Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

Finally got around to adding the canopy supports to the dock roof of Miami Produce...

∆ Evergreen styrene rod #219, 0.64mm was used as the supports. These were cut to scale 12'9", or 45.5mm in the real world and glued into place.

∆ Now painted and weathered. Paint is the same cheap artist acrylic I used on the building and weathering is a little thinned out brown paint followed by the use of weathering powders.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Got to love these Modelu figures !

These figures are great for creating cameos anywhere on the layout.
Previously I have been using the Bachmann figures, but these from Modelu are 200% better.

Cheers, Gary.

 

No chance. The original plastic palm trees are too toy like.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Another cameo scene with these awesome Modelu figures... This time, I have weathered the loco.

"If they aren't ready for the switch in 15 minutes, we won't make the cut..."

Cheers, Gary.

 

I need a back scene for my layout and I had played around with PosteRazor and produced myself a nice sky backscene.
I put the images onto a flash drive and took it up to the printers (Officeworks) only to be told they can't do prints 3.4m long....
I had three options, sit at the computer for another couple of hours and produce 4 X individual backscenes, purchase a couple of the ID backscenes from the UK, or produce a sky scene using rattle cans....
Since I had the MDF already cut to four individual sheets (two 350 x 1650mm & two 350 x 1680mm), I decided to have a crack at the rattle can option.

The paints are from the cheap $2 store up the road from home. Total cost : $15.00 !

I measured 80mm up from the bottom edge of the four boards and drew a line to mark the top of the baseboard height.
I took the first two boards and spray painted a black band.

Following this I sprayed white, over lapping the black band. From the top, I used Sky blue and came down to meet the white band.

Taking the white again, I misted over the Blue from the white up, creating the fade you see in the sky closer to the horizon.

A few light streaks of black were applied, which creates the shadows under the clouds. White was used in varying pressure to crest the clouds.
A touch up of blue here and there and the job on these two boards was completed.

I then paired the second board up with the next clean board so I could continue the sky scene. Once I had matched the edge of the new board, I followed the same technique to complete boards 3 and four.

Now I just need to disassemble the layout and fix these in place....

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Gormo.

So I pulled the layout apart this afternoon and added two of the painted backscenes to see how they look..

Overall, not too bad... I know it ain't a photograph backscene, but for what it's worth, it's okay....
Personally I think the clouds are too low, but then again...

I'll still play around with PosteRazor and see if I can produce the four individual backscenes.

Cheers, Gary.

 

The photos above were taken in the lounge room, hence why they are not as clear as many of my previous photos and the ground seems very 'orange' in colour...
I didn't have the additional LED light strip above the layout when I took these photos.

Cheers, Gary.

 

I have been quite quiet if late as I'm getting my layout and presentation ready for the upcoming NMRA Convention 'Rails@Rosehill'.

As you can see in the following photographs, the layout has been dismantled so I can repair wiring, add details and fix any imperfections in the scenery.
I have three more weekends to get it bang on for the convention, so I'm pressed for time. Nothing like a deadline to get me motivated ...

Cheers, Gary.

 

To make installation of the backscenes easier, I purchased a couple of lengths of 25 x 50mm aluminium angle and cut them into 95-100mm lengths.
These were then drilled and countersunk to allow screws to mount them to the bottom of the baseboard frame.

I placed a spacer of 3mm MDF and some card between the frame and the angle and screwed these to the baseboard.

As my light rig at home is suspended from the ceiling. I needed a way to suspend the 3m LED strip.
Using the 25 x 50mm angle, I added 500mm uprights cut from 12mm aluminium angle. Horizontals at the top were cut to 160mm and these were all riveted together. Additional 45 degree braces were added to keep the top section square. These are 10 x 3mm aluminium flat bar.

^ the top where the LED strip will be supported

^ the bottom section riveted together.

This is what the four light rig supports look like...

I'm glad this job has been completed as I have to move onto the backscenes next. I did order a couple of ID Backscenes sky backscenes from AJM. Amanda got them to me in about 6 working days, all the way from the UK.

Now I need to get back into layout preparation.... Nothing like a dead line to keep me going...

Cheers, Gary.

 

This weekend has been about backscenes and fixing the ID Backscenes I purchased from AJM in the UK.
Amanda got the backscenes to me quick smart, considering I had to have one pair printed in reverse so that I would have enough printed sky to complete the whole layout.

So some of you may recall I made a sky scene with rattle cans. Unfortunately this had a glossy finish and it bounced light off the shiney surface. This is the reason for purchasing new backscenes

The previously painted boards were given a quite wipe over with some sand paper to give the new backscenes and glue some tooth.
The backscenes only being 5' long meant that I had to trim a section off the corresponding backscene to suit the boards.
Glue was applied to both surfaces (board and paper scene) and both sections married together. All four backscenes were complete bar trimming them down to height.

I allowed time for the backscenes to adhere properly and in the mean time, I set about cutting the grey sky from an N gauge city skyline scene I purchased.

Once cut out I cut this into quarters to make fixing easier. Having all the various height edges makes it harder to line up square.
These four sections were glued onto the sky scene using a glue stick. This was easier than the aerosol glue I used initially on the sky scenes to backscene boards.

The end result doesn't look too bad at all

I have a mirror image of the same city skyline and I will use that on the other side of the layout between the Salco building and Ferrous processing.

More to come.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Gormo.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Phil. The N scale city skyline gives the scene some depth and perspective of the city being further away from the down town spur.

Cheers, Gary.