Saturday, January 17, 2015

Wish there was water in the River

Today saw an early start due to the expected heat. I got down to the club at 07:30 and found I wasn't the first - Doug was there already having a run! The heat was already climbing hot, and of course...not a whiff of a breeze. Swimming in a mountain stream was looking pretty damned tempting!

Since what I planned on doing really wouldn't need the layout offline, he was free to run his train and I could easily work around him. Not much longer after, in came some others and the day began in earnest.

My goal was to get a good start on the river scene and maybe also kick off some work on the hill/mountain on the river side of the peninsula. While I was making a great mess with the beaded blue foam, John B came in and started on the hill etc at the far left of the station - ie the part that will mate onto the hill/mountain. So this is good as we'll now get a big move on with some scenery and on Wednesday Barry P will help on the hill/mountain as well.

So I concentrated on the right hand side of the river with cutting up and shaping some foam and also added in a bit more skyboard to hide the gap below ground level which was there from when we dropped the deck for the river a long time back. By about 2'ish I had a rough shape in place and glued down with the Liquid Nails.

Geez the foam sure eats into a box cutter blade - went through 2 and really needed a 3rd! During the day it was that hot that the steel rule I left out in the sun on a sheet of foam burnt my fingers it was that damned hot. I was sure looking forward to the evening and some air-con and a beer or two.

So hopefully on Wednesday I can get the left hand part of the river or maybe some mountain done, or maybe that wye we want in, or maybe that point in the fiddle yard to a small loco or such facility....

Above is a bit of an overview shot of the river and the beginning of the scenery. After looking at the photos provided by Darryl D of the bridge up in Bundaberg and some talks with John B, I decided on a nice wide floodplain as the first step of the river bank and then it will slowly climb up to the rolling hills on the right. Once the left side is also foamed up, we can unbolt the bridge piers and remove it in total so as to get in and do the final shaping of the foam. Much less damage can be done that way :o)

You can see in this picture, that the river bank under the bridge has multiple slopes.

Photo above shows the foam at the back is now also roughly carved. Once the full shaping is done with the bridge not in situ, I will also fill all holes and gaps with the usual concoction of foam beads, sawdust and No More Gaps.

For most of the slopes, I was able to use my hot wire foam cutter, which is so much less messy and seals the foam nicely so no beads flying everywhere.

Above we see the corner John B is working on. First step was to make a template of thin ply to see what contour the hill should take. Here we see that it will fill the back of the trackage and also some of the middle track and then drop down to the front deck section.


And here we see John B gluing in some of the foam. I reckon Wed and Sat coming should see a whirlwind of foam beads flying in all directions as it gets sculpted!

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