Here's a short video of me cleaning the area by the Zoo. I'm on a 2 X 12 that is placed on a piece of 2 X 4 to clear the track. The other end is on homemade scaffolding that we clamp to the outer edge of the display. The snake is the vacuum hose that is hanging from hooks on long springs. Our central vacuum outlets are in the drop ceiling and spaced throughout the display. Everything gets vacuumed and/or wiped off for the new season. I find it amazing how much dust and dirt can accumulate in nine months. After things are cleaned, we go back over everything and re-glue the figures that got knocked down and trees that fell over. I try to have all the new animations in and operating prior to cleaning, but that isn't always the case.
March 15, 2009
March 14, 2009
A New Man Mowing, Sort Of…
I started work on a new man mowing the lawn in January 2007 and figured it was time to finish it. So off the shelf it came and I dug in.
Check out January 2007 for other pictures in progress. The first pic is the drive mechanism. I used ¼” pitch roller chain as my drive. The sprockets are free running on 1/4" bolts that are epoxied into the wood.
The photo on the left shows the chain tensioner I made using a steel bar. I drilled 1/4" holes at the correct place for the sprockets to allow the roller chain to drive the tractor. I then silver soldered 1/4" bolts to hold the sprockets on the bar. The bar pivots on the left and I fabricated an arm that puts spring tension on the right side. (See photo below) Tension on the chain is spread out over the four sprockets so that there is very little “play” on each when the chain decides to stretch.
This animation is dedicated to my father. He used to drive his John Deere tractor from his house through the borough of Strasburg to the Choo Choo Barn, a trip of about 1 1/2 miles, to mow the picnic area which was where the large part of our parking lot is now. One morning on his trip through town, a Pennsylvania State Policeman stopped my dad because he was driving an unlicensed vehicle on the road. My dad was absolutely fuming when he got to the Choo Choo Barn, ON HIS TRACTOR! It seems the policeman, a guy that probably could have been young enough to be my dad's grandson, just gave my dad a verbal warning and said he didn't want to see him driving his tractor through town again. You have to understand, my dad was born and raised in Strasburg, just like his father before him. This was HIS town! He served on Strasburg's borough council for 25 years, his last position being chairman of the safety committee, which made my dad the town policeman's boss. How ironic! Now if you think my dad stopped driving up town on his John Deere to mow the Choo Choo Barn picnic area, you obviously didn't know him. He said a few choice words and continued his weekly chore, waving to all on his trek up town and back home again.
2009: A New Year, My First Project
Well, 2009 started off with a bang. I had cervical neck surgery on December 10, 2008, due to a fall while raking black walnuts at home at the end of October. I was pretty much out of commission through the Christmas season around here. It did allow me to catch up on all the episodes of Lost, which I never took the time to watch. I tried doing some work but the “tingling” in my hands prevented me from working on the things I thought I could. I had started to cut the hoods and trunks out of a bunch of plastic AMT/ERTL 1/43rd scale kits in November and wanted to get back to them. My surgery also set me a little behind to start the yearly maintenance/building program on the CCB layout. I usually have things started well before the beginning of the year so my time was cut short. That, and the fact that we decided to open on March 7th and I lost some more of my help that I rely on during the winter really cut into my projects. I decided not to tear anything out this year; instead, I made a bunch of new animations and started a multi-year, super-detailing project.
Here are some before and after pictures of what I’m talking about. I LOVE detail! It just takes so long to do any.
BEFORE PHOTOS
Here are two pictures of the Wally's gas station scene that is at the Memorial Day parade. It needed a little sprucing up.
AFTER PHOTOS (These photos were taken before I put the scene back into the layout.)
You’ll have to stop in to see it on the layout! The sad part is that most of the detail is lost because it is too far away to really see it but it was fun to make. Two of the vehicles are pieces of die-cast that got broken in our store and since I keep everything, I just pulled them out of my junk box and started weathering. The Camaro is an AMT/ERTL 1/43rd scale kit from about 20 years ago. Various fenders, doors, etc. are from the same die-cast junkers from the store. I just cut a couple of cars apart on my band saw, filed the edges and rusted them up with Testors Rust paint. If you don't want to do this to your die-cast cars, just keep an eye open for 1/43rd scale cars at yard sales. Kids are always selling their well played-with cars for a quarter or fifty cents. I bought a couple hundred 1/43rd scale tires from narrow152 (his Ebay name) last year knowing that I would use them someday. You can see what I did with some of them. Tires are a great detail item. They are always along the road as are bumpers and other car parts. I got the idea for this whole scene from YouTube.com. There’s a guy on there that details 1/24th scale cars and has a whole junkyard full. It’s really hard to tell they are models. His work is magnificent! Here’s his link: http://www.youtube.com/user/cancars.
The pallets are Preiser #65801. They come 20 for $10.99 and are in kit form. We sell them in our store. They are very easy to put together, I made 40 in a couple hours, complete with painting and weathering. I used some of them in other parts of the layout, as junk in a trash pile at a farm, as cast offs along the RR track, etc. The rest of the bric-a-brac is just part of my collection of junk I’ve accumulated. In the picture with the rocks, you can see some tree stumps. They are real! I got some small branches and cut them on my band saw in 1/2" lengths. I also split a bunch of them into fire wood and have some stacked up. The rocks are actually part of the ballast in the railroad tracks behind the Choo Choo Barn that are owned by the Strasburg Rail Road.
May 11, 2008
OOPS! A Little Problem at 10:10 AM...
A little background to this section.
Eric decided to cut back to three days a week in April 2007. This left two days that I didn’t have an experienced display operator. Linda filled in the days with Earl, Barry and Mike, of which Earl was the most experienced because he did a lot of the cleaning of the display over the past several years. He had learned a lot and was always able to pick up little tidbits of info from either Eric or me regarding how stuff worked and how to repair them. Well, Earl got sick at the beginning of the 2007 season, was diagnosed with cancer and died in August. So Linda had to fill the days with Barry and Mike keeping an eye on the trains during the week with me as the repair man and hoping that the days Eric had off on the weekend, things worked smoothly for them. In January 2008, Greg came back to work for us full-time and we decided to teach him as much as we could about the train display so he could be the operator when Eric and I weren’t here. The worst part of operating the display is being able to get up on top of it to make any repairs, especially the Strasburg Rail Road and the monorail and H.O. at Dutch Wonderland. Occasionally, a flood light burns out but that can go until Eric or I are here if necessary. Eric worked with Greg for a couple weeks and showed him as much as he could without bombarding him with more info than he could digest. There’s actually a lot to know about repairs and such, but Eric and I knew that no matter who was going to run the display, they couldn’t possibly learn as much as the two of us know in only a couple of weeks. This is knowledge that is best learned by doing the building and even Eric can’t fix a lot of my animations.
So we opened on March 15th and Greg eventually was on the schedule to run the display. The first two weeks we were open, I was here to help him and to answer questions when Eric wasn’t around. He finally worked a Saturday on which neither Eric nor I was here. I figured all was good but Linda had a feeling that we shouldn’t go far from home for the weekend, like head off to the beach for some needed R&R.
WELL………
At 10:10 AM on March 29, I got a phone call from Greg at work. He was all in a panic and asked if I was driving or if I was pulled over. My first thought was that someone had died! So I said I was pulled over and he proceeded to tell me that he had an accident on the layout. He said that when he was trying to fix the monorail at Dutch Wonderland, he knelt down and placed his left hand on the display to keep his balance. As he reached for the monorail with his right hand, the landscaping beneath his left hand left go. His whole left arm went down through the scenery, breaking the front of the model of my house and leaving a gapping hole that was about 2 feet by 1 foot. It also pushed the model of my house off of its foundation about 2 inches. Now normally, when someone calls me and tells me they did something, they usually over-react and what they did is in reality not as bad as they said or thought it was. This was definitely as bad as he said.
When Linda and I got to the CCB, I found Chris bandaging Greg’s arm where he scrapped it on the screening as his arm was plummeting through the layout. His injury wasn’t anything major but it just needed covered so he didn’t ruin his shirt. I walked out to the layout and immediately saw what he had done. I gulped and started thinking of how I was going to do a quickie repair job until I could fix the mishap permanently. I first took the model of my house off and assessed the damages there. I knew I was going to have to rebuild part of the front so I found a box and put the house in it for transporting home. I quickly found some screening that we use for scenery and then went over to the train shop and grabbed all the packs of Woodland Scenic landscaping mat that we had. On my way through the back room, I grabbed the staple gun, the tub of glue that was left over from winter repairs and a paint brush. I pushed all the loose plaster into the whole and onto the floor, cut the screen material to cover the hole, stapled the screen to the existing scenery, then brushed glue over the whole mess and stretched the landscape mat over the screen. I topped this all off with a sign that said OOPS! Accidents happen. We’re sorry for the mess.
Linda and I went home and I hit my workshop for the rest of the afternoon to repair the front of my house. It took about 3 ½ hours to make the repairs and paint the house. Linda and I left to go back to the CCB and arrived about 5:45 so I could repair the hole and put the house back.
I started by tearing out my quickie repair job.
I then looked things over and decided to try and prop the screen/plaster back up that was pushed down, repair the holes with new screen and then plaster over everything. I figured I’d have to come back the next morning and re-landscape with grass, bushes and such because my plaster wouldn’t be dry until then. So I started with the propping up job. I grabbed some scrap wood and went under the display and started taking some measurements so I could cut my wood to make my props. I could see that I was going to be shooting from the hip on this one because this has never happened before.
I made the best of it and propped the screen and plaster up as best I could, filled the cracks in the plaster with Elmer’s wood glue and started working on getting the house back on. I was able to get the house back on the foundation that didn’t get destroyed and so I cut some screen for the front yard where the hole was. I fit the screen under the front of the house and using #8 sheet metal screws, fastened the new screen to the old landscaping. Time to get the plaster!
Things were going a lot better than I had figured they would so I looked in all our landscaping materials and found some plaster of Paris. We never use regular old plaster of Paris because Structolite has always been our plaster of choice but since I was on a time limit, I thought I’d try something new. Plaster of Paris has a very short working time, something like 10 minutes, tops. Structolite can be worked with for about 30 minutes or so, but it also takes a lot longer to dry, like overnight for best results. Since it was still fairly early, it wasn’t even 7:00 PM, I mixed a small batch of plaster of Paris and using my trowel, started forming the front yard. I mixed four batches of plaster before I was finished and then grabbed a foam brush and with water, smoothed out the rough spots. At 8:00, Linda asked me if I was getting hungry and I said that we could get something in 15 minutes. After a pizza from Pizza City in downtown Strasburg, I returned to the layout to start the landscaping. Using a paint brush, I “painted” the plaster with our usual mixture of ½ wood glue, ½ water and a couple drops of liquid detergent and sprinkled Woodland Scenics blended turf on the front yard. I grabbed a couple trees for the front yard, some bush material for various bushes and some other landscaping pieces to finish the job. I vacuumed the loose grass from the driveway and painted it with Floquil engine black to give it that new macadam look. By the time I cleaned up all my tools, I could put the cars back in the driveway and stand back and admire the job. It was 11:15 PM and time to head for home. And the best part was I didn’t have to come up the next morning to finish.
The Turkey Hill Saga Continues
Well, they say it’s not over ‘till its over! And as of opening day, it still wasn’t over.
It didn’t take long before we realized that the new minit market was one of the most recognized buildings on the layout. Of course, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that it was right inside the entrance and was one of the first things you would see. Even little kids were saying, “Look, it’s a Turkey Hill”. Now that was cool. It made all the hours and hard work worth it.
We had planned a media blitz with Turkey Hill Dairy and Turkey Hill Minit Market about the newest minit market in town! We hired a PR person to write a press release and she and my daughter, Kristi, came up with the idea for a “Family Fun Day”, getting the dairy people and the minit Markey people involved. In the course of the planning and all the correspondence, I said I said that I still wanted to make a gas price sign. Well, as anybody around here can attest to, I usually take a simple idea and make it into a big production and the gas price sign was no exception. I happened to mention that I thought I could make the sign so that I could change the gas prices as they fluctuated, thereby staying current. So I found an electronics geek bulletin board (This is said very tongue-in-check because by me being on the BB, that makes me a geek, too!) at www.nutsvolts.com which is the website for Nuts and Volts Magazine. I joined the Bulletin Board and posted a question about how to interface a PC with a numeric LED display. I got a couple replies and even a couple comments about the Choo Choo Barn and found out how to easily make the numeric LED display so I could change the numerals. I ordered the parts from www.mouser.com, one of my favorite electronic sources and set to work.
In case you’re wondering, a numeric LED display is a little box that has ten pins sticking out the back and the outline of what looks like the number “8” plus a small decimal point. These are actually LEDs inside this little package. By connecting the correct pins, you can make the numbers fro 0 to 9 plus a decimal point, if needed. The picture of the sign lit up explains what it looks like. I have them all turned on to the number “8” to make sure my wires were all connected. Anyway, using 32 gauge wire (that’s really small wire) I soldered leads to 9 pins on the first digit and 8 pins on the next two digits. I did this for three prices; Regular, Premium and Diesel. The first digit is comprised of 7 segments, one decimal point plus one wire for ground. The next two digits don’t need the decimal point so that’s why there is one less wire. So, one gas price has 25 individual wires soldered to the pins. Since the sign is double sided, I just ran a jumper wire to the other set on displays that correspond to the same gas price. That’s 75 wires that have to go down under the display to some type on circuit board. Once each of the three individual LED displays was wired, I glued them together to make a dollars and cents price. That’ six sets of individual prices.
Once the LEDs were wired and working, I started construction of the sign itself. I drove to my local Turkey Hill and took a picture of the gas price sign I wanted to recreate. Here it is:
The main part of the sign is made of basswood. The top part where the Turkey Hill logo is is actually two pieces of Plexiglas with basswood glued to the inside edge. I used thin wood so it would not get in the way of any light that I was going to use to illuminate it from inside. I made the proper size for the logo using Microsoft Publisher and printed it on self-stick paper. I used the same method on the sign as the other one, except this one ultimately had a light bulb inside and it was double sided. Before I started all of this, I made the exact sign that I wanted using Publisher. My reasoning comes later!
The next part was the actual sign itself. Again, I grabbed some basswood. I didn’t want to make the sign too thick but I had all those wires and the numeric LED units to contend with. I figured the least amount of space I could work with was 1 inch. That meant the sign would have to be 4 feet in real life, bigger than actuality, but livable. I cut the two side pieces and rounded the top part on my disk sander. Using the sign from Publisher as my plan, I made the main part of the sign. The piece that’s across the bottom is only temporary; it’s just holding the sign together until I’m finished.
Once this was done, my next project was stuffing 10 pounds of wires until a 5 pound sack! I laid the sign on my workbench and glued my number board in with Super Jet. I flipped the sign over, checked all my wires, re-soldered 5 of them, and pushed everything together. Here’s a photo of it all, being held together with clamps.
Once this was done, I added some other pieces of wood and painted the whole thing black.
I added a flourette bulb in the skinny section above the numeric displays and snaked the wires inside the sign. I went back to Publisher and made a new sign that was oversized, except for the graphics. In other words, I extended the black all the way around.
Once my lights were all inside the sign and all my wires wire run and the numeric LEDs tested for the 1000th time, I printed this new oversized sign on self-stick paper, cut it out, cut the center section out to reveal the numeric displays and put it over the two sides of the sign. Once I trimmed the paper, I glued the top logo on. Here’s a couple pics of the finished sign on the finished scene. Our big unveiling was scheduled for Saturday, May 3rd. I actually had this all finished by the Wednesday before! Saturday morning, I checked gas prices at our local Turkey Hill, changed a few DIP switches, and VOILA!, up to date gas prices!
May 08, 2008
New Utility Trucks Join the Layout
I found the nicest utility trucks in 1/43. New-Ray is producing both a bucket truck and an auger truck in Kenworth, Peterbilt, International, Freightliner and Chevrolet Kodiak C4500 styles that have been needed for a long time. I got ahold of a bunch of the International style trucks on ebay (we’ve since started to carry them in our store) with a plan in mind. I started to watch for PPL trucks (that’s our local power company) to be working on some poles somewhere in my travels but could not seem to find any. One Monday morning, when we pulled into work, there were three Verizon trucks sitting in our parking lot. Braving the cold weather, I grabbed my digital camera and trekked across the lot. I started snapping pictures of the logos, the placement of the striping and the back of the truck. The driver got out and asked what I was doing and I told him about the Choo Choo Barn and that I wanted to make Verizon trucks and PPL trucks and that this was a perfect opportunity for me to get some photos. He said that someone took out a pole about a mile down Route 741 and that they were waiting for PPL to come and replace it. I contained myself from jumping up and down with joy and he then said they would be out at the job site in about an hour. So and hour later, I jumped in my car and went to where the guys were working and snapped some pictures of the PPL trucks. I even asked the one lineman to measure how wide the stripes were that ran along the back of the truck. I figured if I was going to make a PPL truck, it might as well be as authentic as possible.
That night, I sat down at my computer and designed the striping and the door logos so I could make decals for Verizon trucks and PPL trucks. I printed out a sheet of each, sprayed them with the stuff your to spray them with and waited until the next night to start decaling. I thought they came out pretty good so I made three Verizon bucket trucks, three Verizon auger trucks, three PPL bucket trucks and three PPL auger trucks.
I then animated one of the auger trucks so the auger turns and one of the bucket trucks so that the bucket swings in and out. I had an idea to put them at a place where I had just broken a phone pole while cleaning the layout but when I took the truck in to work, they just didn’t seem to fit. So I walked around the layout a few times and pondered where the best place to put a mini scene with a bunch of trucks would be. I found a place to use two of the trucks and then I can up with the idea to make a scene where both utility companies are working together to replace a whole line of poles. The perfect spot was along the side of the layout where the Amish barn raising and Dutch Wonderland is. Down on the lower level along the plexiglass was a great place to stage my scene. I removed all the existing vehicles and started placing trucks where I thought they would look best. I started making a list of stuff I would need which included highway cones, utility workers, high-tension line covers and various other detail items. I went into the train shop and grabbed the Bowser highway cones off the hook and checked out the Arttista and new Woodland Scenic figures.
I looked in our boxes of wire and found a roll of 22 gauge that had orange insulation. This would make my high-tension line covers. I stripped the insulation off the wire and cut it into one inch lengths. I then very carefully slit the insulation and slid the insulation onto the electric lines that were strung on the existing poles. I drilled the hole for the auger animation and fastened the truck to the top of the layout and the motor underneath. I drilled the hole for the bucket animation and fastened everything for that one also. I then wired all the trucks down and started glueing the figures. I had already cleaned, primered and painted the highway cones with florescent orange paint so I glued them on too.
Here are a couple pics of the finished scene.
The Turkey Hill Saga or Here’s one more Mushroom for the Groffs
Last year, Turkey Hill Dairy vice president of logistics and information services Jim Hatfield (www.turkeyhill.com), stopped in to visit the Choo Choo Barn with his grandsons. When he left, he asked the person working the admissions counter if the owners were in and my daughter, Kristi, went down since neither Linda nor I were working that day. He proceeded to tell Kristi how much he enjoyed the display and that the only thing missing was a Turkey Hill truck and cow. Now around here, the Turkey Hill cow is a sight to be seen. It is a 13 1/2 foot fiberglass and steel Guernsey cow that is on a flat bed trailer that makes its way around to special events in Lancaster and surrounding counties. It’s really an attention grabber. To continue on, he asked Kristi if we would like a cow for on the display. Kristi said that she was sure that I would love to have one, as long as it is of the right scale and all to fit with the rest of the exhibit. So, lo and behold, about 3 weeks later, a 1/64th scale box truck and trailer complete with the Turkey Hill cow arrives. I immediately knew that the truck was a little small so I emailed a big “Thank You” to the dairy and explained that the truck was a little too small but that I was sure the cow and trailer would be fine and that if they gave me permission, I would make a 1/43rd scale truck to pull the cow. My return email gave me the permission to use a different truck and they even said they would provide me with the correct size truck graphics so I could make a bigger truck. WOW! Now that’s pretty cool. It’s pretty exciting that a company the size of Turkey Hill Dairies wants to work with us to get a truck on our display.
So, I took one of the new Athearn 1/50th scale box trucks, measured the sides and back door and emailed those measurements to the marketing department at Turkey Hill dairy. Within a couple of hours, they sent me a high-def PDF image of their truck sides and back door. I printed them out on both our laser printer and a high quality ink jet printer so I had a choice and took everything home, where it all sat until after Jan. 1.
This whole little episode got me to thinking, “Hmm, what’s more Lancaster County than Turkey Hill? Wouldn’t it be cool to make a miniature of a Turkey Hill Minit Market and put it on the layout?” So I went into Kristi’s office and told her my idea and made sure I told it loud enough for Linda to hear. They both thought it sounded great so I fired off an email to the people at Turkey Hill dairy about my great idea. They replied that this sounded really cool but that the dairy and the minit market are two different companies. They did, however, give the contact persons name and phone number so I figured I’d give it a try. This was back in October 2007. After a number of calls, I finally got the right person and was told they thought it was a good idea and that their head of construction would contact me as soon as they got approvals. So I waited and Jan. 1 came around and no one called. I finally got an email and a drawing of a new minit market they were building. I asked if it would be possible to get a set of blueprints since they are usually scaled in ¼” to the foot, which is what I build in. Well, to make a long story short, the head of construction finally got me everything I needed and then some. These people were absolutely wonderful to work with and very cooperative with a little business like ours.
I made photocopies of what I needed from the blueprints they gave me, I figured I’d have to modify them some and I certainly wasn’t going to ruin their prints. The prints for the minit market that they gave me were for a building that was 82’ X 42’, that’s a little too big for our display; it would have been very overpowering. So I took the liberty of trimming it a little. I decided to make it 61' X 36' (15 1/4" X 9") with an entrance on the right since the gas canopy would be on that side instead in front of the store. I sent Scott, my contact, my ideas and he wrote back that whatever I do would be fine with them. WOW, another great guy to work with. So, on February 2, I finally got started on the miniature Turkey Hill Minit Market.
Here are some photos of the building in progress:
I decided that because of time constraints, I wouldn’t be able to make the interior of the store, which was my first plan. The front and side of the actual store are all glass and aluminum strips. I took one of my photocopies and taped it to a piece of Masonite. I then taped a piece of clear Plexiglas to the paper. The Plexiglas was going to be my “glass” so all I had to do was glue on the “aluminum” support structure. I used various sizes of Evergreen styrene to achieve to desired effect. The aluminum that is used on the actual store is anodized instead of silver so I first painted the styrene with Floquil brown. I used the regular Floquil instead of Poly-S because regular Floquil is a solvent based paint and I knew from past experience that it actually etches the styrene and the paint adheres better. I don’t think this practice is especially recommended by Floquil or by any of the modeling magazines but as long as it’s done carefully, it works for me. So I very carefully cut the styrene strips, after the paint had thoroughly dried, and using Ten-X glue, glued the pieces to the Plexiglas. The photocopy underneath gave me the pattern to follow which made the job go much faster. When all was finished, I touched up the styrene that needed it and set it aside and started the other “glass” wall. These walls were made to fit in between the “block” walls that I was making the rest of the store out of. This was actually basswood with simulated block sheeting made by Evergreen.
After the main part of the building was pretty much done, I started working on the front gable. Unfortunately, I didn’t get many photos from here on out. Once again, March 15 was fast approaching and I was working in my workshop every waking moment I was at home. If you don’t believe me, ask my wife Linda. She becomes a widow in the winter. I’m in my workshop every evening from 6 or 6:30 until 11 or 12. So, the photo shoot ended up being unimportant. Of course, I now wish I would have taken the time. The gable was the fun part! I made three until I got it right. I then had to figure out what I was going to do with the two logos on the front. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to make 3-D logos, it was just a matter of how I was going to do it. I contacted Scott at Turkey Hill and asked if he could send me graphic of their logos. Within a short time, I had an email with the attached hi-res logos. I took measurements of both logos on the blueprint and made my conversion so they would fit on the front of the gable. I resized the logos I was sent using PhotoImpact and printed multiple logos on self-stick paper. Working on the logo first, I rough cut it out, pealed the back off and stuck it on a piece of 1/4” Plexiglas. I rough cut this out using my band saw then moved to my disk sander. I bought a Craftsman combination belt/disk sander at a garage sale a couple years ago for $10.00 because the seller said the belt wouldn’t stay on. I took it home and found that the belt worked fine but the disk part wouldn’t stay tight on the shaft, no matter how hard I tightened it. I looked in my junk drawers and found a new set screw and replaced it. That’s all there was to fixing it. The old set screw was just not tightening up for some reason. Anyway, I put a fine sanding disk on the sander and very carefully, sanded the piece of Plexiglas right up to the edge of the logo. I painted this edge with the same paint that I used on the building and set it aside. Now to tackle the words, “Turkey Hill”.
Front of Gable Graphic
I had printed the words Turkey Hill at the same time as I printed the logo on the self stick paper. I rough cut the words and placed them on a piece of 3/16” Lucite. I put the Plexiglas in a small tabletop vise and using an X-Acto jeweler’s saw and a Mascot H100S spiral cut sawblade, I very carefully cut each letter out. I then used a small, fine file and trimmed the edges of the letters so they were exactly the size that was printed on the self-stick paper. I then painted each letter with 3 coats of Tamiya Acrylic Clear Red paint. This paint is getting hard to find, luckily I have a couple bottles of it. I use the same paint on white LEDs. The paint also comes in clear blue which changes a white LED to a blue LED. I give the LEDs about three coats of paint also. They look good on police cars and emergency vehicles. Anyway, I also set the letters aside to completely dry. The next thing to tackle was how I was going to mount the letters and logo on the front of the gable and backlight them. I eventually (after some trial and error) decided to take a piece of clear acetate and cut it to the same size as the front of the gable. I then glued the logo and the words on the acetate at the proper position, marked the place on the gable end that was made of basswood and cut the basswood out. I placed three flourette bulbs behind the front of the gable, one positioned behind the logo and two positioned behind the words Turkey Hill. I painted the front of the acetate the same color as the rest of the building with three coats because I didn’t want any light coming through the acetate, except at the logo and words. I glued the acetate to the front of the gable and touched up a few spots of paint. I then drilled a hole through the roof and ran my wires through it. I had already marked the roof with the position of the gable so I glued the gable onto the roof. I set this aside until my glue was good and dry.
I started work on the gas canopy by first making the edge graphics in PhotoShop. Using my set of blueprints, I decided the size I was going to make my canopy. I then made a box using ¼” clear Plexiglas the size of the canopy. After gluing the box together, I cut two pieces of white styrene the size of the box, one for the top and one for the bottom. Taking a couple die-cast cars, I decided where the gas pump islands should be in relationship to the canopy. I then decided where the best position for some “down” lighting should be to properly light the area during the night scene. I glued the bottom piece of styrene to the Plexiglas box. I drilled holes to mount white LEDs from the inside so they would shine down and glued them in place. I then made another box out of basswood using the same thickness of wood as the outside Plexiglas box. I fastened a bunch of 6.3 volt bulbs to the outside of the wooden box so these bulbs will illuminate the canopy graphics. This is why I used clear Plexiglas for the outside box. The wooden box will also serve as an anchor for the posts that will hold everything up. The posts, which are actually brass tubes, will be my “chase” for the wires that connect to the lights and LEDs. I soldered resistors to each LED and ran wires around to each one. I also soldered wires on to the bulbs.
Canopy Graphic
I drilled through the wooden box to accept the brass tubes. I had already cut the tubes to the length I thought looked the best for the canopy. Using basswood strips, I made two “islands”, on for the bottom of each set of poles. I placed the second piece of styrene on the top of the canopy and drilled pilot holes for #0 X ½” self-tapping screws. I then screwed the top on the canopy, drilled out the “islands” and pushed them onto the tubes. When I measured the brass tubes, I allowed an extra ½” of tube to extend into the top of the display. I then cut the self-stick paper with the canopy graphics and adhered them to the sides of the canopy. I used Plastruct gas pumps until I either find more modern ones or eventually make my own and glued them to the “islands”.
By this time, the glue was more than dry on the gable. So now it was time to start shingling the roof. I used gray roofing from WSR (Fred Dole Productions). It’s actually a 10” X 16” sheet of shingle material but I like to modify it a little. Instead of just cutting out a flat piece of shingle stock, I like to give my roofs a little but of depth. I do have a couple buildings that I used flat shingle material that I plan to re-do at some time. I start by taking the shingle material and cutting it into strips that are two shingles wide. I use an X-Acto with a NEW #11 blade and a metal 18” ruler. This is one of those times that you will need extra #11 blades. It doesn’t take long for one to get dull and when that happens, you’re in for either a sloppy job or a cut finger, or both. Once an entire sheet is cut into strips, I started shingling! But first, II measured the depth of a row of shingles and then made a mark on the edge of the roof, the depth of one row. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I did this on both sides of the roof. I then drew a line from one side of the roof to the other, the whole way up the roof. These lines will serve as guides when laying the shingles. I started by laying a bead of Elmer’s wood glue at the bottom edge of the roof and then laid the first strip down so the bottom edge is flush with the edge of the roof. I always leave the shingle overhang on both sides of the roof. I trim them after the glue is dry. I pressed the row of shingles down to make sure they were snug against the roof. I then laid another bead of glue on the top edge of the shingles I had just put down and placed the next two rows of shingles on top, overlapping the one row I just glued down. I kept this up, overlapping one of the previous rows of shingles the whole way to the top. This is a very time consuming job but it looks a lot better than just gluing the shingle paper on the roof. Also, when doing a roof this way, I use twice as much shingle material as I would if I just used the flat paper.
Once the back was finished, I moved on to the front. I made my marks and drew my guide lines on the front side and on both sides of the gable. I then started on the right side of the roof section and worked up to the peak of the gable. I was very careful to cut the shingles that where on the side of the gable so they fit into the gable/roof joint. I then moved over to the left side and again worked up to the peak of the gable. I finished the front of the roof from there on up using full lengths of shingles. I then did the same for the gable, laying one row at a time until I reached the top of both sides. WSR gives you a “cap” piece that’s about 16” long. I used one on the main roof and on the gable. Once the glue was dry, I trimmed the excess shingle strips off the sides of the roof.
I then glued the “glass” walls in place and found a piece of acetate that was colored black and cut it to size to fit behind my glass walls. The black acetate came from a Vox Vodka gift box. Again, proving I throw nothing away. When I was making the main structure, I used a piece of 1/2” square piece of poplar that I got at Home Depot and glued this around the bottom of the inside of the building. This gave the sides of the structure a lot of strength and also gave me something to use as an anchor to the display. I then took a piece of ¼” Plexiglas and measured it as a base for the building. I cut the Plexiglas 1” longer and 1” wider for the sidewalk on the front and side of the store. I scribed 1” squares onto the “sidewalk and painted I with Floquil Concrete. I drilled holes in the Plexiglas and counter sunk the holes for flat head screws so I could fasten the floor to the building, via the 1/2” poplar wood pieces. I then drilled holes in the bottom of the Plexiglas for mounting on the display. I drilled these holes 5/64” because I planned to use #8 sheet metal screws and they will fit snuggly into a 5/64” hole.
At the Choo Choo Barn, I took a big piece of corrugated cardboard and made a template of the place that was going to be the new home for the minit market. I decided to wait until the last moment to take the mini-mall off just in case some calamity happened and I wouldn’t be able to finish the job before we opened on the 15th. Stranger things have happened! (http://www.choochoobarn.com/backstage.php?page=012003) I used ¼” tempered Masonite to put the whole scene on. This way, I could get it all set up in my workshop, take it apart, transport it to the Choo Choo Barn and put it all back together again. Using the cardboard template, I cut the Masonite to match. I figured I’d make any final cuts when I got everything to the Choo Choo Barn and ready to put it in place. I set the building on the Masonite as well as the canopy and marked their positions. I took the Plexiglas base off the bottom of the minit market building, placed it back on the Masonite and made marks where to drill holes to fasten the Plexiglas. I drilled the holes and turned the Masonite over and counter-sunk them. I then drilled additional holes for wiring. I then drilled the holes for the brass tubes that hold the canopy. I was now ready to take everything to the Choo Choo Barn.
OK, believe it or not, it’s March 13! WE OPEN IN TWO DAYS! At 9:00 a.m., I head out to the display with a hammer and a chisel. Now, obviously, this is not the time to be chiseling landscaping out on the display, but I’m on a mission and nothing’s gonna stop me now. The night before, I took the mini-mall off so I wouldn’t have to do that. I climbed on top of the display, forget the scaffolding, it’s all put away for the summer, and started to chisel the old parking lot up. It only took me about an hour to get everything ready for the Masonite. I wasn’t wasting any time. Eric came out into the display, made a comment and walked back into the workshop. It didn’t bother me because he wasn’t going to have to do any of the work to get it ready. If it took me the next two days, well, that’s on me! After a couple of adjustments with my saber saw, I was ready to make the final fit. I made marks on the plywood that is the base of the layout where the screws that hold the building on the Masonite are. I painted the Masonite black to simulate a parking lot and left it to dry. I drilled 1 ½” holes at these marks and also drilled oversized holes in the layout for the wiring for the lights. It’s a lot easier to run wires through oversized hole than it is ¼” holes and I was going to cover them up anyway so it really didn’t matter how big they were. When the paint was dry, I screwed the Masonite down to the display with flathead screws that were countersunk into the Masonite. I got the gas canopy ready and fit it on the Masonite where it belonged. Once this was all done, I mixed up some Road System Smooth-It by woodland scenics to fill in the landscaping that got torn out and to cover the counter-sunk holes. Smooth-It is very fine and it dries very quickly. By the time I got this done, it was almost 5:00. It wasn’t time to go home because I had a lot of last minute things to fix.
The next day, the 14th, I grabbed a piece of sandpaper and started sanding the Smooth-It to get rid of the blobs and the extra that was on the parking lot. Everything got vacuumed and I was ready to start landscaping. I added trees, grass, fencing, cars, figures and other details until I thought I was done. As everyone knows, you can detail a scene like this forever. Its 11:43, time to put the new Turkey Hill Minit Market on the display. I got everything on, screwed down, wires run and working and I even had time to spare. That didn’t mean it was time to go home. We didn’t do that until 11:00 p.m. that night. Talk about working until the last minute!
May 01, 2008
Meanwhile, on another part of the layout…
…I started working on the creek behind Dutch Wonderland. It’s January 16 and because Eric cut his hours back to being a part-timer back in April of 2007 and Earl past away in August from cancer, I have my work cut out for me. Eric’s now working three days a week as opposed to five last year and whether he knows it or not, he’s got a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. So while he’s in the train repair workshop getting all the motive power cleaned, greased and ready to run come March 15th (by the way, this is the earliest that Palm Sunday will be in my lifetime!), I’ve decided to get to work on ripping the creek out behind Dutch Wonderland. Our plan is to re-track the HO at Dutch Wonderland and rebuild the Lady Gay riverboat mechanism. We found that by having the water level in the creek too high, the water actually leached up the side of the creek bed and made the plaster and all the scenic material wet and look really crappy.
So here I am, on top of the display sitting on the scaffolding, chiseling out the fiberglass and plaster creek that’s been in since 1971. Up until a couple of years ago, we used fiberglass boat resin and fiberglass cloth over plaster to make our creeks. WHEW! What a smelling and nasty job that used to be. Without lots of ventilation, it was really easy to get a “buzz on” while doing this work. Now, in my younger years, that wasn’t such a bad deal. Go to work, get high on fiberglass resin fumes, go home! Of course, I’m not sure how many brain cells I’ve killed, but I really tried not to inhale!! The plan of attack is to tear a 10-12 foot section of the old creek completely out, do the work on re-tracking the HO at Dutch Wonderland, then put in a new creek. It’s that simple! Of course, that’s not counting all the added little bonuses we get into which ALWAYS happens whenever we start some major ripping and tearing of old parts of the layout. What you have to understand is that when my dad built things, especially in 1971 which was the last huge addition to the overall size of the layout, he wasn’t thinking of what we would be facing 37 years later when we were going to re-build a section. Drywall screws were only a thing of the future at that time. So it was nails, nails and more nails, which held things together. My dad was in the decorating business prior to opening the Choo Choo Barn in 1961 and he laid a lot of Masonite flooring as a subfloor for linoleum and asphalt tile. So he had this big bucket of what we always called “screw nails”, nails that had ridges all around the nail so it would “pop” when the floor was done. Take my word for it, “screw nails” are not made to be taken out easily. He used them everywhere he needed to fasten ½” plywood.
So, once I got the old creek torn out, and the top level of fiberglass off the rest of the creekbed, it was time for Eric to start work on the new creek. To help with the water level problem, I decided to make a trough for the river boat to float in instead of damming up the water to get the proper depth for the boat to float in. Here’s a photo of the hole that was made after the creek was torn out. We ended up with a lot of wires that had to be loosened and/or relocated, which is part of one of the “little bonuses” I spoke of earlier. The new creek had to be constructed in such a way as to allow my boat mechanism to pull the riverboat back and forth across the water. I hadn’t even started to think about how I’m going to accomplish that feat except for some rough ideas that I figured wouldn’t work anyway. Eric finally got most of the trains ready and came out to work on re-tracking the HO line that is used as the kiddie ride at Dutch Wonderland. After tearing all of the track out, he cleaned the top of the plywood off with a wood chisel to make a level surface for the new track. Since I wanted to make the riverboat move ten feet instead of three feet, that meant that the HO line couldn’t cross the creek anymore. That was all part of the plan anyway because the track work at these points was a place for problems anyway. At this point, Eric thought it would be a good idea to extend the HO line closer to the Amish barn raising so he could get the proper radius curve for the track. This also allows for future growth for Dutch Wonderland. In comes as no surprise that dad used two different thicknesses of plywood on the North side of Dutch Wonderland where it meets the Amish barn raising scene. Another “little bonus”! Eric finally did some hacking and got the two plywood levels to match, sort of, at least good enough for government work. Once the track was laid and ballasted, and Dutch Wonderland was cleaned, we covered it with some clothes we had for this purpose and moved on to other things. Eric at this point had to make a new creekbed. A trip to Home Depot was in order where he bought some good, straight 1X4’s. We screwed the 1X4’s to the sides of the old super structure that was built in 1971. This gave us a trough without a bottom to make our new creekbed out of. We determined how deep we wanted the trough for the new Lady Gay riverboat to float in, calculated how thick the plaster would be for the sub-creek (is that a word?), measured some more odd and obscure stuff and came up with what we though were some good number we could live with. Eric then bought some small angle brackets at our local hardware store and a sheet of ¼” Masonite. He screwed the angle brackets to the sides of the new creek bed, cut the masonite to lay on top of the brackets, covered the masonite with good ole’ wax paper, cut screen to fit over the whole mess and stapled the screen in place. Here’s a picture: Eric worked in three foot increments while standing in the hole that was made when the old creek was torn out. The old creek only left a 12” wide open trough to maneuver in. Try it sometime, it was not the easiest thing to get in and out of let alone work in for hours at a time. Once the first three foot piece of screen was stapled, Eric mixed up some Structolite plaster and covered the screen. Then it was on to the next three foot section of Masonite, screen, etc. This took him three days to finish. I decided to let the plaster dry really well before I was going to cover it with epoxy, so everything sat for five days.
Okay, the plaster’s dry so now it’s time to coat the creek with PC7. It’s our epoxy of choice for creeks and ponds and anything that we went to hold water. Here’s a photo of me on the scaffolding doing just that.
It took me a couple days to epoxy because I didn’t order a big enough can, twice! I finally finished and then turned things back over to Eric to paint the sides and bottom of the creek that can be seen. He painted the sides of the bank brown, to simulate dirt and mud and the bottom a swirl of greens and blues.
While all this was taking place, I was working on the boat mechanism that would move the Lady Gay up and down the creek. My plan from the beginning was to have the Lady Gay travel at least 9 or 10 feet, instead of the three feet it always did. This not only meant that a whole new mechanism had to be designed and built, but it also meant the Lady Gay would travel up behind the Amish barn raising scene. That part was okay, the actual Lady Gay travels further on the Conestoga creek than the actual park owns anyway. The interesting part was ‘How to make a new mechanism to make a boat travel 10 feet’!
So, off I went to Lowe’s again. I bought four 6’ X 1” X 4” yellow pine boards. Yellow pine is much harder than white pine and still easy to work with. I also bought a ½” X 2’ X 4’ sheet of good grade plywood. I search both piles of lumber for nice straight 1X4s and plywood and headed for home. Things sat around for about two weeks, getting in the way, until I finally decided it was time to start thinking about this new mechanism. I pulled out my box of sprockets and found two 4” ones that used ¼ pitch chain. I also grabbed a couple smaller ones that I could use as idlers, if needed. After searching the Internet, I found a place that had 10’ lengths of ¼ pitch chain for only $14.25 plus shipping, so I broke out the AMEX and placed an order for two 10’ pieces. Here’s the web address if you’re interested: www.thebearingstore.com. While waiting for my chain to arrive, I worked on the model of the Turkey Hill Minit Market, but that’s another story!
Chain’s here, time to get back to the boat mech! I cut the one 1X4 five feet long. I took the remaining foot and used it to splice the 6’ and 4’ pieces together. Did I mention that the date is March 1st and we reopen on the 15th? I thrive on stress! I work better with looming deadlines! Well, it seems that way. Anyway, a couple years ago, I bought some chain guide for another animation and I had a bunch left over for ¼ pitch chain, lucky me. I took four pieces of ¾” X ¾” X 1/8” angle aluminum that are 6 feet long and proceeded to splice a six foot and a four foot piece of aluminum angle together to make a 10’ continuous piece. I used this as a support for the chain guide which is actually made out of a Delrin type plastic material to guide roller chain. I needed the chain to stay straight and level to “pull” the boat back and forth. I fastened the aluminum to the chain guide using #8 X ¾” sheet metal screws. I then took steel angle brackets and fastened them to the aluminum so I would have a way to fasten the whole thing to my wooden frame.
I cut the plywood into 10” wide strips, then cut these strips into 12” long pieces. I screwed the 1X4s together, to make 2 pieces that were now 11’ long. I was very careful to make sure that the edges of the 1X4s were lined up perfectly. Everything was glued and screwed together with drywall screws. I then sat the two 1X4s on edge and screwed the 10” X 12” pieces of plywood to the edges of the 1X4s. (See the pics, they give a better understanding.) I then screwed the chain guide to the plywood so the chain went down the center of the mechanism. The chain guide is actually on its side so the roller chain can follow the sprockets.
I took the one sprocket that was to be at the non-powered end of the mech, a length of ¼” steel rod, two bearing blocks and a couple ¼” Du-Bro collars and fabricated an idler sprocket for the one end. With that in place, it was time to fasten the motor. This is usually a challenge, especially in an animation of this size. I use Dayton
I got the motor and bracket installed, got the chain out, cut one to the correct length, treaded it through the chain guide, around both sprockets and fastened the two ends together. Time to see if the motor speed was correct. The motor I used was a reversible, 110 volt motor. It uses a capacitor to which two of the three leads from the motor are attached to. One of the leads is common, which is hooked to one side of 110 volts and the other side of the 110 volt line is attached to one of the capacitor terminals. The direction of the motor is determined by which terminal of the capacitor the 110 volts is connected to. By switching the lead going to the capacitor, you can make the motor reverse direction. This can be done with a single pole, double throw switch or some sort of electrical or electronic gizmo to achieve this action. Since I’m not going to sit in the control tower and throw a switch whenever I want the Lady Gay to start and stop, I had to come up with a method of reversing the direction of the motor automatically. But first, let’s make sure the chain works like it’s supposed to…
Well, as luck would have it, the motor was shot. How it got put back into my box of motors, I’ll never know but I can guarantee you it will never happen again. Landfill, here it comes. The next day, I grabbed one off the shelf at the Choo Choo Barn and left a note for Eric to order another one the next time we place an order with Grainger, preferably, before we open. We have at least one extra of every motor we use on the layout as a spare.
Now to make it go back and forth… I needed a method of attaching string or cord to the chain so I took a 6” piece of ¼ pitch chain and using my Dremel tool, I ground down one of the pins on the roller chain. I flipped the chain over and ground down the other side. I only ground it down to the connecting link. I popped the pin out using a small punch. I took a piece of steel wire the same diameter as the pin I popped out, tapped it through the two connecting links and through the roller link. I basically replaced the link pin with a new one that was a lot longer. (The only thing that I could find that was the correct diameter was a piece of steel wire that is used by contractors to hold insulation between floor joists. I have a box of 24” and 16” that were left over from an addition we put on a few years ago. I told you before, I throw NOTHING away.) I bent this at a 90 degree angle, about 1/8” away from the chain and silver soldered the rod to the connecting links on both sides. I thoroughly cleaned the chain with flux-off AND I scrubbed the chain with hot, soapy water to make sure all the soldering flux was off the chain. Now, when the chain is traveling in the chain guide, this piece of steel rod will stick up at a 90 degree angle from the mechanism. This gives me something to fasten my string to. (Keep reading for further explanation) I got my box of timers and switches and found four lever action micro switches with long levers and a couple different timers. I use timers that are made for the burglar alarm business. They are multiple volt, reliable as heck and very easy to use. I attached two micro switches at each end of the chain guide. The first switch controls the length of travel of the chain, whereas the second switch is a “dead man”; e.i., if the first switch doesn’t stop the motor and start the timer, the second switch will shut the whole thing down. I ran wires to a point on the mechanism where I planned to attach my timers, drew out a schematic of how the timers are to work, wired everything up and plugged it in for a test spin. PERFECTO! I next found a piece of brass bar stock, K&S Brass, cut a ¾” X 3” piece, drilled a hole in the dead center a little larger than the diameter of the steel rod, silver soldered a ¼” Du-Bro collar at this hole, drilled two 1/16” holes 3/16” in from each end and placed this on the steel rod. This piece of brass is what I will attach my string to. But what do I use for string that’s both super strong and semi-invisible? I ended up using Spider Wire which is fishing line.
Now, how do I get the string up through the creek bed from underneath and attach it to either end of the Lady Gay without emptying the water out of the creek? It was actually fairly simple.
This diagram, though confusing at first, may shed some light. The thingy on the left side of the diagram is made from a piece of brass tubing and an angle bracket. The top pulley must fasten to the brass tubing in such a way as to allow the string to go down through the center of the tube. The tube is soldered to the angle bracket. This gives you something to fasten the whole unit to the plywood. The bottom pulley is fastened to the angle bracket so the string coming down through the tube follows around the pulley and eventually is fastened to the brass piece we made above. I tied the string to the end of a weak spring then put the other end of the spring into the hole that was made in the piece of brass that’s attached to the steel rod. I did this on both side of the string. It was actually easier to attach the spring under the display once everything was put into place that it would have been to try and tie the string.
Once everything was done, the motor tested so it started and stopped, the brass rods with pulleys fabricated and screwed in place and all the electronics were attached to the unit, it was time to take it to the Choo Choo Barn.
We found out really fast that we (Eric and I) were probably going to try and stuff an 11 foot long hoagy into a 5 foot long bun. This 11 foot long mass had to maneuvered around legs that hold the display up, 110 volt cables and conduit, a big bundle of low voltage cabling and a couple dozen miscellaneous low voltage wires that run house lights and trains. I eventually had to drop a 110 volt outlet and reposition a huge bundle of control wiring and cut the water supply that feeds all the water tanks and re-pipe it in another position to get the unit in place. We did this during the last week before opening. It was very interesting to say the least, but the end result was well worth it.
Like a dummy, because time was of the essence, I didn’t get any pictures of us installing the unit under the layout. We were really pressed for time! I did get the following pictures after were got open and everything working. I had some real problems with the creek leaking this year. I was in too much of a hurry and obviously didn’t take my time with the PC7. The first two weeks we were open, the creek leaked five times. That means we have to suction the water out of the creek with a wet/dry vacuum and thoroughly dry the creekbed. I wanted to use more PC7 for a more permanent job but I also didn’t want the riverboat not running because it looked so good. So instead, I used black roofing pitch. It’s stuff I got at the hardware store to make quickie repairs to a roof. Of course, I had to do this on five separate occasions until I finally got all the problems patched. It just goes to show you that we’re not perfect either! The first two pictures are of the brass tubing that goes up through the creekbed with a pulley attached. Notice the string comes up the center of the tube and follows around the pulley and heads horizontally for the boat.
The next picture is a shot of the electronics that are attached to the unit.
Here’s the motor.
This is an end shot.
This is a picture of the brass rod with the pulley under the creekbed. If you look closely, you can see the string just above the chain. This is headed for the upright that is attached to the chain that pulls the string back and forth.
