Rocks and rolling waves

Work continues to progress on the beach extension, despite it only being two weeks out from my layout's next public appearance at the Brisbane Model Train Show. Though the layout will be exhibited from the other side with the incomplete extension hidden from view of the public, its nice to know that the hardest part of building the scenery for my beach-side extension is now behind me. Phills Harbour now has rocks and rolling waves.

After adding the harbour walls in my last update, I next shaped the rocky cliffs.

Starting with the rocks that fall down to the shoreline, I followed the same process I did when using polystyrene foam to model the rocks around the mouse-hole exit from the main layout, and finished the rock surface with the same goop recipe I concocted when detailing the highway overpass. After wrestling with the idea of surfers crossing the railway tracks to get to the beach down by the harbour, and realising I didn't have room to include stairs for an overhead walkway, I came up with the solution of adding a pedestrian subway that leads beneath the railway line. In reality, its only about 5 cm deep and leads to a painted black dead-end, but it seems to do the job.

The subway was my solution to provide beach access, while the sand came locally from Caloundra.

I then filled the channel that will eventually hold the perspex panel with paper towel wadding, and completed the beach scene by painting the rocks with a paint mixture of burnt sienna and white acrylics. I added darker shades to the cracks and crevices, before dry brushing lighter shades and highlights on the raised tips. The white rocks at the base of the cliff are tallus rock, and for scenery detail I used Woodlands Scenics clump foliage that I had left over from their TR1113 pine tree pack. Finally, I completed the shoreline using a handful of sand sourced locally from Happy Valley, one of the places I most enjoyed surfing here in Caloundra before my shoulder dictated that I could no longer paddle out on my board. I saturated the beach area in a 50/50 mixture of water and PVA, and waited for it to dry.

I used tea leaves to simulate seaweed and barnacles along the waterline.

A fellow modeller here in Caloundra by the name of Michael Parker, shared a tip with me on how he adds seaweed and barnacles to the side of his water scenes by using tea leaves. While he never specified which variety, I used Twinings Irish Breakfast, painted a strip of PVA glue along the edge of the rocks and harbour walls at water level, and after cutting open the tea bag, gently blew a teaspoon full of dry leaves directly onto the wet glue. It does make a mess, so have a vacuum cleaner close by to clean up once the glue has set. I then glued in the painted concrete spans for the short Port Authority rail bridge. I will come back to that later to add more details.

The water base is a 50/50 mix of blue and black.

After the seaweed and barnacles had dried, I next painted the base of the harbour using a 50/50 mix of black and pthalo blue artists acrylic. I applied 4 coats to ensure that no timber grain would be visible, and took extra time to ensure that the blue worked its way into any gaps at the base of the glued tea-leaves.

Lighter blues and whites were brushed into the darker blue base while still wet.

While the paint was still wet, I added a large blob of white to my artists palette, and worked it into different areas of black/blue paint to get an array of different shades of lighter, foamy blue colours. I used this only along the shoreline, working away from the edge of the sand in strokes that feathered out to nothing. While the end result above looks effective, I would only recommend the next step to those who are either; a/. confident, b/. prepared to risk stuffing up a scene totally or c/.both, as there is no-way you can remove this stuff once you put it down.

The water is actually clear silicone caulk, applied very carefully to the modelled area.

I first got this idea from Model Railroader magazine, in an article on modelling surf and sand by Ken Patterson in the July 1996 issue. Ken used a single thick bead of clear silicone caulk for each wave, and then teased it backwards with his finger creating a thin smear of silicone over the painted water surface. It looked effective and would have proven far more simple than what I did.

For my scene, I used half of a 260 gram tube of Selleys All Clear waterproof silicone to fill my 130 mm x 500 mm area to a depth of 6 mm, and teased the surface using a flat tipped brush dipped in mineral turpentine until it resembled rolling waves. The instructions on the tube mentioned the mineral turpentine idea, and it worked a treat, as at first it looked as though the silicone was going to dry into a series of long, lumpy lines. A no. 12 flat brush dipped in turps however, allows you to work the beads together and simultaneously tease random areas into peaks if you work a small 100 mm x 100 mm (4 inch square) area at a time. I started with the edges first, being careful not to spread the silicone higher than the PVA glued tea leaf line I had already added. I don't know what this silicone would do to polystyrene foam, but the PVA glue worked at providing a protective barrier between the polystyrene rocks and the cardboard harbour walls. Finally, for the shoreline waves, I teased the waves into a breaking crest over the area that I had painted with lighter base colours.

Finally, I painted the crests of each approaching wave in varying shades of white and foaming bluish-white.

The silicone is able to be painted with acrylics once the surface skin has dried. I used the same colour concoction I mixed for the lighter blue base at the shoreline, and singled out the crests of each breaking wave for some foamy-white highlights. Applying it thickly to just the right areas gives the clear silicone water some real body. From my days spent surfing, I know that the waves closer to the shoreline are smaller and messier after they have broken, while further out the back they are thicker, more rolling and less likely to have any whitewater highlights. If I was still riding my surfboard, then I'd be wanting to get to my feet on the fourth wave back from the shoreline right about now. Finally, I highlighted some other random peaks around the harbour for some whitewater highlights of smaller waves lapping against the rocks or concrete harbour walls.

It may just be a small representation of a beach, but you can still imagine the harbour trailing away into the watery deep beyond the edge of the layout. Overall, I'm very pleased with how my beach scene has turned out. If there is one thing I wasn't 100% pleased with, it was the air bubbles that formed after the silicone began drying out, I'm guessing it was from me teasing the silicone too much with the brush. Provided they don't get any bigger, I'm happy just to leave it be as I think they look like a school of jellyfish.

The raised track sits at just about the right height above the rolling waves below.

While I have a lot more shoreline detailing to come back and add-to, at least the hardest part is now out of the way and the trains are once more running from the port area, through the mouse-hole and into Philden. So for now, any further work on the beach extension will have to wait until after the layout returns from the Toowoomba Model Train Show in early June. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also; The Port becomes operational and Detailing a highway overpass

The Port becomes operational

The Easter Weekend gave me a chance to get the track laid on the short extension that has replaced the even shorter 2 track fiddle yard that once stood on my HO scale bookshelf layout. Although I was careful when planning the track angles that centred around the solitary PECO medium radius switch on this scene, the bend on the inside mainline did present clearance issues for my longest piece of rollingstock (the 2 car Xplorer passenger train) as it emerged from the other side of the mouse-hole. Thankfully all issues have been resolved, and the track is now wired up with trains running into my beach-side Port Authority Yard.

While not a problem, the bend in the mainline creates a tight clearance for my longest piece of rollingstock.

And its likewise on the No. 2 track with the angled overhang of the long hood of my largest locomotive.

The solution was to fan the wall abutments on the mouse-hole opening.

Though not completely hidden, my 2 car Xplorer now appears to be stopped just around the bend beyond the overpass.

The aerial view. Try to remember that this was once just a plain 2 track fiddle yard.

Once I was happy with the rail joins and the flow of the 3 tracks emerging from the mouse-hole entrance, I then soldered the feeder wires, checked that everything ran smoothly and spiked down the code 100 flextrack into position. With this layout built for simple analogue DC control, I used 2 on/off micro toggle switches to control the power flow to a), the concrete sleeper mainline, and b), the other 2 Port Authority tracks with the black flextrack. I left them visible because I think I can make them look like track side ground throws when I finish detailing the scene. Plus it keeps them handy when operating. I built the concrete slab loading yard from 3 mm balsa wood and painted it using the same technique I showed in my post Building an Abandoned Siding. The finished balsa strips were then glued to the plywood base with openings for the toggle switches to pop-up from beneath and be screwed down with the washer nuts they are supplied with.

I copied my own Building an Abandoned Siding post to create the concrete for the Port Authority Yard.

The two micro toggle switches remain visible and control the power to the mainline and the 2 Port Authority tracks.

The No. 2 track would make an ideal location for a locomotive provisioning point...

...while there is room for the loco to be shut down and still have 2 wagons occupying each track.

With the toggle switches in place, the track work is effectively finished, save for detailing and hand painting the individual sleepers as I like to do. While I can now resume running some trains for the first time in almost 2 months, I also turned my attention to getting the seawalls of the Pier finished. For this I used Busch HO scale printed card stressed concrete. Glued to 5 mm balsa wood which is then glued to the timber bench work, it was rather simple and gives me a starting point to scratch-build the short bridge section that will span the gap along the edge of the ocean.

I used Busch printed cardboard sheets for the concrete pier walls.

Glued onto 5mm balsa wood, I fitted them hard against the channel for the perspex sheet that will soon follow.

Trains are now operational on the new extension, while the first signs of the Port begin to take shape.

So the trains are running again. I can now rest easy knowing that I will have the layout ready for its third exhibition in a little over a month's time, given that it will be exhibited from the other side and the above scene will merely double as the hidden fiddle yard until it is completed and ready to be debuted to the public.

I suddenly have a 3D view of what constraints I have to work within, unlike the life-sized paper plan I drew up that first convinced me this would work. While the layout isn't grand in terms of size, I have to admit I am thrilled with the bones of what you see above. Just last year you would have been looking at a simple 2 track staging shelf against a painted black background where trains escaped from the visible layout through the mouse-hole opening. Now I have provision for a short bridge and some scenery that will fall away towards the waterline at the front of the layout. From this point on, it isn't going to take me long to finish the scene. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also; When paint doesn't match... and By The Beach Extension

By The Beach Extension

It's March, the Australian summer is now over, and the layout extension that I first talked about building just before Christmas is now in place after a rather inglorious past few months of set-backs and near misses. So much so, that for a bloke who isn't short of words, I don't really want to talk much about it. Believe me when I say there were more than a few times when I just wanted to palm the layout off to someone else, and start over. Or walk away from the hobby altogether.

Thankfully, the rebuild is now behind me. I can get to work laying some new track and having the layout ready to operate in time for Philden's next exhibition. So without going into too much detail, I'll let the following photos show you how I almost butchered a perfectly good layout, and how I somehow managed to bring it back from the brink of disaster to now have a great opportunity to build something that will be better than the original.

Remember the antique signal box plaques from my post Making Awful Look Awesome?

They not only disintegrated when trying to remove them, but gouged out my timber panelling....

....so I cut a new panel using 3 mm fibreboard lined with the same self-adhesive steel checker-plate film I used here.

Remember the exhibitor plaques from my past layouts that once guarded the mouse-hole door?

The panel is 3 mm MDF board with blue sky backdrop on the other side. Removing them almost tore through the backdrop.

It called for another cut-out panel to be glued in place over the top and a strip of film to cover the removed gold trim.

So after months of problems with matching the paint to the original layout's timber stain, almost butchering the sky backdrop at the mouse-hole end of the layout and destroying once valuable railway artefacts that were glued a little-too-well to the layout, I could finally remove the door that once covered the mouse-hole exit, and join the new section to the existing layout.

To do so required a flush-fit between the two sections, so I had to remove the gold timber trim that runs around the bottom perimeter of the fascia from the mouse-hole end of the current layout. This not only destroyed the paintwork, but also gouged holes from the timber fascia, calling for ample amounts of wood putty. Already aware that I was unable to match the timber stain on this original section, I simply cut a strip of self-adhesive checker-plate contact film and hid the mess. The two sections will bolt together flush, and no-one will ever see it anyway.

The former exhibitor's plaques from my past layouts now have a new home on the bottom of each end panel.

The re-painted leg panels bolted back into the same places. There are now only 3 instead of 4.

As for the vintage metal railway poster plaques featuring the retro poster girls I wrote about on my post replacing legs with panels, they bent completely out of shape when I removed them. At around $7 Australian plus postage on eBay, they are cheap enough to replace. I have another 4 on their way from the UK, so there will be another 2 to fit between the Blackpool girl and the gold trim above the exhibitor plaques, and likewise on the other end panel.

Before: the layout with a short 700 mm two track staging shelf and bulky lid that was clumsy to move.

After: the layout with a new 800 mm extension to be filled with scenery, and a new lightweight lid.

Most people might argue that for a small layout, this seems like a whole lotta' work for nothing. And I'd be inclined to agree with you. Once more having to work off a concrete garage floor in the heat of an Australian summer, and having everything go wrong, has resulted in my adding just an extra 100 mm of length to my layout. Hardly worth the effort involved you might say. What it has rid the layout of however, is the bulky and clumsy lid and staging shelf set-up that was an aftermath of my failed attempt to originally build this as a double-layered layout back in late 2016. The old staging shelf was a waste of space. I now have an extra 800 mm long section of 300 mm wide blank layout space to work with to complete a new scene. From "Somewhere in New South Wales, at a railway station far, far, away....." to "By The Beach", my small layout will soon have two very different destinations.

The new beach extension bolts flush to the layout and shares the middle leg panel.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I could have built this layout a whole lot simpler. Even an oversight with my measurements for the mouse-hole exits between the two sections called for some last minute cutting, filing and gnashing of the teeth. But perhaps the biggest disappointment I faced was not being able to match the original timber stain to any of the staging shelves, leg panels and finally this new extension. That in itself almost led me to walk away from this project and start over with a new layout.

While the gloss Indian Red spray paint is by no means a perfect match, with the extension bolted in place to the layout, I'm prepared to call it good enough and get on with working on the layout. The next step is to get the 3 mm clear acrylic perspex panels measured and cut to fit the new extension to the right in the below picture.

Let the IKEA fit-out below begin! Starting with the 700 mm x 800 mm EKET storage display.

Perhaps the greatest benefit from adding the new beach extension is that I built it to accommodate plans to replace my desk and hide the growing corner of model train clutter that just seems to accumulate. I needed the gap between the two above leg panels to be wide enough to accommodate the 700 mm wide x 800 mm high EKET storage display unit I'd had my eyes on at IKEA. Another of these will soon stand at the other end of the layout with a new, narrower desk to stand between the two, while the tall white stool that is visible in one of the above photos is my new operators seat and will accompany me to the next few model train exhibitions.

Not only has the first EKET halved the amount of clutter from the floor, but the few accessories I also picked up from IKEA help keep the area looking neat and tidy. After all, my small layout does occupy prime living room space in our small apartment. And you've gotta' love the sound of all those Swedish names they give their products. My model railway and train magazines are now all safely tucked away in the TJENA magazine holders. My modelling bits and bobs are hidden from view in the grey FJALLA storage box. The photo of my wife Denise and I enjoying the sunset at Margaret River in Western Australia on our recent 25th Wedding Anniversary is mounted in the RIBBA frame, while a scented candle and small artificial plant Denise helped me pick out are resting in white metal VACKERT baskets. And there's even room for my signed Marcos Ambrose model NASCAR (not from IKEA, obviously).

Next up, I'm going to dismantle the desk, sort through even more clutter then head back to IKEA to complete the make-over below the layout. By the time I'm finished, it won't just be a new desk, it will be a new creative work space environment, whatever that is called. But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day.

See also; When paint doesn't match and Almost ready to re-fit