backdrop & use of mirrors

Sure. Mirrors are great.  In the scene below, the bridge is nearly flat against the wall, and there is only one teal-colored car:

Here is an as-yet-unfinished corner of my layout.  The plan is to build half of a 2-track engine house and mount it flat against the mirror:

In both cases, I used plain old mirrors--salvaged from cheap full-length mirrors purchased from Home Depot.  If you want to do it "right", you should get front-silvered mirrors.  They are expensive, hard to find, and fragile,  but they eliminate the visual gap caused by the thickness of the glass.

Pete,

Check with Randy Harrison at www.harrisontrains.com  He has made terrific and extensive use of mirrors on his layout.  He's always very helpful.

BTW - Fantastic layout photos!! :-)  

All the best and good luck with your project.

Cheers,

Patrick W - The Free State Junction Railway " Where the trains always run on time"

I have two salvaged sliding mirror closet doors on opposite walls of the room that produce an "infinity and beyond" look to my layout. My layout fills the room wall to wall with only a narrow aisle that I use to represent a "harbor". Only two problems are that the mirrors are easy to break when installing and the above mentioned "gap" caused by the reflective material being on the back of the mirror. 

I have purchased a package of 12 inch square mirror tiles that I will use like Avanti did to add depth to a street between two buildings.

Paul Goodness

Pete,

Is the No Fishing sign printed backwards so that one can read the mirror image?  If so good job with the backwards writing.

Joe

Avanti, that is impressive!  Very nicely done.  In the first photo, I wouldn't have known you used a mirror without being told.  Super job! 

George

I used mirrors on both ends of my switching layout. There is only 4 cars sitting at this ice deck, not 8  

If I were to do it again, I would angle the mirror away from the wall in the back corner just a bit, instead of just putting it flat against the wall. It changes the view by directing it towards the front of the layout, instead of just parallel to it. Just experiment with the angle by putting a 1x2 or a 2x4 up against the wall in that back corner.

Thanks ! So far I got some great ideas and hopefully additional ideas will come on the forum. I did alittle experiment with angling the mirror and it does create some nice effects.

Dan

We had a mirror tucked under a bridge. It had the same effect as Avanti's mirror. Now and then we invited visitors to look at it directly. They were surprised to see their faces.

As I recall, it was above children's lines of vision so they wouldn't see themselves.

Heh.  You would be amazed how few people notice that--even when they know that there is a mirror involved!

What would we do without Photoshop?!