Terraforming.

Of course, I've not just been making trees. All this time I've been messing around with blocks of polystyrene, slicing them up to make them look like hills. To come up with some kind of landscape for the layout. The real Hitsu is in a tree lined valley. So I decided that was the way I wanted to go. It wasn't as easy as I thought translating what is in reality a fairly straight railway line into an oval and developing the scenery around that. In the end I came up with something I was happy with.

Here we are then, the start of 4' x 14" of rural Japan. The polystyrene has been cut and crudely shaped to form the hills that dominate the layout. I suppose they could have been taller but I still have to cover them with trees yet. The polystyrene was then covered with lightweight spackling and once dry given a coat of woodland scenics earth undercoat. 

Trains will appear from the right from behind some trees curving around, passing a level (grade) crossing and arrive at the station. On pulling away from the station the train will negotiate a slope upwards before rounding the curve and disappearing out of sight behind the hill covered treeside. The 40 trees I have made so far aren't going to make much of a dent on this layout.

You may look at some of the slopes and angles and think that they are a bit steep and even but like I say most of this will be hidden under forestry.

Well If I have more trees to build I'd better get going .

I'll catch you all later

The T tree Saga continues

Those of you who have been following this blog will know that I have been somewhat occupied with making trees for Hitsu. The current total stands at 40 of various types and styles. 

The most important project has been to recreate the large Sakura (flowering cherry) that are so typical of Japan. Now I've got to the stage that I can show you the results of my work.

Above: This one stands approximately 25mm tall

Below: This one about 35mm to give you an idea of size.
They follow my standard construction method. Wire armature coated with caulk and painted. With a foliage base made from stretched out kitchen scourer. Except this time instead of sprinkling green scatter onto the foliage base I found some white and used that instead. This made it look like the trees had been in a snowstorm. So following the advice of my wife I then dabbed some pink acrylic paint on top of the scatter. The effect I think is quite pleasing and I'm more than happy with them.  Even more so considering the small size.

The story so far..

Sundays are always a good day for working on a model railway layout. There's not anything worth watching on the TV. So I disappeared into the basement and set about with more fiddling with hills, cuttings, trees and buildings to get something I liked. The right hand side really seemed to come together quite easily. (The left hand end however is another story.) There will be lots more trees on the hillside to the rear. Making them a lighter green will also push them into the distance making the layout seem deeper than it is. I will probably even cheat and put down a solid covering of Woodland Scenics light green clump foliage material as there won't need to be any detail back there.

I now realise that the three storey buildings will have to go. They are definitely too tall for rural Japan. But some 1:450 scale paper building kits have been pointed out to me on the internet So I will use some of them instead.
All in all a pretty good days work.

..and so it begins...

Today was the day I have been waiting for for quite a while. The day I start work on my T gauge layout- Hitsu.

On my way home from work I dropped into DIY Superstore Menards and picked up a sheet of 1/4" birch ply and some 2 x 1 pine and some miscellaneous bits to enable me to construct the baseboard. I shan't go into a "how I blew my nose" description of how I built it. But this is my standard method of construction, using foam as the actual base for the scenic work. I glue the foam to the wooden substructure to give it some rigidity. Plus when it comes to making the carrying case I will be able to bolt/screw it to the wooden subframe. The method has served me well over several layouts. 

Once I had the foam glued to the wood and it had set I couldn't resist laying the track out immediately to see how it fit. As you can see it fits. Just. I could have done with an extra inch of baseboard width but no problem. The size of the layout is 4' x 17".
The rest of the afternoon was spent running trains. Not for fun mind you. This was serious stuff. I was trying to get a feel for where all the scenic development should go. Hills, cuttings embankments, gradients etc. All these features will add to the effect and I need to get it right. The features were placed around/under the track and the effect of the train passing them watched very closely. Then I went to the internet and studied photos of the Japanese countryside for some more ideas. 

I have to say however that after several hours of watching the train go around I'm not much closer to deciding things than I was before I built the baseboard...

But it was still a good day. I'm excited that the layout building process has started and that I will soon have somewhere to put the 40 or so trees I have made!

Hello to all you new visitors

A warm welcome to the site to all those dropping in for the first time as a result of a mention on this months mid-month update at carendt.us. Take a look, read the history of entries, follow some of the other links over to the right. I hope you find something of interest to you. Perhaps you will want to take some T gauge interest further. I do hope so. 

The postman calls twice

On Thursday the postie had tried to deliver a package from Japan that needed my signature. A signature required meant that it could only be from Hobby Search. So on the way home I passed by the post office to pick it up. It was my people, trees, road signs and bikes. Now normally you'd expect me to wax lyrical about the incredibly small size of these things. But honestly this time it is pointless. The people and bikes are scarily small. So small in fact that for the first time I serious asked myself what on earth I was playing at. There is no way I can photograph the bikes or people without resorting to macro photography. So just take a look at the pictures in the products section of the Eishindo website. For the first time I said to myself. "I don't think I can do this".

Then shortly after I'd opened the package the postie arrived again. With another box from Japan. A fact that she remarked on as she handed the package over. I didn't have the heart to tell her to expect another one in a few days...

This was my Sobu line Class 103 in canary yellow. A very nice looker indeed much brighter than my original Hanwa Blue unit. Look for my header photo to be replaced soon.

So that cheered me up no end and got me looking forward to some T gauge modelling again.  The next package should complete the track that I need to build Hitsu. Then I can get on and assemble the elements of the layout ready for the St. Cloud train show in December.

An new day dawns...

The mist clears, things aren't as bad as they seem. Blah blah blah...
Well things aren't as bad they first seemed.
The track plan will work I just need a wider baseboard. I can just glue a strip of expanded polystyrene along the edge of the layout to achieve the desired width.
No problems...