@NJCJOE posted:It is a bit of a learning curve. However, over the years I have picked up some tips here on the Forum and on the internet that have come in handy. Maybe I should do and article for OGR magazine.
I am planning to make heavy use of gargraves flex track for my layout, I would be interested in an article! If anyone else knows of an OGR article (or other resource) on using Gargraves flex track I would love to have it!
@NJCJOE posted:5/20/23 - Track laying has begun.
This is my first time working with Gargraves flex track. It is a bit of a learning curve. However, over the years I have picked up some tips here on the Forum and on the internet that have come in handy. Maybe I should do and article for OGR magazine.
Still a ways to go but progress has been made.
Impressive!
Peter
Joe, looks outstanding! Just wondering if your using a jig for forming your flex track? I seen a lot of videos of guys making them and using them.
Mike,
I did make a plywood jig, with the radius smaller than my track curves. This way, you bend it tighter than what you need but it springs back some. I then take it to the layout and make final adjustments by bending it around my waist. Works quite well.
Bending the ends is the hardest part. Here I slowly bend it by hand, bending a little at each tie location.
NJCJOE, Super nice layout work. What you are doing is going to produce many enjoyable hours. I enjoy watching your progress. Great work!
@mike g. posted:Joe, looks outstanding! Just wondering if your using a jig for forming your flex track? I seen a lot of videos of guys making them and using them.
@NJCJOE posted:Mike,
I did make a plywood jig, with the radius smaller than my track curves. This way, you bend it tighter than what you need but it springs back some. I then take it to the layout and make final adjustments by bending it around my waist. Works quite well.
Bending the ends is the hardest part. Here I slowly bend it by hand, bending a little at each tie location.
I saw a guy make guide with a piece or 2x4 with grooves matching the 3 rails cut into the face of the wood. He'd lay the block on the rails and use it to form the curves. It was especially useful at the ends of the sections.
The track looks great Joe.
Bob
Bob,
That is an interesting method with the grooved jig. So many ways to skin the cat. 
Joe the track plan, road bed and track laying are incredible. Kudos to you for your vision and execution. Kudos to Steve and his brother for building such a great trestle and then passing it on to a friend for continued enjoyment. What a great bunch of people on our forum!
Joe,
May I suggest what Steve used on his layout for ballast and can be seen on the cover of the February issue of O Gauge, Gator Maxx Sand. Just a fine spray of water is all you need to seal it. A 50 pound bag is under $40.00. See attached picture.
I may use that for ballast. Thank you.
Joe:
Make sure you use that particular brand of 'filler'. It comes in 3 different 'blends'...sand/tan use for dirt, grey use for actual ballast and black use for yards, engine terminals etc. Like CNJ Bill said...just spray water and you are done...basically forever as it is mixed with a cement type component.
I tried another brand and it was not as good in my opinion. Others are too dusty when applying but should still use 'covid' paper mask.
Walter
Where did you guys buy the polymeric sand?
@NJCJOE posted:Where did you guys buy the polymeric sand?
I just used Gator Maxx on my brick patio. It's great stuff but a bit dusty. It dries hard as concrete so make sure your track work is rock solid before applying. I used the slate gray mix which is a good ballast color.
Any mason/ concrete supplier should carry it. The stuff that Home Depot/ Lowes sells in inferior to the Gator Maxx.
Lookin good feelin good JOE!!!!! Keep up the great work. 👍👍
Look's great Joe.
Walter
Nice work Joe! I'm paying attention to this thread.
NJCJOE,
Man, that is going to be one beautiful, epic, RR.
Thanks for keeping us up to date!
Wow, Joe! You made fast work of the tracklaying. It looks great!!
Outstanding! And 100' is gonna be a great run!
Excellent work Joe! Your layouts and train room are coming along well. Thank you for the updates.
Joe, your layout seems to be turning into an absolute masterpiece!
Brad
Coming right along Joe!
Fantastic work, Joe!
Peter
The Picasso of model railroading track work.
Thanks guys. 
Excellent work Joe. The track looks great. Any test runs yet?
Andy
@Steamfan77 posted:Excellent work Joe. The track looks great. Any test runs yet?
Andy
Coming up soon.
@NJCJOE, WOW, I still haven’t had time to go back and see all of your recent work, but, this is for sure, Your track work is Fantastic, your going to have so much fun running trains on this Masterpiece, a railroad like none others. Your mixing Standard gauge with O gauge is just incredible…. I’ll get to review your work more this week. Keep the pictures coming and it’s a very exciting time in our hobby. Happy Railroading Everyone
Sorry Joe all I can say is WOW! Everyone else has pretty much said it all! I am glad I have been watching and will for sure keep watching!
Very nice JOE!!!👍👍
Looking great Joe!
Love the night-time scenes!
Spectacular pics, Joe!!!!!
Peter
Great scenes Joe!
Andy
Awesome looking night scenes Joe! This build is turning into a masterpiece really quick!!
6/18/23 - The O gauge trains are running. It's amazing what a big milestone it is when you get to this point. I have been working pretty hard on this part. I only started building the O gauge bench work 5 months ago and now we have trains running.
Before we get to the train videos, a little side story. I explained in an early post how Steve (corsair29) graciously donated his srachbuilt trestle to be used on my layout. Right after Steve had constructed the trestle, and before it was even painted, our friend Owen Sturm texted him and said he wanted to come down to see the trestle. Unfortunately Owen tragically passed right after that and never got to see the trestle.
As a tribute, Steve called the trestle "Owen's Pass". I decided to carry on that tradition and added a sign to the front of the trestle. Owen was the best.
Here are some videos of the trains running. Enjoy.
A real class move by both you and Owen. He will be remembered every time a train crosses the trestle.
I am sure he is enjoying the view.
Awesome!
That’s an excellent tribute.
Excellent tribute to Owen’s memory. The trains are running smoothly! Nice job, Joe!
Excellent idea by you and Steve. Sorry Owen didn’t get to see it. It’s a great tribute to Owen’s memory. Thanks for the videos, the trestle is a beauty.
Andy
Great job JOE👍👍!!! Nice touch with the OWENS PASS sign….he is smiling gown on you.
Wow that's such a nice tribute! Joe everything is looking great !
Alex
An astounding amount of progress in only 5 months.
Joe, what a wonderful tribute and I love the videos! Your layout is truly coming along nicely!
Thank you guys.
I got chocked up when I saw it!
Wonderful tribute and a great looking layout, it's shaping up to be a real beauty!
Great tribute to Owen's memory......and a great layout. Congrats on getting the O Gauge running!
Peter
Nice and neat JOE!!!!GOOD JOB!!👍👍
Nice!
Nice Joe, good old KISS method!
7/15/23 - I have been continuing with the rock work around the standard gauge river. I wanted to extend the rock cliffs up over the bank to give the area a more natural look, so back to foam rock carving. I plan on using foam rocks and mountains a lot on the layout so I really want to get this down to a science.
Unfortunately, when I did the other rocks last year, I did not write down how I did it or what color paints I used. 
Needless to say, the first couple attempts did not match the existing rock work. I finally was able to determine my mistakes and then was able to match the rock fairly closely. Once additional scenery is added, the rocks should blend in nicely.
Using the foam is somewhat less messy than using plaster. I also like that you can build a mountain or tunnel with foam so that it is completely removable. However, just like everything else right now, the price of foam board is ridiculous, $54. for a 4'x8'x2" thick sheet. 
The rock looks great Joe. Love the water drain pipe with water flow coming through it as well. Nice touch.
Brad
@NJCJOE posted:7/15/23 - I have been continuing with the rock work around the standard gauge river. I wanted to extend the rock cliffs up over the bank to give the area a more natural look, so back to foam rock carving. I plan on using foam rocks and mountains a lot on the layout so I really want to get this down to a science.
Unfortunately, when I did the other rocks last year, I did not write down how I did it or what color paints I used.
Using the foam is somewhat less messy than using plaster. I also like that you can build a mountain or tunnel with foam so that it is completely removable. However, just like everything else right now, the price of foam board is ridiculous, $54. for a 4'x8'x2" thick sheet.
Joe, if there is a contractor you know, or some work going on nearby, ask them to save the scraps for you. They’re throwing it out anyway. Excellent job on the water way.
Jay
Looks great JOE!!!👍👍. Hope EPA isn’t looking….might have HAZMAT coming soon😉🤔😁….
Morning Joe, your rock carving looks great! I have a question for you, I plan on doing a small river like yours did you leave the foam flat under the river or did you kind of round the bottom out to give it depth?
Great work Joe, the scene blends together nicely.
Andy
Hey Mike.
My river bottom was just flat painted plywood. That's the easiest way to go in my opinion. By varying the colors of the river bed, you can create the illusion of various depths. Here are some photos of my river construction.
Thanks for the information Joe! It just looks outstanding!
9/24/23 - It finally came time to do a task I have been putting off......weathering the O gauge track. I knew it had to be done but was not looking forward to it. In my opinion, weathering track is one of those details that is really not noticed until you take a closeup photo of the finished layout. Then the shiny side rails just look out of place. Weathering your track makes a big difference.
My initial plan was to use the Rustoleum camo paint that a lot of modelers use nowadays. I bought some and tried it on a test piece of track. While it looked good, I was concerned about the amount of over spray in my finished basement/railroadiana room. I decided that maybe the airbrush would be the better way to go. The last time I used my airbrushes, solvent based paint was ready available. Since that is now hard to find, I would have to rely on acrylic paint.
I bought some rail brown and tie brown from Tru-Color. I first tried my Badger single action airbrush, but it was acting up a bit. I then switched to my Iwata double action model and painted the test track. The first issue is that it appeared it would take a long time to weather all the track with an airbrush. The second issue was that the rail brown came out more like orange that brown. Here is a shot of the test piece. In person it shows up even more red than in the photo. I didn't like it.
I decided to go back to the rattle can method. I bought a bunch of lightweight plastic drop cloths and basically created a sealed room around the work area. It looked like I was prepping for a murder scene.
This is the paint I used. The earth brown gets sprayed at a low angle to coat both sides of the rails. The weathered wood is then sprayed from directly above the track to give the ties some additional color.
It took about 3 hours to do all the spraying. I'm happy with the results. I don't think I would like to do it again, but it's done. Anyway, on to the results. Here are some before and after shots.
And some overall pictures.
Lookin GREAT!!!!! JOE!!!! Keep up the outstanding work!!!
Wow Joe everything looks absolutely outstanding !!!!
Alex
Joe, an absolute impressive layout!!
Gene
Fantastic!
Peter
The before and after photos show the great job you did. Some of the other photos (test piece of track, the paint you ended up using, etc.) did not show up for me. I see a total of 6 "image not found" boxes.
Lots of layout owners spend the time to create realistic scenery, but leave the track shiny. To me, it ruins the scene. You'll be VERY glad that you spent the 3 hours plus prep and cleanup time to get great-looking track.
Photos should be fixed now.
WOW Joe 3 hours work that really looks great! I use the same paint on my MTH Scaletrak and I also like the look. I is no where near the quality of your work, but I can always hope to improve to just to get have your level of skills!
I like the finishing touch of spraying the weathered wood color from above. Nice touch!
BTW, is that Homabed roadbed I see?
Earl
Looks great Joe. Days of prep for a 3 hour job. Well worth the time and effort.
How did you deal with the overspray and fumes? I hope you had a respirator on....
Bob
Wow, you’ve sure come a long way, beautiful layout, beautiful scenery, really cool track weathering, awesome workmanship. Thanks for showing your progress to us here on the OGR Forum…. Happy Railroading Everyone
It looks great, Joe! Yes that is a lot of prep for a finished room the size of yours. You got me thinking whether I should do something similar with my layout in an 11x11 room. I notice the shiny track every so often and it does stand out too much!
Joe,
This has been a pleasure to watch. You haven't missed showing us every step you have made with the layout. This thread, in itself, could be a tutorial on building a layout. One test of a good painter is how much he/she does not need to mask off things or how much they do mask off things. In many model railroader's cases it would be the latter, so A+ to you. In some cases, the masking can take longer than the actual painting. I know you didn't mask things off to create crisp lines, etc. but putting all of the "barriers" up was to contain the overspray, etc. Kind sorta masking. It's my comparison and I'm sticking to it!
Secondly, the angles you show in your photos shows how very well done your track work is. Very straight lines and no kinks...A+ again. Please continue showing us your journey. This is wonderful.
Dave
Looking good Joe
Joe - it looks great!
And you've got to feel great about getting a huge task like that done. 
George
So, the respirator story ..........
When I was in my early 20's, my friend asked me to paint his Mustang. I had painted another car and my Dad's truck bed previously, so I told him I would do it. I did not own a respirator at the time, so my friend said he would get one for me. We tarped off his parents carport and I proceeded to paint the car.
By the time I was done painting I was flying high and had a pounding headache. I couldn't figure out why. I used the respirator. Well, I finally noticed that the respirator did not have any charcoal cartridges or cotton filters in the mask. We never noticed it. So I basically painted the car with no filter protection.
I still have the same respirator, some 30+ years later. I figured I was going to need it again for when I weathered my track. I pulled it out to inspect it and make sure I had filters to use. Well, the new cartridges I had were dated 1986. 
I figured it was time to order a new supply.
When the filters came in I went to screw them into the respirator but they did not fit. Apparently, the standard design was changed sometime over the past 30 years. 
Hate when that happens. At this point I decided to go to Home Depot and buy a whole new respirator. Of course the one I needed for paint fumes was the most expensive, but better to be safe.
On Saturday I got all my supplies ready to go, paint, rags, mineral spirits and respirator. It took me about 3 hours to do all the painting. Every once in a while a would smell some paint fumes. However, since I have a beard the mask does not fully seal around my face, so I didn't think this was unusual.
I got done painting and took a break to get some fresh air and allow the over spray to settle. Later that day I went down and removed all the drop cloths and cleaned my track one more time. As I was putting stuff away in my workshop, I looked over at the respirator sitting on my workbench. I couldn't believe what I saw! The new charcoal cartridges and cotton filters were still sitting sealed in the respirator package. I never put them in. I did it again!!!! Amazingly, I did not get a headache this time.
So, I guess I didn't learn from my mistakes. 
Moral of the story.......if you're going to use a respirator make sure the filters are in place. 
Great job, Joe! I sprayed all my track, well most of it, outside and never regretted that. I didn't use a respirator which falls into the "do as I say, not as I do' category. I agree with all the comments about how important painting the rails and ties are. I use the analogy that it is like a beautiful picture without a good frame, it ruins the overall effect. Same is true with our track, it show cases our trains.
Great job and thanks for sharing, it will inspire many to do something similar and that is a good thing in my view.
Art
Joe, it could happen to any of us, especially those of us like you who do very little spray painting.
Your story is a good example for me if I decide to copy your method. If I do, now is the time as the layout is in about the same phase of construction as yours. My respirator and filters are about as old as your old ones. I gave up on painting with the airbrush in the mid ‘80s. Now our older daughter has it.
I will certainly look into new filters or a whole new respirator.
Looks great Joe!
@Conductor Earl posted:BTW, is that Homabed roadbed I see?
Earl
No, I used the foam roadbed from the guy on Ebay that others have used. Worked well.
Nice work Joe, great results. It makes a big difference. Funny story about the respirator. I used an N-95 when I sprayed, but with a heavy duty exhaust system. Kept the basement nice and clear.
Andy
11/21/23 - I decided I wanted to construct a mountain/tunnel along the back wall on the O gauge portion of the layout. First, this would provide a sort of backdrop to this area of the layout and secondly, it would help break up the long straight-a-way on this part of the layout.
My plan was to carve the tunnel/mountain out of 2" foam board just like I did for the river rock work. I used nearly two 4'x8' sheets of the foam board for this project. The tunnel/mountain is 10' long by 32" high. It was built in four sections so I could create it on my workbench and also so I could remove it for layout maintenance if required.
Here are the first steps of construction. The basic shape was created using a hot wire foam cutter. The various layers were glued together.
Next came the carving of the foam. I used a fillet knife and a pocket knife for most of the carving. It took many hours to carve all four sections. I almost abandoned the project a few times just because I was tired of carving. 
It's a slow, repetitious process. This is one section after the carving was finished.
After all four sections were carved into rock, I caulked most of the joints to help blend them better. Once the caulk was dry I cut through the section joints with a razor knife.
The next step is to completely cover the piece with a coat of flat latex tan paint. I also brush on some water to dilute the paint and help it flow into the nooks and crannies. Once this is done everything is set aside to dry.
The rock work is then painted with diluted flat gray paint, similar to how the tan paint was applied. And once again, allowed to dry.
Next comes the washing with diluted flat black paint. The coat is allowed to run and cover the entire piece. I vary the paint coverage so nothing looks too uniform. The real deep cuts get a less diluted coat of paint to create more shadows. It's best to start off with a lighter coat, as you can always go back and add more paint. You can also just add more water to an area and work it in with your brush to light up an area.
I also add some spots of brown and raw sienna to help vary the color of the rock. These spots get blended in with water washes as well.
During this step you may get discouraged because the coloring does not look realistic. However, just trust the process it will get better by the end.
I let the pieces completely dry for a couple of days. Then comes the final step of dry brushing some white paint to bring out the highlights of the rock.
I dip a paint brush in flat white paint. I then dab the brush repeatedly on a dry paper towel to remove most of the paint. I take the brush and very lightly brush along the high points of the rock surface. It takes some practice to use just the right amount of paint and pressure. If you do put on too much paint, just dab the area with a wet paper towel to remove some paint and blend everything together.
You can also add some of this highlighting to recessed areas to help them blend better. I do this in the deep crevices as well.
This is my favorite part of the process. This step really makes the colors all blend together creating a very realistic look.
In these next two photos you can see the difference the white dry brushing makes. The first photo is before the dry brushing and the second is after it is completed.
Here are some photos of the completed structure in place on the layout. I still have to make the tunnel portals and I also want to add some light vegetation to the mountain at some point, but so far I'm happy with the result.
This last photo shows the river rock work I created previously with the mountain in the background. Eventually, I will also have a matching rock face with tunnel portals for the standard gauge to go under the O gauge portion of the layout. This way the river rock, Standard gauge tunnel area and the O gauge mountain will have a cohesive look.
That came out great! A jigsaw is faster, but messy. JohnA
That looks great Joe! NICELY done!
Great job!
Peter
Very impressive Joe! You certainly nailed it for the cohesive look you were after.
12/2/23 - I added portals to each end of the tunnel along with some rock wing walls. These items were also carved from foam like the mountain. This helps finish off the look at the end of the tunnel/mountain. Some finer detail will come later on down the road, but for now it's time to start another project.
Joe, the portals look great!
I noticed the Western Maryland H9 Consolidation #830. I have one, a Premier PS2 with the gray boiler. Is yours the same model?
It is Mark. One of my favorite engines.
Yes, it a favorite of mine also!
Joe
Outstanding work, somehow this thread eluded me so I just binge watched from the beginning.
thanks for sharing.
Thanks Steve.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Joe. it's been a while since I checked in, All I can say is wow! Your work is amazing, and I thank you for the step-by-step process you presented! I know when the time comes, I will be revisiting this section of your post!
Thanks Mike.
As you well know, sometimes when we are working so closely on particular part of our layout, we loose sight of how the whole layout is coming along. I appreciate all the feedback. It at least let's me know I'm headed in the right direction.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
@NJCJOE posted:
I appreciate all the feedback. It at least lets me know I'm headed in the right direction.
You certainly are Joe! Your layout build has been a class act from design thru construction. Sit back, look around and you’ll be proud of yourself!
Gene
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. I'll post about that tomorrow.
