Got all of the dirt laid down! Used about a 50/50 mix of real soil and sand coloured grout. Slapped some diluted mod podge on the table, laid the dirt, brushed off the excess, and then sprayed with alcohol and saturated everything with the white glue mix.
Put in quite a bit of work this past week, ballast is all in now, had to rip up a portion of the track under the bridge because my 6 axle loco kept derailing in one spot, so I had to just rework that before I committed with the ballast, and started creating my little forest with a bunch of scratch built trees!
Everything is coming together nicely! I've decided this will be full forest scene on this side of the table, then I'll have a straight track to a second table eventually with a city scene. So fun and creative, I'm really liking the process. Here's the view from the top of the mountain! https://youtube.com/shorts/TTscK0yqvZg?feature=share
Made a bit more progress, built another part of the table and fixed up some track alignment and derailling issues. Also picked up this pikestuff The Shops kit and put it together, will be painting it and adding details and lighting next, then adding the dirt to the L part of the table and start filling in all of the grass and greenery soon!
What ramp, like the grade to and from the bridge? It's a little over 3%, the 4 axle locomotive struggles to pull all of my rolling stock at once but the 6 axles can handle them no problem.
Little progress update for this thread! 1. Added plaster, paint, and dirt to the yard, got the foundation for the shops in and am currently working on wiring that up. 2. Extended the track for the lumber yard/pulp mill. 3. Built a couple signal lights to show track polarity on the DC layout (going to make a few more of these and possibly some real track occupancy signals as well. 4. Wired up the yard with a cutoff and DPDT switch so I can change track polarity independently of the main track.
Shops are in and wired up, cutting tree trunks about 2" down and then considering adding some grass today! Just unsure of where exactly I'm going to put it, and not put it.... so that's why I'm reluctant to just go at the grass.
Adding some better table lighting in, got some LED strips off amazon and mounted to a strip of wood, will have a few more of these over the other section when I'm done.
Little video update for the build. Got the new table lights up, new signal lights in, IR sensor in for the crossing, more grass and moss added, ballasted the yard.
Got Big Pine Lumber all wired up! Took a few hours to get the little LEDs in there, weather it some more, glue it all back together and install it on the table, but I think it was worth the work!
Got the wall painted tonight. I get an idea in my head and have to do it... Maybe a little obsessive impulsive And now that I watched the video, I should have painted the blue all the way to the left. Clouds are coming next, just have to think about them a little, whether it's some big cumulonimbus in the distance or some nice puffy sunny day clouds, I haven't decided yet.
I repainted the wall to a different hue of blue and extended the paint to the corner. Just trying to envision the clouds and where I want them before I get at it. Might try the airbrush for the clouds, I'm not very skilled with it but this could be good practice.
