by Kumar Desai
The diorama is the first part of my weathering project. I want to improve my weathering skills but have decided that weathered models are best seen and photographed within a railroad setting. As such I decided to build a diorama photobox where I could have better control of the lighting. This ‘photobox’ also continues the story of the branchline and the trestle is set within some hills close to the end-of-the-line.
The Town module is the second layout dedicated to telling the story of this quiet little branch line. It is set halfway along the 100 mile route and is the branch line’s largest settlement.
I decided to take a couple of weeks off from The Town wiring project to focus on some experiments and learn new skills. In particular I wanted to try out Iain Rice’s tracklaying methods for finescale OO track (called P4 in the UK) and apply them to USA track.
In his 1991 book Finescale Track in 4mm he runs through his tracklaying method process in a step-by step-manner and I had the book in front of me while I conducted my tests and practiced his methods.
Continue reading “The Brook Smith tracklaying method for USA track”
This is a product test. I’m testing Vallejo Crackle Medium. I have a couple of uses for it and I want to figure out if the medium will do the job. Continue reading “Vallejo Crackle Medium”
The goal of this test is to see how well I can model a cracked and worn asphalt road. There are an infinite variety of asphalt road effects that one can model from newly-laid shiny and dark roads to old and worn, cracked and faded, patched and re-patched roads. The process I wanted to use involved using a mix of natural materials along with familiar modeling materials while replicating the building process of the prototype. My theory behind this test was that if you use materials or substances that replicate as much as possible the original you should be able to replicate much of the look of the prototype as well as much of the weathering.
The first decision I had to make was what kind of road do I want to model.