summer time

hello visitor, I't's going to be summer again, these means the outside hobby's are calling. For me it will be fishing, gardening and sailing. Unfortunately it means, unless it will start to rain, that the activitity's for my train are stopped for now. Please feel free to check later, becaurse for sure the story will continue.... see you soon HobbyBobby

working with Balsa wood

Working with Balsa wood is according to me not very suitable. Balsa is very soft wood and therefore it’s a good material to work on with your Dremel. And it it’s a dusty job to do, to cut out all the stones from a wall. I start with all the horizontal lines and after that I do the vertical ones. As I like stone walls that are not straight, the fact that it’s not possible to get good straight lines is nice.

But as soon as you start with finishing the wall with stain or paint, the problems start. From all sides the wood fibre become loose. To clear this, first put on a lacquer layer on and after it’s dry you can remove the fibres with scrubbing ( not sure if this is the correct word !?) If you do this before you put the lacquer on, you will loose the colour from the stain. Then finish with two more lacquer layers.

Old entrance from a formar track.

By now I only use Balsa for my tunnel entrances. This because instead of plaster it’s stronger, so there’s less risk for damage when you’re working on your mountains or if you want to use them for a new track

Used materials

Why built building yourselves when you can buy one complete. The plastic buildings have some minus points. First and most important for me is that they often don’t fit in my idea how something should look like. Then of course there is the satisfaction of making something yourself. Besides that I can make for example a bridge in a more natural surrounding, I don’t have to chance the rails to make a bridge fit, no I fit the bridge to the rails, mountain etc. Finally the costs, it’s almost for free. There is also a minus point, those tiny little details that a good plastic models has, it’s hard to get that in a self made building. Fortunately there are suppliers that have for example nice metal sheets with those details, but they are never around when you need them.

some of my plastic models

Let one thing be clear, I do have plastic buildings and I will use them on this new track. I even have some my father made over 30 years ago, including the old mine, which will get an “A”-location on my new track.

Which materials do I use ?

Lady Trix

Imagination

Triplex

Plaster

Balsa

Pine and beech wood

Stain or paint ?

Lady Trix

Lady Trix and imagination are my basics , Without Lady Trix everything must be measured, with Lady Trix an estimation is enough. If she can “walk” through a door or look through a window, your basic measure are good. Without the imagination it’s also difficult to work. I work without making drawings. I just imaging how something should look like, then decide with which materials I want to work and I just start and let it grow.

Balsa wood : http://hobby-bobby.blogspot.com/2007/02/working-with-balsa-wood.html

Warehouse

well this does not look as a building, but just take a look.... this will be the loading doc.

everything is glued, except some roof parts.

the upper part from the central building can only be finished as soon as the second village ( on 33 cm high ) is almost ready. It will become a part of the coal-mine, but well you will see in time.

Creating a loc house

This is the first loc house, it will be placed near the warehouse. All pieces of wood I make myself. As steam engine produce smoke we need some ventilation, it's made from a part of a... air-refresher. Front view. First loc arrived for maintenance.

Creating a framework house part 2

Here is the next part of making framework houses.

After glue-ing the first layer of cocos parts of the glue were still visible. Also not all fibres were fixed. For the top layer I used lacquer to fix it and finish it, first the upper part, with the lower part still fixed and after that the lower part.

As I had to wait from time to time, I build in the mean time a little barn. So now I have a garage for my wife's car . No room for my car, but I'm happy with the result. The house is finished, only the windows have to be added. As it was easy to make I now know that I can make the village I want .

Creating a framework house part 1

As I like frame work houses, I would like to make a village with these kind of houses. But I never did this before, so I just tried to make one. From some pieces of triplex I first made the walls, on scale and with a little help from Lady Trix.

After the walls I started to make the structuur with match-stick sized wood. This must be a bit logic, becourse in reality they are supporting the building. Before finishing the walls I coloured all visible wooden parts Then I filled up everything with gips. The roof was a difficult part, it had to stay in the shape I wanted. It is made from cocos fibre. So for the first part I used glue, but that was a bit visible. The top layer I fixed with lacquer. The story continue's, see part 2

http://hobby-bobby.blogspot.com/2007/01/creating-small-house-part-2.html

History part 1

In 1207 the first copper was found in our mountains, the result was that three landlords started to make their claims on it and started to build there castles. Over the years they fought a lot of battles, but non of the Family's got the final victory. In 1789 the last copper came out of the mines and the Family's lost their interest in our area. Only the castles are still here.

With first world war’s frontier only 100 km away from us and in those days very good rails, a lot of troop transports passed our area. The castles from Toici and Elici were used by officers to come the their selves from the war. The common soldiers only passed us. The rail emplacement was used for food and ammunition storage.

During the second world war the castles of Toici and Elici were bombed and only ruins are left. The castle of Moici still stands, but it’s empty. We are using a lot of materials to built our villages. Surprisingly enough our station and it’s emplacements were never bombed. But because surrounding tracks and bridges are still damaged, we never see any train anymore.

The year is now 1955, we are still suffering from the second world war. But people whisper that soon the rail tracks and the main station will be repaired. There are a lot of strangers seen at the station and the tracks, a cousin from my neighbour told that there were also strangers at the old mine in Toici. They say they need our coal and our wood.

The old mine from Troici.

We all hope better times come soon.

the railtrack

This is the main plan for my tracks, each block is 50 cm wide so the total lenght is about 5,50 meters, and both tables will be 2 meters deep. There will be 3 stations and villages, in the village of Toici will be a big copper mine and a wood cutting factory. In Monici you will find a big maintainace area, several warehouses and places for loading the coals. For the village Elici plans need to be develloped. In the next picture you see also the mountain areas, the difference between the lowest part and the highest tracks is about 50 cm.

This is the basic idea how it will be, in a few years. The plan is created with Drail, an easy program to develop tracks. ( you can find it at http://www.drail.nl/, it's a dutch side, but English is available)

HobbyBobby's Modeltrains

This will be my Blog about the making off my new track for HO model trains As this is new for me, I will need some time to work things out. Do not expect high technical details, for me the making of buildings, tracks, tree's etc. is main fun. I have mostly Fleischmann digital trains and the central control is from Lenz.