-
Contact: info [at] trainaidsa [dot] com
Oddments
Adarsh Narayan
Odds and ends left over at home vary from empty tin cans to left
over scrap fabric. Here I present some items that have been used in my
layout from those left overs or about to be thrown.
Click
on pictures to see their enlarged version.
Ballast:
We have well water at home and we use a water neutralizer to balance its pH. The calcium and magnesium residue in the neutralizer makes a good substitute for ballast in my case. I use K track throughout and it gives a very natural feel.
I use a sieve to separate the residue
into fine and coarse. Then I color it in two or three colors using
water color or tempera.
As I lay it, I mix different colrs as
needed. It also allows me to use
the same water
based color to add accents like black color, for example near a stop
point for the locos.
Oil
Tanks:
So I could not find a good method to
make low cost oil tanks. To make the layout work, I desperately
wanted to make the tanks. Here are two views of the mini tank farm.
Here is what they look like. I made these using ornamental
candles. Originally these tanks
were supposed to give way to the ones that I would finally place there,
but they are still in place 7 years after.
Oil
Pipes:
Oil Pipes you see coming out of the ground next to the oil tanks,
are made from the left over frame of
plastic assembly kits for transmission towers and other plastic scenic
items. I cut off
the parts with a little bit of the turn and painted it black to match
the tanks.
Picked up a small pack of valves from
the hobby shop and glued them to the pipes prior to painting the pipes.
This gives a more realistic look.
Railing
/ Fence:
I needed a railing around a signal house. To make a fence from some
handy material at home, I used common
office pins, but you can also use small nails, and then glued a thread
over them to act as a handrail/fence. This is another of those
temporary solutions that has outlasted its planned life.
Crank
for Turnout/Switch/Point:
The turnout solenoid got burnt and I thought of replacing it with a
solution that would not require working directly at the turnout in case
it happened again and needed repairs. So the solution was to cut some
landscaping and hide a drive/motor under it and connect it to activate
the turnout.
I picked up an
old semaphore mechanism and connected it to work the
turnout. To make the crank, I used the packing of a coffee cup that
came in a folded plastic sheet that formed a case. The plastic was very
smooth and has no
friction between the two layers that came in contact with each other.
Made perfect crank material.
Top left in this picture.
Rods:
To give a realistic feel, I needed some rods that would in a real
world, drive turnouts/points/switches. But I did not actually need to
drive the turnouts in my layout, but just create the feel. So I used a
bunch of ceiling ties that were left over. These are available at any
hardware store and are used to hold insulation in the ceiling. Painted
them black and laid them next to the tracks as they would normally be.
. . . more to come!