Expert advice (hints and tips)
 

this would be good for tips to help make life easyier.if you have any good Hints or tips for modelling pass them on.

(1) when painting people glue them down to an old ruler this gives you something to hold on to.

(2) use wire wool for bushes and trees its cheep and looks good. tease out the wire wool, paint with a green spray paint, glue and cover with scatter.

Good idea this thread.

I'm about to embark on building my first model railway (N gauge), and I'd be grateful for any tips.

For a kick off, how the hell am I supposed to paint 2mm scale Langley model rabbits? I can barely see 'em!

But seriously, if anyone does have any hints and tips, I reckon there are a good few of us who would be quite pleased to read 'em.

For the record, I'll be using Setrack, as I don't feel happy about slicing my fingers with a razor saw.

He, he, I had a really good laugh out of that one... :D

Here are a couple of "how tos" I posted a while back. The first one is about making miniature trees using the stuff you normally toss out when you clean up the yard.

http://www.trainweb.org/tomfassett/models/trees101/

The second one is how I make a jig which allows me to quickly recreate identical sections for trestle support.

http://www.trainweb.org/tomfassett/models/trestle01/


I have become a jig "maniac." Before I put anything together any more, I see if it merits making a jig so I can make more. I just put one together for roof trusses for a car barn as well as the walls to a little yard shed.

Tom F

Any hints about putting balast down onto track? Hate seeing bare baseboard on people's model railways!

Sam

Balast
 

I put the balast down then i add glue (50% PVA and 50% water with a drop of washing up liguid). to apply the glue to the balast i use a syringe, the type you get from babies medicine, don,t drowned the balast, just a few drops.

How do you make sure that you don't get the moving bits of points al gummed up? This has been something which has always puzzled me. Do you not ballast around the points, or what?

balast
 

I glued the balast down on one of my point, well the wife glued down the balast on my point by mistake. whilst the glue was drying i kept opening and closing the point and this seem to do the trick. i am going to try this again and see if it works. i think that the fact i use 50% PVA & 50% water with a drop of washing up liquid helped. if you plan to try this i would try it on a old point to see if it works for you. :)

I stop the balast right before the moving sections and paint fake balast around these sections.

Tom F

Thanks for that, lads.

At least I don't have to worry about my missus ballasting track. She still persists in calling locomotives 'trains'. :mad: And this is after numerous visits to the NRM!

it doesn't matter how hard you try and tell the wife not to call them trains, you will fail!,

*one problem i have is with painting concrete. how do you make it look like concrete. it doesn't matter what shade of gray i use, it still doesn't look the part.*