Ale-8-One Reefer

[pwranta193]

My lawn should look so good... great depth with the multi color effort.

[JohnP]

Eric, this is all so nice. The soil is very effective as is the track. The static grass will need color and texture blending, maybe skip the painting as that may bilk up the fibers.

Do you have a source for the home-made static applicator?

Thanks, John

[EZnKY]

Thanks John.  I agree more blending is required. 
The applicator couldn't be easier to make.  I bought an electric flyswatter from Harbor Freight for a couple of bucks.  Took off the swatter part, soldered one of the wire leads to a long wire with an alligator clip on the end, and soldered the other lead to a kitchen strainer.  I epoxied the strainer to the handle in place of the swatter part.  This wasn't my idea - I found instructions all over the internet, with varying levels of complexity.  I'm not convinced it works as well as the purchased units, but I'm satisfied with the results.  Total cost was about $15.  I can tell you it hurts like h*ll if you complete the circuit.

[artizen]

That's interesting about the hurt bit. I have an electronic fly swat sitting here waiting for the chop but I demonstrated it to my wife who had heard all about these dangerous pseudo-tasers (the reason they are banned in Australia) by jabbing a piece of steel florist wire through the mesh to make the big sparkie thing with a blue flame. Lots of noise but no physical reaction so I can only conclude that my fly swat produces 7/8ths of nothing in the way of electrickery!

[nk]

Eric, this is a pleasure to watch develop. The grass looks right to me with enough patchiness and variation to not need anything more. Thanks for posting the step by step.

Ian you mentioned "electrickery"...you must have watched Catweazle in the early 70s.

[artizen]

Can't remember Catweazle. Do remember The Young Ones, the Bananaramas, The Monkeys, The Goodies, Monty Python, Not Only But Also, Porridge and Spike Milligan. Now I get my humour from The IT Crowd and Big Bang Theory which both appeal to my warped sense of realism!

[EZnKY]

I've been working on some weeds and such for the shelf module, and I'm not happy with the results so far.
I could use some feedback.

I think the Queen Anne's Lace turned out okay, but not the long grass.  (I'm trying for something like foxtail grass, if that means anything.)

I see two issues.  The first is a lack of density to the plants.  The second is the ability to see to the ground through the weeds, which is related to the first problem.  I've thought about adding a darker green "understory" to the ground plane before "planting" the weeds.  Do you think this would help?

Or do I just need to keep planting weeds?

[EZnKY]

Here's a shot of a fairly typical right-of-way in central Kentucky...

[finescalerr]

It would seem you only need to add a few more weeds. Someone with a sharper eye may prove me wrong, though. -- Russ

[artizen]

More weeds and more variety in both species and heights would work splendiferously. Could always try a bit more dark texture grass in between as well if you want to go to that level of effort.

[EZnKY]

Well the consensus seems to be "more weed"!
So to speak.

While I regroup on the underbrush I worked on the rails a bit.  I added styrene fish plates and NBWs to the aluminum rail, with the joints at 30' on center.  (I believe this is correct for narrow gauge rail...)
After some paint and weathering I'll spike these down.  It'll be good to do some test shots of the reefer on the new base, even without the plants finished.

[pwranta193]

Great stuff - I'm looking forward to seeing your rail spike method.  This is one of the areas that I am largely ignorant of, crossing over from military.  One of the things that led me here was that I have the Trumpeter Reichsbahn loco (1:35) and a number of DML rail cars that I have wanted to make into a dio (for about 6 years), and in the process of researching learned that European rails are pinned differently than US lines.  So I have a bunch of US style spikes I got at a rail hobby store that are useless for my project  - but I'm still looking forward to seeing your mounting process in this larger scale.  Are "fish plates" (correct term?) something that you can get massed produced for static displays or will you be making them from scratch?

[EZnKY]

Thanks Paul.  My plan is to spike the rails directly to the ties without using tieplates.  (Fish plates are the reinforcing plates used to connect the ends of the rails together at the rail joints.)
Most of the older, cheaply-built, or narrow gauge track was built without tieplates.  They were an additional expense I guess.  I've attached part of a shot taken by William Henry Jackson of some narrow gauge track somewhere out west - probably Colorado.  No tieplates. 

You can buy tieplates from Ozark Miniatures.  (No affiliation other than being a customer.)  www.ozarkminiature.com.
I bought a box of them to try.  They work nicely, but its just not the look I'm after.

You're right different attachment methods are used in much of Europe.  I've seen various kinds of chairs under the rails, and they often used big screws instead of railroad spikes.  I don't know much about the availability of detail parts for European track, but I know there are folks here that do.  I assume you follow the rail modeling on the Mig forums?  Especially from libor? 

[EZnKY]

I did manage to get the rails painted and ready to spike yesterday.  (No fun outside - it's been cold and raining here since Lee came ashore more than a week ago.)

[finescalerr]

I predict your track should have a very satisfactory appearance, as should your foliage. -- Russ