking the railroad though... it's been a bit of adjustment,  having been on the job for 13yrs and then moving to this...plus at 33, I'm a little late to the joining the RR crowd. I decided to stay a LEO part time because I really do love it, and it still leaves the door open for me in other RR enforcement avenues. I'd actually applied for the PD at PanAm but a hiring freeze ended the process.... I was offered conductor as an alternative for now,  and it's kind of one of those companies that if you reject something, don't bother applying for anything ever again.

Thanks for the comments on my modleing. I try my best to push myself on what I produce....which also lends to some of my false starts as @Ed Kapuscinski will point out.

Leaves.... I just grab a bunch of them this time of year and put them in a black trash bag and use em as needed. I put them in a blender, fill it half with water and blend the hell out of em. I then strain then through a T shirt and set em on a cookie sheet. Set the oven to 400 and put the sheet in, leave the door ajar to let moisture out. Flip the leaves every once and a while to dry evenly.  Once they are dry I put them in a flour sifter and sift into a container. Boom. Done.

Takes a while, but it is worth it.

[Alaska Railroader]

Just curious, why the need to add water. I did fine baking them from nature then grinding them up. Took very little time to a seemingly same end.

[Chris333]

My blender just sat there and laughed at me without water. I couldn't even push the leaves down and force them to blend. Once water was added, instant blend. Might just be my blender?

[Alaska Railroader]

Maybe, I used a coffee grinder and it wasted no time in eating those leaves up 
I bought it new a few years back for around $10 at WalMart.

[peteski]

Except for the fact that both have a motor spinning a blade, coffee grinders are quite different in design than blenders.  The grinder is much smaller and has a different type of a blade. In a blended the dry leaves simply hover over the spinning blade, but the smaller size coffee grinder (with a different blade) can easily grind them into tiny pieces.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Ian, can you spare a cab ride?

[BCR751]

Boiling Super Trees armatures, hanging them to dry, and coating them alone takes time but it beats plastic or metal IMHO.

Karin,

Would you please explain the above process?  I've not heard of boiling the armatures nor coating them.  I have some I will be using to make trees and any help is appreciated.

Doug

[wazzou]

Not Karin, but she isn't as frequent a visitor to TRW.      Boiling the armatures just softens them enough so that when hung to dry with some minimal weight attached, they tend to straighten out some.  This is pretty helpful because as you may have noticed, it's hard to find very many straight ones in the big bag.

[Santa Fe Guy]

Having placed many hundred super trees on my RR I encountered many that were bent and I could not get them straight. Whilst talking with a modeling friend a few months ago he suggested to use a small hot soldering iron. You can imagine the look of surprise on my face. So I tried his method and it works a treat. Hold the hot iron close to the trunk on the side opposite the bend. Then with your hand gently bring the top of the tree towards the iron and take the iron away and voila jobs done. I did an awful lot of tree straightening in a few minutes and they came out looking great. Just don't leave the iron near the tree too long.
Rod.

[martin t]

"Just don't leave the iron near the tree too long."
Rod.

..or you´ll be modelling a perfect forest fire!