Seaboard Central 2.0

[davefoxx]

Heh, trees.  I swear that I'll figure out how to build a Southern Pine someday.

Anyhow, I continued on with some other scenery work today: f***ing ballast.  In the picture below, I ballasted from the other side of the road near the tank car all the way forward to the bottom of this picture.  This required me to ballast in that road, two turnouts, and commit to installing the bridge permanently.  Unlike you guys that enjoy ballasting, this took me several hours today.  But, I'm satisfied with it.  I even spent a little of that time working on the embankment to Crystal Lake.  I have to admit that I do enjoy sitting back and enjoying scenes that are coming together.  Oh, and I did run trains this afternoon, too . . . to test the trackwork, of course. 



But for the lack of a backdrop making lower angled shots a problem, this will, hopefully, become a new hotspot for railfanning the Seaboard Central:



DFF

[timgill]

Your ballasting job looks great. I like that you are taking care to keep the tie tops free of stray ballast; looks clean and realistic. It's definitely worth the effort.

I am one of those weirdos who LOVES to ballast. So, for the mere price of a round trip plane ticket and a six pack of Newcastle...

...nah, make it a case.

[davefoxx]

Tim,

Ha!  You're on.    Actually, I could pay it forward, since I was thinking of offering Dave V. the opportunity to fly me to Colorado to help him with his track installation on his new Colorado Midland Ry. layout.

DFF

[davefoxx]

Well, I tried my damnedest to get enough scenery done to make a submission to the Railwire calendar.  But, the deadline is today, and I have too much to do to get the shot that I want.  If anything, there was enough motivation to make a real attempt at scenery over the last week or two, including roads, ground foam, and ballast.  But, structures, trees, and a backdrop are too much to try to complete by the end of today.  Oh, well.  Thanks to all those who are producing the calendar, because, although I didn't get a picture in, y'all really helped push me to work on the layout.  If anything, here's a reasonably complete shot (admittedly it needs much more detail work and weathering) that was not possible even just a few days ago.

This is Seaboard System's Orange Blossom Special meets Amtrak's Silver Meteor in the mid-1980s:


Hey, you win, you lose, right?.  Anyhow, here's something that I accomplished this morning: I planted the road and set most of the final elevations in Aberdeen.  This is a huge accomplishment for me, because the roads and overall plan for the layout of Aberdeen have long had me stymied.  I used lightweight spackling, which is the white you see in the following picture.  Go back and look in the photos I've posted over the last week or so and you will see how much "fill" I had to do to bring this together.  Once dry, I'll paint it my base color and then can start the base coat of ground foam.  I have to remember to order or fabricate one of those stencils for the RR Xing markings in the street.



DFF

[wazzou]

Excellent!

[Noah Lane]

Dave- the ballast looks excellent, as do the mounted roads.

I recently bought one of those RR XING stencils (maybe BLMA?) from my LHS. I'll tell ha, it's really tricky to get it to not bleed. I have had the most success with masking all edges of it down, and giving it a quick couple shots of white spray paint. The stencil is a rather rigid little piece of metal, so the surface needs to be perfectly flat. So ehh, I don't know if I just suck, or I should switch to decals or something. 

Keep up the great work!

[Mike C]

   This may help with the stenciling to keep them from bleeding . Scroll down to the STENCILING WITH STENCIL BRUSHES section .  http://www.cuttingedgestencils.com/basic-stenciling-instructions.html

[chuck geiger]

Noah it's from S&S and it sucks. I have a better one I found on Pinterest.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/474707616947258681/
http://www.stencilease.com/db/display.asp?input=2425&gclid=CJrvufr2jsACFSbl7Aod7SwAGg&mkwid=svGP8dVlu&pcrid=52102532899&pkw=%2Brailroad%20%2Bstencil&pmt=b&pdv=c&gclid=CjwKEAiAlb6lBRCBw4jC-bb3uykSJAB55Ti9ov9yibC-u5x0N02UUA7fCPy_kUq5fKXAoT2fSbP3xxoCXTnw_wcB

[davefoxx]

When I get around to ordering one of those stencils, I intend to use a white colored pencil to "paint" the markings of the RR Xing in the street.  I won't have to worry about bleeding under the stencil.  It shouldn't be much different than using the colored pencil against a metal straightedge as I have to paint the lines in the road.

DFF

[chuck geiger]

Great idea, I am using watercolor pencils for weathering track ties and spike heads.

[Noah Lane]

The only problem I see with colored pencil is getting the pencil tip into each corner of that tiny stencil. Perhaps it would work well if you kept a really sharp pencil, and maintained a really narrow taper near the pencil tip.  I'll give that a whirl. I've only messed with the stencil on practice road sections -not on the actual layout yet.

Let us know how that works.

[Baronjutter]

Let me know if you want me to laser cut you any stencils, could make them any design or size.

[chuck geiger]

They are watercolor pencils, they are like sharp paint brushes, you keep dipping them in clear water
and it activates the watercolor.

[davefoxx]

Let me know if you want me to laser cut you any stencils, could make them any design or size.

That would be awesome.  We'll have to figure out dimensions, although the link Chuck posted earlier in this thread has some specs: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/474707616947258681/.  I like the specs marked "A" in the link better (I don't recall ever seeing "B" in real life).

Since there has been talk about whether the colored pencil can get into the stencil, the thinner the stencil is (unless it becomes too fragile), probably the better.

As far as the "connectors" in the stencil to keep the center of the "R" in place, I plan to color the markings, remove the stencil, and then free-hand to fill in where the "connectors" were.

Thanks!
DFF

[Chris333]

So what, you cannot visit Pinterest unless you "sign up"?