This is the start of Laural Mountain. I'm back to the cardboard strip basket weaving technique that I excelled at in college. lol There will be a plaster hard shell over this framework and my "oatmeal" over that. I'll be putting some rock faces on it and there will be PLENTY of vegetation and maybe even a snow cap. Time will tell!
The ladies at Micheal's want to know what I'm doing with all the glue sticks I'm buying. I tell them I've kidnapped a spy and am torturing him for his sekrits for Wikileaks. lololololololololololol
01/04/2011: To the untrained eye (lol) it might appear that I have been slacking. Well, I have! lol But what I did get done today was to establish the basic shape of the mountain. It is stable, so I took out the tent pole in the middle. I also have all the fascia board installed. There is a lot more work to do on the webbing.
I am done lugging plywood up and down the stairs to measure, cut and then measure & cut again! There is a little carpentry work to be done yet on the two tunnels. I like them totally enclosed, even though they are inside the stand-up mountain. I have the tunnel portals roughed in, but they will need defined.
01/05/2011: I have the one side pretty well woven in now. The other side needs finished off. Then I'll need to enclose the insides of the tunnels and I can start covering it with hard shell. I'll do the mountain, then the next level down and so on until it's all done.
I know it's a little tough to imagine how this is going to work out, but it will.
01/06/2011: I have all the basic construction completed and all the areas filled in. Next up will be to do the plaster hard shell.
The newspaper is the same newspaper I've used as bulk filler in other sections. When the plaster is dry, I just pull it out from underneath, leaving a hollow hard-shell. I'll do the same on this section, then discard the newspaper wads. I'll leave the cardboard backing, however. It will bond somewhat to the plaster, so trying to pull that down would be disastrous and not necessary at all.
There will be some clouds to paint out when all is done and there will be sky touchups to do as well. Routine.
01/07/2011: I got plastered this morning! The section is now covered over, with the usual amount of slop from slinging plaster. I'll let it dry a while and start in with my "oatmeal" covering. I don't know how much I'll get done this week-end, due to all the televised sporting events.
In the process of getting at the top of this mountain, I had a slight mishap. For the first time, I used a stepladder. It slipped on the newspapers I had on the floor to catch drippings. I crashed down on an small adjacent "finished" section. It got bunged and splashed with wet plaster. No big deal. I'll fix it when I paint and cover the present section. If that is the worse that happens to me building this layout, I'm good.
01/08/2011: Thanks for all the well-wishes. The crash reminded me of when I sometimes took a foul tip under my chest protector. No harm, just a nice mouse. Even at close to 300 pounds, I still have cat-like reflexes! So it's back up on the horse. That was my mantra in my youth as a wanna-be rodeo star. Anyway, I got a little "oatmeal" applied this morning. I had to stop and go out to a big-box store for more material. Bowl and playoff games this afternoon, so this is where I stop for today!
I'm a little concerned that the top ridge looks a little too straight, so I'll "correct" it with some gobs of "oatmeal".
01/10/2011: Happy Monday, Flyers! It's back to the grind! I finished up with the basic shape of this mountain by covering it with my "oatmeal". Overall, I am satisfied with it's shape. However, there is one view of it that I need to enhance. I'll point it out to you in the upcoming pics.
I'm okay with this side, although some rock faces will help.
Starting to have a problem with accepting the shape on this right-hand side.
I'm also good with this side. Texture will augment it.
My "problem" side on the left.
Here we go. This side is way too symmetrical. It looks like an igloo or egg. I gotta do something about it.
If anyone has any productive suggestions, I would be glad to entertain them. My current plan it to give that side a new face with a lot of rock outcroppings. Keep in mind that this mountain will have a very thick cover of vegetation over it. I can also use those vegetation mats to add thickness in some places so that the symmetry is not so pronounced. I'm not opposed to building this side out and creating a tunnel for the trains on both levels. But that tunnel will have to allow me access to the track. So if I go that route, then I have to put a large fascia on this side with an access flap. Not exactly the look I want. So, let's see what happens tomorrow when I add rock ledges!
01/10/2011: I think I have made a step in the right direction. I broke up the surface smoothness and some of the symmetry with a very rough coat of "oatmeal" and debris for rocks. I'm out of scraps to use, so I'll make up some plaster rock faces this evening for tomorrow's session. When I'm reasonably satisfied that is has a chance, I'll go ahead and paint it all and cover it with ground foams. That will be a little bit of overkill, since I'll be going back over it to weave in massive amounts of vegetation mats. But I think the underpainting will help to give it depth.
I need to texture the area between the upper and lower track. A small hill where the track goes through might be in order here.
01/10/2011: There was a special request for me to back up and show how this mountain interacts with the other sections and the RR on a whole. A little impossible to do, really - but here is my effort. Please excuse the construction clutter 'n@.
01/11/2011: I may not be finished for today, but I thought this was a good place to stop and take a couple pics because my next effort should change the look of this mountain a lot. I added a bunch of texture and rock faces. I built out the middle tier as much as I could so that the mountain has a little more natural shape and look less like a wedding cake (not that there is anything wrong with cake!). I also re-established the graded right-of-way for clearance and cleaned up the fascia board. I spackled it as well.
I'm still not completely satisfied with this view, so hopefully the paint & such will improve it.
I'm pretty happy with this view now.
With all the added rough texture, I'm afraid I won't get a good paint job by using even my largest wall brush. I hate to break out the Hudson sprayer to paint it, but I think I'll have to. Using the Hudson sprayer is tricky. First off, the paint has to be diluted, then strained through a stocking. Care must be taken to only give the sprayer a couple of pumps of compressed air. Too much and the paint can get propelled with too much force and splatter all over everything. I'll have to cover what I don't want splashed and use a lot of caution. But it is a way to paint a large area quickly and get good penetration into all the cracks and crevices that I have created. All this said, I'll still be covering a lot of it with vegetation matting. But I think by making as good an underpainting as I can, will allow the veg mats to blend into the terrain more convincingly. Let's see...
01/11/2011: I may have to stop here for a couple days. I ran out of ground foams. They are on order for delivery ASAP, so I should be back in business in a couple days. While I am far from finished, there is an improvement in the right direction. I can't apply the vegetation mats until I get the ground foams because that is what I top them with.
01/11/2011: Lionroar88 suggested that I add a rock slide with a tunnel bored through it to the side of this mountain and I thought that was a great idea. So I tried my hand at it. It's not exactly like the pic he sent me, but I think it fits in with my style the way I did it. Of course, I'm not done painting and decorating and I'll want to add vegetation, so I'm not done yet. But here is where it rests for tonight.
I think it brings relief to an otherwise roundish mountain. It isn't too long, so I should be able to service track in it from both ends. Maybe I'll do another one in a different place.
01/15/2011: I completed the painting and sprinkling phase. Next up will be to glue down some vegetation mats. I added another tunnel.
I could use another light on this side.
Funny thing about the technique I use; as the "oatmeal" dries, I find I need to touch up areas that have opened up. That's okay, though. I use a grayed-down orange paint for that and it adds more color.
This time after I was done painting and sprinkling ground foams all over, I hit it with some spray paint; black and primer. I like the added effect. Maybe tomorrow, I'll get the fascia sanded and painted while I'm waiting for the mountain to dry a little more before I start putting vegetation mats on it. Interestingly, experience has shown me that simply painting the fascia makes a world of difference as well.
01/16/2011: I think today's effort frames it in quite nicely and makes it pop. I still have plenty of touch-ups to do and I still want to glue down some vegetation mats; although perhaps not as many as I originally intended! I'm also glad I added that last tunnel. I think it helps to make this mountain look less like an inverted coffee cup! lol It was a tough mountain to build. I had to make it big and tall enough to stand up inside of, yet attempt to texture it so that it didn't look like an igloo. I'm all-in-all pleased with the result. OBTW, the benchwork is level. The camera angle makes it look a little slanted.
I have cleaned up the train room quite a bit in the past week. If felt good to put the gallons of paint away and to use up the last bit of plaster. Truthfully, I'm a little tired of doing scenery work and laying track. I want to run some trains!
01/18/2011: Uh-oh! There's trouble on the RR!!!!!!!! It looks like the RR crew built a tunnel portal out of spec. The conductor is out looking and is that someone from ABC news taking a picture? Or is that an insurance adjuster? Uh-oh!!!!!!
01/19/2011: There's a party going on right here; a celebration to last through-out the year! The fun folks in Timboy Town don't need any excuse for a party. Timboy Town is actually a drinking town with a railroading problem!
There is plenty of lateral clearance now! Richard was the winner of the raffle and he got to ride the cowcatcher as the K5 made a clean trip through Laural Mountain Tunnel #1!!!!!!!!!!!!
01/21/2011: ALL THE TRACK IS LAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I now have to wire up the remaining blocks and de-bug. Hopefully, the trains will be running again within 2 weeks.
Next up will be to build the third and final control panel. After the trains are running well, I'll want to come back to this section for more building. I have two deck bridges to build and some vegetation to install on this mountain. But those items are purely cosmetic.