Repairing the Ballard hill — Part 4

In the previous posts in this thread, I showed part of the hill’s original appearance, and described the state of the hill before starting repair (see this one at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/11/repairing-ballard-hill.html ), then showed my beginning steps with a screen-wire armature and a base layer of Plaster Cloth (a Woodland Scenics product). That post is at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/repairing-ballard-hill-part-2.html .
     At this point, I did a test to see if saved pieces cut from the hilltop would fit onto my armature, and because it did, I was able to show the process of reinstalling it: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/repairing-ballard-hill-part-3.html . I then began repairing the joints between the scenery pieces, using paper mache from both Sculptamold and Brandt’s (a taxidermist’s product).
     Having done all that, the hillside contours on the front or peninsula-end side of the hill looked pretty good, and I began painting them a base color. I used a Rust-Oleum color called “Nutmeg,” which I have found does an adequate job representing dirt (though it will be covered up with ground foam and other materials in subsequent steps). Here is part of it (some areas remain unpainted). The repaired area may not be obvious but you can click on the image to enlarge it.

     Meanwhile, the back of the hill wasn’t nearly so well served by the saved pieces of scenery, because there was a major area for which those pieces were not worth re-using. Here is how it looked with that first coat of Plaster Cloth, and the old hilltop piece in place. Note at left that the tunnel portal area requires complete rebuilding, and that some sort of slope needs to be created at far right. The block of lead at lower center is holding down another glued section.

     I added some small pieces of screen wire to extend the armature over the tunnel portal area, and did the same at the far right, next to the backdrop. Then more strips of Plaster Cloth helped tie all this together. The tunnel portal is temporarily in place to indicate location. This is already better, though the slope at far right needs improvement. It is too steep at the top and doesn’t extend far enough to the right.

My next step was to add paper wads to areas needing greater height of surface. I only show this step because I have seen modelers wring their hands over exactly how to do this. My answer would be, just put almost anything you want, more or less where you want it, and don’t worry about the final result at this stage, because you can count on the ability to modify and improve it at later steps.

Hard to be more informal than the photo above! But it is all you need in most cases. This was followed up with more strips of Plaster Cloth, after water-spritzing all surfaces to be covered with the cloth. Below is the result. The slope at right is still not what I want, but looking better, certainly heading in the right direction.

Note also that I have now tied the top of the hill at upper right to the slope below.
     Now for a few general comments on contours, which is what I work on after the Plaster Cloth stage is finished. Real landscapes are predominantly convex, that is, curved outward. There certainly are concave areas, such as the bottoms of stream valleys, but convex dominates in most places. Basic hardshell, whether made my old way with paper towels, or now with Plaster Cloth, tends to be kind of “draped” over whatever is underneath. You may have wadded up newspaper (something I have done on several layouts), or made a web of strips of corrugated cardboard, or used various tricks with screen wire. But once you “drape” hardshell over it, you get dips, sags, wrinkles, folds, and other features which are utterly unlike real landscape.
     So the refinement process, for which I use Sculptamold, sets out to make all those unrealistic areas smoothly convex. I tend to make multiple applications of the Sculptamold as I get closer and closer to the desired appearance, and then to make a final, fine-grained surface with the Brandt’s paper mache. A putty knife is good for most application, but in places I then wet a finger and smooth/adjust the contour that way.
     Having said all that, if you look at the last photo above, you will see that the hillside just has a single slope, almost cylindrical. But I hope to give the impression that this hill is farther away that it really is, which I think would be conveyed if I add some subsidiary ridges. I added a center ridge, the same way as I showed above for the far-righthand slope: wadded up some paper, taped it down, and applied Plaster Cloth over it. Once that had fully set, I started smoothing out the contours with Sculptamold, as you see here.

Note also that with the hillside so steep above the tunnel portal, I decided to work in a couple of rock outcroppings. I had some old plaster rock castings, already colored to suit the coastal formation color, so simply broke a couple of pieces to fit, and faired everything in with paper mache.
     At this point, finishing the back or Ballard side of the hill is just a process of continuing to add paper mache (usually Sculptamold first, then Brandt’s), letting it dry, judging what else is needed, and adding more. So I will stop at this point, and defer conclusions to the next post.
Tony Thompson

Repairing the Ballard hill — Part 3

In the previous post, I described making an armature of screen wire to roughly define the desired shape of my new hilltop, and the application of the Woodland Scenics product, Plaster Cloth, to make a plaster shell. It can be seen at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/12/repairing-ballard-hill-part-2.html .

     Next, I made contour adjustments with wadded paper, constrained with masking tape. As I mentioned in the previous post, it’s important to recognize that you don’t have to get your contours entirely right with the first layer. My goal here was to get the profile of the ridge top to look generally like the previous version, so that I could evaluate whether the surviving piece of ridgetop scenery could be re-attached and look right. Here are some of the wads, toward the left of the photo, in the last step before covering them up.

With these adjustments to the shape of the hill, it was time to try fitting the saved piece of hilltop to the new armature.

     I decided I wanted to try and “glue” the old material to the new plaster shell. To that end, I spritzed everything with a water spray, then used a putty knife to apply generous blobs of Sculptamold in the areas where I expected close contact of the old hilltop. Here you see me applying one blob; another is in the foreground. Photography, incidentally, was by my wife, using her iPad.

     My younger son Sylvan was in town for Thanksgiving, and I enlisted him to help me hold and move the large and somewhat flexible piece of the old hilltop. To my surprise, it fit really well to the new armature and matched up with the old edges where it had been cut. Of course this was the desired result, but I had really doubted whether it would work well enough to be worth the trouble. Here we are, in the process of wiggling it to get the best possible fit.

With the large piece in place and pressed down into the Sculptamold “glue,” I then went around the perimeter of the added piece and tried to get all edges stuck down and aligned as well as could be.

On the wall in the background, just above my wrist, is the John Allen Award, presented to me in 2009 by Coast Division of Pacific Coast Region, NMRA.
     As I mentioned above, the old piece of hilltop fit onto the new armature far better than I had any right to expect. I could then go ahead with filling gaps with more Sculptamold. At an intermediate stage in the process of suturing the scenery into one piece, it looked like this from above.

The white material is Sculptamold, the gray is the Brandt’s taxidermist paper mache I described in the previous post on this topic, a much finer textured material which makes a better final surface, and which I apply over the Sculptamold.
     More work is needed to close all cracking in the scenery, and to refine all contours to a realistic curvature and smoothness. (Later I will offer some general remarks about contour principles.) Then the paper mache can be painted brown, preliminary to adding ground foam and other scenic materials. But I will postpone those topics to a future post.
Tony Thompson

Third blog anniversary

This blog began with an initial post on December 8, 2010. There was no significance to the date, it just happened to be the day I decided to go ahead. A year later, to my considerable surprise, there had been a lot of posts written by me (126) and an astonishing number of page views (51,000). I commented on these numbers on the first anniversary in 2011; you can read about it at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/12/one-year-and-counting.html .
     A year later, on the second anniversary in 2012, the total number of posts for the year was similar to the total for the first year, but the page views had jumped even farther, to almost 150,000 total, or nearly 100,000 in the second year alone. Again, I wrote a post about all that, which is at this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-second-anniversary.html .
     Now after a third year, the numbers continue to grow, again adding about 125 posts in the course of a year, or around ten a month, and again a big increase in page views, now close to 300,000 views, which means 150,000 in the past year alone, equal to the sum of both of the first two years. I continue to be entirely amazed by these numbers, far beyond anything I had ever imagined.
     Something I had noticed on the second anniversary is continuing to happen, that instead of comments posted to the blog site, most questions are directed to me personally via email. Often these are clarifications or corrections, and many are clearly connections to subjects beyond the post in question, a healthy kind of response. A few are what the questioner thought might be a “dumb question,” which the questioners seem to have thought not to be a good thing to display in public.  As a retired teacher, I subscribe to the old adage that there are no dumb questions, except possibly the ones you fail to ask. But I appreciate them all.
     Another thing I had noticed a year ago continues as a considerable part of the total page views. This is the readers coming to the particular post from search engines. This means the blog is functioning as an archival resource, which I had not really thought about. In fact, in some cases, it functions much like a FAQ (frequently asked questions), since people get referred to certain posts by others who already know of them.
     I continue to enjoy the writing and photography for the blog, something I was not sure would be true. But to date anyway, I am far from tired of it, and very much look forward to continuing.
     Between the (to me) huge number of page views, and the many questions, both posted to the blog and directly to me, I feel like my original objective of the blog is being realized—to inform and hopefully to inspire other modelers. Techniques of modeling, along with prototype information (and ways of acquiring the latter), are central to this. It’s what I had set out to do, and it still looks like it’s working.
Tony Thompton

Repairing the Ballard Hill — Part 2

In my first post on the topic of my hill just west of Ballard (it can be viewed at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/11/repairing-ballard-hill.html ), I described the problem with this hill. I needed to repair a combination of the damage due to moving from Pennsylvania to California, along with the results of having to cut off the hilltop for interim storage.
     As mentioned in that first post, the cut-off sections of hill were saved, but not all pieces looked like they could be re-used. One clear survivor was the bottom of the hill on the Ballard side, which was largely intact. I tried “gluing” it back in place, using Sculptamold paper mache, and it worked well. When mixed to be rather stiff, the stickiness of this material will indeed attach things together. The reason, of course, is that there is glue included in the mixture, along with clay and powdered paper, to hold the stuff together. I merely took advantage of the glue component. Here is a photo of the reattached piece. Note that the hillside no longer fits perfectly at the base. This will be easily repaired.

     Another problem was to tie together the pieces of screen wire which would underlay the new hilltop. I tried several ways to do this, including using Sculptamold as a glue, but the best procedure seemed to be weaving some fine wire through the edges of pieces to be joined, or else pinning pieces together with small finishing nails, just as you would pin two pieces of paper together. The exact shape of this screen armature isn’t important, because I know from experience that it will be necessary to make multiple layers of hardshell, paper mache, or both, to refine contours to the desired final shape. Accordingly, a more or less cylindrical shape is fine for now, and will permit closing the gap in the hilltop. Here is how the screen looked, in a horizontal side view from the outer end of the peninsula.

The previous hill had a bit of a saddle in the line of the ridge top, and it looked like the same thing can be accomplished again. You can also see some cracks in the old hillside.
     My basic plan for creating a shell on this wire armature was to start with the Woodland Scenics product, Plaster Cloth.

     This is a cheesecloth-like fabric impregnated with plaster. Their directions say to merely dip each length of cloth, not allow it to soak at all, and then apply. I used a wide Pyrex casserole dish, which made the dipping easy to do, and the wet strips were easy to apply, though keeping them from doubling and sticking to themselves takes some practice. With half a dozen strips of different lengths overlapped on the screen to form a foundation, here is how it looked from a high angle, again from the outer end of the peninsula. Some of these strips are overlapped to form a double layer, others remain single layers at this point. Screen along the edges is not covered yet.

     With this first shell in place, the next day I spritzed the first layer with a water sprayer (so that the dried plaster does not suck water out of the fresh plaster, causing it to set too fast), then added more Plaster Cloth strips over the top of some of them. In that way, I made sure at least a double layer of strips was everywhere, and I also extended coverage somewhat beyond what you see in the photo above.
     At this point, it is ordinarily necessary to adjust contours toward a more natural-looking hill. One way to do it is with wadded paper, held down with masking tape, then simply adding more Plaster Cloth over the wads. It’s important to recognize that you don’t have to get your contours entirely right on the first go. But I will come back to that point.
     I will continue with this project in a future post, in which I will describe my efforts to apply the old piece of hilltop, while making realistic contours on the skyline.
Tony Thompson

Route cards — 8

In my various route card postings, I began with some prototype photos and information, in the post entitled “Chalk marks and route cards,” available through this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/11/chalk-marks-and-route-cards.html . I posted additional information on locations and size of route card boards in my third post, “Route cards-3,” which can be viewed here: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/11/route-cards-3.html . The most recent in the series was a post describing the physical size of route card boards (at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/01/route-cards-7.html ).
     I do get questions from time to time, asking whether my model route cards have anything written on them. Given that they are three or four inches in size, roughly square, on the prototype, no! I don’t want to make up HO scale paperwork that size with lettering on it. But sometimes I add a pencil line on one of my cards if it is on the large side. You don’t have to be able to read it, only to perceive that there is something on it.
     Readers of this blog may be familiar with the “Patch” switching layout of Keith Jordan, set in downtown Los Angeles. Among the places it has been described is in GMR (Great Model Railroads), 2012, Kalmbach, page 34. Keith not only located some collected examples of route cards used in that area, but managed to interview someone who knew a lot about the switching process. Here are three of his tags, two denoting transfers (to PE and SP), one indicating a switching district.

Keith doesn’t apply these to cars as such, but uses them as switching aids while operating the layout. That is, he uses them full size (see the GMR article for more details on his system). But since they are based on prototype cards, they are informative.
     Recently Doug Harding in Iowa sent me several route cards from his area, all from the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway (M&StL), and they are a different type than the ones Keith Jordan uses. A very interesting one is a directional one, presumably for drag freights, but possibly also for some priority named “B”:

Doug also sent several M&StL route cards for cars to be interchanged with other railroads. This is a common switching situation and I would think most roads used tags like these.

It is intriguing that these three cards each show a different type face for the destination road, maybe a deliberate choice but more likely reflecting design of individual cards at different times.
     These card examples are only to illustrate what might be on a route card, though in HO scale they would be pretty hard to read—except maybe the M&StL “B” card. Remember, they are only about three or four inches square. For that reason, I will probably continue to use blank squares of paper on my models.
Tony Thompson

Rebuilding my ocean beach

One of the features I had been pleased with on my layout in Pittsburgh was the beach scene, intended to typify some of the Southern Pacific’s seaside running between Ventura and Santa Maria, California. It also provided a distraction from the return loop on the main line, which was additionally hidden by being partly inside a large hill.
     Moving this section of the layout to California, with fascia removed, naturally was a touchy matter, since the projecting beach at the end of the peninsula was vulnerable to bumps and scrapes. So although it largely survived, it did get damaged, and in the new layout setting, certainly needed repair.
     The original water area was created with a shelf of Masonite, covered with soupy plaster to make a flat surface. That surface was then modified by adding a wave surge, using the taxidermist’s papier-maché (mentioned in a previous post: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-shumala-extension.html ), then sanding smooth, sealing with Matte Medium, and carefully painting blue-green in deeper water, shading to light green near the beach. Some dry brushing with white suggested foam along the wave top. A final coat of Gloss Medium completed the look of water.
     I suppose it’s obvious, but an ocean beach is not like the lakes or ponds many modelers have built. The water is not flat, but has wave action, and representing the ocean’s surface as flat simply won’t do. It doesn’t matter exactly what action is chosen, but some suggestion of water movement seems essential to me in modeling the ocean shore. I chose to model a small wave close to cresting.
     I don’t have a good photo of the modeled beach as it originally was, but more recently, in its damaged condition, I took a photo to show how it had ended up. (You can click to enlarge the image.) You can see that some pieces of the substructure have fallen out, and that the curve of the “water” edge no longer exactly matches the re-installed fascia.

The color of the rock, incidentally, was matched to samples of the characteristic Franciscan sedimentary formations along the central coast of California, and the tilt of the formation is also typical of the prototype.
     My first step was to repair the basic contours. I used Sculptamold for the rough work, and a fine-grained taxidermist’s material, Brandt’s Paper Mache Compound, to refine it. (Brandt’s is available from Robert Ruozzi of Irwin, PA.)  Once that was all dry, I sanded it smooth, sealed it, and was ready to paint.
     I don’t have any record of what colors I originally used, but that doesn’t matter, since I only want to (more or less) match what exists. In my repainting, I used Cerulean Blue, Light Oxide Green, Yellow Oxide and White, using the yellow very sparingly along with white to lighten the blue and green. Even in the bluest area of water, there is some green in the color. This close to shore, seawater really only looks green, but the more blue shade away from the beach is a concession to the mental image most people have, of “the blue of the sea.”
     As repainting was getting under way (you can see the overly dark blue at the outer edge, toward the left), the right side of the scene looked like this. The rocks will get more foam around them in the final version.

     The water surface, not being flat on account of the wave, is higher than the fascia edge in the center area. This makes a raised vertical edge which has to be painted to match the natural Masonite color of the fascia, as seen below. You can see the wave crest also, which looks like a gray line at this angle.

     Once the paint matching and blending had been completed for the water, I went back with Burnt Umber, lightening as needed with the white and yellow, to touch the vertical edges of papier maché which should match the fascia. (Natural tempered Masonite is usually not as dark as Burnt Umber.) The final look after painting was this, with a final coat of Gloss Medium still to come (to make the water is glossy instead of matte), and some fresh white foam highlights along the wave top and around rocks.

As usually happens, the old glossy surface had become dull with time. I gently washed it with a damp sponge, then went over the entire water area, new and old, with Gloss Medium. The final effect looks good to me.
     It is nice to have this scene restored. It doesn’t fit my layout’s geographical area very well, at least not as well as it did in the Pittsburgh version, but I have kept it anyway because I like the look, and it reminds viewers (and me) of SP’s many miles of seaside alignment in California’s Central Coast area. Now to add some bathers on the beach . . .
Tony Thompson

“Men in uniform” (railroading)

This title, “men in uniform,” refers not to uniforms such as conductors and brakemen on passenger trains wore, but the typical clothing of freight train crews, in my 1950s era. One sees it in many photos, but all too many times in model scenes, one doesn’t see it. Let me start with an example from the Bob’s Photo collection, located for me by Jerry Stewart, who also suggested it should be titled “men in uniform” (thanks, Jerry!). You can click on it to enlarge.

The location is readily identified; the cut is being shoved westward across the Los Angeles River toward LAUPT (possibly to the postal annex), on a rather foggy morning. The photo was taken from Mission Tower, and the train is on SP tracks, crossing the double track of the Santa Fe’s west bank line in the foreground. Unfortunately, the photographer is not identified.
     The two men atop the box car both wear fedoras, as was common in the late 1940s and into the 1950s for train crews. The man closest to the camera wears overalls and a denim jacket; the man behind him has on a plaid jacket which looks like wool. This is what Jerry Steward meant by referring to them as “in uniform.” These are the standard working clothes of the era.
     Note one important point. They are not wearing hard hats. Modelers of times like the 1950s often compromise by using scale figures with modern hard hats, but these were nonexistent in railroading at the time shown.
     Here is another example, with both caboose trainmen wearing overalls. The photo shows picking up orders on the fly at Burbank Junction (SP). It’s a Stanley Groff photo, which I obtained from the Rob Evans collection.

Here again, these are typical trainmen’s clothing, and the hats are a fedora and what appears to be an engineer’s cap in a solid color.
     Finally, one more photo (from Southern Pacific) of a trainman waving a highball with a lantern. In this case also, he is dressed in the common clothing of 1950s railroaders.

     The point? Your scale figures should wear clothing which matches the era. Some commercial figures are correct in this sense, but many are not, either because they are aimed at a later era, or because they represent European clothing. It’s not so true today, but 50 years ago, European and American clothing styles of working people were quite different, and many sets of scale figures are from European companies. Repainting incorrect figures, or choosing correctly dressed figures, is needed for a convincing historical appearance.
Tony Thompson