Mountain building cont.

Well, Its coming along. I've decided to use an old model of the Titanic I got from a friend a while ago. was never really gonna finish the half built thing, but this I think is a better idea then just tossing it. I'm thinking a mountain top resort, or casino? I'm not to sure yet, but I am planing on drilling out the portholes and adding lights and signage eventually

T

It even came with a bow!

The ship was missing a lot of parts and was basically just the hull glued together and painted. It  seemed that this was a decent route to take. I couldn't think of anything else to do with it. (On a side note, I calculated the length of the Titanic in N scale, and it would come out to a nicely reasonable 8ish feet!)

But anyways, I put together what I could with the parts I had and got to chopping this puppy in half. If I'm gonna put a ship in a mountain, might as well see both ends right?

 Its a start right?

Cutting was a pain, I initially started with my dremel and a cutting head, but realize that even with the outer parts of the hull cut, there still were decks holding it together(shoulda realized the first time!).

I ended up using a little jewelers saw to cut it the rest of the way. Wasn't pretty, but, since the cut ends are gonna be hidden, it don't matter none.

 bet you've never seen a mountian like that before!

I stared to layer up the foam around the ship, using the piece before as a template for the next. I mentioned in a prior installment that I wanted an elevated trolley line to go from the city deck to the other end of the layout, but didn't really have a plan. Well now, I've got a plan, and the EL line is gonna end here, as a small(but exclusive) trolley line that will soon service the casino/hotel/resort.

 now I just gotta figure out the middle...

This last picture is a view of the whole thing(well most of it at least). I just dry fit all the funnels and masts to the ship to see what it will look like, and so far, I''m liking it. I'm thinking that the rigging would lead to a small electrical substation with a big ole' sign on the top of the mountain. but first I need to finish the ship, carve the mountain so its nice and smooth, and then toss on the plaster cloth.

theirs still a bunch to do!

Back at it

Eh, its been a while, been dealing with a lot of personal stuff lately that kept trains out of the picture for a bit, but things are slowly going back to normal, so I've decided to get back in the game.
I've had an idea floating around in my head for a while now, but I couldn't really figure out the best way to go about doing it. At first I thought it would be cool to build an N-trak module but I've since found a way to incorporate it into my own layout. I am of course talking about a big ole mountain. who doesn't want a nice mountain on their layout with trains running through it? I do, so the first step of course is cleaning the table.

 It was harder than it looks

I decided that it was best to make the mountain cover only a quarter of the curve, I was thinking at first to do the entire turnaround but thought that between the city deck and the soon to be mountain, the trains would spend too much time being covered, and were all here to see the trains so that would be lame.

that looks like a mountain right?

After some rightfully painful thinking(it hurts to use my brain that much sometimes) I decided to try my hand with foam. Hell, the layout is mostly foam so far, so why not? having never made a mountain before, I'm kinda doing this as I go. been using Elmer's glue to put it all together. should be using my adhesive caulk, but I'm lazy and this actually seems to be working quite well so far. We will have to wait and see if it holds together once theirs more mountain up. Hoping it wont collapse!

Oh! and I've got a new toy!! Very excited about this beastie!

CHOO CHOO MOTHERFLUFFER