APA Micro Layout (Part 5) Box Art for Backdrops

Here's a quickie if you don't know what to do with these nice kit boxes, once the kits are build.
Between the brick backdrop building and the right corner and under the highway bridge, there was a bare blue spot. I first thought of adding a fence and some brushes to hide it, but there would still be a bit of blue sky behind a fence.

What I needed was some kind of distant building to show behind the fence. I could have cut out a building from an Instant Horizons backdrop painting or paint something myself, when I saw the kit box with the Car Shop parts. Although the picture on the box itself is too large, there are two additional smaller ones on the side that could fit.

Using my metal ruler and a fresh #11 blade in my hobby knife, I trimmed all the excess around the outlines of the pictured building.

Then I shortened the picture to the length of the available space and placed a fence in front to check how it looks.

I used a black marker to darken the edges of the picture.

Then I applied double sided tape to the back of the picture.

That's how it will look when affixed to the backdrop.

With the bridge in place, the fence delimits the shop area and shows another industrial building in the distance. This is a relatively easy way to add some different structures to your background than the usual backdrop buildings found on the market.

The next steps will be trackwork, wiring and turnout control. Stay tuned!

APA Micro Layout (Part 4) Backdrop and tracks

A quick update on my Car Shop Micro Layout.

To break the clear blue sky a bit, I drybrushed some white paint to it. The effect is minimal but looks more realistic than a plain blue backdrop.

I still had to puzzle around with the tracks to locate the turnouts.

I painted the assembled RIX highway overpass with Floquil concrete color. After thoroughly drying I applied some decals from my kit left-overs. The hole in the backdrop is concealed quite nicely.

I will bury an old tankcar body to act as a water storage tank. The graffiti decals are already applied.

Stay tuned for more updates.

APA Micro Layout (Part 3) Building the Car Shop

The main structure on the micro layout is the car shop. I assembled it from leftover parts from different Walthers kits.

I painted the brick walls Tuscan Red and the concrete parts with Floquil Concrete color. Then I applied various black washes to tone the color down and give it a weathered look.

Two tracks lead inside the building. I removed the rail ties from a short length of PECO code 100 track and glued the rails into the grooves of the concrete floor casting.

The Car Shop building has large industrial windows, through which the interior may be seen. I did not want to paint or apply a black paper behind the window glass to make it less transparent. I remembered that certain glues would craze the styrene or acrylic window glass and wanted to give it a try. Then I thought that Acetone would probably act the same way than glue. (I already attached styrene parts with Acetone when my glue was out). So I painted Acetone to the backside of the window glass. The effect was quite convincing.

From the outside the windows look dirty, so that there are no clear details to be seen, except for the light and probably the shadows of the items inside.

To make the roof removalbe I had to leave the wires long enough so they keep dangling down, but becfause of the crazed windows they won't be seen.

I weathered the concrete floor with burnt umber and burnt sienna pigments, diluted in some isopropyl alcohol. I also applied a black wash to simulate a well used floor with dirt, rust and oil stains.

Here's the finished Car Shop with the brick workshop. To the left of the Shop I also glued another wall section to act as the recessed part of the car shop. A couple of decals round off this step.

Next will be the right side of the box.

APA Micro Layout (Part 2) Building a Shadow Box behind an open door

 
A building, whether in the foreground or not, is always more interesting if the viewer can see the interior or at least part of it. What's probably easier with foreground buildings, might be more difficult with flat or half relief structures glued to the backdrop.

An open door suggests always that there is something to see behind it or inside the building. My backdrop flat is only 15 mm deep and I wanted to inliven the scene by leaving the loading doors partly open. Whereas the left one is almost closed, the right door could reveal a glimpse inside the factory or loading area. Only painting the opening black will not be realistic because the daylight would always light up the area close to the door.

I browsed my drawers and parts boxes for scrap pieces of styrene to build a shallow box behind the opening, when I came across an empty acrylic box that once protected Kadee wheelsets. The box and lid were thin enough to fit behind the building and thus set back far enough to place some boxes, drums and a Preiser figure on it.

I cut one lid in half and gave it a coat of flat black color from a rattle can.

After the paint had dried I glued the tiny shadow box behind the loading door opening.

A pair of drums and a wooden box frame a Preiser truck driver. By pure coincidence I had glued the door just right so that the left arm of the figure suggests pushing up the roll door.

The black background already looked right and gave the scene some life until a friend suggested not to leave it black but to glue a picture with various cargo instead.

He sent me the picture above. I resized and printed it out on normal paper. Then I applied it to the back of the shadowbox and placed the detaisl in front again. Now the scene has life.  

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

APA Micro Layout (Part 1) MIBA Contest layout

For the APA Project layout that we presented at the 5th US Convention in Rodgau last October, I had several more APA Boxes from IKEA left.
These came in handy for the upcoming Micro Layout contest organized by MIBA, one of Germany's best Modelrailroading Magazines. The rules state that for HO, the layout shall not be larger than 70 cm x 30 cm. The same size may be used for a fiddle yard. The APA box measures L70 x W39 x H29.
I use the box sideways, so that I have a height of 39 cm and a depth of 29 cm. The MDF sheets for the sides are arranged in a slightly different way as I don't need the bottom sheet because there will be a 10 mm plywood subroadbed. The MDF is cut to yield a small valance and fascia to hide the light fixture on top and the gap between the subroadbed and the bottom of the box. The separate lid will be attached with hinges to fold down when the layout is not in use.

There is not much room in the box for a lot of track. On the other hand I want a layout that offers at least a minimum of operational possibilities. After browsing through the excellent Micro Layout site of the late Carl Arendt (www.carendt.com) I quickly set on a theme representing a Car Shop with an Inglenook track arrangement.

I test fitted some tracks and turnouts in the box to see what could be done and my enthusiasm faded for the first time. None of my usually used turnouts satisfied me. They were all too long. My son has a PECO Starter set with Setrack turnouts and sectional track. Although these turnouts have really tight diverging radii they would fit the bill. I would use a small switcher anyway, so this would not be a major problem. This way I could build a condensed 3-2-2 Inglenook like Carl Arendt proposed some years ago as an alternative to the standard 5-3-3 version.
 

It was also clear that I had to scratchbuild or at least kitbash all the structures used. Fortunately I have an extensive spare parts box(es) with all kinds of leftover bits and pieces ranging from windows to entire wall sections. The modular walls from Walthers and DPM will also be used to create some background buildings.

Luckily I had a leftover from the Walthers Car Shop that I could use as the main building on the layout. Two tracks lead to the inside and even the spacing of the short turnouts matches with the spacing of the track in the building. The DPM wall sections make it very easy to adapt the length of the building to the available space.

The exit/entrance of the box needs to be concealed. The most common scenic elements are either a tunnel portal, which in my case would not be appropriate, or a bridge with abutments which frame the hole in the side backdrop. I choose the RIX highway bridge. It has nice concrete abutments or legs with the lower part being almost 6 cm high. They hide the hole quite well.

The bridge deck has two lanes, but I will use them as a double lane highway and probably use a second bridge on the fiddle yard box for the opposite direction.

Before I started to fit the structures I painted the backdrop with a sky blue color.

Finally a first setup of the main structures to give a feel of the finished scene. The hole is well covered under the bridge.

Stay tuned for the next installment.