1/80th scale photo plank

Ages ago, a mate of mine gave me a small diorama base he'd made, in the hope that I'd get motivated to do some scenic modelling. Inspired by a photo, I finally stopped procrastinating. I've got some photos in a gallery, I just need to work out how to post them.

Cheers,

Mark.

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The starting point for my plank was this simple base, made of 12mm ply framed with pine. I wanted the track to be elevated above ground level, and also include a bridge. So I used some Woodland Scenics foam roadbed risers to raise the track. This view shows the start of the project.

The track is Tillig code 83 on Trackrite underlay. The plate girder bridge and bridge track is by MicroEngineering. The overhead uses Kato masts with Viessmann registers and catenary wire. The little farm warehouse is a laser cut kit from Japanese manufacturer Sankei. The loco is an ED75 by Tomix, and the Mazda T2000 3-wheeler is by Time. So the whole thing is very multicultural.

Cheers,

Mark.

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For some reason I can't get the photos in my gallery to post in my messages, so bear with me while I attach a photo to each post.

Once I'd roughly shaped the landforms on the plank using white expanded foam, I then gave everything a coat of WS flex paste. I used this instead of plaster as I wanted to try it out, and I wanted to keep the weight of the plank to a minimum.

I used expanded foam mainly because I had heaps of it from our family's Christmas hampers, so it didn't cost me anything extra. My darling wife gave me a hot wire cutting tool for my birthday, so I used that, along with some knives and a surform, to shape the foam. When shaping the foam I put some undulations and irregularities in the sloping sides of the embankment and the land next to them. The reason for that will become obvious...

Cheers,

Mark.

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Another view of the raw plank. The bridge abutments are balsa, while the wing walls are 60thou sheet styrene.

Cheers,

Mark.

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Thanks for the comments, folks.

Pete, don't feel bad about how long your plank is taking. I started this in February of last year, but it's only been in the last couple of months that I've made any real progress on it. But if I can inspire anyone else to have a go at trying new methods and techniques, that great.

The next stage of the build was adding some basic ground cover over the blinding white landscape. I wanted something that would have texture to give the impression of soil, so rather than just simply painting the scenery I covered it in a layer of finely ground tea leaves. I've also been told that static grass seems to adhere better to a textured substrate.

My son always has a cuppa before we leave for school in the morning, and I've been saving the teabags. After I dry the tea leaves I grind them up using a mortar and pestle, then apply a couple of thin layers using a tea strainer as an applicator.

At the same time I ballasted the track with real stone from Chuck's Ballast. This is a locally made product that uses real ballast material from various locations. The ballast I used was intended for N scale, as a lot of the track I've seen in Japan has surprisingly fine ballast. I used a reddish-brown colour to match the typical colour of ballast on secondary lines in western Japan.

Rather than muck around with all that tedious business of gluing the ballast down in "the time-honoured way", I simply painted a thick layer of latex carpet cement onto the Trackrite underlay, stuck the track into the cement then covered it all in ballast.

When the glue was dry I turned the plank upside down and collected the excess ballast on a big sheet of paper to use again. I reckon it's a much quicker and easier method, and I think it looks better too.

The Tillig track is pre-weathered, so there's a nice contrast between the track colour and the ballast, as you see in reality. A bit of light weathering blends it all together without getting that blurred and muddy look that you often see with track ballasted in the conventional manner.

All the best,

Mark.

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Thanks again for the comments and replies!

I should point out though that the build has progressed more quickly than writing it up. I've taken photos along the way, but I haven't properly written it up until now. The photo below shows where I'm up to now.

Paul and Toto, I'm the browser I'm using is Safari, running on an iPad. Not the ideal combination, but it's all I have at the moment. I find that I can't double click on the photos in the gallery, for whatever reason. Not worries though, I'll persevere until I get my desktop machine fixed. Which may be a while yet...

Cheers,

Mark.

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Thanks again for the compliments, folks. It's always good to get an objective opinion on your work.

I've jumped ahead somewhat with the photos, so bear with me while I backtrack a bit. I wanted one side of the creek to have a typical Japanese-style stone wall, and the other side an earth bank. The earth side was easily made by sanding the foam to a feathered edge, but the stone wall had me scratching my head at first. None of the ready-made plastic sheet or card material was suitable, but then I remembered an article I'd read in an issue of "Model Railway Journal".

The article described using expanded polystyrene food packaging to build stonework, simply by scribing the pattern into the sheet with a compass point or other sharp tool. The sheet material I had on hand was from a packet of sausages from Coles, which was a nice dark grey colour just like the real stonework seen all over Japan. So I gave that a go, and was very pleased with the result.

I used a compass point held in a pin vice to scribe the outlines of the stones. Because the material is very soft I only needed to make one pass with the tool, so making a long wall is a very quick process. The sheet has a slight texture, which I enhanced by distressing the surface with the bristles of a stiff hairbrush.

To finish the wall I then painted it with a coat of thick acrylic paint, and then wiped the paint off the face of the stones with a damp cloth. This leaves the paint in the gaps between the stones to represent the mortar courses, or in this case the mud that accumulates in the gaps after high water in the creek. A coat of matt acrylic varnish then kills any residual shine on the face of the stones.

As a method of reproducing stonework I think this has a lot going for it. It's quick, easy and inexpensive.

Cheers,

Mark.

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The creek is simply the surface of the plywood, sanded smooth and then painted with two shades of acrylic artists paint straight of the tube. I used olive green and sap green, blended together as I painted using two brushes.

Of course, that leaves brush marks, so the next thing I have to do is lightly sand the painted surface before I put on a couple of coats of gloss varnish. I might also try using Mod Podge, which my wife uses for her craft projects. It seems to be self-levelling, or you can brush a pattern into it as it cures. That way I could make some subtle ripples. I'll try it on a scrap piece of ply and see how it looks.

Cheers,

Mark.

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