Thanks very much Devon, I’m glad you find this interesting.
As for perfectionism and determination, thanks. Go OCD!! I never reach my goals (unlike many true craftsmen here), but it’s fun trying.
My new motto: “It’s amazing what you can do, once your priorities are sufficiently messed up.”
BTW, I have no doubt a laser cutter is in your future. 
There’s that cost, and the machine time for a 3-axis mill to cut it…
Now that I think about it though, a decent CNC 3D router would have done it… hmmm, maybe next time…
I decided to go all-in with the 1’ topo layers, and just finished tracing them. They’re all the green lines.
16,700+ mouse clicks later (I have a way to count all the “nodes” of the splines), I guess you can tell how I spent my day. The next step is to make all the patterns and eventually cut & glue them in.
Cheers,
Cliff
You got some serious issues man !!
Detail Freak!
Yep, that’s what my shrink tells me.
This morning I started with the in-between layers. All these panels are .04" cardstock, and here’s one of them in the laser.
After spray-gluing, each little piece goes into the model. I was able to complete 2 sections today:
Well, it’s back to my day job tomorrow, but I hope to finish this stage next weekend. After that will be filling & sanding for a while.
And for a G-gauge tie-in, I made this model last year of the Joe Douglass.
I recently found a newspaper article that mentioned this tiny RR (which only had this loco at the time) delivered supplies for the Sutro tunnel. Lots of mystery there, but that’ll have to wait. 
Cheers,
Cliff
Damn!!! talk about something coming to life. That sets the landscaping bar to OUT of REACH. 
Oh sure, lets see. I want a small thickness sander, a small CNC router, a laser cutter, a small metal lathe. . . .
Well, and those too, sure!
I guess what I mean to say is that since you took off so quickly with the 3d cad and printing, 2d cad and cutting will be a breeze for you. Someday.
Thanks very much Hollywood, I’m glad you like it!
that is so cool. I really do love that you are doing it right down to the real topography.
Now that is the ultimate 3D jigsaw puzzle. Looks great, Cliff.
Cliff I need to ask, just past the joint of the two sections at the cliff face — Is that a man made steps or natural formation that looks like a stairway?
Thanks for asking David, it sure does look like a staircase. But it’s just a steep path down to the mill site, like the one at the top right to the Sutro Mansion site.
The stepped appearance of the topo layer representation will be smoothed out by filler. My wife wants me to leave it like that and just paint it, cuz it looks cool. And it does give a nice sense of 1’ changes. But I’ve already promised to do scenery and sagebrush & etc., so… Filler Time.
BTW, there’s also a couple roads, the main one from the lower left, and a lesser one to the mid-upper right.
Thanks, Dan!
And yeah, I do like puzzles. Which now makes me wonder why my OCD side made me laser-engrave position labels on each piece…
What are you going to use for filling and smoothing?
Now that takes all the fun out of it 
. I know you said this was to 1:320 scale. What is the overall size (area) of the landscape you are modeling?
Cliff,
This is really very interesting to see come to life. I probably will never tackle it because I gave no idea where I would put it. But I have wanted to do a z or n scale model of Roseland British Columbia. It had two railroads thats serviced it and the topography made it interesting. And with a little fudging in the lower front section could be a continuous layout. This really makes me want to buy a warehouse and make a N Scale Rosland
Now Devon, if you’re buying a warehouse, why not go ahead and get one big enough and build it in G scale 
At least you would be able to see it
