 Hi, I'm Lake Morland, and the February What's Neat Show starts right now! The What's Neat Show is sponsored by Caboose, sharing our passion for trains since 1938. This is the What's Neat Show for February 2018. I'm your host Ken Patterson, and this month we've got a great lineup. First of all, Jason Quinn comes by and shares with us his techniques for weathering boxcar roofs with both acrylics and oil paints. Gerald Stiles shows us his beautiful O&30 layout this month, built in a shadow box type design. The scenery is absolutely beautiful. Kevin Rubel shares with us his home layout, a 2,000-plus square foot layout, with great plans for designing, it's in the initial stages, and we'll follow this up in future episodes as progress goes along on that layout. Stephen M. Conroy shares with us some gorgeous drone footage from Southern California, whereas all of the modeling ideas for what we want to model can generally be found in this type of footage. We also built an end-scale layout this month, whereas the whole layout is modular, but it would be held together with magnets. It's a concept that I really wanted to try, and we put it through its paces this month on What's Neat. And with that, that's the lineup for this February 2018 What's Neat. For this layout construction segment of What's Neat, now you've seen in past What's Neat videos where I've made various types of lift-out sections for my model rare layout using magnets to hold the sections into place, and that has worked very well. Now, I'd like to know, can you build a layout and actually hold the layout together with magnets? Now, what do I mean by that? What I'd like to do is take a piece of 2-inch foam, cut it up in such a size that I can get an oval end-scale layout out of it. I'd like it to be in four sections, and I'd like it to be able to fit on top of a tabletop and look very nice and finished, but at the same time, I want to hold the four sections together with these magnets. These sometimes refer to as super magnets, but you can get these from the Home Depot or various hardware stores. They're relatively inexpensive, but these things can hold a lot. So the theory is, build an end-scale modular layout, don't really focus on the top scenery, just make sure the track lines up, and everything fits together, and the polarities of the magnets all match to where the wood can just pop together these modules that were about to build. So that's the first thing that I'd like to talk about. Then I'd like to take it a step further. I'd like to see if this is a concept that actually could be used on a modular layout, something that you would set up at a train show at a convention center. Now to do that, I've picked up two of these magnet tools that the Home Depot sells for around $10 a piece, and what these do, these are great for picking up screws and nails around your yard after you have an outside construction job or a roof is put on your home. These work good for that, but my theory is, they're pretty darn strong magnets. Why couldn't we take something like this, since they're inexpensive, ten bucks a piece for a joint, I think would be pretty good for a connection, and connect two modular layouts together with this. You can add the plastic somehow into the woodwork where you'll then have a setup where I think it'll be pretty strong, and these magnets can hold darn near 30 pounds, and I think, here's 20 right here, I think that if you put that much weight on something like that, even with clamps and bolts, the old fashioned way, if you get a 30 pound bump on a module, you're probably going to hear wood splitting. So the theory is 30 pounds would be the maximum for using for the test for this subject, but what I'm going to do is build this into two 8 foot modules, take them outside, twist them around, and see how this turns out. So that's the segment that we're starting, let's see how this entire thing turns out next. I started the project by drawing various sized ovals onto a sheet of foam, until I was satisfied with the minimum radius of about 14 inches, which would then fit on top of the round table that I have in the studio, measuring a total of about 3 feet wide by 4 feet 4 inches long. This will be cut into two sections, forming curved ends, whereas I could make 8 foot straight sections to length, to lengthen the layout, and create a 4 section layout into the future. To make a tool which would perfectly square up the sides of the layout, I cut two sides and applied self-stick sandpaper, about 80 grit, to a steel square block, and rubbed this new tool around the sides of the layout, feathering the curves smooth and perfectly squaring up the sides of the layout. Using blue masking tape to represent the track placement, I carved the track slash ballast profile with a bent horserasp. Using my way around the entire layout, and following this up with a Stanley shore farm planer, creating really nice topography on both sides of the track. I removed the tape and sealed the entire layout with brown latex paint. I then cut the two sections in half at the center of the oval, creating a two-part layout base, to which we could then add middle sections and make this layout any size that we want. To create a solid surface to mount the magnets, I set my router to three-quarters of an inch depth, using a three-quarter inch router bit. I then guided the ends of the layout along the router's fence, cutting a straight groove into the ends of the foam, which would then be laid in with wood boards. I cut one by four pine boards into three-quarter inch square stock, and I cut these to the exact width of the modular sections. Then using water and gorilla glue, I secured these wood pieces into the ends of the module, into the grooves, flush with the foam. I put weights on top of this as a glue expanded and cured, so the ends of the foam would not rise up and deform unevenly. Using the same process, I embedded small three-quarter inch blocks into the curved sides of the layout, to which we will attach the oak plywood sides. I soaked a two-inch strip of oak, quarter-inch plywood, in water. I sprayed water onto the curved foam surface, and applied a few lines of gorilla glue. Then proceeded to wrap and staple the plywood into place all the way around the outsides of each layout section. After cutting the plywood flush with the ends of the layout, I quickly set up bar clamps to hold the layout together, as the plywood's tension wants to pull the use sections of foam wider, up to an inch, so the bar clamps prevent this. The plywood's tension stops as soon as the glue cures, keeping everything dimensionally stable. I repeated the same process to wrap the insides of the layout with wood, this time using one-sixteenth-inch strip oak plywood cut into two-inch long strips. After the glue cured, holding the wood sides into place, I used a flush-cutting cabinet laminate trimmer to contour the tops of the plywood to match the foam's topography perfectly, all the way around the layout, on all sides. I sanded the wood sides with fine 150-grit sandpaper. Then I stained the sides with red oak stain, and of course, three coats of polyurethane sanded in between coats with water to create a smooth, glass-like finish. Now to place the magnets on the end of the dioramas, I'm using this simple circle template here, and I figured out what size circle is the exact diameter of our magnet here, which turned out to be this third hole down. And what I'm doing is I'm going to take this template, and this is an 11-sixteenth-sized hole, and I moved it in one-and-a-half inches centered on the one-by-four material that I've got in here, the dimensional lumber material, and I drew a circle right there where the magnet would go. And I drew a matching identical circle, one-and-a-half inches in center, half. So I've got it drawn on both halves. So what I'm going to do now is I've taken a dremel, router attachment to my dremel here, and I've got it set to the exact same depth as the magnets. I've already pretested it on this piece of wood here, and the magnets in very flush. So all I've got to do in theory is just simply take the router and make the circular indentation, the hole, into each end where the magnets are going to go, and this should just pop right together. I found it was best to router the diameter of the circle in the wood just a little larger than the magnets to give a little bit of play, ensuring that the magnets would line up automatically during the gluing process. I mixed a small amount of five-minute epoxy and placed this into the magnets carved out holes. I then placed two stacked magnets into the first hole, ensuring the correct polarity. I then filled the adjoining modules hole with some more five-minute epoxy. I pushed the two modules together, and upon pulling them apart, the magnets remained in place in their holes, respectively each one. I wiped off the excess glue and placed a paper towel between the two sections so that they would not stick together as a glue set. I then pushed them back into place and let things set up. I put a weight on top of this joint until the glue fully cured. I installed all eight magnets to the two halves of the layout in the same manner. I then started laying microengineering code 55 n-scale flex track, carefully bending it slowly around the 14-inch radius curve, working it and just working it gently so that I would have perfect track. I then soldered the track sections together with rosin core solder using Atlas n-scale rail joiners. I glued the track into place with DAP quick seal plus using a painter's knife. Now this glue dries permanent, fast, and clear. It is paintable, which ensures the fact that the ballast will stick to it. It also remains just a little bit flexible, allowing the track to breathe during the seasonal temperature changes. I weighed the track down while this adhesive dried. I cut the track between the two sections with a Dremel cutoff disc. I then pulled the two sections apart for the very first time and proceeded to join them back together again. It was a perfect connection and the rails lined up just right, as I tested it further by rolling this n-scale rail box boxcar across the joint. The scenery on the layout started with an even layer of sifted backyard dirt over the entire scene. I followed this up with fine sifted limestone, which acted as n-scale ballast. I used an artist brush to work this evenly around the ties and in between the rails to form a realistic looking track profile. I added woodland scenic's medium and light green ground foam to the scene just to give a little color. I then glued everything into place with one bottle of woodland scenic scenic cement, sprayed through a fine spray bottle, wetting the entire scene. Now while the scene was still wet, I added some static grass in various areas for just a little bit of added texture, and this stood up straight and stuck in the glue. After everything was dry, I cleaned the rail tops with an abrasive track cleaner and proceeded to test a locomotive around the layout. The track work was smooth, it was level, the locomotive ran real smooth and nice across all of the joints. Everything so far worked just perfect. Now to test the strength of the magnet's joint further, I joined the two layout sections together and then I slid them around on a tabletop to see if they would pull apart and everything held up. I then proceeded to pick up the entire layout, letting it swing and hang, and this proves the concept of holding a layout together with magnets as a very feasible idea. The end scale layout using magnets, the concept works very well. The next time on What's Neat, we're going to follow up with part two where we're going to try the same technique for an HO scale layout where it will actually be held together with these magnets. So with that, that ends this segment of layout construction using magnets to hold together a layout on What's Neat. Hi, I'm Joe Weiss and you're watching What's Neat with Ken Patterson. On this segment of What's Neat, we're going to solve the mystery of a boxcar roof with my esteemed associates, Mike Buddy and Daniel Coombs. Yes, sir. Alright guys, boxcar roofs, it's hard to get a good look of a boxcar, it is. Mike, you're a weather guy and Daniel, you're learning. I'm just beginning. Show me how it's done. It's hard to do. I don't want to see how it's done. But it's not hard to do. Okay, we're going to talk about galvanized roofs. And a galvanized roof on this tangent car here, we have the original silver, then we have the oxidized galvanization, which is lighter in color. And then down here we have the test sample of the color, which isn't right. So you don't want to use the lighter color, use something a little bit darker like this here. And what we're going to do first off is now that our roof is faded out, we're going to get a little bit of black pan pastel and just lightly brush that on. We're just wanting to catch the areas to kind of highlight them. So it highlights like the cracks of the seams in the roof. Think of this like a layer cake or building a lasagna. You've got layers here. So now you're dry brushing. Basically we're dry brushing powders. Oils. Or powders. Okay. This is powders. Even though they're actually pan pastel. And this base coat was acrylic. Was acrylic, yes sir. We'll actually be using several different mediums to do this today. But you just kind of want to scrub this in to get that effect right there. Okay. And this is where you're going to want to pull out your prototype pictures. But what we're going to do here is we're going to use acrylic burnt umber. Okay. It's a nice brown color. We're going to stick that on our pallet there. And what we're going to do is we're going to come in and randomly just watch this roof. So just. Yep. This is where you kind of want to pay attention to prototype photos. But since I've done a couple of these I kind of haven't been able to deal with what they look like. Okay. But if you've never done one before please find a photo to help you out. Now I do want to kind of keep kind of a steady hand but at the same time just yeah put in swatches. It really doesn't matter to have a steady hand because random is the name of the game here. Yeah. Okay. It doesn't have to be perfect. So we'll concentrate on these two panels here for the demonstration. But this will be used basically throughout the whole roof. Starting to look rusty. You just kind of want it. You want it random but you don't want it to look like a paintbrush did it. That's the name of the game. Okay. Now sometimes like the embossed part of a panel will rust and the whole row of panels will have the same pattern of rust on them because I guess they've been taken off the same pallet load or whatever but that's another thing you can do. Some boxcars the whole roof is this color. Right. That's why you need to pay attention to your photos because these roofs have infinitely different amounts of weathering. Replacement panels and damaged panels. Yup. So we're going to call this one here for the most part pretty good for demonstration purposes. That does look a little bit blotchy. Yeah. We kind of, yeah just a little bit more in here. Just something like this right here. That looks pretty good. Just something like that. It doesn't look like much now but the magic will happen soon. We're going to use a heat gun to dry this acrylic paint fast so I would not suggest this. This is for TV only now folks. APTV. Yeah. Don't do what I'm doing. So you normally use a hairdryer to do this? I normally let it sit because I have time but since we're a... Well you know that dryer gets very hot. Oh yeah. You melt that? It will most certainly melt this and we don't want this because it's a $48 freight car. You want a regular board dryer? We're done with that now. Okay. So that's dry? We're done. We're done with the acrylics. Okay. Let's switch over to what's good, a couple different browns here. Now see this is where I get worried because I think of oil paints. If you mess up again like an amateur like me because I did paint some cars with acrylics washed up but with oils you could still use oil. All is not lost. But I'm going to watch you and see what you do so I can feel more comfortable about it using oils. What we're going to do now is we're going to create the rust bleed off of the rust we just put on. Rust we just put on simulates heavy rust and this what we're going to do next is going to simulate the lighter rust or the rust streaking from the water and stuff rolling on the roof. We're going to do that with burnt sienna oil paint. I like Winsor Newton paint but you can buy whatever you like. It's a little bit rusty color. It's a reddish brown. Yeah but I mean it still brings on that rust appearance. What we're going to do is we're going to kind of come in just inside the brown areas here and oil paints go a long, long way so don't overdo this. We're going to do this here. Just kind of going in and out of our dark brown acrylics. Don't like I said you don't want too much. You're just like lightly dotting it around. Yep basically just a light little dab. A dab will do you. Around the edges of the darker paint because the darkest paint is the oldest rust. That's right. And once you're to this point I'm going to take you can use a turbinoid or I use mick brand products from I guess it's a handbook by Meg Jimenez and I use his odorless thinner to do this with but like I said turbinoid will work too and first off I'm going to clean out the brush. It doesn't have to be super clean but I don't want it having a ton of paint because it'll overpower it. So we want to start with a clean brush. We want a brush that's pretty well loaded with thinner. What we're going to do now is we're going to come in here a little bit too much thinner on there and work these areas. You see that bleeding? Uh huh. Now what is that? Is that just spreading it out to make it more washable? That's spreading it out and it's out in the effect of the light rust. Oh my gosh I can kind of see it coming to shape now and that's all you got to do. What? Clear water right? No this is odorless thinner or turbinoid. Like mineral spirits you know uh. Oh you can use mineral spirits? Okay. Yeah anything that will thin oil paint. See the reason we used acrylics to begin with is this thinner will not touch the acrylics. How come? Because there are two different types of paint they're totally differently. Once water is solvent and the other is solvent based. Okay. Yep and they're very different and they won't interact with each other. Wow it's looking real nice. Real rusty. Boom. Done. Just continue that the rest of the roof this is going to take a while to dry. Oil paints always do and the thinner takes a while to dry. So finish this roof and I would let it sit probably a week and then come back and doll coat it. I tell you what thank you very much Jason. What's it look like finished? Have you got some samples here? I certainly do. I actually have four samples. Sorry Daniel I just walked over you I apologize. What were you going to say Daniel? One thing I was going to say is well thanks for showing me and I guess I'll have to do all my Pacific Fruit well prototypical standards uh see what I can but yeah I'll give it a shot. And you've achieved this using the same process that you just showed us. It just. Shown. It's all different. No if you don't mind me. You can touch me. You're good. Okay. It's a nicely high value that looks very much like. And with the base coat of the lighter gray it looks like the galvanized roof has oxidized okay before it started to rust. You know we've also got Dave Sheehan here watching us. Hi Dave. Hi. Isn't this amazing when you watch these guys weather like this. It's an art. And it's just yeah I mean guys this is what everybody wants to do is learn how to oil paint weather. And we know Mike Buddy sort of introduced it to me back in the late 80s through the articles we did in Real Model Journal and now Jason you've done nothing but perfected the process on what I've seen you do on this roof and like you say it's just a matter of working all the way across until you get the top finished just the way you want it to be right. That's right. And like I said it looks really intimidating but you saw it here it's not hard to do it just takes time. It's very simple. So I think with that guys if you're good with questions that finishes our segment of what's neat. Right. Well thanks for being here like Daniel just started to say. You guys are very welcome. Yeah that's cool man I like that. For this segment of what's neat I'm with Gerald Stiles in Littleton Colorado looking at his beautiful ON30 layout. I'm telling you Gerald this is an absolutely gorgeous model can you tell us a little bit about the size and to give us some background on your layout. Sure. My layout is ON30 it's called the Termite and Tarantula Railroad it was just featured in the ON30 annual for this year it was also on tour for the National Narrow Gauge Convention this year. The layout is a like double-decker layout some of the track is hand laid some of the turnouts are hand laid some of it's flex track and stuff right out of the box most of the structures are all scratch built it's in an area that's probably about 500 square feet I've been working on it since about 2001 and I've also moved sections of it from when I lived in Texas to Colorado and just kept building away of course the railroads never finished I don't want it to be finished because then I won't have any fun. Now I see you've got a lot of brass on this layout it looks like you've got some Bachman models on this layout as well. Yeah a lot of my equipment is a Bachman ON30 but it's heavily modified I've added you know extra details or totally redid you know cabs with brass PSC parts and because I don't want my stuff to look like everybody else's stuff and they want to make it look real. It looks fantastic. You were telling me that roundhouse over there I'm showing you roll by footage right now the roundhouse it's just beautiful you said that was a kit you manufactured. Right yeah I did the roundhouse it was a kit that I produced for my company Firebox models. It's really nice. It's limited. It's gorgeous on it. Yeah thank you. Tell us about the whack-a-mole area tell us about that. Right yeah that's my Prairie Dog town it's a little animated scene that is actually controlled with little magnet pistons that oppose each other and make the little prairie dogs go up and down. They go up and down and it's like totally random. Is that your dog? Yeah I found a little figure that I painted to look like my dog. In fact Einstein is right here at our feet. Einstein is the most beautiful animal I've ever seen Ed can you shoot me Einstein here isn't this a beautiful animal and they let this beautiful puppy run around at the caboose. Oh yeah he's with me at work quite often. So that's really neat let's walk around and look at some more things on your layout let's just walk this way Ed can you follow us because this is just gorgeous now you've got these birds flying up here tell us a little bit about that. The birds are from a gaming figure from Reaper's miniatures I just painted them and cut they were like in a whole group so I had to cut them apart and when I lived in West Texas we always saw vultures and crows and stuff just flying around looking for a meal so I thought I'd like to do that on my layout. I rolled some footage earlier of the gears that you had built that it was a pretty neat little mechanism that you made to make the birds fly. Yeah it's some servo-link plastic chain and some cogs from their company and a gearhead motor. Okay and as we go around here it looks like this is a shadow box design is the way you've really designed this layout where everything looks like it's a shadow box. Right yeah shadow box really helps you control the light it also helps keep your focus on the layout I don't like looking all over the ceiling when I see a layout I like to see it more like I guess cinematography pano type shot you know where you get the holes we get a western feel so. And as we go down here further you've got this billboard that's smoking. That is correct it's a neat setup. Yeah it's based on a really famous advertising billboard that was in New York City the gentleman actually that created it was an advertising he created the whole mechanism and everything how it worked which was pretty amazing. Now I rolled footage of it earlier when it was blowing smoke and that was neat. And here's another example I think this is the Bachman bus I remember shooting this product maybe three years ago when it came out mine were super clean not weathered of course they were just product shots for Bachman but you've got it weathered and sound in it and it's refreshing to see the model that way. Yeah I added ESU look sound to it I believe we put a custom program on it for it I also added a bunch of people inside give it a little bit of life. Just a beautiful model. This is amazing and the scratch built buildings and these freight cars and all of the I saw the interior and the hardware store earlier that we were looking at it's just a magnificent artistry that you have here Gerald. I appreciate it I'm glad to share it. Oh Gerald thank you for sharing it with the watchers of What's Neat and this is Gerald. So the name of the show is What's Neat and when I've got something neat I've got to show it to you and I just found something pretty darn neat. Now let's just say you wanted to build your dream layout say something around 2,000 square feet what do you think it would look like what would you imagine that it would look like I'm standing here in a barn in the middle of Colorado with Kevin Rubel you will remember Kevin Rubel as being the proprietor for caboose that hobby shop that we are all familiar with in the middle of this state and Kevin I've got to tell you what you've built something here that has got my brain just scrambled what what have you done here what have you built I built a I built something that's well certainly from this bench work standpoint something you could jump on or or sleep on and not have to worry about falling off because it's it's bulletproof but I built what I what I'm building what I'm in process of building originally was a model basically switch-for-switch of the Monon Railroad mainline between State Line Indiana and Lowell Indiana in the summer of 1967 at one point I felt particularly after I bought the store I felt that was a little bit too ambitious and I might never get it done particularly when I started thinking about installing 160 tortoise switch machines or building 411 kits you know I thought there's no way I'll do this I'll be spending rest my time many hours during the day right so I decided to scale it down a little not in size of course because it's the same size but scale the the scope of the layout down and so I focused on the southern portion of the Monon Railroad between just south of Bedford Indiana to just south of Orleans Indiana and the branch to French lick Indiana that doesn't involve any big 13-track yard I think you've got a drawing over there let's go over there's drawing a large version of it hold this microphone Kevin while I just camera we're gonna just work this together sure because that's kind of impressive this is all drawn out it looks like almost a half inch scale it's one inch scale okay one inch to the foot so the room is 35 a little over 35 feet by 53 feet long and we have nice spacious four to five foot wide well mostly five foot wide aisles and it's it's it's just a simple single-track main line but it allows me unlike the other layout this one allow me to operate 40 car trains past 40 car trains past each other and and operate the southern southern part of the railroad like the original Monon was operated back in 67 so that's what we're looking at here right now did I already ask you how many feet of track all the way around because I see I see two major peninsulas and each one of these looks like they're an easy 35 or 40 feet long into the room and you've got some great aisle space here your aisles look like they're almost seven or eight feet wide this is really well thought out were you anticipating having more than just yourself operating this well yeah particularly when this was designed as a as the northern end of the railroad because it involved not only the Monon and the transfers all going into Chicago and then locals and road freight's going south but it also had trains the Alakawana and the nickel plate and the C&O the South Shore several different railroads so so I planned this for for multiple operators with the being it's the southern end of the railroad we'll probably be talking about six freight trains a day and two passenger trains and probably four locals still a few trains still a few trains but the only real yard on it is going to be a staging yard here the rest of it's going to be pretty much rural and small town tell me about this bench work I see bench works made of two by sixes and it looks like you're about 48 inches or 50 inches high how was your high 54 that's perfect time 54 and then yeah it's in and the subbench work as I would call it the the walls it down the centers of the peninsula and then the bench work itself is all two by six and two by four construction two by six tilt up walls and and that's overbuilt you know I agree that's overbuilt you know the some of my friends from the NRA front-range division come over they chew it at once they're like well this certainly is certainly a sturdy bench work it is it is but you know it's I I have some experience building homes of built homes for quite a few years with as a volunteer with habitat as a home leader and so I I wanted to build something that would that would last so I love the height I love the bench work you've got your backdrops all painted blue throughout the whole layout room so what is the linear say that word for me yeah so the main line the backdrop right right so the main line the main line run is the same as it would have been for the other layout because it's course we we didn't change any peninsula so it's about 260 toward somewhere around 260 feet 260 feet man you could run a lot of long trains on this this is like I am just foaming at the mouth I'm ready to start playing track with you let's just go I mean but Kevin I would look forward to an update on this in the future to see how you come along with this project because this is going to be one of those great model railroads thank you I hope so I think it'd be it's gonna be great to build it's gonna be fun to build so well thanks for letting me time away from this thanks for letting us just sneak up on you with a camera like this just out of out of the blue we were just honestly I was just getting to see it and all of a sudden I turned on the camera because what I saw I wanted all of us to see because this is inspiring this is the beauty of the hobby is that you can just build your own world just like Kevin has done here and is in the process of still doing well and hopefully also proof that if you're in this hobby if you're in this space as a business it doesn't mean it has to as some people often say it has to kill your enthusiasm for the business I'm more enthusiastic about building this layout than ever I have less time to do it but I'm way more enthusiastic about building it now than ever because I'm seeing people buy all this stuff for their layouts in the store I'm like I'm going crazy saying I got to get up there and build mine so this is awesome I hope this just came out thank you Kevin thank you all of the model railroad products seen in this episode of what's neat are available through caboose in Lakewood Colorado or order online at my caboose.com