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We'll start with a very short video on track cleaning. You've seen the track masked off when doing the really messy plaster work, painting, and initial ground cover texture. After this is done, the track is cleaned by hand with 91% isopropyl (hard to find these days, luckily I have a small stash).
As more scenery detail is added (and some dirt and dust are generated in the process), it becomes tougher to reach in and keep the track clean. I use this CMX Clean Machine. It's made to do the job, and not intended to look like a real tank car. It's very heavy, machined from solid brass, and uses a replaceable corduroy cloth pad on the bottom of a spring-loaded platform, that drags heavily along the rails. The tank is filled with the 91%, and this drips thru a metering valve onto the pad and keeps it wet. It takes 2 locomotives to push this cleaning car around the layout and up the grades. The advantage to pushing rather than pulling is that the locomotive wheels are cleaned at the same time.
Some how-it's-done with the scenery materials. Everything I mention here is glued over the painted plaster, and becomes rock-hard after a couple of days. Elmer's white glue thinned 50-50 with water, and a little dish soap to make it flow better. It's most often dribbled on with a pipette after the material is down. Isopropyl (70% in this case) also is misted on as a wetting agent to help getting it soaked in. The glue itself dries clear.
I use all kinds of materials for scenery, some natural, some bought. The primary ground texture is dry sanded grout, made for tile floors and walls, bought at HD or Lowes. It comes in many colors. I've chosen 2 colors to use, they are sifted on with a tea strainer and glued down.
I use real ground-up and sifted leaves to supplement the texture. Once ground up, they don't look like leaves at all, and aren't intended to - after all, most of the trees on the RR are evergreens. They just add variety to the color and texture.
Preparing the leaves is interesting. I put them in a blender with water, give them a few pulses, and I end up with what looks like "leaf cakes" - mmmmm!
The "cakes" are then spread out in a pan, and baked until dry at a low temp. This also kills off any microscopic critters that may be lurking. I do find the occasional spider or even a stink bug on or around the RR, but I don't want reproduction going on in there! The now dry leaves then go back in the (cleaned and dried) blender, and I beat the heck out of them. They're sifted to end up with "very fine" and "a little coarser" materials to use.
I find small sticks and twigs outside to use for branches and fallen limbs. They scale down nicely - a piece of twig looks just like a tree limb when it's placed among scale trees, trains, etc. I break them up and give them a quick ride in the blender with water, and then bake.
Here's some of these natural materials, prepped and ready to use. At the top are the 2 grades of sifted leaves. At the bottom, L to R - larger branch pieces, more fibrous or bark-like branch pieces, and very fine pieces (I use these for the lower bare branches on trees). Sorting the dried, ground sticks is not a lot of fun, has to be done by hand.
I should mention, a lot of this kind of work is obviously done in my kitchen. I use only pans, utensils and such (even the thrift-store blender and dish towels) reserved for this work, not my cooking stuff. And I clean and disinfect the kitchen thoroughly after a work session, including wiping down the oven and running a self-clean cycle.
But yeah, it helps to be single.
Another scenery material I use is called Static Grass. It's made for model scenery. I showed the finished applied product in the last update, primarily around the sheep pens. It's applied with a battery powered applicator that is grounded to the area to be treated, in painted-on spots of full-strength white glue. It's filled with the "static" material, then you turn on the power, and shake it into the glue. The applicator supplies a static electrical charge, and the applied material tends to stand up straight in the glue. Once dry and vacuumed, it looks great.
In electrical news, I've added a second control panel near the mine, for the 2 track switches in this area. It didn't dawn on me in the planning stages that the mountain would block the view from the control panel on the other side, so I want to be able to control the position of these switches from either side, especially when using a hand-held throttle. The toggles and LED's on the other side are still there, but adding this new panel required re-wiring to accommodate what are now like 3-way switches in your home - you can control the position from either panel, and the LED on both panels respond to indicate the track switch position.
On the other side of the RR, the turntable is permanently installed, and the lead-in track and 3 engine house tracks are in place and wired. I made a new control panel for this, including the ability to switch off power to each of the engine house tracks. With now 5 sound-equipped locomotives, the sound can get a little irritating after a while if they're all just sitting around hissing and panting, as steam locomotives do.
Around this time of year, the subject of snowy scenery comes up on the model RR forums I read. Bottom line, anything that is going to look realistic has to be permanent - you can't do a nice snow scene with the intention of cleaning it off later, it just doesn't work. But someone did post this pic of an interesting material. It's fireproof! Must be safe, right??
