The Scenery Clinic: Pt. XXI: Final details
Walt (left) and Paul (right) had a great time building this diorama, and it gave them a chance to explore new modeling themes. Paul’s
scene with junk box parts is fun.) The barrels are from Merit, the wood pal- lets by King Mill, and the trash cans in the background are from Grandt Line and Funaro and Camerlengo. The Acme Tooling Company is a ready-built structure from Woodland Scenics, which I used as-is except for the sign. Details on the loading dock are from King Mills, Funaro and Camerlengo, and others. I elected to make the parking lot out of gravel (sift- ed paver sand) with a few pot holes full of melting snow done with acrylic gloss medium. The high-angle shot of Acme Tooling reveals the muddy gravel park- ing lot with puddles from melting snow. This was covered in a recent in- stallment and was done with Builders in Scale marble dust. The water was done with gloss medium, as suggested to Walt by Wayne Sittner, applied over Roof Brown paint. The fence is from Walthers, the tractor by Lee Town, and the trailer is an Athearn model. The vehicles are Eko and Jordan, and the retaining wall at the foot of the em- bankment is a flexible product from Chooch. It came pre-colored, but I gave it a light wash of india ink and water to bring out the details. Looking at the loading dock area of 5 Star Manufacturing shows details such as pallets and cardboard shipping box- es from King Mill (these always seem to accumulate on loading docks), plus Grandt Line and Funaro and Camer- lengo trash cans. The vehicles here are from Mini Metals and Alloy Forms. The chain link fence was done from a BLMA kit. I replaced the plastic posts with .029″ brass rod for a sturdier fence, airbrushed it with silver, and weathered it with rust and brown chalk. The 5 Star building was assem-
64
Sn3 layout is peeking from behind Walt’s shoulder, awaiting atten- tion and visitors for the 2012 National Narrow Gauge Convention.
bled without modifications, then paint- ed and weathered in the normal man- ner. Pipes and I-beams on the right are from Plastruct, while the truck is from Sheepscot. The Lehigh Valley boxcar at the loading dock is a Proto 2000 car. We used Rix Products telephone
poles. They come with the cross arms separate from the pole, and the modeler is to glue them together. That allowed us to create the junction pole and to have shorter power line cross arms at the top and telephone line cross arms below, a common arrangement. Walt and I used EZ Line stretch line
from Berkshire Junction, which I or- dered from Caboose Hobbies in Denver. The EZ Line is, in fact, quite easy to in- stall, and it stretches considerably. How- ever, we initially ran into something of a problem. The lines that run parallel to the blacktop road in the photos rest on three poles, the pole in the center, as shown, and the end ones at the edges of the diorama. We started on the left, glued the lines to the poles using cyano- acrylate cement, and ended with the pole on the right, the one next to the gas station. Standing back to admire our work, we stared in disbelief at the two end poles bowing in like a pair of fishing poles that had hooked something big! Hmmm. It turned out that the plas- tic Rix poles could not hand the tension of the stretched lines. Although we had applied only minimal tension to the lines, the cumulative effect of six of them proved to be too much. After quickly removing the EZ Line from the two end poles, we re-glued them with much less tension and the end poles re- mained vertical. With that disconcert- ing experience behind us we carefully glued the remaining lines in place with no tension on them. The photos demon-
strate how effective the EZ Line is in an industrial scene with multiple wires criss-crossing in it. The tall Texaco sign is from Walthers with a JL Innovative Design decal. The crossbuck was made by Tichy Train Group, and the auto, Mini Metals. Finally, a simple change of vehicles allows the diorama to tell a completely different story, and I couldn’t resist the temptation. It is a lot of fun to move things like vehicles around from time to time, changing the look of a scene. This brings us to the end of not only the industrial scene, but of the Scenery Clinic series. It has been a lot of fun do- ing over 20 chapters, and it has given me an opportunity to sample what oth- er scales and eras have to offer. In many ways it has reinvigorated my modeling energy, pulling me back to my own layout, which only needs a few things to be truly complete. The last few photos include a rather unflatter- ing shot of me taken during the final photo session (I have to revise my mid- section!), and there is also a picture of Walt as he worked on the diorama. In the background is my Sn3 Pelican Bay Railway & Navigation Company, which was featured in the May, 2003, and September, 2006, issues of RMC. My website,
www.paulscoles.com, has more photos of my layout if you are interest- ed in seeing them.
The 32nd National Narrow Gauge Convention will be in the Seattle area, in nearby Bellevue, Washington, over September 12 through 15 of this year, and my layout is scheduled to be open for it. With company coming, I better get busy on it. You are invited to see the PBRy&N Company, too, so go to
www.seattle2012.com for more infor- mation and a registration form.
MARCH 2012
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100