Deep Deane station and depot - New Modern Image DCC Layout

[Lofty]

Upside down for me too

[Terrier]

Either that or Alex is showing off his excellent ballasting and scenery skills by holding it all upside down and nothing is falling off? hehe! Excellent work though, looks like you've really got stuck in there chap, More More more!

Chris P

[413x]

Pfft that's exactly what I meant terrier I'm a genius, ladies please, I think the problem is that when I used the IPad to take the pictures the camera was upside down so I could get lowdown shots, and the hosting site tiny pic doesn't offer te chance to rotate them, i shall remember next time!


Alex

[Shaun Mac]

Maybe they got posted via an Australian server?

SM

[413x]

Hi all, new update,
Last weekend I bought some DAS clay from my local art store for about 7 quid, not too bad for a kilograms worth I think, and with that I proceeded to have a crack at the hard standing on the left hand side of the layout. It has taken nearly a week for it to dry which I'm a bit annoyed about, also it's much harder to get completely flat and I keep finding bumps. Nevertheless I have given it a quick once over with the sand paper and it's getting there, the space at the end is for when I get some buffers, that is why it is empty. The bag I got I have used about 4/5 of it and covered this much, I think I'll use the filler from now on as this is a bit expensive.





That's all for now, Merry Christmas and a happy new year

Alex

[skyblue]

It has taken nearly a week for it to dry which I'm a bit annoyed about

I think the time taken for DAS clay to dry depends quite a lot on the environment - I left some to dry in the loft and it took a lot longer to dry than some of the same stuff which was drying downstairs. It will depend to some degree on the moisture content of the air and the temperature - although with such a large area it would probably take ages anyway.

The layout looks great and I like the way you made the wagon loads - it looks more economical than filling the whole wagon (a mistake I made with some ballast wagons which are now very heavy).

[Bufferstop]

I'd stick with filler. If you change your mind it's easier to get up. You even stand some chance of cleaning up the track. Even when pressed out fairly thin DAS seems to take longer to dry the more of it there is.

[Pete]

Hi

DAS is ok, but it shrinks, try to keep it moist for as long as possible, lay a damp tea-cloth over it as it goes off. Also if you dry it too quick it can crack. That said it's neat and clean, and you can control where it goes easily especially around points.

I did a harbour scene one using DAS, managed to get a nice cobble effect on it:



Pete

[413x]

Merry Christmas all sorry it's late, Santa wasn't particularly train based, I got £35 in gift vouchers to play with, my main present was extensive amounts of money to fund a school trip to Phillipolis in South Africa to build a community centre there with my school, in the summer. I shall be spending my money however on static grass and some plasticard and spray glue to build up the grass and some low relief warehouses.

Pete, fortunately no cracking like you said.

Before I left to go to Scotland for Christmas I added some more concrete between the two sets of road in the left TMD. Made from filler it's heaps better than the DAS clay. It hasn't shrunk or anything, I have sanded it all down for the pictures.



Here's how much the DAS clay has shrunk on me.



Quick mockup





And I've just noticed this wonky track ffs..........



In other news I finally finished my Static Grass Applicator soon to receive use once my static grass arrives.



Tomorrow I shall hopefully finish off all of the plaster on the left hand side of the layout. Any suggestions on paint colour?


Alex

[413x]

After much deliberation I have decided to destroy part of the layout, on the far side before the cutting the gradient was far too steep, it was unrealistic and quite bare as it was hard to put scenic material onto a vertical wall. I am replacing it with a rock face set further back as the original wall was far too close. I whipped out my trusty Swiss Army knife an cut away all of the plaster cloth and removed everything that was inside leaving a big empty shell with just a little bit of stuff on the top.



The offending article



The Deep Deane Fault



The hole, the upper bit is incredibly strong actually, it was attached to the backscene as well



To the bin........

Next up was the rock face, Alex3410 mentioned on Marky Voodoo's thread about making rock moulds from tinfoil and plaster, originally I had been planing on buying some newly released ready rocks by woodland scenics, but seeing as they're rather pricey and I wanted something to do I knocked up a mould.





The mould is actually upside down in the pictures but you get the drift, there's a nice big ledge down the middle to put some stuff on. The only change I planned to make was folding up the edges to keep the filler in.



I have made 3 others to fill in other areas such as behind the right TMD area.

Will post pictures tomorrow of how they look once they've dried.

Alex

[413x]

Problem my moulds didn't work, I used exterior filler which was more gritty and the things didn't set right and there was air trapped beneath escaping round the side of the would, and the tinfoil dissolved as well, I think ill try with interior filler and if that doesn't work with that ill just buy the ready rocks from woodland scenics.

Alex

[MrH]

perhaps buying some plaster from ebay would be cheaper

[Pete]

DIY Plaster isn't that great for casting, you should try plaster of paris or a hard plaster designed for casting.
I think you should stick to trying to make your own rocks though rather than buying a mould, it'll be far more individual.

Personally I've always used polyfiller onto a polystyrene base to form rocks.

Sorry for the rubish pic (it was the only one I could find from an old layout of mine), but you can just see some rock face around the tunnel mouth:



Pete

[413x]

Hi all, here's the remains of my cliff faces from earlier, completely buggered.



I had used exterior filler and the mix may not have been right.

I had put a sponge in the filler for some reason and I was wondering if I could use this as the cliff face instead, it looks kind of realistic.



Next up I re filtered the area between the tracks on the DAS clay area of the TMD, it wasn't level and locked awful, also I painted it all in a first coat of grey.



Then had a crack at carrying on but ran out of filler, the lighter grey is a smudge of interior mixed with my remains of exterior, will have to buy some tomorrow.




Alex

[413x]

Hi all been a while, layout has been broken up and put into storage as I lost interest in it as I couldn't afford to move on with it as I had no money, got my room changed too so there wasn't space for a layout and a nice bed as I grew out of the last one.
I do miss trains and they were great fun

Akex