Cloth laying layout (and more...)

[C62]

Very interesting homepage:

http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=ja%7Cen&u=http://s-layout.com/

[CaptOblivious]

This is a lot like what my wife does for her Christmas tree train...she uses white batting under some HO sectional track to make snow, and then builds a tunnel out of cardboard and uses more batting to cover it up. It's really quite convincing.

[Bernard]

C62 - It does have an interesting result, I might have missed it, what kind of cloth did he use?

 

CaptO - do you have any photos of your wife's Christmas tree layout?

[CaptOblivious]

Man, I totally forgot about this thread, and my promise!

 

We used layered batting to make this. The tunnel portal is made from Hirst Arts molds (Bell Tower Mold #55 if you must know) and a wreath off a cheap dollar-store Christmas Village street lamp. The buildings are all dollar-store Christmas Village stuff, lit with regular Christmas lights (of the large-bulb variety). The street lights are, shoot I forget, LifeLike, maybe? All the lights were just pushed through small holes cut in the batting. The train itself (and track and transformer) is a cheap Bachmann box set we picked up for like $10 at a garage sale. We ended up moving one of the buildings atop the tunnel to balance things out (we then put the piggy-back tractor trailer up there to enhance the "white trash" feel  ;) )

 

Anyway, the whole thing was surprisingly convincing, and a lot of fun. Just watching it gave me chills. The tunnel is absolutely necessary to pull it off. We had to do a lot of maintenance keeping needles (and pray mantises!! But that's another story for later) off the snow and tracks.

 

I'm actually considering installing a sound decoder into the loco, cheap crap though it is.

[Darren Jeffries]

Very festive.... I love christmas trains. Nearer the festive season, I'll start a christmas train thread... I found lots that would blow your mind on youtube!

[Bernard]

Christmas in May! Very nice photo. Xmas is the time I set up my larger trains under the tree (and the cats take all the ornaments off the tree.)

[Masioka]

We had to do a lot of maintenance keeping needles (and pray mantises!! But that's another story for later) off the snow and tracks.

 

Praying mantis???

 

Christmas is coming and I'm getting scared. ;)

[CaptOblivious]

We had to do a lot of maintenance keeping needles (and pray mantises!! But that's another story for later) off the snow and tracks.

 

Praying mantis???

 

Christmas is coming and I'm getting scared. ;)

 

I guess it's later :D

 

Ever cut your own tree, and helped (or just watched) them put it in that machine that shakes the dead needles off? Here's some news: Dead needles aren't their primary concern. Christmas tree farmers use praying mantises as an efficient, economical, and ecologically friendly form of pest control. They eat all the sorts of things that pester the trees, but do themselves live in the trees. By the time Christmas rolls around, the praying mantis population has died off, but they've laid eggs which won't hatch till the spring, when it gets warm...

So the farmers are also trying real hard to shake those egg sacs off, because your house is warm like spring...

 

Anyway, we're looking into artificial trees this year. And mind I live in the US; I don't know how they do things over in GB.

[Welshbloke]

I think UK Christmas tree buyers are safe from the Mantis invasion - I know a few people who work in forestry and have never heard of them being used. Likewise we've had real trees for at least ten years and I've not noticed a single baby mantis about the place.