 The Senator's Bust Need starts right now! The What's Neat Show is sponsored by Lombard Hobbies. Your value hobby shop for over 40 years of modelers helping modelers. Big inventory, value pricing, fast shipping and great service. Additional support is provided by Walthers Trains. Everything you need to build a great model railroad. Check out their website at Walthers.com. And by American Limited Models. The relentless pursuit of accuracy. Check out their website at AmericanLimitedModels.com. And thank you for helping us support the best hobby in the world. This is What's Neat for September 2021. I'm your host Ken Patterson. And this month we look at Gary Groce's wonderful layout and the layout tour exploring his triple deck layout in HO scale. Then Dan Scheidel, our wonderful drone pilot, shares with us modeling ideas from above where all of the bridges and all of the water scenes are what I really focused on in this video this month. If you can see what it looks like from the air that's exactly what it should look like on your model railroad. Also in this video I share with you how to create grass tufts using static grass and glue on wax paper so that you can place the grass strategically on your layout anywhere that you want it to be. Now Walthers is celebrating 90 years in this hobby with the support of model railroaders just like you. They couldn't have done it without you. And let's help them celebrate by picking up the brand new Walthers 2022 Walthers catalog. It's absolutely wonderful and as I always say this is one of the most important tools in your shop because it's a go-to place where you can see everything that's available in the hobby in all the various scales. You can reserve your copy at Lombard Hobbies in Lombard, Illinois. Also please check out the What's Neat this week in model railroading podcast with that we record every Saturday night with exciting guests a lot of different various how-tos from time to time new products and all the other things that makes this in fact the best hobby in the world. So with that let's continue on and watch the rest of this September 2021 What's Neat. For this segment of What's Neat this is going to be a scenery segment and today we're going to experiment with making our own grass tufts that we can strategically put on a layout anywhere that we want rather than simply use a static grass gun and put grass on the layout. I think this might be a more controllable way to do it. Now we're going to start out by using simple wax paper as our basis because nothing really sticks to wax paper and you should be able to peel off the grass just right. Now Silfloor has been selling grass tufts like what I'm describing for years but they're very expensive and what if we can come up with a solution that we can do at home by ourselves and virtually make these for the cost of the glue. I think that would be a wonderful thing and you could do multiple colors and have quite an inventory of materials and grasses ready to go at any one given moment on your layout. So we're going to start by using four different kinds of glue to see which type of glue works the best. I've got great normal Elmer's wood glue that we're all familiar with. I've got something here called Gorilla Glue in Clear which I didn't know they made and I think that's going to be neat to see how that turns out. I've also got the Gorilla Glue brand of Household Glue which I assume is another variant of the Elmer's type of glue, white glue and we're going to try Rubber Cement. So I've got a piece of wax paper here and I've written down A, B, C, and D on the paper so that I can associate each type of glue with the location that we put it on the project so we can identify possibly which glue works the best for our cause. Now I'm going to use this static grass gun that I've been using for the last 14 years from Nock. You can find these in the Walthers catalog and they do work very well. Right now I've got Woodland Scenic's grass, static grass in it. It's called Static Grass Flock Medium Green. Now the first thing we're going to have to do is we're going to have to put the glue on to our wax paper. I also have a bottle of water and this is not plain water because if you spray this water onto the wax paper it's going to bead, it will not spread. So I added Dawn just soap to it so that it would spread out smooth and not bead up on the wax paper and I'm pretty sure this is going to work because it works when we ballast and work with scenery on the layout. That's a lot of the way of how Woodland Scenic Scenic Cement works. It's got a wetting agent in it so the material spreads and soaks into the ballast rather than balling up on top of the ballast which is what water simply does. Now I'm going to take my Elmer's glue and all the various glues and put them on the first piece of wax paper and we're going to use the short static grass from Woodland Scenics. So let me bring you in close so you can watch me apply the glues. So now what I'm simply going to do is I'm going to take our water and spray it onto our wax paper and as you can see it spreads smooth it does not bubble up. I've got this glue from Gorilla Glue, the clear and I'm going to put that on first just do small drops the smallest I can do. It doesn't matter what size you do if you do a larger area that simply means you have a larger plot of grass to work with. Now I'm going to put on the Elmer's glue right next to that one two three four five. I'm going to use the Gorilla Glue white glue same way two three this is a lot of glue I'm going to try to make it smaller I'm also going to put it on the area where the water isn't on the wax paper and let's see how that works as well you need the water to conduct the electricity to create your static charge and now the rubber cement I'll put on the edges over here this is probably going to be larger plots of material yes it is I can see how this is going I'm really gluing on the rubber cement to be larger plots of grass now I'm going to take a knock static grass gun which is now loaded with the Woodland Scenic Scenic cement I mean I'm sorry Woodland Scenic's static grass I'm turning it on I'm going to I'm using the open screen to do this you can also use a funnel that they give you to more or less target each weed but it doesn't matter because anything that's not glued will come right off the wax paper so we can save back in the container that it comes in I'm going to touch the alligator clip to the water which will make our total conductivity of everything including the area here and let's do this now the grass is standing up and it's attaching to the glue it's attaching actually evenly to pretty much everything there it goes look at that on that white glue that's really standing up good and now over to the rubber cement and we're going to simply let this dry which will take about four or five or possibly six hours be patient with this and now let's do the longer nap static grass that I have on hand to see if we can make longer weed tufts as well for the longer grass I'm using this 10 millimeter grass from War World Scenics I made a video for them some time back in War World Hobbyist magazine so I've got this material on hand I believe it's available from a company in Europe in the UK and this is again going to be 10 millimeter so it should stand up we're going to use the same another piece of wax paper mark the same put a water on it and then start with our glues again the gorilla glue that is clear when it dries and I believe water this glue is activated in fact by the water that's generally how other gorilla glues work that I use Elmer's glue next wonderful look at that the clear I mean the white gorilla glue which resembles Elmer's glue as well it really doesn't stick to the water very well it has a different consistency of the Elmer's glue and that's the purpose of this to find out which glue lends itself well to our end result that we want to accomplish by doing this and now the rubber cement now let's take our knock static grass gun and turn it on put the clip into the water so that we have complete conductivity throughout let's apply this I'm using the screen again so that this larger 10 millimeter stuff will fall through and it's not falling through that well at all I'm going to switch over and I'm going to use the funnel which I think will lend itself well better to this because the grass is longer and it really doesn't want to come through that screen so well the funnel is now attached my clip is going to touch the material again to make sure we have conductivity and here we go look at that that works oh my god I just clumped out in fact it's not coming out that well at all not at all okay that's a fail just to give the 10 millimeter grass another try I'm not even going to use the static grass gun let's just take the balls of material and see if we can get them to stand up and attach to the glue as I pull away it should stand up if it attaches to the glue let's see if this works it just might work these balls are not going to work we know that now in the rubber cement it is in fact sticking to the glue and as I pull up it pulls up very nicely without a static grass gun it stands up because I'm pulling it away and now let's switch over to the 6 millimeter glue I'm going to spray it with water the C D to represent each type of glue I'm going to load up the static grass gun with the 6 millimeter grass which does not clump up at all and I'm going to use the funnel again because I have a feeling that may work very well let's put on our glue in exactly the same way we did before and notice this time we're trying it a little different to see how it works we are not wetting the paper first we're simply putting the glue on the paper and then we'll wet it again vary this that's the purpose of this video is to try different things to find out if anything actually works the best on this project I actually don't know what will be the best white glue from Gorilla Glue and here's our river cement three glues, four glues let's wet it for conductivity I'm not sure if that's going to work with the water ahead of time touching my clip putting on the material see how the funnel targets the material to a specific location it's not a bad thing that's kind of a good thing the river cement areas let's try it a fourth way let's try it with the six millimeter glue and wet it first instead of putting the glue onto the dry wax paper I'm putting glue tape on it so I can mark it A B C D B C B we're going to wet it first with our water soap mixture starting with the Gorilla Glue clear onto the water now the Elmer's glue next the white Gorilla Glue which is marked C on my bottle here so we can differentiate this glue it's hard to get small dots this glue really kind of holds together almost the thick consistency of white glue and now the river cement river cement I'm putting river cement on thick because river cement tends to dry and really flatten out and shrink static grass gun with our six millimeter War World Scenics ready to go touch it to the water area and let's apply it again using the look at that using the funnel that comes with the knock gun see how it really targets it once let's further experiment by using the screen that comes with the grass glue gun this is the screen which allows the material to come through it should work just fine I don't need the funnel anymore we'll put that aside so we'll see two ways on this funnel and screen how what works the best too look at that it comes out beautiful it's standing up like it's supposed to the river cement areas now that gives us a good even coat on this wax paper the longer nap grass comes out slower out of these grass guns it really does because it has a tendency to clog it because it's so much larger than the Woodland Scenics static grass which is almost like a mode lawn type of length of grass the six millimeter is the length of the grass where if you haven't mowed it it's time to mow so that's all four pieces of wax paper that we've tried now let's let this set let's let this dry and let's see how this turns out next okay our weed tough experiment has been drying for six hours the first thing we want to do is dump off all of the excess static grass so that we can see what our end result is for each I've got a trash can next to me you simply shake these off in the trash can all of the glue will hold the static grass that's attached to the wax paper and now I will pull the camera closer so that we can inspect each one of our weeds the six millimeter the ten millimeter and the Woodland Scenics the stuff that we did dry and then put the water on and the things that we put the water on first that's how each one came out okay I actually let these dry a little bit longer I put them out into the sunlight so that the thick gorilla glue and the white glues and all the glues that were kind of insulated by the static grass would be thoroughly dry because if it's wet it's not going to peel off of the wax paper so I'm going to start with the short nap the Woodland Scenics and we're going to start with the first glue that we used which was the gorilla glue the clear the right off and look at that it does it peels off the wax paper if it tears the wax paper that's okay and what we've got now is a plot of grass that we could put onto the layout I would prefer that there would be smaller plots but they aren't the next glue we're going to try is I've got it marked as B and that's the simple Elmer's glue I'm going to try to peel that off the wax paper and that's not peeling off as well in fact I would call it's kind of peeling I would call the Elmer's glue a fail the next glue we're going to look at was the gorilla glue that white gorilla glue that we had and that is a form of Elmer's type of glue but it's made by gorilla glue and that one peeled off good too let's check the rubber cement I would say that the rubber cement is an absolute no go that doesn't work now let's look at the 6mm glue the 6mm static grass that we did all 4 types of glue we'll peel off the first one which is the gorilla glue and that came out absolutely just the way I wanted to do so I've got a tuft of grass there that's usable now we're going to look at the second one which is the Elmer's glue and Elmer's glue is not releasing from the wax paper so I would call that a fail the next one we're going to do is the gorilla glue white glue that we put on and that one's not particularly up so that one worked the gorilla glue also worked the rubber cement with a 6mm it's a no go it doesn't work now let's look at the 10mm same thing the gorilla glue is first and that is peeling off absolutely fine we've got not very good coverage which is my fault probably but look how easy this is peeling right off the paper so that's good the Elmer's glue again this is a fail it doesn't peel off the gorilla glue that has been peeling off well before I'm having a difficult time actually getting that off too rubber cement I'm not even going to try it we know that's a fail now the last piece is a piece where I did the dry application of the glue first onto the wax paper and then I went ahead and wet everything so that we have our static electricity conductivity I'm going to start with the gorilla glue look at that it comes off perfectly just like that again this clear glue is working I'm going to try the Elmer's glue and the Elmer's glue is peeling off as well now I'm going to try the gorilla glue which I got marked C and that is peeling off very well too so the dry application where you put the glue on first and then spray it with water seems to be the best way to go I'm not even going to bother to peel off the rubber cement it does not work so what we're going to do next is I'm going to show you the application of how to put this onto the layout so we can strategically locate the weeds where we want them to go rather than just cover the whole area completely with glue and then static grass another thought would be you could take the longer naps these longer pieces of grass that we've got the 6mm or the 10mm and you can actually put different color ground foam on the ends of it and make flower patches or reds or yellows it might be a neat way to make small flower patches for your gardens on the railroad so let's do the application onto the layout next and see how it turns out okay I've got some of our flat grass tufts that we made the little groups and I've got some white Elmer's glue and there's a portion of the layout here on the very edge where I've got a gravel work area and let's put some of the grass right here the other parts of the layout here is where I just put down regular woodland scenic cement and then did an application of static grass which is a short woodland scenic grass so let's take the 6mm glue I mean static grass tufts that we made just put a little bit of Elmer's glue on there and we're just going to glue them to the layout simple as can be depending upon the size you could probably cut these with scissors or knife and make the dimensions and the size of the grass areas any size you want here's the woodland scenic short nap grass if I want to put that on there I would just glue it just into place make sure it gets around the edges good so you don't have any edges appearing which I'm kind of rushing and I want to do it right so let's just put it directly onto the bottom of the plant and this would be one way to make your own grass tufts for your layout as opposed to using commercially available products experiment with it try different other types of glue that we haven't used wax paper seems to work good are there other papers out there that things don't stick to so well how would aluminum foil work there's so many different possibilities I just wanted to show you four different types of glue and see if this experiment would work and so far it has so that's this segment for What's Neat this segment of What's Neat our first layout interview post-COVID thank you very much I'm standing here with Gary Gross in this beautiful operator's layout Gary tell us what the name of this layout is it's Franklin Pacific Railroad it's absolutely gorgeous and you did design this from operation tell us about it well the idea was to have something more than just running from 16 feet around and that's it I came up with the idea of two helixes which we'll see later and three levels essentially the railroad runs from the staging area up to either the second or third level depending on whether going east or west and then comes back and turns on itself and goes back into staging so a train originally in St. Louis for instance would go up the helix to the middle level going westbound comes around goes up the other helix and turns around on itself going up goes back all the way down to staging again that's amazing it looks like all of your switches are not manually operated you've got a lot of electronics on this don't you I do I have all of the top level switches are activated by these little switches here and I can't honestly remember the name Bear Creek Bear Creek yes thank you anyway it's basically a push a button and it throws a switch they're all tortoise so you have slow motion switch machines on this that's a lot of work and a lot of wiring about how long how old is this lab we started building it in 2002 we were operating 2005 and the last five years I guess is when we put most of the scene now tell me Gary how many people does it take to operate this layout normally seven people we have a dispatcher we have two people running a yard and four operators and there are four switching jobs in addition to through trains to stop Franklin picking up dropping off cars now I notice you've got some signals on this layout is it all fully operational with signals no that the signal basically have two of them going into that there's a main helix and the purpose of that is to keep people from going up the helix and having a train coming down the helix mid helix crash so I put the signals in there to prevent people from going down or coming up with a train opposing them that's amazing now how long does it take to operate how long is a typical session sessions three hours and we run about 12 trains and if we have time we have a couple extras available okay and I see a lot of Missouri Pacific and Frisco so I know you love that well yes I wanted to make sure I had Frisco and Missouri Pacific included but I also wanted my fictional Franklin Pacific so the premise is that the range came and flooded near St. Louis the Frisco and Missouri Pacific bridge is over the river and so they are in effect running on Franklin Pacific trackage very cool now your scenery and your trees are beautiful tell me about how you did your scenery starting with the cliffs well that's an interesting thing the cliffs and if you want to pan around here and take a look from about here to over there took two football games that scenery and it's basically screen wire underneath there and I took rock castings poured it into the mold let it harden a little bit and then slapped it on her and held it up there until it hardened that's very cool Gary tell me what brand of track do you like to use on this I use a flex track for microengineering yes thank you yes that's amazing we love those boys down in Fenton they make some of the finest track that I've seen is this code what code rail do you like code 83 the switches are all Shinahar or Walters Shinahar code 83 track this is great and it's all ballasted one thing I've noticed and I do like to use these on my layout is you also have a lot of huge ground throws so that you actually have to be with your train to throw the turnout that's exactly right it's very important because we run with time table that you stay with your train and you are sure you can move across the layout without hitting anyone so forth now this is very cool all of your structures are absolutely beautiful I just see them wrapping around on all three levels it's got to be an absolute joy for the gentlemen that operate with you it's fun to operate it's not fun for me to put all these buildings together so most of my purchase already made it swap meets and so forth but yeah operations is my joy that's awesome Gary tell me how did you get this passion for trains well when I was three years old or four years old I'm sorry my grandparents lived in Pacific Missouri which has Frisco and Missouri Pacific going by we were riding along the Frisco tracks one day and my dad happened to notice this fireman in this switch engine that was working the tracks and he said we stopped and they waved and all that and that guy says you want to bring the kid up into the locomotive so here I am four years old hauled up into that mode that steam engine and my recollection is to this day it was hot it was dirty it was smelly it was big it's scary and we took about a half a mile ride down right back and they let me out and I have never forgotten and always since then I loved trains another thing I've noticed on your layout is you've got a lot of the schematics of the yards and the over structure of the track plans I can see them all around and we're going to be shooting B-roll and showing this probably are right now tell me why did you do that well it's important to me and when I go somewhere else and operate that I know something about the geography of the layout and where the heck you are in the scheme of things and I felt that that was important in terms of my layout that anybody coming in they pretty much can see on the where they are and what town they're in and so forth so I think it's important I think it's a guide it's very helpful for their fellows when they're running these trains it's amazing how thorough you are in everything that I see down here well thank you I appreciate that so I mean one more thing I want to say is I see some of your backdrops are very beautifully painted tell us about those well that's interesting all of the backdrops are photographs except the one section over there and my brother painted that for me I told him what I wanted and he sat down for about I think it took him about four days or five days to paint that it's beautiful yeah now I saw a lot of clocks around here because I wanted to ask you what time is it so I know how long that we're going but these clocks aren't for telling time exactly are that no they are and I have three clocks that are fast clock okay to a mechanism that that runs the clocks in my case four times as fast as a regular clock so in three hours of real time we get twelve hours of the clock okay and I have a time table that is developed in in in terms of the four you know the twelve hours but really three hours so that's that's a part of the operation isn't oh yeah the tools of time table and train are is the time table the clock your real or the clock and any train orders that you get from the dispatcher what type of system do you use to power your layout digit tracks okay have had we were one of the first people in St. Louis to have a digit tracks system about nineteen ninety five very cool I saw a lot of that underneath the layout and it looks like you've got a lot of I want to say circuit boards and a lot of things that complement that we have a have seven different blocks in the layout so that if you have a a short in a certain area you can spot where it is by looking at the at the circuit board as you mentioned and so you don't shut down the whole layout you don't shut down a portion of easily find what the problem is another thing a lot of people wonder about when they're doing level double-deck and triple-deck layouts like you've done this is a triple-deck is how do you light underneath the decks and a lot of folks used to use incandescent light bulbs that were like Christmas light bulbs but I see you've done something a little different I use the strip lights and LEDs and they seem to work very well they have a little tendency to droop every once in a while so I have to keep them fastened up I think the colors great it really allows you yeah it's the lights are the same as that real cool cool light that brings out the reds and brilliant colors and I like that a lot it really makes the layout shine another thing you mentioned to me was that this layout has been in the model press through the years tell us about that well we made the NMRA magazine last year in anticipation of the of the convention that was going to be here in 2020 which got cancelled so we're looking to have a lot of the St. Louis layouts in model railroad and craftsmen in the NMRA magazine coming up for 2022 that's right 2022 in St. Louis next summer that's going to be great I'm looking forward to that Gary this is the best hobby in the world absolutely I don't want to say it's because of people just like you thank you Daniel Coombs for running camera for us tonight and Gary Gross thank you very much for sharing this layout with the viewers of What's Neat well you're welcome and thank you for coming all of the products seen on this episode of What's Neat are available from Lombard hobbies in Lombard Illinois or order online at Lombard hobby dot com Wothers Trains supporting hobby retailers across the world since 1932 check out their website and learn more at Wothers dot com American Limited Models available at your local hobby shop or online at American Limited Models dot com