Photo plank for HO/OO

After reading Paul's post on my Silos build thread, he asked for a pic of the silos in glorious sunshine and blue skies. Now rather than just taking the silos out the back, I thought it would be a great idea to build a 'photography plank'. This just isn't for the silos, but for any rolling stock I wish to photograph outdoors.

So, the plank. I had a piece of ply hanging about measuring 32" x 8" which is ideal, not to big and not too small. I glued down three pieces of 3/8" thick polystyrene foam to form a base for scenery. The foam was then filed away with a small wire brush to get the desire land forms.



The whole lot was then painted with some old acrylic house paint and the track glued down with PVA. This was left overnight to cure.



Some raw umber lightened with white was then applied to the rails, sleepers and scenery areas. Being a warm day, this took about 20 minutes to dry. After this, I mixed up a little acrylic grey paint with water and gave the sleepers a wash.



Plaster was mixed up and poured down to form a railway crossing. This took about an hour to cure.



Whilst it was almost set, I scrapped the surface smooth to form the roadway. After it had dried thoroughly (about an hour), I painted the road grey and started on the fine ballasting of the siding. Wash sand was used here and I also used it to smooth out some of the steeper undulations in the scenery.



The front line (main line) was ballasted with 'real' ballast and the scenery areas were treated with some fine brown soil. The roads were covered with some fine grey gravel.



A profile shot of the plank coming together.



The next stage was the 'greening up'. No secrets here although I got carried away with this and didn't take any process/progress pics... The railway crossing planks is a piece of balsa that was scribed and had a few washes applied. Grease and Oil and a little black done the trick. Majority of the grass is static grass (Woodland Scenics Honey, Burnt Grass & Light green) and the taller tufts are 12mm grass (Heki) just pushed into blobs of PVA. I brushed a wash of the Grease & Oil along the side and centre of the siding track to tone the yellow-ness down somewhat, as well as running a streak down the centre of the mainline.



In this pic, you can see where I will place the silos.



Well, that's about it, apart from Paul's requested photo of a sunny day with blue sky ! So to suffice now, here is a pic of one of the wagons I weathered whilst I waited for the plaster to dry !



Well, there you go, less than 24 hours and a photo plank complete.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Ron. Don't forget this is only 32" x 8" and not 32' x 8' !!

Ian, I have had a bit more time up my sleeve lately, which has been great. Plus, not having to pick the boys up from school, taking them to sport, doing the exhibitions, and all the other things that take over modelling time !
Now I have to get onto the next model for Jay Dubyew Nth Yard...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Subtle indeed, but I can't do anything with the overcast skies... Maybe we say that it was photographed in Aberdeen...

I'll take the plank and silos out today and photograph them with a suitable background.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Photo with silos positioned...





Cheers, Gary.

 

Crikey, PotW again ! I think that is twice in the last 4-5 weeks !! I wish to say thanks for PotW, very unexpected as this is an old thread !

Thanks chaps.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks for the replies.

This plank has been used a few times for photographing stock on, the latest being the wood chip loader I built for the JSRR (https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/index.php?threads/jsrr-juwair-sajour-rail-road.2251/)

Other times just for rolling stock...

These wagons below are in definite need of weathering !

Cheers, Gary.