Your brand new train, with it's wheel spinning and the smoke billowing is wonderful I agree, but after a while any oval becomes boring and when you want something more, then adding model train scenery is the answer.
It is very nice to watch your trains going round and round, but how much nicer to have your trains going through stations and tunnels, weaving past hills and buildings, past cars and pedestrians...and all of this is possible with some imagination.
Soldering Supplies
As I look through the forums, I see that a number of people are having the same problems and whilst there are many members who are willing to help I cannot help but think that there are lots of people still struggling.
The same questions keep coming up over and over such as:
1) How do I paint realistic backgrounds?
2) How do I make the water look real?
3) Where is a good place to buy accessories?
4) How do I build trees?
5) How do I make my trains look old?
6) How can I run lights to my buildings?
7) How do I build a realistic rock face?
8) Where can I get professional help?
Before you buy your model train kit, I recommend that you already know your theme. Will it be a city design or country train? Will it consist of passenger trains or goods trains? Does it have lakes and hills or is it surrounded by high rise buildings? Is it a modern train or pre-war train? There are so many different variations, but you should know before you buy your set as this will dictate the type of scenery you have.
I notice that many people are having a problem when it comes to rock face construction.
If you do not have the money to buy realistic rock, or if you just like making your own rock, there is a very cheap way to do it.
All you need is expanded polystyrene, a knife and hacksaw, a soldering iron, white poster paint, black enamel paint and a paintbrush.
With either the knife or the hacksaw, cut of thin sheets of polystyrene. Don't make them too big, but they should be big enough to fill the parts of the rock face that you are working on.
You may want to snap of bits at the top of the polystyrene to make sure that the rocks are an irregular finish as rocks are not perfectly straight.
For the next part you will need the soldering iron and I suggest you do this, either in a very well ventilated room or outside, as polystyrene can be toxic when burnt.
Run the soldering iron very lightly down the left and right hand sides of the polystyrene to smooth off the rectangular edges and taper the rock so that you can lay the pieces side by side.
If you choose, you can be very artistic and make two pieces "fit" together like a jigsaw. Do not press too hard though or you will damage the polystyrene completely and have to cut new pieces.
Then get the white poster paint and mix it well with the black enamel paint. You will notice that they will not mix well, but this is the desired effect as it will give the rocks a weathered look, which is more realistic.
You will need to paint the front and sides liberally until you have covered all the white areas, but there is no need to paint the back of the rocks as these will not be seen.
The enamel paint may take a while to dry, but once dry, you can glue the artificial rocks in place with wood glue and that basically completes the rock face construction.
Scatter small rocks or dirt around the bottom to make it look more realistic.
I hope that this helps you bring part of your model to life. It really is not that difficult to make realistic looking model train scenery.
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Dec 05, 2011 16:19:59
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