Monday, February 28, 2005
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Friday, February 25, 2005
Your First Model Train Setup
A model train setup is a big boy’s toy, a world in miniature in which the creator is God. It’s not something to set up for a young child, and it’s not even for all older children. Setting up your model train is a project that requires patience, time, and commitment, but not necessarily a lot of money.
The first step is to determine where you’re going to have your setup. It does you no good to purchase all the equipment for your model train if you don’t have room for a good setup. You need an area that will be relatively undisturbed, where children and animals do not dare intrude unless invited; and you need to remember to leave enough room to move around all four sides of your table, board, or other platform. Ideal spaces are clean, dry basements (dust is bad for your model train), spare bedrooms, workshops, or safe attics.
Next, you have to determine whether you are going to use an old table to lay your train out on, or if you’re going to use an alternate support, such as sawhorses. It’s important that the base of your train set be stable; test any tables or sawhorses for shakiness by leaning on them with your full weight and shaking them. Any shakiness needs to be stabilized before you build anything else.
You will need a flat of plywood or a similar lightweight, strong material to set your world up on. Before you go out to get it, consider whether you just want your setup to remain in its room, or you intend to take it to model train shows. If you are going to have a portable train set, you need to cut your plywood into sheets small enough to move through the door; and you will have to come up with a clamping system to tie them back together, again without any shakiness or instability. One model train setup designer used simple flat brackets and screws to put his setup together; it may become unstable eventually, but it’s fine for now.
Now that your table and your plywood are waiting for you, you can think about the fun stuff: design. How complex do you want your model to be? Do you want hills? Rivers? Roads? You can have cities, or you can have tunnels through rustic highlands. Sketch out your vision with carpenter’s pencil on the plywood, and draw a rough map of where you want the track to lie. Make a list of the supplies you think you’ll need; for instance, for grass you’ll need to get spray-on grass from a model train supply store. You need to save newspapers to make the paper mache to build hills and other rises, and you’ll need model paints for roads, houses, and any models you build yourself.
At this point, it’s imperative that you determine your model size. The most common size is an H-gauge; but whatever size you choose, you need to make sure that everything you buy for your model is the same gauge size. Purchase enough to start your set, including the train, some track, and a small housing setup or other structures you want on your model.
Almost everyone who builds a model train set wants to have tunnels on their setup. Somewhere on your penciled map, you probably have an ideal place for one. Start with a short tunnel, so that if anything goes wrong you can reach in from either side and fix it. Measure the height of your train plus the height you are going to make your tracks (almost everyone uses a slightly raised track) and make the tunnel roof at least 25% taller than that height, to accommodate any oversize cars. Make the width of the tunnel the width of the widest point of your train plus 25%; if you are going to have a curve in your tunnel, you might want to consider making the interior of the tunnel the width plus 35% to make sure the train doesn’t get stuck on the bend.
The tunnel should be made before building the hill it runs through. You can create it with stiff cardboard, wood, or anything else that will retain its shape when wet papier-mache is mounded over it.
Before you build your landscape or place your tunnel, you need to lay the track. Glue it down with modeler’s glue (you can find that at the same store as the track) and make sure that breaks in the track lay along the splits in the plywood, so that when you take your setup apart it will break the track in the right places and you won’t have to pry anything up. When the track is down, set the tunnel up in the appropriate place, run your train through it once to make sure it won’t get stuck, make any necessary adjustments, and then glue it down (be sure the tunnel isn’t really tight around the train), and build your hill over top of it. When the hill is quite dry, you can paint it. Though you have purchased spray grass to cover it with, you should paint it before putting the grass on; that way, you don’t have ugly newsprint showing through the grass.
Glue down your other essential models, build any other tunnels or hills, and you have your first model train setup. Congratulations!
The first step is to determine where you’re going to have your setup. It does you no good to purchase all the equipment for your model train if you don’t have room for a good setup. You need an area that will be relatively undisturbed, where children and animals do not dare intrude unless invited; and you need to remember to leave enough room to move around all four sides of your table, board, or other platform. Ideal spaces are clean, dry basements (dust is bad for your model train), spare bedrooms, workshops, or safe attics.
Next, you have to determine whether you are going to use an old table to lay your train out on, or if you’re going to use an alternate support, such as sawhorses. It’s important that the base of your train set be stable; test any tables or sawhorses for shakiness by leaning on them with your full weight and shaking them. Any shakiness needs to be stabilized before you build anything else.
You will need a flat of plywood or a similar lightweight, strong material to set your world up on. Before you go out to get it, consider whether you just want your setup to remain in its room, or you intend to take it to model train shows. If you are going to have a portable train set, you need to cut your plywood into sheets small enough to move through the door; and you will have to come up with a clamping system to tie them back together, again without any shakiness or instability. One model train setup designer used simple flat brackets and screws to put his setup together; it may become unstable eventually, but it’s fine for now.
Now that your table and your plywood are waiting for you, you can think about the fun stuff: design. How complex do you want your model to be? Do you want hills? Rivers? Roads? You can have cities, or you can have tunnels through rustic highlands. Sketch out your vision with carpenter’s pencil on the plywood, and draw a rough map of where you want the track to lie. Make a list of the supplies you think you’ll need; for instance, for grass you’ll need to get spray-on grass from a model train supply store. You need to save newspapers to make the paper mache to build hills and other rises, and you’ll need model paints for roads, houses, and any models you build yourself.
At this point, it’s imperative that you determine your model size. The most common size is an H-gauge; but whatever size you choose, you need to make sure that everything you buy for your model is the same gauge size. Purchase enough to start your set, including the train, some track, and a small housing setup or other structures you want on your model.
Almost everyone who builds a model train set wants to have tunnels on their setup. Somewhere on your penciled map, you probably have an ideal place for one. Start with a short tunnel, so that if anything goes wrong you can reach in from either side and fix it. Measure the height of your train plus the height you are going to make your tracks (almost everyone uses a slightly raised track) and make the tunnel roof at least 25% taller than that height, to accommodate any oversize cars. Make the width of the tunnel the width of the widest point of your train plus 25%; if you are going to have a curve in your tunnel, you might want to consider making the interior of the tunnel the width plus 35% to make sure the train doesn’t get stuck on the bend.
The tunnel should be made before building the hill it runs through. You can create it with stiff cardboard, wood, or anything else that will retain its shape when wet papier-mache is mounded over it.
Before you build your landscape or place your tunnel, you need to lay the track. Glue it down with modeler’s glue (you can find that at the same store as the track) and make sure that breaks in the track lay along the splits in the plywood, so that when you take your setup apart it will break the track in the right places and you won’t have to pry anything up. When the track is down, set the tunnel up in the appropriate place, run your train through it once to make sure it won’t get stuck, make any necessary adjustments, and then glue it down (be sure the tunnel isn’t really tight around the train), and build your hill over top of it. When the hill is quite dry, you can paint it. Though you have purchased spray grass to cover it with, you should paint it before putting the grass on; that way, you don’t have ugly newsprint showing through the grass.
Glue down your other essential models, build any other tunnels or hills, and you have your first model train setup. Congratulations!
Cheap Landscaping for Your Model Train World
The stuff in train stores can get pricey; there are things that you absolutely have to have, like liquid plastic to form water, waterfalls, and pools, but do you really need miniature gravel for the tracks? Or those expensive cars? Or the spray-on grass – isn’t there a cheaper way?
Yep. For someone with a creative mind, there are tons of ways to not just find your modeling material more cheaply, but to have a model that looks better than the stuff you buy in the store.
Start with the track. You hate the miniature gravel they sell to glue down to the track, but you don’t know how to get away from it. Instead of buying it, go out and find small-grain Styrofoam, like the stuff computer peripherals is packed in. Crumble it fine, and put it in a shallow box – the lid to a paper box is ideal. Spray quick-dry gray paint over the whole mess, and shake it around to keep it from sticking together. Keep doing this – spraying then shaking – until all the grains look gray – and an awful lot like gravel. After it dries, this material is ideal for gravel fill on your tracks, or on your dirt roads.
The spray grass also gets pricey, especially at the rate you use it. A cheap alternative – potter’s green. That’s the foamy stuff you stick plastic plants into in pots to keep them stable. If you crumble it up finely, it makes a nice grainy powder. Next trick – put the green powder you created into a wide-holed salt shaker – or recycle one of your old cheap spice bottles with fairly wide holes. Everywhere you needed grass, cover with spray-on glue; if it’s close to things that should not be coated with green, cover them with tissue paper or something else easily moldable that can protect them before spraying. Then shake the green powder all over the sprayed down areas. After it dries, go over the area with a very soft broom or large makeup brush, or with a Dustbuster. And you have grass.
So now you have the tracks, you have the grass and hills – what about rustic streams and rocky hillsides? Water, unfortunately, you will probably have to model with liquid plastic. But the other landscaping – rocks for your babbling brooks to splash over, or to jut out from the hillside – can be gathered from the ground outside. Look around carefully – you want stones with character. You need to have stones that won’t look like boulders or mountains. If you live in an area with shale or slate or other forms of limestone, you can take just about any limestone rock and break it up with a hammer – if you do this, don’t be macho. Use gloves, wear sleeves, and put on glasses or goggles. Sharp bits of stone in the eyes are not any fun. To break the stone properly, hit it at an angle; this will break it off in flakes rather than chunks. A rock hammer is the best way to go, but a regular old house hammer will work.
You should have designed channels in your papier-mache hills to flow your streams through; re-dampen those and carefully embed your rocks into the sides of the channel. Try to place them a little randomly; put a couple at angles you wouldn’t expect. Remember that streams flow downhill, so you want stones to overlap up-to-down. Wherever stones touch, put a little dab of glue or liquid cement, not enough to show up but enough to hold the rocks in place. Place a few rocks randomly along the sides of the bank, and make sure there’s a bit of a pileup of rocks at the foot of the hill. Give your rocks time to dry. Now paint your liquid plastic down the streambed to whatever thickness you want. Voila – a beautiful stream.
Trees can be made of branchy twigs from local trees outside your house. You can also use branchy twigs from bushes, or strong weeds. To make these trees look like trees, remove any leaves, dip the entire twig in an oak wood stain, and after it dries pull apart cotton balls or fluff dyed dark green (a shade or two darker than your grass) and gently and sparingly glue it to the branchy end of your twig. Spray with glue, and, holding the tree upside down, shake your green grass material all over it. You may have to repeat this a couple of times to get good coverage. If you kept a bit of the potter’s green intact instead of turning all of it into grass, it makes a perfect base to stick your tree in so that it can dry before you put it on your landscape.
Remember those expensive models? With H and G gauge model sets, Matchbox cars are almost the perfect size to match the trains. Browse toy stores and the toy section of department stores to look for other models you can use. You’ll probably be able to find vehicles, miniature people and animals, and even miniature houses. If you’re not clear on the scale you need, bring a sample from your train set with you.
The most important thing, though, is to be creative. Creativity is what your model train is all about.
Yep. For someone with a creative mind, there are tons of ways to not just find your modeling material more cheaply, but to have a model that looks better than the stuff you buy in the store.
Start with the track. You hate the miniature gravel they sell to glue down to the track, but you don’t know how to get away from it. Instead of buying it, go out and find small-grain Styrofoam, like the stuff computer peripherals is packed in. Crumble it fine, and put it in a shallow box – the lid to a paper box is ideal. Spray quick-dry gray paint over the whole mess, and shake it around to keep it from sticking together. Keep doing this – spraying then shaking – until all the grains look gray – and an awful lot like gravel. After it dries, this material is ideal for gravel fill on your tracks, or on your dirt roads.
The spray grass also gets pricey, especially at the rate you use it. A cheap alternative – potter’s green. That’s the foamy stuff you stick plastic plants into in pots to keep them stable. If you crumble it up finely, it makes a nice grainy powder. Next trick – put the green powder you created into a wide-holed salt shaker – or recycle one of your old cheap spice bottles with fairly wide holes. Everywhere you needed grass, cover with spray-on glue; if it’s close to things that should not be coated with green, cover them with tissue paper or something else easily moldable that can protect them before spraying. Then shake the green powder all over the sprayed down areas. After it dries, go over the area with a very soft broom or large makeup brush, or with a Dustbuster. And you have grass.
So now you have the tracks, you have the grass and hills – what about rustic streams and rocky hillsides? Water, unfortunately, you will probably have to model with liquid plastic. But the other landscaping – rocks for your babbling brooks to splash over, or to jut out from the hillside – can be gathered from the ground outside. Look around carefully – you want stones with character. You need to have stones that won’t look like boulders or mountains. If you live in an area with shale or slate or other forms of limestone, you can take just about any limestone rock and break it up with a hammer – if you do this, don’t be macho. Use gloves, wear sleeves, and put on glasses or goggles. Sharp bits of stone in the eyes are not any fun. To break the stone properly, hit it at an angle; this will break it off in flakes rather than chunks. A rock hammer is the best way to go, but a regular old house hammer will work.
You should have designed channels in your papier-mache hills to flow your streams through; re-dampen those and carefully embed your rocks into the sides of the channel. Try to place them a little randomly; put a couple at angles you wouldn’t expect. Remember that streams flow downhill, so you want stones to overlap up-to-down. Wherever stones touch, put a little dab of glue or liquid cement, not enough to show up but enough to hold the rocks in place. Place a few rocks randomly along the sides of the bank, and make sure there’s a bit of a pileup of rocks at the foot of the hill. Give your rocks time to dry. Now paint your liquid plastic down the streambed to whatever thickness you want. Voila – a beautiful stream.
Trees can be made of branchy twigs from local trees outside your house. You can also use branchy twigs from bushes, or strong weeds. To make these trees look like trees, remove any leaves, dip the entire twig in an oak wood stain, and after it dries pull apart cotton balls or fluff dyed dark green (a shade or two darker than your grass) and gently and sparingly glue it to the branchy end of your twig. Spray with glue, and, holding the tree upside down, shake your green grass material all over it. You may have to repeat this a couple of times to get good coverage. If you kept a bit of the potter’s green intact instead of turning all of it into grass, it makes a perfect base to stick your tree in so that it can dry before you put it on your landscape.
Remember those expensive models? With H and G gauge model sets, Matchbox cars are almost the perfect size to match the trains. Browse toy stores and the toy section of department stores to look for other models you can use. You’ll probably be able to find vehicles, miniature people and animals, and even miniature houses. If you’re not clear on the scale you need, bring a sample from your train set with you.
The most important thing, though, is to be creative. Creativity is what your model train is all about.
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