The Shelf Layouts Company, Custom Layout Builders and Designers
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2010
July 18, 2010: I often get the question on how to best handle the vertical transition from high roadbed (such as on a main line) down to lower roadbed such as a siding or branch. I don't like to rely on forming the perfect ramp by hand. Instead, I loosely drape the track over the gap and let it slope naturally over an 18 inch or so span. Don't force the track down into the slope or ramp, let it sag naturally. When the glue holding the track on both ends dries, backfill the air gap under the ramp with ballast.
July 18, 2010: Work continues on the junction. The fascia (1/4" MDF) was mounted and cut to match the scenery profile. Next, I smeared a layer of joint compound over everything with my hand to tie everything together. I used a wet 2" brush to smooth out the joint compound. Without bothering to let everything dry I painted on some earth tone acrylic paints and then let everything dry over night. (left photo). The previously painted track and turnout for the CSX main was laid in place with a thin layer of white glue as an adhesive. The push pins not only hold the track down but keep the track aligned. I had some wiggles set into the flex track so really needed the pins to hold it until the glue could set and hold everything perfectly straight. (right photo)
July 11, 2010: Here's the prep for the CSX/Tri-Rail main and where the junction turnout will be located. Even Miami isn't totally flat. I laid the cork first, with DAP adhesive caulk as the adhesive. I used three strips of cork, filling in the gaps with wood filler. For the contours I worked in subtle undulations with a belt sander and rasp. The vertical relief is no more than an 1/8".
July 10, 2010: This weekend I'm working on the switch where the spur diverges from the main. The mainline in this area has heavy duty concrete ties to handle the high density of Tri-Rail traffic. Once the spur splits off, the ties return to the wood variety. I started with a Walthers code 83 #8 turnout. Since this is a dummy switch on the layout I soldered the points in the diverging position. This is one case where the oversize spike heads work to my advantage as they represent the prototype retainers very well. My goals was more to capture the flavor of what is there rather than be accurate right down to each bolt head. The ties were sanded smooth to represent concrete. I added a variety of cast on rail braces and fabricated throw bars from filed down pc ties and material in the scrap box. The prototype guard rails are fairly long so I made new ones to replace those that came with turnout. I painted the ties with beige Rustoleum textured paint. After that I masked off the ties and sprayed the metal parts roof brown followed by grimy black. Once painted I gave the turnout a brush wash of India Ink/alcohol.
July 3, 2010: Here we have the finished FP&T structure. After going back and forth as to what to use for the steel roof, I ultimately decided on using photos. Because of the large surface area, using styrene sheet metal would have gotten very pricey in a hurry and probably wouldn't have looked as good. My long term concern is how well these photo surfaces will hold up over time. Traditional Dullcote reacts with the ink on my printer turning it a purple hue. To get around this problem I used Krylon acrylic flat spray (flat, not matte) to seal the roof. The flat version of this product can be hard to find in stores but is readily available online. At the risk of sounding like a total miser, it is interesting to note that this rather large structure was built entirely out of stock and spare parts on hand with no out of pocket expenditures.
June 23, 2010: Installed X bracing between trusses. The main decision here was what material to use. Over time I've started paying more attention to not only the appearance of the material but how damage proof it is. I considered styrene strip and brass but was concerned that those materials would be easily damaged and hard to repair if they were. Ultimately I settled on .039" spring wire.
June 21, 2010: The trusses started out as flat, cookie cutter, shapes. Over the weekend I added the truss flanges and stiffeners. The spacing of the trusses looks to be a little bit too much. I probably should have built one more and put them closer together. It doesn't bother me enough to tear the thing apart and start over though. Tom Klimoski was nice enough to send me a recent photo of the structure showing the construction of a new entrance apron they are currently building. Tom makes a good point. The reason my model seems a little large and overpowering is because the prototype is massive and overpowering!
June 18, 2010: I now have the roof on FP&T and the trusses mounted beneath. With large structures such as this it can be tricky to selectively compress them and keep the proportions looking halfway correct. Now that I have it on the layout, the overall size strikes me as a little overpowering but this is about as small as I can make it. It's also a little wobbly and I'm hoping when I put the X braces in it stiffens up.
June 14, 2010: For a change of pace I'm going to move to the river side and do some work on that end of the layout. The first customer on the line is a scrap metal processor called Ferrous Processing and Technology aka FP&T. Since I needed to greatly compress the structure I started with a cardboard template and experimented with a few shapes and proportions until I found one that looked about right. I then used the cardboard template to cut the trusses out of styrene.
May 31, 2010. I took advantage of the long Memorial Day holiday to finally finish up the plat between 10th and 11th Avenue.
May 26, 2010. I've finally turned the corner so to speak and moved on to the block between 10th and 11th Avenues. I continue to be reminded that finishing a six square foot area like this takes much, much longer than a comparably sized area of rolling pasture! Looking at the pavement in the photos I've come to the conclusion that using scale lane, sidewalk and shoulder widths helps a lot as far as making the scene look more plausible.
May 21, 2010. I've been slowly replacing about 20 feet of temporary Atlas c83 track at the 12th Avenue siding with more detailed Micro Engineering c70. If you look at the prototype photo you can see that the main is slightly elevated above the siding and a little better maintained. On the layout I elevated the main .040" above the siding by slipping styrene shims beneath it. To contrast the difference between siding and main I removed some ties from the siding rail and also ran some static grass over it. I ballasted the main with HO ballast and the siding with a mix of HO and N ballast followed by a final sprinkling of more N scale ballast.
May 19th, 2010: The Chavez Used Auto complex is mostly done. I think I need to add a bit more 'junk' but by and large it's getting there. Note that the vehicles are mostly clean. Auto salvage yards are in the business of selling used auto parts, not accumulating piles of rust. The vehicles will be in various stages of being stripped but the paint is typically still in decent shape and devoid of rust. In the top photo notice the semi-organized piles of bumpers, wheels, and other trim next to the main shop building. If anybody has some vehicles in their scrap box they'd like to sell, drop me a line as I'm in the market. I wanted a stiff base for the compound so used 1/16" Plexiglas. The masonry wall on the left of the compound was made of photo's laminated to .060 styrene. The plywood wall was made of photos of the actual plywood wall laminated to .020" styrene. The gates and K barriers are from BLMA.
March 20, 2010: Here's the completed main shop building. There's still a lot more to do though as far as finishing the entire complex.
March 13, 2010: Next on the agenda is Chavez Used Auto Parts at 22nd Street and 11th Avenue. I'm looking forward to this project as it's a little different from what I've built lately. I'm guessing it will take a few weekends. This weekend I finished most of the main shop building.
March 6, 2010: Sanchelima Dairy Products.
I built the Sanchelima Dairy Products structure (not rail served) on 10th Avenue using the same basic techniques as before, photos glued to a styrene core. The difference this time is that the photos used were not my own but rather came directly from Google Maps Streetview feature. Looking at the model in the top view you can see I compressed the structure by only featuring three windows instead of five. Since this structure is not rail served and not in a very conspicuous location on the layout I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. I devoted about ninety minutes to the photos on Friday and about half a day on Saturday. Many of the structures in this part of Miami are rather basic cubes without a lot of bristling detail which also makes for quicker model building. At this point in time the structure is just plopped down loosely until I can get around to doing the streets and sidewalks.
February 27, 2010: I haven't published that many overall shots of the layout so felt I was overdue. Here the local carries out the dreaded task of crossing 12th Avenue to get to the Miami Produce Center. Fusees and the watchful eye of the conductor provide protection.
February 21, 2010: Rex Grocery. For 2010 I've decided to work on the bench work section that features Trujillo and Sons Food. See below.
Working this stretch means I'll be dealing with backdrop issues and the best way to handle the skyline. First up is Rex Grocery, an interesting (non-rail) structure just across 11th Avenue and to the east of Trujillo. I considered several options from doing a full size structure to just gluing a photo of Rex to the backdrop. Ultimately I decided on a compromise. I built a thin, 1 inch thick, backdrop model of the structure but decided to force perspective and construct it about two thirds of HO scale as opposed to full size. I laminated photos onto this core. At this point it looked too flat so I added a few stand off details such as the awnings and vents. Once the scenery is done the bottom half of the structure will be screened off by a fairly thick row of brush so the lack of details shouldn't be that noticeable.
February 14, 2010: A Few Details. I decided to add some small details this weekend. Over the past year CSX has been planting a lot of "Stop, Dismount, Close Clearance Signs" so I whipped up a few of these. I've also noticed a lot of utility markers which I believe mark the location of fiber optics cables. A simple piece of styrene rod with the tip painted orange or black did the trick for those.
Here is the artwork for the stop signs. Feel free to download these and use for them personal/non-commercial use. Print the stop signs out .35" tall (30 scale inches) on matte photo paper. Paint the back of the paper silver, cut the signs out, mount them on spring wire and you are all set. Print the 'close clearance' stanchions out at .7" tall. For the post I used .020" spring/music wire.
February 6, 2010: Pallet Trucks
There are a number of pallet businesses serving the produce industry where the branch ends at 7th Avenue. These pallet companies have a fleet of unique trucks with extra high bulkheads to allow them to be loaded to the max. with pallets. I started with a standard Boley flatbed truck and then added details as shown below. The longest part of the project was just assembling the 200 plus Tichy pallets needed for the load. I scratch built the bulkhead out of styrene and added Plano etched mirrors. The 'Florida Used Pallets' logo on the bulkhead is a custom decal made from a photo of the prototype downloaded from Google Streetview.
February 5, 2010: Photo backdrop looking west from 10th Avenue
One of the signature 'vistas' on the east end of the spur is the view west from 10th Avenue. In the distance you can see the Rex Foods container stacks, auto junkyard, Trujillo Foods, the metro passing over 12th Avenue, and the new high rise apartments on 13th Avenue. In most of the photographs I take of the layout I simply crop in a skyline using a photo editor. In this location I wanted to experiment with gluing an actual photo to the backdrop. I knew going in that such an approach is fraught with problems and, if not handled carefully, would look awful. Gluing a photo to the backdrop introduces perspective problems as the viewer moves right or left but the perspective of the photo stays the same. The way around this is to keep the skyline very low and distant so as to minimize this perspective change. The second problem is hiding the edges of the photo. The last problem is matching the photo sky color to that of the backdrop. Before mounting the photo I used an editor to get the blue in the photo as close as possible to that of my existing backdrop. This was a trial and error deal but only took a few tries to get close. I then cut the photo out and glued it to the backdrop with Super77. After gluing the photo to my backdrop, I feathered the top edge into the existing backdrop with joint compound. I then carefully dry brushed the original blue backdrop down over the photo. The right edge of the photo is hidden by the container stack on the layout, the left edge by some trees.
While I'm very happy with the end result, this project was too much like work (particularly the joint compound feathering) and something I'll use sparingly, if at all, in the future.
January 23, 2010: Tropical Shipping 20 foot reefer container.
On occasion there is a particular detail which really anchors a layout in a specific time and place. Such is the case of the Tropical Shipping Company 20 foot refrigerated container I photographed in front of Mac Edwards Produce in 2006 (top photo). I really wanted a model of this container on the layout. What would say Miami more than a Tropical Shipping logo on a battered reefer? The problem was, a model of a container for a small shipping line this didn't exist and likely never would. After mulling it over for some time, the solution presented itself. All I had to do was glue a photo of the reefer to a simple core made from a stock container model. The photo taken in 2006, while a little smaller than I would have liked, was usable. With a little photo editing I was able to clean it up and correct for perspective (see above). I purchased a Walthers undec. container and shaved the ribs off with a sharp blade. I then painted and weathered the trim of the Walthers container core a faded and rusting stainless steel. Now all I had to do was print the photos to size and glue them onto the side of the container. For a nominal cost I was able to get a rather unique model for the layout and one that I have wanted for some time.
January 12, 2010: Rex Food and Candy is a non-rail industry near 10th Avenue. For extra storage space they make creative use of these distinctive container stacks. The containers are somewhat of a landmark to me because of their height. To model the containers I fabricated a simple styrene box and then glued photographs of the containers to it. Also in that scene is a cracked parking apron cast from anchor bolt cement complete with weeds sprouting from the cracks. The K barriers are from BLMA.