Below are some articles I have written for the Wichita Toy Train Club's monthly newsletter.

 Home Made Layout Scenery (propane tanks)          

February 2010 WTTC Semiphore by Jason Ingels

A propane tank is something that can fit behind any layout structure. Driving through the country you will notice that there are a few standard sizes, but propane tanks can come in all shapes and sizes from the single farm house size to very large industrial sizes. The propane tank I have pictured in photo #1 on my layout was made out of two empty Co2 cartridges commonly used in BB guns or I have seen them used to power Boy Scout race cars. Store bought propane tanks of this size I have commonly seen sell for $7 to $8 dollars, but with just a little time and effort they can be made for little to nothing. Photo #2 shows all the components, as well as the finished tank.  Using a pipe cutter I cut the two EMPTY Co2 Cartridges apart and disposed of the nipple end of the two cartridges. I then glued the two halves with the rounded end together and filled in any gap between the two with glue and let dry. Later I came back and filed down any excess glue and then airbrush the tank white. Most of the time no matter how well you file down the glue line you can still see a little bit of the seam between the to halves, but this does not matter, even real propane tanks have seam lines from being welded together. The base I made out of wood. I start off by drilling a hole just big enough for the Co2 cartridge to fit into in the side of a pine 2x4. I will then rip a piece 1/8 thick off of the 2x4. Lastly I cut the edges leaving me with two half moon legs to support the tank (Photo #3). The last thing the legs need now is one or two coats of concrete colored paint. The red top of the tank I made out of a electrical wire fastener shown in photo #2. All I did here was cut the top of the fastener off and used a Dremel tool to shape the bottom to fit on the tank. Car valve stem covers also work well for this purpose.
There are many things that work well for making these kinds of tanks, all a person needs to do is look around and have a little imagination. If you or someone you know is into smoking cigars the plastic tubes some manufacturers ship the cigars in work really well for making propane tanks. Even if you don’t smoke or know anyone that does smoke cigars you can ask around at cigar bars or there are some liquor stores that have wine and cigar tasting events. If you ask they will sometimes keep the tubes for you.
Shown in photo #4 I have made a larger tank to go behind my engine house. What I have used here are two 2 liter plastic Coke bottles blanks. This is how bottle manufactures ships the bottles. Before these blanks are filed they are heated and blown into the 2 liter bottles we are commonly used to seeing at stores. If you can come across these blanks they make good tank material. Here I have cut two and glued them together to make the tank. I made the same kind of base legs as described earlier. Additionally I drilled a small hole in the top of the tank and placed a piece of 14 gauge wire in it and bent it along the side all the way down to the ground. I painted the wire white and cut a small piece of  black electrical heat shrinkable tubing just about 3/16 long which I placed around the 14 gauge wire. Lastly I used a small size 1/0 broche I picked up at the hobby store for a valve wheel. I painted the broche red and glued it onto the Black electrical heat shrinkable tub shown in photo #5. Photo #6 shows the finished tank on my layout sitting behind my engine house.

 

Home Made Layout Scenery (Wood Water Tower - the tank)

January 2010 WTTC Semiphore by Jason Ingels

Outside of the trains themselves some of the things that in my mind are instantly identifiable with the railroad are trestle bridges, coaling towers, and water towers.  I’ve made several water towers both for my railroad when I was a kid and for the railroad my son and I are currently building now. One trick I have picked up along the way is using a piece of PVC pipe as a bass to build the tank around. I use a black PVC coupling piece in either 3 inch or 4 inch diameter. The black PVC works best because it will help hide any gaps in the wood planks that will be used to cover it. After obtaining the PVC, I make a cover for the bottom by cutting a 1/4” piece of plywood to the same diameter as the pipe I’m using. I then glue it to the bottom of my piece of pipe so that you can’t see inside from the bottom. Later the roof will cover the top. I do a bit of woodworking so I have a stockpile of  oak and I use scrap pieces I have laying around for most of my projects,  however any wood will work. To make the small boards that I use to cover the PVC pipe, I prefer to start out with a 2 inch thick oak board that is 2 to 3 feet long. I set my table saw to rip 1/4 inch strips off of the oak board. After running the board through the saw several times I end up with 5 to 6 strips measuring 1/4” X 2” x 3 feet. After cutting down these  strips I set-up my table saw to rip these strips down from 2” wide to 3/16” wide with a 14 degree bevel on both sides. The 14 degree bevel is a little more than is needed but it will allow all the pieces to be glues around the PVC with the outer edges touching and preventing any gaps. The last step now is to just cut all of these strips to the right length. Usually a length of 3 3/4” works for me, all that is needed is for them to be long enough to cover the PVC and the 1/4” piece of plywood covering the bottom. If a table saw is not one of the pieces of equipment you have available to you small beveled strips can be obtained from your local hobby store and all that’s left to do is cut them to the right length. (See Photo 2 for a example picture of the finished tank boards) 
Photo 3 shows the PVC, tank bottom, and all the cut tank boards as well as an assembled tank in the lower right corner of the photo. When making the tank it’s important to glue the first board onto the PVC straight because all the other boards will be butting against one another starting with this first board and work around the tank. If this first board is not straight you will have a problem fitting the last board. You will end up with a small gap on one end and a large gap at the other, requiring you to make and fit a wedge shaped piece into the final gap. If the first board is placed on straight then the last board will only have to be adjusted for width to fit within the final gap. Shown in photo 4 I use a straight edge to line up and glue on the first board, I also check my board as I’m working around to make sure things have not gotten off and everything is still square. If things are starting to get out of line its easier to make a couple of small adjustments early rather that a large one at the end.
Once the tank is glued together and dried my next step is to do some weathering. This can be done in many ways, but I like to stain the wood with a Minwax Early American wood stain and allow it to dry and then stain it with a dark stain such as Walnut or Minwax makes a very dark stain called Jacobean that I like for some projects. Once the dark stain is almost dry but still just a little sticky I’ll lightly sand the whole thing with 80 grit sand paper. This will give me a dark, medium, light, and bare wood coloring which I like for my wood layout pieces. (photo 5)   
Lastly, I use black string to make the support bands around the tank and tack it into place with a fast drying glue. On real tanks the support bands are close together at the bottom where the weight of the water is the most and then get further apart as they get higher on the tank. Also on real tanks the support band fasteners are always lined up diagonally across the tank. Therefore I make my bands close together at the bottom and get a little further as I go up. I’ll tie the string with a knot and I keep each knot about 1/4” inch ahead of the last as I work my way up the tank. (photo 6)

 

Home Made Layout Scenery (Billboard)

December 2009 WTTC Semiphore by Jason Ingels

Billboards can be placed onto any layout no matter what the theme is, City or farmland. Scale sized billboards can be bought at hobby stores but I find it a lot more fun to make layout components if possible. For billboards the first thing I looked for is the ad because to some degree this will determine the size and shape of the billboard. Ads can be picked up from many sources such as scan and print them from library books, cut them out of model train magazines, but the place I go to find just about any kind of ad I’m looking for is online. I like running steam engines so I’ll go online and put in 1930’s to 1950’s advertisements in the search engine. Other topics that works good for me is World War II propaganda or WWII this will bring up several online posters to choose from. One last thing I’ve had really goodluck finding is movie ads such as Gone With The Wind,  Casablanca, or Key Largo. When you search for movie ads online the selection is endless. After finding an ad that I like I’ll resize it to about 4 1/2”inches long by 2 1/2 inches high. These measurements are just a ruff figure and varies depending on the shape of the ad I’m working with. After I have my ad I’ll start building the board to put it on. The billboard can be very simple or you can add walkways and lights to give it a little pizzazz. (photo #2) For all my billboards I like to rip strips down to less than a 1/16th” inch thick by 3/16th” wide. Several of these glued together will make up the back of the billboard. This could be made out of one piece of thin wood, however I prefer the look of strips because once it is stained and weathered you can see the individual boards from the back side. Also some of my billboards I’ll leave every other board out so there is a large gap between the boards. For the pillars I use a 1/4th inch dowel that I cut to 4 1/2” to 5” inches long. Depending on the length of the billboard I usually use four of these pillars. Extending back for each pillar I have a support brace measuring less than 1/16th” thick by 1/8th” wide.  Before gluing all the wood components together I’ll stain the parts with a Early American shade of stain and let it dry and then follow that with a dark stain such as walnut. The first coat of Early American stain will sink in deep and dry and that keeps the coat of dark walnut sitting on top and unable to sink in as well. Before the coat of walnut stain has dried I’ll hit the parts with ruff sandpaper which will cut through the layers and leave me with dark, light, and bare wool coloring making the board look weathered. Most billboard pillars and telephone polls in the real world are darker at the bottom where extra creosol is added to protect them so one touch I like to add is to dipping the bottom of the pillars into the dark walnut stain to give them an extra thick coat extending about 1/4th inches up. This can be seen in photo #1. To add some social static to some of my billboards I’ll give them a walkway and on some I’ll add lights. (Photo #3) There are lots of lights to choose from, but I use Weathers Cornerstone Series lights. These lights pictured are HO scale ornate wall mounted lights and come 3 in a pack. After removing the decorative design and bending the light back these glue to the bottom of the walkway and shin back onto the billboard.
Any way you make them, billboards are easy and fast to make and can fit onto any layout. 

 

Home Made Layout Scenery (Graffiti )

November 2009 WTTC Semiphore by Jason Ingels

I’ve been experimenting with adding graffiti to some of my railroad cars for awhile now. I’ve seen some MTH cars that you can buy with graffiti already added on them and I have also seen stickers you can buy and past onto cars. However with both of these options you are stuck with what someone else has designed and made up for you. During my trial and error period I have tried using an air brush to paint on graffiti, but I haven't had any luck with this. The size of the lettering and designs I’m trying to make on my railroad cars is to small for me to control with an airbrush. So the best thing I have found is extra fine tipped paint pins and ultra fine pointed Sharpie markers. I bought a pack of paint pins at the hobby store in basic colors (black, blue, red, yellow, green and white) and I have added a couple of extra colors like silver, gold, and orange. I use the paint pins to lay down my base colors to start my designs. Even with the fine tip the paint pins are hard to control, The paint has a tendency to pool and run on smooth plastic. However the sharpies don't write well at all on bare plastic and will smear even after they have dried. Therefore I’ll get the base of a design down with paint pins and then come back and detail the design with sharpies which write very will an the dry paint and won’t smear. The sharpies are also available at a hobby store or Wal-mart. I bought mine in a 24 pack color assortment. I usually start off experimenting with a design on a piece of paper using just a pencil until I  get something I like. Then I’ll place a piece of masking tap over the spot I want the graffiti to go on a car and draw the lettering or design with my paint pins and sharpies to make sure I have the size and coloring right. This may take two or three times to get the proportion I like. Once I’m satisfied with this then I’ll take off the tape and start painting onto the car itself. No mater how many times I practice a design my hands always seem to shake a little more when I’m painting it permanently  onto a car. However even if things don't go quite as I had planned it is graffiti and you just have to roll with the situation and make the best of it.
Online there are lots of sites that can aid in gathering ideas for designs and fonts to use. One I like is www.graffiti.org/. On this site they even have a section dedicated to trains. Another one I like is www.graffitifonts.com/. This site is selling software to design fonts for you, however I just look at the examples they provide. I’ll draw the letters they have shown that I need and the letters they don’t have published I’ll experiment with to make ones that fit in. In my son’s name shown in photo #3 through #6 I used the w, i, and t that were shown and made up the d, g and h. With graffiti upper or lower case letters don't mater it’s just what ever makes the picture look good to the eye of the creator.  
In the pictures shown here I have played around with my kids’ names. In photo #2 I have my daughters name (AMELIA) in bubble letters. Her middle mane is Rose so I drew a rose under her name. The rose is done with a red and green paint pin and I used a darker red and green sharpie to detail the rose petals and leaves.
In photo #1 I have my son’s name (DWIGHT) still on a piece of masking tape. With Dwight’s name I used a yellow paint pin and drew the letters onto the car so I had the size right (photo #3). Then I filled everything in to leave just the outline. This gave me a solid yellow background so once the paint dried I came back with a black sharpie to redraw the letters (photo # 4 and #5). Then I used a orange sharpie to color in the letters and came back with a red sharpie along the bottom to give a two tone look. Lastly I used a blue sharpie to thicken the edges of the letters and give them a 3D look  (photo #6). 

Home Made Layout Scenery (produce crates)

September 2009 WTTC Semiphore by Jason Ingels

Something really neat about our hobby is that it’s only limited by your imagination. Recently I was visiting Rich Parsons and looking over his layout. He had an apple orchard on his layout and his wife had made small crates which she had filled with beads to look like apples. I found these crates just cute as can be and I had to make some for my layout. These crates could be made out of any kind of wood you have available, or out of thin balsa or bass wood purchased at a hobby store. I happen to have made mine out of scrap oak I had laying around. I ripped the oak into thin strips less than 1/16” thick on my table saw and the rest of the project I was able to do with a utility knife, cutting board, file, string, and some glue. I made my crate bottom and two sides out of solid pieces measuring 1/2” wide by 7/16”. The other two sides I made out of two thinner strips measuring 1/8” wide. I left a small gap spaced between the small side pieces which I thought gave the crate the proper look I’m use to seeing at farmers markets. After the glue dried I filed down the wooden edges smooth and then glued down both ends of a small 2/8th inch long string for the handles. Once my crates were finished I filed them with small red and orange glass seed beads for my apples and oranges. I used woodland Scenes glue to secure the beads into the crates. Pictured is a local farmer on my layout selling produce out of the back of his truck on my layout.