PHPaul

Good thing we can just hit "print" and walk away, isn't it?

Thanks! Pretty much, yup. Epoxy is here, tint is supposed to be here by Friday. Meanwhile, working on the rock crusher for the quarry and the smokehouse.

The family plot is pretty much done. When the glue is cured and everything is solidly in place, I'll probably do a little more detailing in terms of flowers and such.

Very nice. Cars from that era interest me.

Quarry is colored and the aquatic growth and bottom litter in place. Waiting on my epoxy and tint to show up from Santa-zon. Also working on a smoke house and a small family cemetery. Pics as things develop. (Ooooo, bad pun...)

Great idea. Nice work so far!

Yup. Speed is not one of the features, for sure.

Plaster of Paris may be my favorite medium! The entire lighthouse scene is plaster minus the plastic lens and railing at the top.

Started on the quarry. First step was to carve out the basic shape. The entire diorama is built on 2 inch styrofoam insulation board glued to a masonite table top, so carving is just a matter of a sharp razor knife. The various levels represent slabs of (whatever...) that have been quarried and removed. Then the naked styrofoam is covered with a layer of plaster of paris. This will allow carving of finer detail without crumbling and also accepts paint or stain much better. After the plaster sets up hard I'll do a little carving here and there, hit it with the first wash of color and glue some debris/talings to the bottom. The quarry will be surrounded by chain link fence, which I make using brass rod for the frame and pieces cut out of a laundry bag used for washing "dainties". Once trimmed and painted it looks REALLY authentic IMHO. The fence will be rusted, bent and sagging when installed.

Cool! I see they've modified it some since I bought mine.

Yes indeed, that's the one. GORGEOUS truck! I was just too lazy to go back and attribute it properly. Thanks!

I find my Ender was well worth the money. They're out there for around $250USD which is pretty good compared to some of the higher end stuff. I print a LOT of bits and pieces with it. In fact, I'm on my 4th print today for the new addition to my farm diorama. (Teaser, pix to follow when it's a little further along...)

I have an Ender 3 Pro which may be part of the reason I get smoother results.

Huh. I'd have sworn... I print in PLA and rarely see that effect. It may be my print orientation but I never really played around with that. I have tweaked various resolution and infill settings in the past. Tends to really extend print times but the quality is greatly improved. I generally start a print, watch long enough to be sure it's printing properly and then wander off and do something else.

It appears that you are 3D printing with a resin printer. The Thingiverse picture of the finished loco is nice and smooth where the individual 3D prints show very distinct layers. Am I correct in assuming there will be a good deal of filling and sanding involved in the finished product?

Based on some suggestions from another site, I'm seriously considering a limestone quarry with an abandoned stone crusher. The quarry would be right on the edge of the layout and flooded. Sort of a "cut away" view. Flood the quarry with epoxy resin and put some junk and silt on the bottom with maybe a few fish and other aquatic life. You'd be able to look into it from the edge. Sort of like this ^^ The idea would be that the quarry was MUCH larger but extends out of view.

Time to play with the diorama some more. I have this roughly 10x12 inch area available for development, but I'm pretty much drawing a blank as to what to do with it. Thinking primarily in terms of a structure of some sort seeing as that's one of my favorite things to build. Appropriate scenery will work too. Mulling over the idea of a pond or flooded quarry in that regard. Suggestions appreciated.

Getting there. Several details to finish up. Wanted to get the cab mounted to make sure relationship between cab/hood/radiator/fenders was correct. And it is...whew... Chose the gray and black color combination based on another model on this site. Wouldn't have occurred to me but I really like the effect.

Makes sense, I'll remember that. I did get away with it this time however.

Thanks, I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

Thanks for the responses so far! @TooOld Hmmmm. Tacky Glue. I have some of that, I'll give it a try. @Ace-Garageguy Yeah, I thought about pinning. I might try a combination of both: Pinning the bigger stuff (muffler brackets, luberfiner) and using tacky glue on the smaller stuff. I'll keep watching this thread and I'll post back with my results. Be several days I'm sure as I just did the second color and need to wait 2-3 days to be sure the paint has cured before removing the masking.

I did a search in this forum but didn't come up with anything specific to my question. I have painted the cab for my log truck project. I sprayed Rustoleum paint which I assume is enamel. Next step (after paint cures completely) is to glue on various bits - clearance lights, air horns, mirrors, muffler brackets, etc. I know that glue works best on clean plastic, but removing the paint for the tiny contact points of the mentioned accessories seems like a non-starter. Gluing them on before painting is also obviously not practical. So questions: 1. Is there a glue that will work without removing the paint on the contact surfaces? Barring that... 2. Is there a technique for removing tiny spots of paint to ensure a good glue bond?

A little late-night welding on the diorama. Been sniffing around after an arc-flash simulator for quite a while, but they're stupid expensive for what amounts to about 50 cents worth of LEDs. Found this one on Amazon for about $9 so figured I'd try it out. Stupid simple, 2 white LEDs and one blue LED flashing at different rates. Comes pre-wired all you have to do is connect power to it and via some magic I don't quite under stand, anything from 9 to 19 volts AC or DC will work. I had my doubts but it works very well.

I posted pictures of my log truck build on another forum I hang out on (sssshhhhh, don't tell anyone...) and one of the responders said he had a couple of old kits if I was interested. Um, yeah.... The '57 Ford appears to be complete and unbuilt tho the box was open so there may be parts missing. The IH 4270 is a glue bomb, not sure what all is missing but there's a ton of usable parts for sure. Once I get the log truck a little further along, I may see if it's worth trying to recover or if it's just parts. Either way, I'm happy.

Winter weather is here, which means back to the basement hobbies. Made quite a bit of progress on the log truck project over the last week or so. After some experimentation, I couldn't get the salt technique for rust to look in scale so I painted it with acrylic "Gun Metal" and then weathered it with chalks. Log bunk was painted with the Gun Metal then drybrushed with Testors "Steel" for areas where the paint was worn off, weathered with chalks for flash rust and then some finely ground leaves were sprinkled here and there to simulate bark residue. Fairly pleased with that. Cab is just sitting on the frame so I could be sure about the location of the loader tower. It'll come back off and I'll do a little plumbing of air lines and electrical and such. Nothing approaching complete detailing, but some of the more visible stuff. Still haven't decided on a color. Don't really want to duplicate colors from other models. Due to the location of the loader tower and it's stabilizer legs, I'll be relocating the fuel tanks further aft. I tucked the battery box up under the driver's door, which in retrospect might have been a mistake. If I can rig steps to get into the cab I'll leave it, otherwise I'll have to see about relocating it, probably to the other side.