Looks grand in that last photo with the light, texture is as important as color.
Korm,
Very real looking!
thank you all for the kind remarks!
Love it Korm !
That came out great Korm, nicely done.
thank you both, Sean and Vic.
nothing new at this end - just another tunnel interior…
but at daily temperatures about 105 F i’m progressing really slow.
just some more sawing, glueing and painting.
(and every little sin of having been sloppy revenges itself with some extra effort necessary…)
I like the planking , it looks quite real . Do you make it as a sub assembly , or build it in situ?
Mike
This is coming out great! Most tunnels are just portals with nothing inside. This takes the scale inside as well and offers photo opportunities.
well, the longest of these tunnels is about four foot. that lets so much light enter, that the “big nothing” would be very noticeable. (the disadvantage of building at table to eye hight)
and, really, the worst that could happen to me, would be to finish this layout.
(because that would mean to start a new one)
so, even if i am too old, to take the time to make nailheads for the planks on the tunnel insides, i’m not in a hurry.
still without the last coat of cigarette ashes:
Are you going to “TAG” the inside?
You could leave tools, skeletons etc. for the masses to see!
Make sure there is @ least a "Kilroy was here "!
hmmm… Kilroy might be out of my era.
if i’m not mistaken, he was a WW2 guy in the pacific/asian theatre.
but some leftovers from construction - yessir! thanks for the idea.
btw, got a new idea.
i am experimenting to inset thicker pieces of styropor into the styropor tunnel walls.
in the hope, to not only get a rough, but a rough and uneven wall.
(pics of that will come together as a serial)
Mike Morgan said:
I like the planking , it looks quite real . Do you make it as a sub assembly , or build it in situ?
Mike
sorry, i did not notice your post earlier.
that depends
most often i just glue down something, then look for a piece of scrap that might fit to it.
but the ceilings of the tunnels for instance are sub assemblies, for removal, if necessary.
for the retaining walls outside the tunnels i really did cut all the pieces beforehand, then assembled in situ.
the portals were assembled on the workbench.
it has been a long time.
modelling went very slow and i was too listless for posting something worthwhile.
but now i recovered somewhat, so that i feel like getting up to date.
in the posts above i was starting the third tunnel (the last one passing through this mountain)
well, one thing is for sure: building an entire tunnel, without trying something new - that wouldn’t be me.
so i tried to find out, how it would turn out, if i used different thicknesses of styropor.
the walls i (miss-)treated again with the soldering iron.
then they got sprayed with a mix of water and black toner for wallpaint.
(this might be the moment to mention, that protecting the rails with the lid of a cable channel saves a lot of elbow grease)
well, black in black stands for good visibility in this pic:
in the following pic the flash has messed with the colors (specially with the black 
but i think, light and shadow on the rough wall on the right side are more or less distinguishable.
the transitions between walls and ceiling should have been rounder, but after i had forgotten the plugged-in solderinging iron for a day or two, that thing did not want to work for me anymore. (after only short 45 years or so) and with the small iron i did not melt the stuff as well.
visible on the following pic in the rigt side of the foreground, is where i need a plankwall, that might not be thicker, than a postage stamp.
it is growing… at top speed - for snails.
glueing down one or two boards, waiting, glueing another two, waiting, forgetting about it, glueing…
I’m glad you are feeling better and progress is always good to see!
John
Looking mighty crappy there Korm!
I like the use of sticks to hold planking in place!
Keep us informed and updated to your progress!
Glad your in the right again!
thank you both!
(as my doc put it: “well, the best news I can give to you is: you won’t die at young age from your chain-smoking.” - he’s a nasty one…)
well, i’m fed up with tunnelling!
but at least i see the light at the end of tunnelling!
and it is no oncoming train.
this was the last! (for now)
now i will build the corresponding mountain around the tunnels.
so, to build the mountain around my tunnels I got a new idea (new to me)
instead of making a structure out of wood, I break styropor panels into usable pieces, and glue them together.
the styropor-slice-mountain will be covered with chickenwire, wet householdpaper, glued and then covered with crackfiller for plasterwalls.
maybe, I throw in some sand and Portland mix for a better structure of the surface.
at another place of the layout I run a test, which household- or toiletpaper is best for my purpose.
That’s really come out great on the tunnel. Nice work. Korm…
the test zone is not yet finished as complete landscaping, but I found out, that household paper is better for this, than toilet paper. at very steep places and for outcrops, it seems to be better, if the paper is not only wetted with water, but with a thin mix of water and white glue.
the filler will not cling as good to the glue soaked paper, but that can be overcome by a thicker cover of filler.
on the following pic one can see, why it needs more than one coverings of filler:
well, mountains grow very slow…
but anyhow, i’m still thousands of years quicker, than mother nature.
on moderate slopes, it is easy to work. but on steep parts, each paper has to dry, before the next piece can be glued to it.
I’ve heard, that there may be persons, who first modell the mountains, waiting until last for collocating the tunnel portals.
and very slowly I begin to understand why…
well, forming chickenwire, putting wet paper and painting it with filler… nothing exiting, but time-consuming.
even, if the mountain structure is not complete on all sides, I could not resist temptation.
I sprayed on the first layer of colour.
(that shows me, which spots need more filler, to hide the texture of the wire mesh)
