LooVille Layout Design

[LooVille]

Hi All,

OK, let me share my process of building
I used AutoCad to do the design as I have the software and know how to use it.
I built a wooden frame, 2000x820mm, used 90x22mm SA Pine with the normal 20mm sheet foam you buy from the hardware shop.
The foam I cut with a hot wire cutter my dad built for me.

Here is some pictures of the start.

Will update some more a bit later.
Cheers, Evert

[BigEd]

Beautiful!!!!!!!

Keep it coming!!

[LooVille]

OK, here is some more.....

After I layed all the track and connected all the power (so I can run a train as a test  I started with the building of the mountain.
I, once again used sheet foam and made "ribs" and connected them all with pieces of foam.
I used creet-stone to do all the landscaping, much cheaper than plaster of paris. So for the mountain I went to the pharmisy and bought some gauss. I cut the gauss in smaller pieces and dipped it into a watery creet-stone mixture. then layed it over the foam mountain structure. Worked very well.
To use real rocks will be way to heavy, so I bought 2 different rock moulds from Woodlandscenics and made my own. Also with creet-stone.
I bought 2x 5kg bags and for the whole layout I used about 8kg. So it did not get that heavy.

Here is some pictures showing the progress....

Cheers,
Evert

[capeklr]

I like the idea of making the ribs for the mountain from sheet foam.

[LooVille]

Good Morning All....

Mountain side was built so now it was time for the opposite side of the layout. That is where I wanted to build the town, station and some hills to finish it off.

I bought a set of houses including a church from Faller and liked the layout from the picture on the box, so I used the idea of the different levels to do mine as well. I used that spray-able expansion foam to do the landscape. Worked well and was easy to shape.

Houses in place

[LooVille]

Right, next.... lights in the houses.....

Easiest was LED's, they do not get hot and they should last quite long.
So I got some LED's and some resistors, so I can power the LED's from 12V.
Fitted everything, but they were way to bright and way to white  Now what.....

Paint the LED's.... Let's see what will happen Works awesome 
Now I'm happy.....

[LooVille]

Hi Again....

Problems, or rather I did not have a glue how to do it..... I originally did not want to automate the points, but my dad convinced me otherwise so I had to make a plan. So I used SEEP point motors. I had to build some sort of fixture to mount them to the layout as everything was foam. So I built cardboard boxes. Cut nice squares out of the foam base and fitted everything. My dad built me a CDU unit. Figured out that we need that after I melted a point motor But I guess that's how we learn sometimes. I read up on this stuff so much but for some reason missed the past of the off-on-off switches and CDU.

Any case, it's all done and really works well. Took quite a looooong time to build and fit.

[LooVille]

So, finally !!!!! I can start to paint and make some stuff come alive 

Some much more research and learning how to do things. How on earth do I paint a rock to look like a rock ??  I had no idea...
So I found a video from Woodlandscenics that showed it very nicely. So here we go.

I mixed 3 different colour of paint. Dark brown, a lighter one, but with a bit of red in and then a lighter, almost mustard colour.
The 3 combinations made it look awesome. I am quite impressed and I got good comments from people so far.

Then I also did some of the grass. I bought the Woodlandscenics grass effects, 3 different ones, and mixed a 4th.
I first painted a small section with normal cheap water based sand colour paint, while it was still wet I sprinkled some grass over that and then with a spray bottle I sprayed some scenic cement (thinned white cold glue or wood glue) over that. Works perfect and look awesome.

 

[LooVille]

Good Afternoon All....

This one I'll have to do in two blogs, too many pictures
I wanted to have a river on my layout, so I once again looked at the Woodlandscenics how to's. Yea, I like them 
I bought the Realistic Water as well as the Water Effects.
I painted the section of foam on my layout blue and faded it out to the river beds until I was happy with it. First ever attempt, so it was all trail and error. Painting done so poured the water effects in. Looked awesome.
Next day it did not look so awesome any more the water effects was gone 
Then I realise that the foam have to many spaces between the "foam balls" so with a period of time it sucks the liquid up, like a sponge.
So OK, it should be sealed now, so I tried again. This time it worked much better. Left it a few day so it could dry properly.
Then another disaster when I got back to my layout. For some weird reason the realistic water reacted with the foam and it looked like a volcanic eruption in the river. Now what OK, start again from the beginning. I broke everything out, then build the river out of creet stone. Then on top of that I painted a few coats of resin, just to properly seal the creet stone. Now we can paint again....

OK, here is some pictures, I'll do the rest in the following reply.

[LooVille]

Continue with River....

First picture is after I did the resin....
So now it was painted again so I added the realistic water again. WhooooHooooo, this time it is a success 

So my dad came to see what I was doing and asked me where the river was coming from..... Mmmmmm... Oops, I never thought about that one.
So, I changed a few things and created a little pond on top of the one mountain and a waterfall going to the river. Can work very well. To make the waterfall was fun.... Take a piece of plastic, squeeze lines of water effects next to each other. It is like silicone so it does not run. Then I took a brush and mix them a bit together. Sorry difficult to explain. Woodlandscenics have an awesome video on how to do that. Once it was dry, I peeled it off the plastic and glued it with water effects to the mountain. I used the water effects to make rapids and water movement as well.
And once it was all finished I painted it rapids and water movement with the dry-brush method.

I'm very happy with the end result.
Here is the last pictures.

[LooVille]

Another electrical step 

Need to get the Signals to work when I change the points.
At the start I decided to buy the SEEP point motors as they have a power switch option as well, but because with N Scale being so small the point do not move far enough to make contact  So now what?

So my dad did some research and found a guy in England who helped us with a awesome solution.
So we bought the parts, 2 relays, ons switch the other one on with resistors where the power can only flow the one way. Think that is what it is called  Not so good with the electronic stuff.... Well it works. We also had to build a more powerful CDU to operate the points.

Here are some pictures.

[LooVille]

Next Biiiiiiig Project to the layout.....

One thing I was not sure I could do, but I took the chance and I'm quite surprised at some of my skills 
I searched for a nice picture that have sky, with some clouds and some hills at the bottom. After a quite extensive search I found something.
I printed it out and pasted the picture in parts on hardboard. Then it was the painting. I re-painted the whole picture and this is the result.

I'm extremely happy.....

[LooVille]

Hi all.....

Another something small I added to my layout. Just wanted to do something extra.
And with me like to build kits I thought of adding a aeroplane to the backdrop.

Mmmmmmm.... problem with the scale  Could not fine a 1:160 scale kit, so I had so settle for 1:144.
Yea, I know it is to big, but on a 1.8m wingspan it would be out 1mm, so I thought that would not kill me.

So here we go. This is what I build. Was quite a mission because it is sooooo small, but I enjoyed it and I'm happy with the finished product.

[wesley]

Beautiful work all round. The idea of the plane is a very good one indeed.

Thanks for taking the time to post your progress steps.

[renegade]

      ^^^^^^ 
he said it!  great work and thanx for sharing your efforts!