The Dolly Varden Mines Railway in On30

[danpickard]

 
Not sure why I never checked your profile before Jacq, but for some reason I assumed you were from France.   France, Holland...its all European to me

Benchmark & Geoff Nott - same word really, just spelt differently...

Dan

[PuckHog]

John,  Since you are being so generous,  my favorite is the best of show winner from one of the ng conventions, the mercantile.  I'm attempting a poor copy on my layout and need more inspiration!!!!   

                                                                                   Thanks,   Randy

[jacq01]

France, Holland...its all European to me

You must be from Victoria ..

Jacq

[Frederic Testard]

I seem to remember that they mentionned the trees existed only in Australia in their series of articles in the Gazette.

[jhunter]

randy
I was approched by stoney creek designs if it was ok to turn the model into a kit,I was as you can amagine  thrilled with that idea so at the last convention in the USA roger released my model as a kit and done a supurb job so the best pics of what is now known as JHunter Mercantile go to stoney creeks web site, I can post pics of the original but rogers version of my build is all the insperation needed, the kit sold out very quick but i believe a few have come up on EBay from time to time but at infated prices unfortunatly, makes me wonder what my original is worth?.

[jhunter]

I seem to remember that they mentionned the trees existed only in Australia in their series of articles in the Gazette.

Hi Frederic

dont know about the gazette but Narrow  Gauge Down under done several articals ,I know the gazette featured red stag. here is a bit of a buiding tip  mini tutorial .You can make balsa trucks look like sheoak by painting a paintable gap filler over the shaped balsa ,ours here in Aust is called selleys no More gaps ,it is a white Or colored butal mastic sealer usualy sold for filling gaps in walls or windows ,it is in a gun type despencer you can also get it in  tube form ,im sure there is similar products world wide, the important part is that it must be paintable, anyway dont grain your balsa spread the filler over the trunk You can thin it a bit with water but you need it quite thick say 1/16 to 1/8 {1.5 to 3mm} once spread stand vertical and have a Burbon No particular brand admire your achivement for say for 5 Minutes and then using a brush and tile spreader work the filler to add grain and texture ,it will dry overnight and then paint accordingly will look great, use several washes over the finished painted surface and kazzoom you have a sheoak tree, add roots and some favorite folaige in anyway you wish I use caspia branches sprayed  brown then  spray with spray  glue and then my favorite folaige. I sometimes roll the wettly painted brown caspia in the folaige  the paint acts as a glue finish with a mat medium or hairspray to hold.

[PuckHog]

John,  Thanks for the info,  had been to Stoney Creeks site before for a glance at rolling stock,  now have checked out gallery and structures and found some good stuff!!!      Randy

[wclmrr]

Dan
   Simply awesome!!! I have been a fan of the Dolly Varden since the book first appeared on the shelf at Caboose Hobbies. Wasted about a minute before buying it and you guys have now put it in 3D. Again great work.
                                                                                             Clif Korlaske

[Frederic Testard]

Sorry for the late answer, John, but thanks for the hints about the making of better trees. I'll save it to try it when I build some big ones.

[danpickard]

In addition to the pics I have put up here on the forum, I can now present
DOLLY VARDEN MINES RAILWAY, On30...THE MOVIE

Finally got to play around with the video camera and some youtube.  Just another perspective on the layout I guess.  Filmed this at its first public exhibition a few weeks ago, where it received some favourable comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAsqi5evRPk

Cheers,
Dan

[TRAINS1941]

Dan & John

We might not be able to see it in person but that's as close to "PERFECT" as it gets.
Excellent job and thanks for sharing this with all of us.

Jerry

[MrBrownstone]

Dan & John

Nice video!... It will please many viewers

Mike

[lab-dad]

Dan great video!
Really nice way to see everything and how it is all laid out.
Next time though use a tripod, get low and pan slowly.
Also would have been more realistic to have the locos accelerate and decelerate slowly.
Fantastic modeling - I see some little things (details, what else) I'd like to add to mine.
Congratulations on an excellent display!
-Marty

[Scratchman]

Very nice, Dan the little railroad runs as good as it looks.

Gordon Birrell

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77318580@N00/

[danpickard]

Thanks all for the feedback...
Marty, I was going to use a tripod...kind of left it at home that weekend though!!!  I may look to redo the taping at a later stage, but using tripods during exhibition times also gets a bit tricky, especially with public around.  Had the bonus with that particular show of camping out at the exhibition venue, so had a bit more private time.  Unfortunately the acceleration of the locos is just how the reversing circuit works.  Have used a slow accelerating circuit before, but found it was a bit prone to stalling at start.  This particular one is a bit quick to take off, but is pretty hard to stall...therefore good for us from an exhibition perspective.  This was just taped with the auto circuits active, so I might try and fine tune things a bit better with the manual throttles on "Dolly Varden...the sequel, revenge of the underpaid miners".  The constructive tips are certainly appreciated.

A sign that we were getting bored by the end of day 3 at that exhibition...we stood there and worked out that the climax had travelled just on a real 4km in 3 days of constant running on the auto circuit (10am til 5pm, and the reverser pauses for about 30sec at the end of each travel)...built for comfort, not for speed.

Cheers,
Dan