Adding Rock Castings to the South Branch of the Arkansas River Model 9FEB14

Cutting Mountains in Minutes Castings

Mountains in Minutes castings are still available in some places, like Gilbert's Hobbies in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They are getting a little hard to come by, but an internet search turned up the Flexi-Rock castings that used to be made by I.S.L.E. Laboratories are now offered by Scenic Express. I like these castings. They are good generic rocks that can be cut apart or used in big pieces to create mountain details. The "Royal Gorge" casting is excellent for use on Colorado model railroads.

Coping with Cutting

I usually use a coping saw to cut out the sections that I would like to use. A coping saw allows me to do an accurate cut without too much effort. It is a flexible and inexpensive tool.

With a long cutting surface the blade can be turned in different directions to cut out the pieces. There is very little waste and the Mountains in Minutes castings are roughed out. The castings still need to be trimmed for an exact fit.

Making Room for the Castings

An X-Acto #5 knife is a good tool for cutting and shaping the styrofoam, especially with a chisel blade. The large handle of the #5 knife allows the pressure necessary to affect the cuts.

When fitting the Mountains in Minutes castings, some sanding will probably need to be done, especially if you are lining the edges of a mountain stream. I use 3-M sanding blocks for a lot of this kind of work. They come in different grits and it is good to have several on hand for model railroad projects. I hold the sanding block with one on the table and rub the bottom of the casting across the block. This will give a level bottom. It does not have to be perfect. The bank will be filled in with Arizona Rock and Mineral sand and gravel material, so the edges just need to be somewhat level. 

Checking How the Castings Go Together

I check the size as I go to ensure that the castings will fit well and not obstruct the train movement.

I interlocked the pieces and test fit them. I played with placing some of the extra castings on the outside of the curved roadbed to see what the river course would look like. Notice that - as on real streams- the watercourse broadens as it leaves the confines of the canyon. In this case, this add to the apparent length of the stream with the converging lines of forced perspective.

The Renaissance Tool of Perspective

Imagine a vanishing point about a foot past where stream turns to come out of the canyon. This is where the converging lines of the river bank would meet. This is a tool of the artist who paints on canvas to give the appearance of depth to a scene. Since a modeler can work with three dimensions in space, using forced perspective creates an additional illusion of a deeper scene. 

This overhead shot shows the process of putting together the elements of the canyon and the railroad so that they will work together to draw the viewer into the illusion. Next steps including adding a grade to the stream up the canyon and working with various materials to smooth the bottom and edges of the stream.

Painting a Model Railroad Stream Bed Part 2 8FEB14

Paint Washes Over a Model Stream Bed for Realism

If you have been following previous blog posts, the next step in creating a realistic stream bed is to put a wash over the stream bottom that matches the source soils and rocks of the sediment. Think of what is about a quarter mile or several miles upstream. What is eroding and falling into the stream? On a very gentle stream in farm country, it might be top soil or cow manure. In an industrialized area it might be colorful oils and chemicals. In steeply falling mountain streams, rocks and gravel are tumbling in or grinding down to sand in a quartz area.

The South Branch of the Arkansas River has a lot of grays. I covered the gray part of the coloring process in the blog posting, Painting a Model Railroad Stream Bed Part 1 7FEB14.

Now, I would like to add some colors that you see in Chaffee County, Colorado. I wanted to mix a custom color that simulates the sunlight hitting some of those rocks.

The Color of Light

Here is where light enters into the model picture. Why is it when you see something in real life that it seems different than the color photographs taken of the area? The human eye perceives things differently than film - or digital. The reflected light coming off an object is subject to interpretation by the biology of the eye. There are filters in the human eye that make the world seem different to us. Even our brains are trained to perceive the world in a predetermined manner. This is what gave birth to Impressionist Painting.

The time of day can make a huge difference, too. You might have heard of the "Black Canyon of the Gunnison" on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The rocks were not black. The sun beamed down into the canyon only from certain angles or during particular times of the day. So things seemed like a dark gray. 

Check Your References

When you look at the pictures in a publication by Morning Sun Books, like Rio Grande Narrow Gauge in Color, 1947-1959 Empire Contraction and Railfan Discovery, the original slides - usually Ektachrome or Kodakchrome - are over 50 years old and have a color bias. Bob Yanosey and his staff do a great job of color correction, but the variances of color - particularly in the scenery - are noticeable. The time of day, season and even the storage conditions of the slide collections can affect the final color on the printed page.

Videos can offer a view of scenery, even if you catch this scenery in passing. I have watched the Colorado Narrow Gauge in the 1950s by Pentrex a gazillion times. This color video story of railroading on the Marshall and Monarch Passes has some wonderful detail shots of the scenery I am modeling. There is even a fleeting stream bed shot from the steam locomotive when it goes over a trestle.

 Mixing the Color

After really studying Chaffee County, Colorado, I realized I needed to layer on a color that I mixed by eye using Yellow Ochre and Raw Sienna. For this I used Windsor Newton Acrylics. You can get these colors in the Art Department of Gilbert's Hobbies in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

After mixing the colors, I picked up a glob on my paint brush and stirred it into some distilled water that I put into a recycled tuna fish can. We keep distilled water for a lot of things around the house, but tap water will do, too. The distilled water ensure consistency. You never know what is flowing out of a public water supply.

I squeezed out just a tiny bit of Mars Black tube acrylic onto the table immediately behind the stream bed I had painted so far. Then, I tested the wash over the edge and it seemed to be about right.

Washing the Wash

I painted a layer of wash over the entire stream bed, in the direction of the stream current. Before it dried, I quickly brushed it down stream with a paper towel.

Tinting the Top

I repeated the process several times, adding smidges of Polly Scale Engine Black shadows, and Polly Scale Undercoat LT Gray and Reefer White highlights. I freely mix tube acrylics with Polly Scale paints for scenery purposes. After a while, the painted stream bed started to look like it had a channel and dropped off in layers. 

Really, the stream is not as deep as it looks here. That is an optical illusion. I spread some wash tinted with Mars Black in the center channel.

Paint Out the Brush

I had some extra color left over, so I spread it around and colored the HOn3 Tru-Scale Roadbed from Trout Creek Engineering. Having been in the U.S. Navy, I was trained in the "if it doesn't move - paint it" philosophy. I even brushed the paint out of the brush before cleaning it. Having Irish heritage, I can't waste anything.

Cutting into Woodland Scenics Foam for a Stream

It is fun to experiment with what a model railroad is going to look like by laying out the pieces as parts of the layout come together. I use Tru-Scale roadbed from Trout Creek Engineering on top of the Woodland Scenics foam risers and inclines to create my mountain narrow gauge layout. That is a good combination for hand laid track or flex track.

While constructing the switchbacks for the HOn3 Monarch Branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, I noticed that the switchbacks were parallel and close together. I set up an early-version K-27 to see what things looked like. The lines wouldn't be as exciting as they looked when I drew out the plan on paper. Something needed to be added, but I had already glued down the Woodland Scenics foam for support for the trackage.

The South Branch of the Arkansas River is a significant feature of the Monarch Branch. It could be added, but would require some surgery. I took a marker pen and roughed out where I thought the watercourse should go. I also used a marker to outline the Tru-Scale roadbed around the 20" radius curve. That would make for continuity over the stream after I built the bridge.

Cutting out the Woodland Scenics foam was fast and easy with a Zona Saw. A flat-bladed wall board tool acted as a thin chisel to separate the previously glued-down foam from the plywood table. 

On the two inch foam risers, a little assist was needed from a hammer with gentle taps to separate the foam from the plywood.

After a some clean-up with a sanding block, most traces of the glue were removed and you could hardly tell that the roadbed had been there.

The course of the South Branch of the Arkansas river was starting to appear. Next, there should be some shaping to the stream bottom.