More sculptamold goes down

If you go back a couple of posts, you will find that I had a story regarding the station building at Sunset. I was trying to build a legend to cover the fact that the building was a little too small for its supposed location at the main station for the railroad. I had a lot of problems with the roof of the structure, mostly because I used a water based glue to fix the shingles rather than the recommended double sided tape.

I have now completed the walls and the roof. Both have been airbrushed and are ready to be joined. Unfortunately, applying the shingles and painting them has caused the roof to warp fairly severely. I am going to attach some thick plastic card to the underside of the roof and I have glued some tabs to the building. Once put together, the warping should have been alleviated.

Having worked out that I have about 17 things on the go at the moment, a kind soul on thisorum suggested that I allocate a whole week to each of the task. This seems a bit extreme so I have decided to dedicate one whole day to each task. Today is Model Railroading (of course!)

I have been discussing with my wife quite why I don't get much done now that I am retired. My 89 year old Mother-in-law chipped in and asked what I do currently. I made a list. It was terrifying and it has become blindingly obvious why I am currently unsatisfied with regard to progress on my hobbies. Here was the list I came up with:

I tried to make some sense of the JMRI Operations options but I found that it was way too complex for my simple railroad. As a long time programmer, I decided to write my own operations software.

We have trees

If you don't know what JMRI and WiThrottle are, read on.

I recently bought a USB interface board for my NCE DCC system. I got this from my friend Kevin Dickerson at Coastal DCC who, fortunately, lives just round the corner from me in Ipswich.

My Sculptamold has arrived. I think that it is a great material. The first time I used it, I mixed it 50/50 but now I see that it should be 2:1 Sculptamold to water. The only difference I can see is that it smooths out easier in the real mix. I am laying it throughout the freight yard to raise the ground up nearer the ties as I have put all of the yard track on foam track bed so it is the same height as the main. This way, it looks as though the track is lower to the ground without ripping up the track bed.

I have now laid all of the track and ballasted it. In addition, I have painted the sides of all the rails in a rust colour and used the Woodlands Scenic tie marker to tone down the glossy plastic of the track.