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Comments
by the way..enjoy that 50 degrees. our forecast for Wednesday night is -27 with -55 wind chills.
Carl and Ed. Let's not pick fights with Kevin.
This area is for Carl. It shows how I plan on watering the trees and a goldfinch hanging onto a cattail. The water is not fully cured. Once it is I'll start adding more greenery.
Terry
The backdrop was easier to install than I had feared. I did get a couple of wrinkles in the sky and one of the corners came a bit detached but overall it looks believable.
Overall a very believable scene. I especially like your water feature and how you captured the slow trickle of water with Mr Moose in the weeds. Well done. Waiting for the final element... drum roll... lighting!
Later, Dave S. Tucson, AZ
Dave, I'm getting close to the lights. Turns out I need to learn the basics of the Python programming language. Oh, and create my own controller module since the pre-made controllers will not do what I want. I have all the parts on hand. Should be fun.
I was overly optimistic about mounting the loco today. Lot's of prep work needs to be done first. For starters, an LED needs to be mounted in the light box. First cut off one LED from the strip and cut/shape to fit. Wire it up, and coat with liquid electical tape. Don't want any shorts happening once installed. This is recommended to cure overnight.
To add some stability to the loco I am installing "footers" in the ground to add holding strength. First made a staple out of some .045 wire and installed on the bottom plate of the Shay. These holes were for mounting the motor which has been removed. Then make some footers out of 3/32" tubing and crimp the end. Dig a hole in the trackwork to hold the footer. I gave a liberal glob of epoxy and mounted on the rails. Only the footer has been epoxied because I still need to get inside the loco to run wires. Tomorrow I'll fill the hole with more epoxy then cover with ballast. I'll blacken the top of the tubing to camoflauge it. The wires for the light will run into another hole right below the front truck to hide them as much as possible.
This will be it's final resing place. I am very pleased with the way the tree trunk with exposed roots turned out. I made 1 more tree trunk using a method that Dave S. suggested. I used the same putty/clay for the trunk but used latex for the branches. It turned out to have fewer lumps and bumps than the caulking.
Probably all for today. Got to get some chips and dip going for the puppy bowl.
Terry
I agree with Robert, that rocky terrain would result in roots creeping along the soil surface as Bryan has creatively duplicated in his diorama build. We have a similar surface root issue out here in the southwest where cliche is an ever present concrete like sub-subsurface strata, an almost impenetrable layer similar to rock that causes roots to do the same thing. I have a large live oak tree in my front yard that exhibits the same type of surface rooting.
Later, Dave S. Tucson, AZ
Well done. Its going to be a show stopper when done.
I reached a big milestone...the train is attached. I took an outdoor shot yesterday of the loco and to look for areas that needed to be touched up on the rocks. Mounting the loco was pretty straight forward by using the tubing described earlier and a drop of epoxy on each wheel where they meet the rail. The wiring for the light runs out the bottom of the boiler, through the tracks to underneath the foam.
Since the Dolbeer was the other piece of heavy equipment, I wanted to make sure it was also mounted securely. There is a threaded hole in the bottom of the boiler. I found a 4" screw that matched the threads as part of a toggle bolt set. I cut a recess in the bottom of the foam and ran the screw up to the Dolbeer. It is very secure.
I'm playing around the the placement of 2 foreground trees and plan on starting the shack this weekend.