BEHIND THE SCENES

  To the left: stockpiling trees made from Woodland Scenics tree armature kits, colored lychen moss and ground foam.
  To the right: pulling old structures out of boxes that have been stored for 40 years, and trying my hand at making a few new ones.  These were being eyed for possible use in a future Rangeley module.

  To the left: my embryonic reference library for researching the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad.  Aaaannnd....a slice of an original rail used on the original railroad.  I use it for many purposes while building my layout.
  To the right: my forty year old first attempt at building SR&RL rolling stock.

  To the left: the beginning of stockpiling rolling stock for the layout.  Virtually nothing in HOn30 for the Maine two-footers is ready-to-run.  Everything is a kit.  These are Railway Recollections and Funaro & Camerlengo kits.  All are resin based craftsman kits with metal and other materials parts.
  To the right:  my "storyboard" on the back of the door for planning the future.

  To the left:  the center photo is from a period post card of the Rangeley Lake House and the Marbles Station that served it.  I decided that I would model it, as it was a major revenue source and the end of the line in Rangley.
  To the right:  tearing apart a Vollmer german building kit to scavenge it for windows and use the walls as templates for the new hotel walls.

To the left and right: My first craftsman structure kit.  This is probably one of the most iconic buildings on the SR&RL, the Marbles depot at the Rangeley Lake House.  

Below left, center, and right:  Every myriad of details is mass produced.  My standard painting technique for small details like the crates, lumberjacks and fire hydrants as well as everything else is to glue them to the heads of nails with a dot of CAA and do them assembly line style.  Pull one out of the styrofoam, give it a base coat, stick it back in the styrofoam, and go to the next one.  I do all of one color down the line, then the next color down the line.  When painting is done, then I give everything a black or gray wash of Vallejo, depending on the lightness or darkness of the item.  After that's dry, then I dry brush everything with Ceramcoat Oyster white.  

There are lots of shops, roundhouses, mills and other facilities that need work benches and shelves full of "stuff".  All of these come as bare resin castings, and I can tell you, it takes a steady hand, a head mounted magnifier, and lots of patience to get these kinds of details to really "pop" out for the viewer.