Come along on our adventure
- Thread starter cabdriver
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Last one -- This is from the back. According to the posts we were pointed to, if we want a road with two 12' lanes (one each way), it should be about 3 1/4 inches in width. Ours is 5 1/2 inches is width, so now that I look at it, we should be fine bringing the sidewalk right up to the road edge. So from a calculation point it seems ok and with the prototype with our two cars we think it looks good as well. Any comments, anyone?
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Everyone,
I hope I too didn't offend anyone with my, um, parallel rant. Maybe I just needed to express myself--and it certainly sounds like we all have been there before.
cabdriver, thank you for your kind words and gratitude towards my suggestions. BTW, you don't have to take them...
It looks great, those shots of the street! Parallel parking works nice. See, I am smart!
One thing, is there some reason a porter is out in the middle of town with someone's luggage? Did he lose his way from the railroad depot? Hehehe. I only know because I bought the "RR Crew" people the other day, and he's in it. I was going to put mine at Black River Depot, but Main St. is cool too. *lol* Just kidding. He could double as a bellhop for a hotel too.
Once again guys, thanks for bearing with me. It's just a tough time... I recently crossed the threshold out of armchair modeling, and I feel kinda lost. And when you get lost, well, erm, you're impatient for answers! Thanks. True group of friends here.
Sorry I went off like that.
ops:
Keep up the good work cabdriver! Look forward to progress!
I hope I too didn't offend anyone with my, um, parallel rant. Maybe I just needed to express myself--and it certainly sounds like we all have been there before.
cabdriver, thank you for your kind words and gratitude towards my suggestions. BTW, you don't have to take them...
It looks great, those shots of the street! Parallel parking works nice. See, I am smart! One thing, is there some reason a porter is out in the middle of town with someone's luggage? Did he lose his way from the railroad depot? Hehehe. I only know because I bought the "RR Crew" people the other day, and he's in it. I was going to put mine at Black River Depot, but Main St. is cool too. *lol* Just kidding. He could double as a bellhop for a hotel too.
Once again guys, thanks for bearing with me. It's just a tough time... I recently crossed the threshold out of armchair modeling, and I feel kinda lost. And when you get lost, well, erm, you're impatient for answers! Thanks. True group of friends here.
Sorry I went off like that.
ops: Keep up the good work cabdriver! Look forward to progress!
Well we lost the gauge in our area of Ontario for most of Saturday.
Now WE ARE BACK he he he eh er he
Ok Lots of room for street activity you should put a streetcar track down the middle,, er ok forget it for now 
Happy modeling you lot :thumb:
btw I don`t want to burst your bubble But don`t for get the grids (sewer) lamp post telephone wires fire hydrants doggies er do do, OOO the list goes on in street work 
Now WE ARE BACK he he he eh er he
Ok Lots of room for street activity you should put a streetcar track down the middle,, er ok forget it for now
Happy modeling you lot :thumb:
btw I don`t want to burst your bubble
But don`t for get the grids (sewer) lamp post telephone wires fire hydrants doggies er do do, OOO the list goes on in street work trainwhiz20 said:Everyone,
I hope I too didn't offend anyone with my, um, parallel rant. Maybe I just needed to express myself--and it certainly sounds like we all have been there before.
cabdriver, thank you for your kind words and gratitude towards my suggestions. BTW, you don't have to take them...
One thing, is there some reason a porter is out in the middle of town with someone's luggage? Did he lose his way from the railroad depot? Hehehe. I only know because I bought the "RR Crew" people the other day, and he's in it. I was going to put mine at Black River Depot, but Main St. is cool too. *lol* Just kidding. He could double as a bellhop for a hotel too.
Once again guys, thanks for bearing with me. It's just a tough time... I recently crossed the threshold out of armchair modeling, and I feel kinda lost. And when you get lost, well, erm, you're impatient for answers! Thanks. True group of friends here.
Sorry I went off like that.
Keep up the good work cabdriver! Look forward to progress!
Now worrys friend. happy modeling
Coming Along Nicely!
Geez! How did I miss this thread? Your layout sure is coming along nicely, Cabdriver.
My day-to-day job takes me through a number of small towns, and there are three in particular I'd like to mention. They all have a "business district" or "downtown" of 2 or three blocks. Total. One has angled parking on both sides. One has parallel parking on both sides. One has angled parking on one side and parallel parking on the other.
There seems to be no rhyme or reason for this, so I guess you can get away with whatever you'd like.
What do you plan to do with the side of the street opposite the car dealership? If your LHS carries it, have a look through the latest edition of the Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette, as it has a nice article on roads, from building to painting.
Keep up the great work. It's a pleasure to follow along with you. :thumb:
Geez! How did I miss this thread? Your layout sure is coming along nicely, Cabdriver.
My day-to-day job takes me through a number of small towns, and there are three in particular I'd like to mention. They all have a "business district" or "downtown" of 2 or three blocks. Total. One has angled parking on both sides. One has parallel parking on both sides. One has angled parking on one side and parallel parking on the other.
What do you plan to do with the side of the street opposite the car dealership? If your LHS carries it, have a look through the latest edition of the Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette, as it has a nice article on roads, from building to painting.
Keep up the great work. It's a pleasure to follow along with you. :thumb:
And for true prototypical accuracy, some of those cars will have to have parking tickets on the windshields!!! At least, that's how they do them around here!
Val
Val
Thanks, Lighthorseman for the kind words. We'll take a look at the Gazette -- thanks for the suggestion. Appreciate the feedback on the towns you go through -- we've pretty much settled in on have the parking be parallel in front of the buildings. Fortunately (more by luck than design) we made the main road wide enough to accomodate. We'll keep the pictures coming.
Today, we are hoping to put some darker color on the main road and get some positioning of our buildings on the layout so we can determine where to put the side road.
We'll take a look at the Gazette -- thanks for the suggestion. Appreciate the feedback on the towns you go through -- we've pretty much settled in on have the parking be parallel in front of the buildings. Fortunately (more by luck than design) we made the main road wide enough to accomodate. We'll keep the pictures coming.Today, we are hoping to put some darker color on the main road and get some positioning of our buildings on the layout so we can determine where to put the side road.
Here's another road based question in case anyone has an opinion. Once we put the asphalt coloring on the road (going to use Woodland Scenics Asphalt Top Coat), we want to stripe the road but am not sure how to organize the lines. We're thinking about putting a single, continuous white stripe down the middle (I seem to remember that many of the roads in the 60s were still striped white for some reason). This line would only be broken at the intersection of the perpendicular road. We're not sure whether we should also stripe the edges of the road -- to show where the parallel parking would begin or just leave it unmarked. We're going to use a Speedball Opaque Paint Marker for the lines using a ruler to guide. We'll then sand over the whole thing and hope it makes it fade and look a little weathered.
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
Cabdriver, stripes vary depending on time period, location and the road itself. Main roads have more markings than side streets. For example, around here, side streets only have the lines (solid) at intersections. The rest of the street has no dividing line. Parallel parking has lines at right angles, a car width long deliniating parking spaces. Nowadays they are slightly inverted T-shaped.
So, really, just about anything would work. I tend to go with what looks right to me and not worry too much about complete accuracy.
Val
So, really, just about anything would work. I tend to go with what looks right to me and not worry too much about complete accuracy.
Val
We hope someone will find this info useful. (We just wanted to show that we can offer suggestions as well as requesting them 
).
We made some trees and yet were having a hard time getting them to stay put with the small nubs on the bottom of the trunks. So, we got some .032 bronze wire (not so good a picture below) which we snipped to about an inch or so long, depending on where we wanted to put the tree. We then held the wire with pliers while we heated it over a flame. A couple of seconds later, when hot, we pushed the heated end int the bottom of the trunk, where we had cut off the small nub flush. The wire had enough heat to slightly penetrate the plastic trunk, and then the plastic immediately cooled around it forming and extremely tight bond. We could then place the trees into the foam, and voila, no movement whatsover. This also allows us place the trees on inclines (like the sides of our hill). Picture of results below.
).We made some trees and yet were having a hard time getting them to stay put with the small nubs on the bottom of the trunks. So, we got some .032 bronze wire (not so good a picture below) which we snipped to about an inch or so long, depending on where we wanted to put the tree. We then held the wire with pliers while we heated it over a flame. A couple of seconds later, when hot, we pushed the heated end int the bottom of the trunk, where we had cut off the small nub flush. The wire had enough heat to slightly penetrate the plastic trunk, and then the plastic immediately cooled around it forming and extremely tight bond. We could then place the trees into the foam, and voila, no movement whatsover. This also allows us place the trees on inclines (like the sides of our hill). Picture of results below.
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Spitfire,
Thanks for the response -- I must have been posting the tree info when you responded. I strategized with the kids about this whole road thing and they had major opinions on how to do this (imagine that ). We have now made the road asphalt in color, sanded it, then colored it again. We also have painted the sidewalks along the grade crossing our cement color. We're letting this all dry, then we will stripe the road. My oldest son has decided that a solid white line is the wrong thing to do -- he will be using dashed stripes -- he is going to measure out the dashes on our real road and will then convert it to HO scale (and yes, I will be with him when he is measuring stripes in the middle of the road). We're going to lay out a long metal ruler along the road and use the striping pen to make the marks, according to the calculated length of stripe. He is then going to make parallel parking markings as you suggest. Once done, we will try to weather it a bit so it doesn't look too "new". I'm posting pictures of the newly painted road and cement sidewalks. Keep you all posted on our progress.
Thanks for the response -- I must have been posting the tree info when you responded. I strategized with the kids about this whole road thing and they had major opinions on how to do this (imagine that
). We have now made the road asphalt in color, sanded it, then colored it again. We also have painted the sidewalks along the grade crossing our cement color. We're letting this all dry, then we will stripe the road. My oldest son has decided that a solid white line is the wrong thing to do -- he will be using dashed stripes -- he is going to measure out the dashes on our real road and will then convert it to HO scale (and yes, I will be with him when he is measuring stripes in the middle of the road). We're going to lay out a long metal ruler along the road and use the striping pen to make the marks, according to the calculated length of stripe. He is then going to make parallel parking markings as you suggest. Once done, we will try to weather it a bit so it doesn't look too "new". I'm posting pictures of the newly painted road and cement sidewalks. Keep you all posted on our progress.Attachments
Very nice!!! :thumb: :thumb: It's just great that your kids are so into this! You guys must be having so much fun together!!!
Val
Val
Spitfire,
I can't even begin to tell you. They spent so much of today talking with me about our layout, modeling buildings (yet to be revealed -- and they are REALLY GREAT MODELERS OF BUILDINGS -- at leat I think they are -- skills brought over from many years of modeling other stuff), painting the road, etc. They are really focused on making this layout high quality -- at least as far as our current skill level is concerned. We're nowhere near experienced modeler stage, but we are taking it seriously, tempered with a whole lot of fun. We're the kind of folks that really get into these kinds of things. You guys on the-gauge are really helping us. You are our research library and online support !
So many other things they could be into.......
I can't even begin to tell you. They spent so much of today talking with me about our layout, modeling buildings (yet to be revealed -- and they are REALLY GREAT MODELERS OF BUILDINGS -- at leat I think they are -- skills brought over from many years of modeling other stuff), painting the road, etc. They are really focused on making this layout high quality -- at least as far as our current skill level is concerned. We're nowhere near experienced modeler stage, but we are taking it seriously, tempered with a whole lot of fun. We're the kind of folks that really get into these kinds of things. You guys on the-gauge are really helping us. You are our research library and online support
!So many other things they could be into.......
[So many other things they could be into.......[/QUOTE]
With all the great things Model Railway building brings to a home . The last thing you said C B is I think the most important :thumb:
Thanks for the tip re trees, looking forward to more updates.
With all the great things Model Railway building brings to a home . The last thing you said C B is I think the most important :thumb:
Thanks for the tip re trees, looking forward to more updates.
cabdriver said:Spitfire,
I can't even begin to tell you. They spent so much of today talking with me about our layout, modeling buildings (yet to be revealed -- and they are REALLY GREAT MODELERS OF BUILDINGS -- at leat I think they are -- skills brought over from many years of modeling other stuff), painting the road, etc. They are really focused on making this layout high quality -- at least as far as our current skill level is concerned. We're nowhere near experienced modeler stage, but we are taking it seriously, tempered with a whole lot of fun. We're the kind of folks that really get into these kinds of things. You guys on the-gauge are really helping us. You are our research library and online support
So many other things they could be into.......
Again, that is tooooo cool! I assume they've been following this thread along with you, so Hi guys!
Could you tell us a bit about yourselves?Val
Spitfire,
They sit next to me for some of the posts and give me input into what to say, but for sure they are following/participating in this thread big time. Believe me, they are very opinionated (guess that is good). We'll post some family info soon -- school night and all tonight. Don't have anything in the way of pictures -- worked on buildings today.
I learned something that I never knew before -- wonder if you all knew it. Last night, I had been working on a building -- using CA to "weld" the building together and some special window glue to affix the windows to the building -- dries super clear. When all was apparently dry, I put the whole lot into the box that the kit came in for the night. Box was perfectly dry and totaly empty. When I opened it up this afternoon, there was this chaulky like substance all over some of the pieces -- all over the inside pieces, all over the windows, and even over some of the painted pieces.
Of course, I freaked . I asked number 1 son what this stuff was and he told me that the fumes from the CA glue will interact with the paint and the windows, causing this residue. 
I was able to get some of it off by scrubbing with water and windex, and on the painted side we repainted. I've never seen anything like this -- anyone else had the same effect? If not, be forewarned! I thought the kids were jerking my chain -- it looked like someone had put talcum powder all over the pieces.
You guys probably know all about this, but I had never heard of nor seen this before. If the kids are right, it happened because I had CA glue that had not fully dried placed inside a box with the other pieces. The fumes interacted with the other glue, the paint, and the plastic windows. Wow!
They sit next to me for some of the posts and give me input into what to say, but for sure they are following/participating in this thread big time. Believe me, they are very opinionated (guess that is good). We'll post some family info soon -- school night and all tonight. Don't have anything in the way of pictures -- worked on buildings today.
I learned something that I never knew before -- wonder if you all knew it. Last night, I had been working on a building -- using CA to "weld" the building together and some special window glue to affix the windows to the building -- dries super clear. When all was apparently dry, I put the whole lot into the box that the kit came in for the night. Box was perfectly dry and totaly empty. When I opened it up this afternoon, there was this chaulky like substance all over some of the pieces -- all over the inside pieces, all over the windows, and even over some of the painted pieces.
Of course, I freaked . I asked number 1 son what this stuff was and he told me that the fumes from the CA glue will interact with the paint and the windows, causing this residue. I was able to get some of it off by scrubbing with water and windex, and on the painted side we repainted. I've never seen anything like this -- anyone else had the same effect? If not, be forewarned! I thought the kids were jerking my chain -- it looked like someone had put talcum powder all over the pieces. You guys probably know all about this, but I had never heard of nor seen this before. If the kids are right, it happened because I had CA glue that had not fully dried placed inside a box with the other pieces. The fumes interacted with the other glue, the paint, and the plastic windows. Wow!