 Paterson, we are at the 13th annual St. Louis prototype mobler's meet. I'm doing an outdoor photo shoot. We're going to talk about this tablecloth. That's absolutely magnificent. This was the best hobby in the world. The What's Neat. The What's Neat. The What's Neat. What's Neat starts now. Catch the What's Neat podcast every week. And full episodes of What's Neat every month at the Model Reward Hobbyist YouTube page. Also be sure to check out the What's Neat this week video podcast on YouTube by typing in What's Neat this week. We record a show every week on Model Rewarding and What's Neu in the Hobby. What's Neu starts 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 Bachman Trains. Now that's the way to run a railroad. Check out their website at BachmanTrains.com. And thank you for helping us support the best hobby in the world. This is What's Neat for February 2022. I'm your host Ken Patterson and this month we have a great show in that. Jennifer Kirk, all the way from the UK, has a great video this month, great production values. And she's now working with us on the What's Neat show throughout this year of 2022. This month she shares with us how to work with static grass and the various types of application methods to add static grass to your layout, including lots of ground foam and also in addition flowers. It's a great segment by Jennifer Kirk this month on What's Neat. Also we've got some fantastic drone footage from our drone pilot Dan Scheidel. He shares with us the Missouri Pacific Heritage Unit as it runs through snow and some magnificent scenery and modeling ideas from above. I love doing this segment in that it shows you a great perspective the way we view our layouts from the air from just that right height. Whereas you can see the color treatment of everything, the way trees should look, the way scenery should look, all of the answers to our modeling questions are right there in this video footage. Also this month I share a segment on how I built the shelves that hold all the trains that are the background for the podcast. It's a very short segment. It's a very easy process of stair stepping up one by fours in order to create the whole unit that actually holds the trains perfectly for display. Also in this video we've got our guest Larry Harrington from Bachman trains in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he shares with us some of the new products, these wonderful Amtrak charger locomotives, new paint skinks for this year, end scale. Yes, they're coming out with end scale chargers as well. So look forward to that segment in this month's video. Also Walthers has announced their National Monoero Build Off Contest for 2022. They've included a brand new contest for this year that they've never done before and that's end scale. So the end scalers out there can also work on this, creating a scene. They're giving away over $7,000 in prizes to the winners. You've asked for it so they've changed it up again by adding end scale this year, the third annual year that they're doing this. All the entries and all the folks that win the prizes will be then eligible to be finalists in the People's Choice Awards with one winner determined overall with votes being received via social media. So look forward to that. For more information on that you can go to the Walthers website and look it up at www.walthers.com.nmrbo22 for more details on this contest. It's really exciting that they're doing this and it's a good way to add just a little bit of extra budget for your modeling experiences. Now I'd also like to say please check out the What Sneaked this week in model-rewarding video podcast that we shoot every Saturday night down here in the studio. We bring in guests. We bring in all the new products that are announced all week long. We're very immediate in that if it's new you're going to learn about it within just a couple of days of the announcement. That's the beauty of the weekly show that we produce. So with that let's continue on with the rest of this February 2022 What Sneaked. What Sneaked. I'm Jennifer Kirk and today I want to talk to you a little bit about static grass and how you can get the most out of your model. And today we're going to be looking at a few products that allow you to lay some really quite long static grass that's a little bit more tricky to do with your regular applicator. Up to 12mm in fibre length and that gives you a really great overgrown unkempt type of terrain which is what we're all striving for on our models. We've all become really really used to the static grass that has really made a difference to our modeling. And I've got the regular sizes of grass here and these are really easy to apply using a standard static grass applicator. But what if you want to go up to a really long fibre length? All that's going to happen is that this is going to become choked and you're going to get nothing coming out of the end. As an example if we wanted to use something like 12mm static grass or 10mm static grass that's just going to clog up the static grass applicator. So instead we need to step up to a bigger size with a bigger gauze on the bottom. For that application I've got a Pro static grass applicator. As you can see it's much bigger and the hopper itself comes with interchangeable heads which go up to even the largest of gauzes. And this means that we can feed that extra long static grass through this and still get that great static grass effect. If you want to use this with smaller sized grass it's really easy to just swap out the gauze on the end. And use the variety of different sizes that come with it. And that means that this really is the jack of all trades that lets you do all manner of static grass work on your layout. The smaller applicators still do serve a great task. If you want to precision apply to a layout or you just want the shorter static grass then really that is a great way to go. But if you're dealing with a huge layout that has some really quite wild scenery then the Pro static grass applicator is perfect for that task. When it comes to adding flower effects that couldn't be simpler. We've got here some grades of fine scatter and they come in an easy storage container. As you can see they're really easy to apply. They're a fine sponge powder and they create a great effect. We can mix and match these colors to get the kind of terrain that we're looking for. For this it's always important to study prototype pictures because accurate trees and other forms of fauna are what make or break the believability of the modelled area that you're going for. When it comes to flowers we've also got something for those too. And it's really easy to just apply a fine sprinkle of these different coloured flower effects. Less is more with these as you'll see as we apply this to the model and it really is just a suggestion of the local flowers. Sometimes these look a bit garish in the bag but believe me the end result when you sprinkle them on is really effective. When it comes to powering the Pro Static Grass applicator it uses exactly the same 9 volt dry cell battery that the others use so you don't need any special power source for these. It's simply a case, twist off the end and fix the battery to the terminals. Then slide the battery back in and screw the end on firmly. It really is that simple. Filling the hopper is really easy. We just turn it the other way up, it balances itself and then we just unscrew the lid that has the gauze in. Then choose your static grass. I'm going to go for a mix and it's absolutely fine to mix different colours and lengths together in the tub. That gives you a really great unique random look which is just like nature. Just pull it apart with your fingers and drop it in. If you get a big clump just pull it apart a bit it just helps that static grass on its way. I'm going to mix this in with a few different colours just to get a slightly random effect. Now you don't want to fill the entire hopper to the brim. What we're going to aim for is about a quarter to a third full. You can always refill it part the way through the application. You don't need to rush, it really is quite forgiving on time. You could even come back another day and do another pass on the layout so you're really not in a rush to do this. When you're done filling it up take the gauze and we've chosen the largest gauze from the kit and that's just to ensure that those longer fibres can pass through and then carefully screw it back onto the top. Don't over tighten it just needs to be hand tight. When it comes to adhesive all you need is this as the magic ingredient. Static grass layering spray is a really great adhesive for making sure that you can build up layer after layer of static grass without it getting weak or drifting about your layout at a later date especially if you move that layout around. Stay to exhibitions or from location to location if you move house. This adhesive assures that everything stays just where it needs to be and it doesn't flatten down previous applications of static grass and now we're ready to move to the layout. This is the area that I'm looking to treat. Now it's already had a pass with the static grass applicator but this is much shorter grass and what I'm looking to do today is to build that up and give me a really authentic tangle of scrub land. If you've already got figures in place like we've got here it's just a simple case of just pull them out. We'll put them back in afterwards but it just makes sense to not bury the people in the grass. To take the layering spray now give the can a good shake and it's just like applying any kind of spray adhesive or paint from a can. Gentle strokes just move it backwards and forwards. You don't want to drown the pre-existing terrain with the glue it doesn't need a huge amount. It's always best to take on smaller areas at a time. You don't want to rush yourself. The grounding wire from the static grass applicator. You don't need to put a nail into your scenery although some people do advocate this it doesn't help at all. Instead you can either hold it and the static grass applicator will ground through you or if you don't like to do that it's even simpler just to clip it to the rails somewhere out of the way. Turn the static grass applicator on and then turn it over and just gently waft it backwards and forwards over the area that you're wanting to build up that extra layer of static grass. Give it a vigorous shake don't be frightened of it. Every once in a while just stop and add another layer of the static grass layering spray. You don't need to do this too frequently but you do need to have a layer in there just to help everything stick together. As you can see the glue isn't so heavy that it mats the previous grass down and that's what we want. We still need to keep that body and then we're back in with the static grass applicator building up that thicker wilder terrain. Periodically do check to make sure that the hopper hasn't run out. It's very very easy to get carried away and spend an awfully long time shaking nothing so do keep checking and if it needs filling up just put a few extra bits of the grass in and continue. As a top tip it's a great idea with a second pass perhaps to change the colour of the grass and it gives you a really nice random realistic long grass. Now that we're happy with this huge tangle of wild grass and brambles we move on to the next step. This is where we look to add in some extra texture and for this that's where we bring in that fine foliage. Picking our colour a tiny pinch and then just sprinkle randomly. Don't dwell on every single area you're just wanting a small amount here and there. Again less is more. Then we can add in another colour. I've chosen this algae colour. It's really quite bright but what we need to do is just take the tiniest of pinches and you can see that it adds a really effective highlight to the grass. It's like there's little flowers just coming into bloom. Some areas you can dwell a bit more other areas a little less. Cycling through the colours there really is a great range. The more colours you can just put the tiniest amount of in the better and more realistic your static grass will look. To secure that in place again we're back to the layering spray and it's just a quick blast over. If you want you can mute it down with a little bit more static grass. This is really useful if you find that perhaps you've put a little bit too much of the scatter in for your liking and you can just tone it down with another layer of the static grass. In this instance I want to move on to adding a suggestion of other coloured flowers. This is where we bring in these colours. You only need a very small amount of this. Again a tiny pinch from the bag and just a few flowers into that layering glue. We can add in another colour. Again these small bags go a really long way. And then another blast of the layering spray just to fix them. And in this instance I'm going to just tone it down just a little bit with an extra single pass with the static grass applicator. And that is all you need. The only thing left to do now is add back in any of the detail that you had to move out of the way. I left this tent in place. If you do find that you've got an object that's got a bit of static grass on it it's really easy. Just rub it off and it very very quickly just comes back to life. I'm just going to glue back on that detail that we removed. Don't worry about excessive glue. Be sparing but also use a glue that's going to work for this task. Which means something like a simple PVA is perfect for adding these little bits of detail back onto your model. And there we have it. Our little scene has been created in simply a matter of minutes. You can see that the static grass has kept its shape. It's lively. It sticks up and it even holds its shape even with the smallest of knocks. It is really easy to create that overgrown, unkempt, wild look to your static grass just by using this extra large applicator. With the layering spray and those extra fine scatters we can create all sorts of effects. And as you saw they really quickly and easily build up to a really professional finish. I hope you've enjoyed today's video and found it really informative. I'm Jenny Kirk. Thank you for watching. Enjoy seeing them and they absolutely fit perfect on the shelves. Now it was just a total coincidence that later on I discovered that in fact locomotives could then fit on the shelves perfectly just as well. It's a very simple design. It's simply built out of one by fours and I've done it as a T pattern and I step stared them up three shelves for each row of locomotives. So let's do this. Let's go into the shop. This will be really easy to show you how to do and let's design some shelves to hold your model trains for display. I started the process by taking one by fours that are completely straight with very few knots and I cut them on the radial armsaw. This shelf unit was going to be six feet long. Once all the wood was cut I ran the one by fours that will be the upright pieces through the bandsaw. Cutting these parts to be two and a half inches high creating the height for our shelves in between the models. I then like to use two inch wood screws. I countersink the screws into the top as you see the top rail is centered. The uprights that are two and a half inches long are then attached to the backside of the one by four creating a stair step type of a shelf design. I work my way along as I've got help here with Daniel helping me put this together. You can see the shelf next to it that's stained is the way this one will turn out. Again, simple stair stepping centering the one by fours on top of the two and a half inch pieces of wood. It makes for a very simple design. I continue screwing these sections together. This is the top rail you see me putting on the very top shelf again centered on top of the one by four. I then take a sander and I like to sand everything smooth before applying the stain. This alleviates any splinters and makes for a very nice finish when the polyurethane goes on. I also like to sand the edges. I put on red oak stain as you've seen me do in the past. This is the color treatment that I do to my entire layout room in my studio. I apply the stain liberally working my way up and around all the shelf pieces. And I do not wipe this off with a cloth. Once the stain's been applied with a two and a half inch brush, I simply let it dry overnight so that everything is then ready to accept a real nice high gloss coat of polyurethane. After the stain is dry, I come in with Minwax high gloss polyurethane and I like to put on three coats of this sanding in between coats giving me a very high gloss finish. It looks professional and it looks absolutely dynamite when all the trains are on the shelves on display. And that finishes this shelf unit which I then installed into my two by twelve dimensional lumber, simple household lumber into the shelves of the entire studio. This fits into place and I generally screw it down. For this segment of What's Neat in the February 2022 video, I've got with me Larry Harrington all the way from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hey Larry, how are you today? Great. Ken, how are you doing today? I love it when you're on. It's great when we can keep the modelers updated directly with the manufacturers about what's going on in our industry. And today you've got some really cool stuff to talk about, don't you? Sure, we got lots of stuff that just came in recently and a few surprises as well. So you ready? I'll kick it off here. Absolutely fantastic, Larry. Give it a shot. Okay, a couple of things that we talked about before, but I just want to give everybody a quick update. We have all of our SC-44s that we announced earlier last year, the Coaster and also the Ace. They have shipped and they are the distributors and dealers now. The real exciting schemes are the day one Amtrak, which is getting tested right now in the real world. So we actually delivered before Amtrak did to revenue service anyway, and there's the phase six version, which is pretty cool. This has also been delivered to distributors and dealers. Now we do have a few quantities that haven't shipped yet that we'll have in stock, but everybody's got their initial orders that had them on order before December 1st, and I'm sure we got some orders after that point, but they'll be covered after the fact. Another new product that we got is our concrete track. Yes. You have it in front of you. I do. Exactly. So we started out this with straight 18-inch terminal re-railer and also 22-inch curves, and we'll be announcing a few more pieces in our 2022 catalog as well. This is kind of a neat addition. We've been concentrating on the high-speed rail lines of Amtrak and modern items, and so this is a perfect... It meets perfectly with our existing Easy Track, but it just has the concrete ties of detail instead of the wooden-tied detail. It does look fantastic. Just the fact that the concrete color is absolutely right, you nailed it on the track. I just used this track to shoot the Bachman 2022 corporate catalog cover, which we will be running in the March What's Neat video on how that setup went, along with this Amtrak locomotive that I got this charger at number 300 we used for that photograph. It came out dynamite. Very good. That always come out dynamite. Some really nice cover shots. My favorite is the Milwaukee Road E7 that you did a couple years ago for the Williams line. That was a three-rail shot where we did an area called Touchy, Illinois, and it had a very characteristic bridge in the background. We copied a prototype photo. In fact, I'm going to show that shot right now on the screen. It was one of my favorites as well with a Hayawatha in it. Yeah. What was cool about it is we did both the front and rear shots. The front of the catalog had the locomotive and the back had the tail end of the passenger car. That is so true. That was neat. Speaking of three-rail, we have a few items that are not in stock yet, but they'll be in stock shortly. We're doing the egg liner in O-scale. This has been very popular in the large-scale line, so we decided to add it to the O-scale line. We have a number of different paint schemes. We've got the Independence Day, the ever-popular Christmas one. We also have, I'll show you the boxed version here. Nice. We have the Halloween version. Of course, the egg should be an Easter version as well. We got those four items coming in shortly. A lot of people don't realize about that egg liner is there is a prototype for that. In fact, they designed and built a yard tower with two ends of those tail ends of the passenger cars, butted them together exactly like the A-line and put it up on stilts. They did. It's from the New York Central Yard Office, exactly. One item we've been working on, we've announced already, but we got our paint samples in recently. This is our K-4 streamlined version for N-scale. This will have the economy soundtrack sound package in it. You notice we have an operating coupler on the front. Some people want that for double-heading and also running the locomotive in reverse. But for a streamlined look, we've added a small dummy snap-in that we can replace the coupler with. This is what the locomotive normally looks like when it's in a conscious with passenger cars. Very nice. It's just one screw and you snap it in place. It's really easy to change out. We started doing that on a number of our locomotives, so you can have the option of having a coupler or not having a coupler on the front. Larry, I was honored to have George Bugatuck and his wonderful wife were here yesterday, in fact, in the studio on their way passing through. It was great to see George. I mean, Soundtracks is top notch. Yes, they are. They've been working with them for a long time. We've got a couple of things that are kind of not even announced yet, but we kind of teased about this on our social media. But this is the end-scale version of the ALC-42. So we've got the, it's an army green, but it's just whatever paint they had when they were doing the thing. But there's the HO version versus the end-scale version. So this will have a full sound package, and this sound package comes from TCS. Right. This is a full wow sound package, and this will have virtually all the functions that the HO version, including the light-up Carter light on the side of the locomotive. It will have, this version doesn't have operating strobes, but strobes, but the SC-44 will. And we had to do either, an either or situation, do the tight space in the cab here. The ALC-42 will have operating light number boards, and the SC-44 will have operating strobes. So it's one or the other, because they're too close in there to be interfering with each other optically. So that's why we did that. So that'll be in development right now. This is our first test shot, and we're working with TCS right now to get the sound just right. It's the same sound recordings. It's the same sound decoder that's in, obviously in a smaller package that's in the HO, but the functions and features will all be there. So it's real exciting. We started with, we did some 3D printing ahead of time so that we could get the decoder sized and fit in there properly before we even had our first test shot. It's amazing to me how 3D printing has not only taken over the modeling aspect of our hobby at this point, that's all we talk about on the podcast is 3D printing. It seems like almost every episode of the show, but now you're utilizing it as well for pre-production work. Exactly. It comes in very handy, especially when you're dealing with electronics, you have to make sure that they can fit. So it's critical. You can use a drawing so much, but once you start to put things together, you have to have the clearances and make sure they're not going to overheat and all that stuff. Yeah, that's awesome. Finally, I just came in today so we walked out. We have our first test sample of our Express Reefer. So this is a painted silver sample, but I haven't completely reviewed it yet, but it looks pretty good for overall. This is a New York Central prototype. Okay. So it'll be released sometime this year. That is fantastic. Four paint schemes. So that's what I have for today. That is absolutely awesome. All the viewers of the show love it when you or Doug Blaine come on the show and show us the latest updates. In the December video, all the new Christmas products were fantastic. That we got the review. So thank you so much for that. No problem. Thanks for having us. We appreciate it. And so with that, guys, that wraps up this February video, and that is this segment for What's Neat. All the products seen on this episode of What's Neat are available from Lombard Hobbies in Lombard, Illinois. Or order online at LombardHobby.com. Walthers Trains, supporting hobby retailers across the world since 1932. Check out their website and learn more at Walthers.com. Bachman Trains. Now that's the way to run a railroad. Check out their website at BachmanTrains.com.