I have been plugging along on the Shay albeit slowly.  Axles were machined for the wheels and the gears were obtained, machined, and attached to the right side wheels.

This picture will make more sense once the rest of the trucks are built.  This pieces is the center of the truck.  One axle will go on each side of it and this is attached to the frame.  It is sprung to allow the truck to follow the normal track undulations.  Brass is easier to machine but is much more expensive then normal steel.  The end pieces where particularly a fun machining exercise and it was a challenge to rely on the X, Y, and Z axis scales to determine how deep and how far to cut.  The blue dye is used for ease of making and reading the layout markings.

While awaiting some more materials for the trucks, I have began machining the parts and assembling the frame components.

The current body of work is contained in the picture below.  I may have to revise my year estimate to two based on progress.  The good news is that it has been a fun and interesting project.  I enjoy the stolen hours turning a hunk of raw metal into something functional.

The O scale layout has not received much love lately but these things tend to go in cycles.  With the football seasons winding down and winter settling in for the long haul, expect to see more updates soon.

After about six weeks of turning metal, silver soldering, and more turning I finally have 8 beautiful wheels for my Shay Locomotive.  In the course of that time I had to learn how to do things use the lathe accurately, silver solder, bore, and ream.

Here is a profile picture.  Kozo’s book was amazing and walks you through it step by step.  Even an amatuer can get good results.  Are they perfect?  No, far from it but I am happy with them for my first effort.

For those that haven’t seen 3/4″ scale live steam before, here is a picture of the wheels next to my friend, “Harvest Moon”.

The steps were something like this:

1. Turn rims from a big piece of 2.5″ steel rod.
2. Face hubs to width from 7/8″ steel rod.
3. Cut 48 little spokes from steel bar.
4. Drill, tap, and mill 48 little spokes.  (2 broken taps)
5. Attach rim, spokes, and hub to fixture for silver soldering.
6. Flux and silver solder.  Fix many problems by cleaning, fluxing, and resoldering.  The worst wheel took about 8 iterations.  The best wheel was done in one.
7. Face entire wheel to width.
8. Bore and ream center holes.
9. Turn tread to 3 degrees.
10. Turn flange to 10 degrees on each side and file round.

Building a real live steam engine has been a dream of mine since reading a book on the subject at the local library when I was about 12.  Shortly after I was cutting up road signs, lawn chairs, and anything that seemed to have the right shape pieces of metal.  Needless to say, without proper tools the effort didn’t last long.

I have been gathering some of the necessary tools and materials over the last couple of years as well as the series of books by Kozo Hiraoka.  His latest, Building The New Shay, is extremely well done and does a great job breaking the machining steps into digestable pieces.

I really wanted to build a 1 1/2″ scale live steam that I could actually ride on but the cost of the larger lathe and milling machine is greater than the CEO will approve in the near term.  Perhaps I need a second job to finance my hobbies.  I decided to go ahead and build 3/4″ scale as a learning exercise before investing in the greater quantity of materials and larger machinery.  A 3/4″ scale Shay will be about 36 inches long and ride on rails spaced 3 1/2 inches apart.

Harbor Freight had their 7 X 10 lathe on sale and I was able to pick one up.  For the smaller scale it should work just fine.

Since I don’t yet have a mini-mill, I have only been able to work on a few of the pieces.  I now have 4 axles and 1 of the 8 rims that will make up the wheels.

The metal disk on the left illustrates the starting point for the rim.  Lots and lots of metal shavings!  I enjoy the precision work and I am quickly learning how to get the most out of the mini-lathe.

It has often been said that Nature reproduces herself on many scales.  I had been diligently searching for the miniature representation of large Pine trees during various hikes in the Rocky Mountains but nothing really had the right texture.  I kept looking for something similiar to the Red Cedar of Northern Michigan that grows on many acres of our family hunting camp.  As luck would have it, my brothers and I had scheduled a Father’s Day weekend in June and I flew back for the festivities.

I did get some strange looks from the wife with the addition to my suitcase but what Model Railroader hasn’t seen that look?

A few minutes on the bandsaw and I had some nice looking logs for my completely unweathered log cars.

The bark is perhaps a bit oversized on this one but it is eons better than what I could do carving out and staining balsa.  It looks natural and I am happy.  I also cut up some of the ends for use as stumps.  The stumps below are patiently waiting along side the right of way to be ‘planted’.  Some clay might work well to create more of a substantial base.

My modeling has been moving about as fast as the stumps by the side of the road.  My usual summer slowdown is in effect.

One of my favorite techniques for background trees is the tried and true bottle brush technique. They are cheap and easy to make. Even with my short attention span, I can knock out a dozen pretty quick.

Material List:

• Sisal Twine
• Wire - Lately I have been using 18 Gauge aluminum wire but I while I enjoy the flexibility, during the twisting phase the wire loop breaks sometimes. I will probably switch back to regular steel wire for the next batch.
• Walthers Goo
• Brown Spray Paint
• Coarse Ground Foam of desired foliage color. I prefer a bluish green.
• Block of foam to hold the trees

Tools:

• Wire Cutters
• Scissors
• Cordless Drill with hook to twist trees. Can be easily made from coat hangar. I happened to have a very light ground stake for a front-yard Christmas decoration.
• Vise to hold the trees during twisting

Steps:

1. The first step was to cut the sisal twine into approximately 12′ lengths and boil. Yes, my wife gave me very strange looks. After boiling for a couple of minutes I draped the wet twine over some pipes in the basement to dry. I attached a clamp to the ends to hold them straight. The boiling helps to straighten the fibers.
2. Cut the fibers into pieces ranging from 1/2″ to 2 1/2″. I typically put them in three piles - short, medium, and long.
3. Cut the wire into pieces approximately 2″ longer than twice the desired height of your trees. I typically create trees in the 4-8 inch range.
4. Now the fun begins. Fold the wire into tight V shape and apply Goo to one leg of the V leaving about an inch clear on each end. Attach the twine pieces up the wire working from wide to narrow. Spread the fibers apart using your fingers. The Goo gets tacky very quickly and will hold the twine for the next step.
   
5. Tighten the V together and clamp the free ends into the vise.
6. Twist slowly until the fibers rotate around to complete the tree shape.
7. Remove tree from vise and cut off top loop with wire cutters. Leave the free ends for a trunk to hold onto. Trim the stray strands with scissors and make it look like a tree. Next, apply fairly heavy spray paint. Your lungs would appreciate it if you did it outside. If you have to do it inside, use a respirator.
   
8. Sprinkle on ground foam from top, bottom, and sides. Shake off excess. If you are smart you will do this over top of something in order to recover the excess. Do not do it over the area you used for the spray paint step. It goes much faster if you batch each of the steps.
   
9. Stick it into foam until planting time and enjoy. Here are some completed trees waiting to become famous on the layout.
   

Only about 2000 more to go!

I have obviously fell off the blog wagon as the weather here in Denver has gotten nicer.  Here are some updated photographs of the section I have been working on.

My goal has to been to build a nice green forested look with multiple layers of foliage.  I have used mostly Woodland Scenics turf and polyfiber as well as experimenting with some Sweetwater Scenery products.  Many of the trees were transported from Michigan and my previous layout.  They are bottle brush type that I made from wire, sisal twine, ground foam, and spray paint.

Another closer view.

The final view is from the other side.  I have much more work to do but wanted to share how things are going.

Coloring the plaster castings is one of those things that actual evokes a certain amount of fear and loathing. I can never seem to attain what I consider to be authentic colors or at least colors that look reasonable to my eye. After some initial missteps and a few practice runs I have identified a procedure that works for me and results in colors and an effect that I can live with if not even be a little happy about.

I have two big sources of inspiration for this project: How to Build Realistic Model Railroad Scenery by Dave Frary and a DVD by Darryl Huffman called Easy Rock Casting and Coloring.

Before I started I made sure to blend my castings into the surrounding scenery using Sculptamold. It will not come out right if you color the rocks first then try to blend. This way the immediately adjacent scenery is color blended into the rocks and there is little chance of white showing through.

The first thing I do is paint the casting with a thinned black acrylic paint. The purpose here is to cover the casting 100 percent with the wash. Although it is wash, the wash should result in a fairly opaque black. I work in small sections approximately one foot square because I immediately follow the black wash with my thinned basic earth color. The point is blend the black with the earth color to provide a more subtle base then stark black alone. I usually follow the earth color with another pass of the black while still wet to keep the base dark.

The following pictures shows the cliff face further along. Once the entire face was complete, I let it dry completely.

The next step is actually more of the terrifying step as it seems to require a bit of artistic ability of which I have almost none.

My color palette came from recommendations from Darryl Huffman. He suggested using colors that are pleasing to my own eye but I trust his more so I used his suggestions.

Here are the colors I used:

• CeramCoat Flesh
• Apple Barrel Sandstone
• Folk Art Teddy Bear Tan
• Titanium White
• Black

I did experiment with other colors but these seem to produce the results I was looking for.

My general technique is to blend the colors together and dry brush the castings using a fairly stiff brush. The blending is intended to duplicate natural variations. The picture belows shows the final result of this step.

This was allowed to dry thoroughly before the final step.

The final step was to apply a thin black wash to highlight the details. The picture below shows the face while the wash was still wet.

The final result is below.

Here is a close up view.

I am fairly happy with the result and I am looking forward to completing more scenery projects.

Almost had a disaster this morning as I tried to order some more Sculptamold from Amazon. The product was handled through one of their marketplace merchants. Good thing I did a double take right before I pushed the final confirmation button!

Things have been a little quiet on the railroading front as I have just returned from vacation in the Florida Keys. I will have some progress updates soon.

UPDATE: Joann.com has it for $3.91 a bag and their shipping is only $7.95. I went to their site as I noticed they actually filled my initial order. My six bags of Sculptamold are now happily on their way but not via private limo apparently.