My Steam Servicing Facility/roundhouse is now complete/adding details

I love your scenery work.

Great stuff!

Glad you guys like my scenery efforts and the updates. TC, glad the flat black worked out for you. I went through the trouble of getting a gallon or two of flat brown custom mixed based on acrylic raw umber but found it didn't make much difference once it was covered over in scenery. Home Depot has flat black already mixed and ready to go. This is is the same stuff I sprayed my ceiling with and used to paint all the layout trim. I also dilute this and use it for washes on my concrete, rocks, and most of my models.

Interesting you mention the sand fill. My pal in Pittsburgh turned me onto Black Beauty blasting media. I bought ten pounds of the medium grit stuff off the internet and I am using it for the roundhouse tracks. I wish I would have known about his sooner.

I think it ought to look pretty good skimmed over with my fine Woodland Scenics cinders blend. And it should hide better than raw sand even though it is very shiny in comparison.

Pennsynut, I pretty much slather on diluted white or carpenter's wood glue with a chip brush then dump my ground cover on. I then spray it over with wet water and hit it with a 50/50 mix of glue and water. Sometimes I'll dump sifted backyard dirt over the wet glue first then sort of paint it in with the brush. I'll then layer over the final mix, then spray with wet water followed by diluted glue again to get a layered look in one shot. I will vac up loose material and regrind it in a coffee grinder and reapply or use it for tree leafing. I am very partial to Scenic Express' Adirondack blend. I just about used a 5 gallon pail on the layout up to this point.

At this point, all the whisker tracks are wired and the turntable is fully adjusted. I am getting closer to starting the roundhouse build in earnest.

Norm,

Nice. However the correct term is "garden tracks", throughout the railroad industry.

Thanks for the info Norm. I tried to imitate your use of very dark ground around yard tracks in my engine service area and other areas of my layout.  I need to green things up a bit though.    

Here's today's progress so far. I don't know if I want to mess with the TT pit too much more. I cleaned up all the tracks so maybe tonight I can actually move some engines around and play with the turntable for a bit.

Excellent Norm its taking shape beautifully!

Fantastic Norm!  Can I get you over here to my layout

Norm..its perfect just the right amount of wear and tear...nice

Beautiful, Norm.

Excellent work, Norm.  What spacing are your turntable tracks set at? 10 degrees? 12 degrees? Looks real good.

Thx guys, I actually went back and fiddled with the pit weathering just a bit after I removed the dirt wads I had in here. 

I think it looks better without it. My Q1 is showing that it just about fits on the Millhouse 28" TT. 

T1 makes it too.

Legacy K4 visits the ash hoist. 

Q2 rolls off the TT.

In the sanding position at the coal dock.

Thanks again for the kind words. Ron, the whisker tra, uh, I mean garden tracks are set around 11 degrees I think. I believe that's what the AMH is set up for.

All I am going to say to you is that I totally, really enjoy seeing what you are building so keep them coming, please. 

Really nicely done. Great detail

Top Notch layout you have there Norm, I'm impressed.  Hope I can get my layout in the proximity of yours soon.

Looks fantastic Norm.  Even better with those really cool Pennsy Steam Engines. 

Really nice work - super realistic Norm. Did I read correctly you use a dual temp hot glue gun to glue the pink insulation foam sections together - how do you cut them and what material do you cover them with prior to painting and ground cover?

Outstanding results Norm, thanks for posting the progressive photos and providing some details on the construction

Norm, turntable looks fantastic! Do you mind if I post a couple of these shots up on my customer photo page?

Thanks,

Al

Nice work, as always, Norm! I enjoy the work-in-progress to completion shots.

So Norm; If you had Black Beauty before construction, you would not have used the sand? Where do you get the black ballast media?  What source on the web?

The turntable and the yard look great; although I sort of liked the debris in the pit. Great work Norm!

Norm

The facility looks great, the weathering on your steam engine is remarkable. Thank you for showing your progress on the layout. Keep up the amazing work.

Mike

Al, you can use whatever photos you want. I can take some better ones with my camera if you'd like. These are all iPad shots. Let me know. Your turntable is awesome!

TC, after trying the Black Beauty stuff I am thinking regular sand is better at this point. Mostly because the BB stuff is very shiny and it didn't cover up as well as I thought it would. I know you can buy colored play sand in black but I never sought it out. Maybe a quick of overspray of Dullcote would have helped but that's one extra step. Amazon carries BB in any case, in three different grades.

Thanks again everyone..

Superb work, Norm!  Can't seem to get enough of your artistic craftsmanship.

Bruce

Nice work Norm, I know you'll keep at it till it satisfies you.

Jim

Norm, can I ask what lighting you use? 

Paul K, sorry for the late response. Here's a quick pic of my foam working tools, all of it picked up at Home Depot. This is is my favorite hot glue gun so far, and I've burnt up a few  in my time. 

J, I am using mostly 50W halogen R20 floods with a few spots here and there on the main part of the layout. This section has about 6 LED R20 soft white floods with a couple halogens highlighting the coaling tower, tool house, and TT.

I didn't know the prototype railroads used a center rail !

Norm:

Great job!

I noticed the water tower in the background of one of your pictures.  Did you scratch build it?

Thanks. I look forward to every new post.

Zac

Thanks Norm. I think the lighting is key with good photography and modeling skills. You have wrapped them all together nicely.

I have been playing with track lights with floods, LED's 3000k 50watt, my halogen 20 w really drew the amps and did not provide enough light. Thanks again.

Dan Padova posted:

I didn't know the prototype railroads used a center rail !

Prototype railroads don't run on table tops or in basements either.

Zac posted:

Norm:

Great job!

I noticed the water tower in the background of one of your pictures.  Did you scratch build it?

Thanks. I look forward to every new post.

Zac

Looks like the old Walther's "modern era", i.e. late 1940s, water tower. I have the same model, plus a smaller Max Gray brass tower. We needed to add the new, second, tower in order to increase capacity for servicing more steam locomotives.

Norm, stunning work. How did you weather the pit? What colors did you use to get that nice old cement look? What process? Thanks for all your posts......

Paul K, sorry I missed your last question. I don't really cover the foam before painting. I mostly use latex painter's caulk to fill seams, or spackle if it's within reach. I'm always impressed with the way regular latex paint sticks to the foam.

Zac, this is indeed a Walthers kit like HW mentioned. 

J, I haven't had much luck relying on written specs on lighting. It's mostly been trial and error. I tend to like the soft white vs. daylight colors. I hope LEDs can soon match the look of a straight halogen 50W R20 PAR which is still my favorite lamp.

E, I used some acrylic tube washes, black, raw umber, and burnt sienna. I took the pit rail out and painted it Rail Brown, then airbrushed it with Grimy Black. The base color is Al's stock color which looks real close to Krylon Khaki. 

Here are some workshop pics of the roundhouse going together:

Norm, it appears that you custom cut the wooden beams. Do they not come pre-cut?

I had to cut them myself Dennis. He sends along that laser engraved template you can see in the photo above.

Thank you for your reply Norm. I am amazed by your talents. The realizim is awesome.

Norm,  What size, or "grade" is the Black Beauty media that you're using ?   I see at least 3 grain size  options on Amazon....    

Norm,

I love following your progress and thank you for being so willing to share patiently with us. With regard to room lighting, have you given any thought to the new remote controlled color changing LED's?

Norm, which round house are you using? Meaning the manufacturer?

Are you going to paint the inside walls a specific color - White, Green or the burnt brown you showed in the photo?

kevin

Norm looks awesome! Please keep the posts coming.

Chris