Building my Royal Gorge
HO railroad diorama module
Part 2
At this point I mixed small amounts of plaster and water and spread the mixture on the mountain while creating a rocky appearance. I continued applying small amounts of wet plaster until the hill was completed.
Then I mixed some black DecoArt paint and water to create a thin solution to paint on the rocky hillside. Being able to rotate the mountain enabled me to get the thin paint in all of the crevices.
What do you think of the mountain colors? Yuck? Someone (me) needs to take Painting 101.
Painting, repainting, and shape changing… will I ever be happy?
This is a screenshot of a briefing showing some of my numerous 3D designs
I guess it is time to admit another oops. My original bridge was designed to be 14" long, too long for the space I had to work with. Therefore, before printing I shortened the bridge to 12" long. Once I began the assembly of the module, I had to shorten the bridge by cutting another 2" out of the middle of the bridge for it to look good on my module. Later on, 4" was added back on in an unexpected way - back to a 14" long bridge.
Tinkercad is used in many schools to teach the concept of 3D designing. Tinkercad has a strong support group on Facebook. Explore Tinkercad
It was time to get serious and build my wood frame. It was at a time like this I was reminded that the wood was not as forgiving as the foam and plaster mountains.
I measured three times and cut once; it was just my luck that one of my side panels came out wrong. I could not uncut the bad cut, so I cut out another side panel.
I glued every seam before screwing the boards together.
Here are some pictures of the beginning of the assembly of the diorama on the module. And of course, the repainting continued.
More Challenges - But isn't this the fun part?
1.The river must come out from underneath the hanging bridge, before the end of the bridge.
2. I had to order some short sections of the base to lengthen the bridge. I used JawsTec to 3D print my extra parts.
3. I had to design a bridge for the three tracks to cross the river. I did not know where the river would be before this point in time. I used forest green, dark blue, and black acrylic paint for the riverbed. The river is on the surface of the shelf.
4. Using Tinkercad I was unable to design a pedestrian suspension bridge that I liked. More wild ideas needed to be explored.
This picture shows the five additional pieces I ordered for the base of the bridge. The left side of each piece was 1/8" shorter than the right side enabling me to make a curve in the base. This allowed the bridge to curve with the mountain and to allow the track to curve into the bridge.
Marking the track positions,
Cut to length, Penny match sticks are close to the same size as HO railroad ties.
The tack was glued to the foam, and foam glued to the base, using Gorilla Clear glue.
Here I am beginning to remove the thin worm shaped rolls of modeling clay I used as boundaries for the simulated water as it hardened. Careful shaving was required for resin that seeped over or under the clay.
Lesson Learned: Painting the wood for the river was okay at this point. I should have waited until the end to pour the resin for the water. (MAS EnviroTex Lite Epoxy)
And the fun continues,
My Ballast Nightmare
1. YouTube videos show a top-down gluing after dumping the ballast on the roadbed. Various mixture ratios of 1:1 to 1:5 of glue to water with some alcohol were recommended. Cleaning off the excess ballast was challenging. I ended up with a disaster every time I tried to carefully remove the unwanted ballast.
2. I then went to a bottom-up gluing philosophy. Non-diluted Elmer’s white glue still did not stick to the Track-Bed (foam). I should have used the cork roadbed! One manufacturer is now advertising "glueable" foam, whatever that means.
3. I went back to my Gorilla Wood Glue, and using the smallest artist paintbrush I could find, I applied a thin layer of glue to the foam, and then using my favorite ballast layer (a plastic spoon) I sprinkled a thin layer of ballast on the glue.
4. Success! Reference the red and yellow star. I applied a second thin layer of ballast and then did the top-down white glue method. At this point I still have a lot of work to go.
Are you ready to go on to My Diorama Part 3?
From the suspension bridge to completion