Category Archives: Scenery

And Done

The Pola windmill is now complete. Lights added and the whole thing put together, here it is on the workbench.

pola-windmill-complete1  pola-windmill-complete2

I expect it to make a big impression on the layout.

All that’s left is to motorize the blades and it’ll be ready to go outside.

Another Car for the Layout

Here’s another eBay find. These Danbury Mint cars sold for ridiculous prices when new, but now can be bought for around $20. I’d never put one out on the layout at full price ($100)–but this eBay find will go out later this week.

danbury-mint-model-a

More Pond Progress

I was able to make some more progress today. I got the rest of the liner-hiding rock-on-a-roll installed on the front and mostly filled the pond with water.

pond-liner-and-rock

I need to get some additional plants, line the bottom of the pond with rock-on-a-roll and finish up. But I think it will look good.

Refurbishing / Upgrading Buildings

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I really should have done it this winter, but I was busy building new buildings and finishing up the track work. So it’s time to drag in a few buildings that sat outside all winter and work on them. First up was my kitbashed CMS main street building. While the front windows still look good and the lights in them are fine, I realized that I’d put no lights on the loading doc. This turned out to be a mistake, since that’s the side that faces the house. So I added three LED lights to the loading doc which really added to the look of the town at night.

Sailboat Idea

Here in Kansas, the wind is a constant problem in the garden. Gusts up to 40mph regularly move things around (including buildings) and wreck havoc.

sailboat

I’ve been thinking about putting a boat in my pond when it’s done, but with the wind it would need to be anchored somehow. Add to that the possibility of water-level fluctuations, and there’s a problem–if the water gets low and the wind blows, the boat could possibly wind up on shore.

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Laser cut houses

One really nice thing about laser cutting styrene structures is that once the file is created, you can cut as many as you want with (almost) no additional effort. This one has a different roof (made from a CMS shingle pattern section) and I tried out some laser cut windows and doors. But the walls are cut from the same file as the other one.
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So I built this house for around $10 in materials: half of a $4 sheet of 6mm sintra, $3 worth of Plastruct strips, $4 for the roof panel, and some paint. And (IMO) it looks as good as a more expensive kit-built structure–for sure from 10 feet away.
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