Detailed Trees in T

Yes, I may be crazy. I've been thinking a lot about trees for the little layout, As part of that, I have been looking at different ways of making trees and seeing how well they work in T. Most recently, I have been working on some deciduous trees that would stand up to foreground scrutiny. The basic idea is to use stranded wire, in this case 18 gauge speaker wire as the basis for the trunk and branches. In my case, I picked up a roll of 18 gauge stranded wire which has 10 strands of 28 gauge wire. Lengths of this wire, with the insulation removed were cut and used to form tree-like structures.

The process was simple enough. I took a stiff piece of flower wire, about 3/4" long, and inserted into the stranded wire for the trunk. The flower wire extends past the bottom of the trunk to provide an anchor into the scenery. The speaker wire is twisted, and as you go up the tree, you can form smaller limbs and branches from smaller groups of wire twisted together, until yo get to individual strands. There is no particular pattern, just trying to get something that is tree like. A few drops of super glue, strategically located will hold everything together. A few branches may also need to be clipped to length as the tree takes its final form.

Some of the trees use one length of wire strands, others use two or more bunches. The lengths do not need to be identical, but probably need to be close to look right.

After the super glue has set, I use a little bit of caulk adhesive for projects to fill in the trunk and eliminate the stranded look. The key is that whatever material is used, should be paint friendly. At this point, you have a bunch of shiny metal trees. Next up is to paint the trunks.

I first painted the trees with a brownish color, and then followed up with a dark grey. The exact colors don't matter, as long as the look like trees. Most trees have much more of a greyish he to the trunk, but most also have some dark brown or black features. The key with the second grey coat is that this coat focuses more on the trunk, and does not need to cover everything. I follow those paint coats up with a little bit of another grey acrylic paint, brushed onto the trunk and major branches. I used a lighter grey paint, but again, the exact color is up to you, and again, the goal is not full coverage, just adding some color.

This is the result. The trees have some texture due to the colors used int he paint. For a dead tree, or a leafless tree, this is a decent model. Most of the first set of trees I made are in the 25-50 foot range in T. That is about 5/8" tall to 1.25" tall. This approach is much easier in larger scales.

The next step is to add some foliage. I used some polyfil fiber that I had previously painted a dark green color. Darker green is better here than lighter green, as we will add more texture and color. The key is not to make a big piece of polyfil and wrap it all over the tree, but to make a bunch of little balls, that tie into the ends of one small group of branches. Again, a little super glue to help things stay in place is useful. Note also, that sometimes, you can get a spread of roots at the base of the tree from the twisted wire trunk.

Next up, I spray the tree with adhesive spray glue, and sprinkle ground foam on the tree. Try to avoid glue or ground foam on the trunk. Fortunately in this case, the tool used to hold the tree will cover the trunk. Also, make sure to sprinkle ground foam on not only the top, sides, but also the bottom of the tree to get the undersides of the branches. Allow the tree to dry and shake the tree to remove any loose ground foam.

The neat thing about the finished trees is that in the right light and angle, you can actually see through the tree a little bit in places. But at a distance, and not backlit, the trees are solid, just like the real thing.

At this point, a few errant strands of polyfil may need to be trimmed away with scissors, but we are almost done. The last step is to spray just a little yellow spray paint over the top of the tree. The goal is to slightly lighten the upper leaves to achieve a highlighting effect. Generally though, the goal is not to turn the tree yellow. It is easy to overdue the effect. If that happens, a little ground foam on the wet yellow paint solves the problem.

Two nearly finished trees. I need to prune one or two errant fibers still, but these trees are almost ready for planting on the module. Overall, I did a dozen trees in a week. The first night was about two hours of work getting to wire trees, and the remaining nights were 10-30 minutes. The slow part is allowing things to dry between steps. If done in an assembly line fashion, I could probably make 60-70 trees a week this way, with an investment of about 15 hours of work. A little slow, but the results are fantastic.

T is for Trees

Well, one thing I know I am going to need for the layout is some more trees. I planted my first one at the show, which has since been removed to allow for scenery to proceed. I have 7 more just like it, ready to go, however, that is no where near enough.

In addition, the tree is close to 100' tall (2.5") in T. So, I have some work to do. It seems feasible to cut the height down a bit, and get maybe two trees, instead of one. But ultimately, I need more trees. So, that became the project last night, getting those trees going.

Proudly hanging from my "tree-line" are another 112 trees like my first 8. I added another 40 after the picture that are simply painted, without ground foam as an experiment. All are made from Bump Chenille, and I think this gets me going on evergreens for the layout. After all, 160 evergreens in less than 3 square feet should be plenty...

Of course, researching the actual composition of trees in Scotland led to the quick revelation that evergreens are but a small minority of tree species in Scotland. Most of the types there are Deciduous trees. So, I will need to make some of those. I have a plan to make them from homemade wire armatures, with polyfiber and ground foam canopies. I've made one sample in N scale, and I was quite pleased. Now to see if it can be scaled down for T. And so, out came the polyfiber and the green spray paint.

I think this will produce enough for a small forest of T scale trees. And while I was at the paint work, I took the opportunity to paint a few T-scale British freight cars, as well as a few passenger cars and a few engine bodies I found in a box that I had ordered years ago. So, the roster is expanding.

Tree details to come!

T going forward??? After the Layout...

Flush with the experience at the show last week, I have been thinking about T going forward. I am pleased with what I have done, and want to finish the existing layout - but would I want to do something more in T?

I am very fond of a few T layouts I have seen, including Tgauge.com's first layout, seen here.

And then there is Sarum Bridge, seen here.

And Orboost, seen here.

And most recently, The Firth of Forth, seen here.

But what holds me up in thinking about doing something like these in T? Well, there are a couple of things. First, it is the performance of the mechanisms. I am quite excited at how much better the second generation mechanisms perform relative to the first generation. But, even so, operating below 40mph is dicey. But, could a 3rd generation mechanism do better? Well, some people are trying.

Notably, this video is fairly old, and the current mechanisms, while aided by better PWM controllers, aren't at this level yet. But, I will admit to looking at designing my own mechanism, fresh off my 3D printing successes.

Coupling is another issue - but here again, innovation is at work.

And if you can couple - you can shunt (or switch).

Not perfect, but becoming more and more feasible. And even better, today this new item appeared on Tgauge.com. (Link) Here is a video of the system in action.

And another, on the same track. 

Even folks in Z and N are going to love these little gems. And of course, some people have figured out turnouts.

These are the commercially available units, and people have also succeeded with handlaid turnouts.

Or, people have modified the commercial turnouts.

So, with these ideas in mind, I started thinking about what I might do. While I could go mad, and try to work on US T Gauge - there was something nice about the British T Gauge, and more and more of that seems to be coming onto the market. So, there are two British Exhibition layouts that have caught my attention, both in N.

Loch Oran is 4'x12' in N, or would be about 16" x 48" in T, except that I would almost certainly build it larger, just for sanity and for performance. The other is shown here.

Fantastic models. And of course, I have been partial to the Ribblehead viaduct, which I have seen done in N scale and I also found a 4mm scale version.

Or, of course, I could look at a Glenfinnan Viaduct Model...that I have not seen.

And of course, there is also the idea of maybe doing something in another scale for which little has been done in Britain, but which may be much more operation ready, what about British Z? Particularly with the new Atlas Turnouts coming out...Hmmm. Oh well, just a bit of day dreaming.

After the Show

Well, the show has come and gone. All told we had just shy of 2000 attendees, a 14% increase from 2017. We got there with the layout and had it set up and running in about 30 minutes. Indeed, the layout ran superbly throughout the show. We had about a half dozen minor derailments, generally related to two track joints that seemed to go away as we did a little filling to smooth those two joints a little.

Here is a video from near the end of the first day.

At this point we had run mostly Hanku9000s and a little bit of JR103s. My general impression was that while a 4 car train is not oversize on the layout, the layout looked better generally when there were 2- or 3- car trains running as a rule. There was even some media coverage of the event.

Sandy Eustice being Interviewed by Channel 4

The attention continued the second day. In fact, I heard from some visitors that they had been eating at McDonalds and the staff there told them that they needed to go see the T Layout at the Train Show. So they came! Thanks McDonalds!

We continued running, and I shot a few more pictures, mostly of an abbreviated HST Train set.

So, what did I learn from the first show?

Track Cleaning - I experimented with a couple of approaches, but found that Q-tips seemed to do the best job. For a cleaner, I used both rubbing alcohol and Goo-Gone. About 3 hours of running seemed to be the limit. In addition, a lot of our observers would come up to and even stick their heads right over the layout. I even extracted what looked to be an eye-lash out of a balky loco the first night. I might need to do something about that.

Locomotive Performance - Without question, the 2nd generation mechanisms were much better than the 1st generation mechanisms. However, we may have some casualties. One of the club Hanku9000 power units is running poorly, and both of the HST power units did not run well. I will have to look them over. On my side, I saw a couple of JR103s refuse to run, and my Kiha40 (NIB) would light up, but not run. One of my Hanku9000 power units also went down on the 2nd day, along with one of my HST power units. Part of the problem may have been run times. We ran the Hanku units a lot, and both units that came up balky did so after about 3 hours of continuous running. We estimated that in two days, we ran nearly 1200 scale miles during the show - or about 2.5 REAL miles. Considering that we had only about a half dozen derails, one child godzilla attack, numerous earthquakes induced by observers, and a dozen or so stalls (usually dirty track), I feel pretty good about the runs. However, at future shows, I am going to limit the run time of any one unit. And now I have some rehab work to do.

Scenery - I got a little keyboard cleaning vacuum, and that proved to be a good choice to help clean the trackwork. It was surprising how much stuff kept finding its way onto the tracks. Getting the buildings finished and fixed down is going to be important, and as you can see, one tree was added to the layout. another 500 or so will help too.

Lights - I luckily brought a light to help with some maintenance work. We ended up putting it on to show the layout. We needed MUCH more light. I'm now looking at a valence for the module.

Sound - In this case, an ambient sound module, and even some train sounds could be quite helpful and effective.

Backdrop - It is not too light. It actually looked pretty good. Some of the backdrop is delaminating though, so I will have to rework the backdrop a bit before the next show.

Train Speed - I was able to reliably run the Hankus at about 60mph, and I got the HST units down to 36mph. I don't think that the JR103s ever dropped below 100mph. It was somewhat surprising how fast the trains were going, even when they looked slow to the eye. With magnetic wheels, going much slower is really difficult. Generally, I would say 60-100mph seemed okay with all but the most discerning observers.

Bridges - These were a big BIG hit. So much so that I had multiple requests to buy them. So, up on Shapeways via the Modelworks they will go. In fact, finishing the stone bridge is now a big priority. I did not expect the enthusiasm for the 3D printed aspect of the layout.

So, I got a lot to do before the next show in April - Central Railroad Day. Tonight, I am going to remove the track, and several bridges to clear the way for the installation of scenery and the finishing of the bridges.

As a close, here is a short slideshow of the show on Friday, shot by another member of the CRM&HS.

Getting Ready for the Final Push

I did not get much more accomplished last night, but I did spend a bit of time trimming the last fascia board, painting the backdrop sky blue, and doing a bit of detail painting on some of the other layout elements. Here are some pictures. First up is the tunnel portals. They needed a light wash to bring out the brickwork, and some of the concrete to be painted. Then some weathering. All of which I did with acryllic paints.

You can see in the picture, that I need to hit a little more of the concrete edge on the left and at the bottom right. And, since someone asked - just how big these are, here is the tunnel portal with a dime in front...

Yep, the dime does not even pass through the portal.

The other tunnel portal was also done, although from its location it is much harder to see.

Next up was the bridge over the road.

It's okay, I feel like it is quite weather beaten, but it captures the effect I was after. I have decided not to completely install it, as I still need to do the road scenery, but I will come in with a little brown paint to cover up the pink foam exposed on the left. I may also try to touch up the paint a little with a proper microbrush. I tried doing it with a small paint brush last night, and don't think the dried result is as good as I want. Behind this bridge will ultimately go the pedestrian overpass, with a mirror hidden underneath.

I also did some washes on the concrete bridge to bring out the concrete color variations a little. Here is where the layered effects of 3D printing can work in my favor, as they do lead to patterns that can mimic the effects of poured concrete.

I like the effect here. Looking at the pictures, there is still a lot of weathering that this bridge should see, but this isn't bad for a start. Like the other bridges, I am going to defer final installation until after the show. The backdrop is simply a piece of polystyrene sheet. Previously, I have always picked sky blue colors that ended up looking too blue. this time, I picked a sky blue color and then went one shade lighter. I'll have to see it in better light - but maybe not blue enough?

A good pit of the painting effort has gone to the final major bridge. The light tan coat of paint over the grey primer came out great. A really nice stone effect.

I have cleaned out the alignment holes between the sections, and have now also painted the details. They appear to be copper plated, or at least they have an aged copper appearance, so I mixed up some green acrylic paint to a suitable color, and painted all the details on the spurs. The details I printed appear at different positions on the sides of the viaduct, and generally, there are drainpipes that run down the center of the piers. For these I am going to use small pieces of polystyrene square stock. Again, here is a dime alongside the detail parts.

I am quite pleased with how this bridge is coming out. So, that is the progress I made last night. I did a little more painting of the stone bridge this morning, adding a red brick color to the bricks exposed on the undersides of the archways. Tonight, I need to finish the assembly of the stone bridge by installing the alignment pins and gluing the two halves together, and then fit it to the layout. I will probably defer installing the details until perhaps the show. After that, I will temporarily fix the track down for the show, finish a little bit of wiring, and install the backdrop and fascia.

Counting Down...

Well, I reached a milestone. The first train ran over the layout last night. Below is the link video.

A few things to note. The train running is a combination of a four car HST set, with the two powered units from a Hanku9000 set. Don't worry about the anachronism. I previously started with the HST set, but found that the motorized units ran very poorly. When I examined them under magnification, it became apparent that they had been cleaned with something that had wrapped fibers around their axles. Despite my attempts, I have not yet been able to detangle the axles. So, out came the Hanku power. Everything ran fine, although the radii of the curves on the layout, 132.5mm, at the minimum really is pushing it with the long passenger cars in the HST set. They make it, but do not look very good while doing it. And, as a consequence, they periodically behave like long cars do, and either uncouple or derail.

Most T exhibition layouts use a much more generous minimum radius, often 7"+, and on these radii they work fine, but I have concluded that 132.5mm is just too tight for reliable operation. Just like you can make an 85' N scale passenger car go around a 9.75" radius set track curve, but it doesn't look that good or work that well. So, after some further experimentation, I have decided to primarily use the Hanku9000 four car set, and probably some of my J103s for the weekend. Eventually, I will replace the locomotives with British Sprinter type sets, but there just is not time before the weekend show. These are typically one, two or three car trains (although I have seen pictures with multiple sets lashed together), and will look better on this layout anyways.

Okay, with the first test run done, let us look at the layout progress. First up was the tunnel portals. They still need a bit of paintwork, but I wanted to try them out in position first. So, after placing them on the layout, doing a little fitting and adjustment work, here they are.

Here is the bridge side. I will need a little rock work on the right side to fill a small gap.

And the Station side, which is very difficult to see or photograph. It too will need a little scenery on the right side.

Also fitted into the layout is the bridge over the roadway. It too needs some paint work to finish it up, before it can be installed. And, I probably need to put the road in place. I found that this bridge is very fragile, so I will need to be careful not to damage it (and I have a minor repair to make to it as well). However, both abutments went in, and there is just a little scenery to patch on the left abutment where a little bit of pink foam got exposed.

You can see, that the fascia supporting the backdrop is also in place - or at least close to it. I cut and fit 5 of the six sides last night, as well as cutting the frame members to stiffen the backdrop. The front three fascia pieces are intended to be individually removable - at least for the moment - I will affix them after the water is poured, but the rear three pieces are intended to be removed as a unit with the backdrop. Hence, the concern for the attachment to a frame. I painted the frame pieces black last night, so that they match the fascia and will help form a proscenium arch like in a theater for the final layout.

Finally, the stone bridge is being painted. The Ribblehead Viaduct that inspired this bridge is fairly tan, so I went with a similar paint color for the base.

What is perhaps most exciting, is now with a bit of paint, the stone work is popping! There will need to be more than just a base coat of paint applied to finish the bridge, but hopefully tonight it will be fit to the layout as well.

The show starts on Friday...tick tock - tick tock.