I'm steadily approaching the finish line at Horseshoe Curve. During the past week, I've been focusing my attention to the valley floor. The major project here is the reservoir. It's a very prominent feature of the area. The reservoir is formed by Glenwhite Run and Kittanning Run. The main challenge here was get the needed depth of the lake bed. I didn't want to hack at the foam and have an uneven surface to deal with. My brilliant solution was to brush some acetone onto the foam, literally melting it. Well, aside from giving off some nasty fumes, this also left an uneven surface.
I ultimately ended up cutting through the foam all the way down to the plywood and ripping it out. I then used plaster of Paris to back fill the hole and attain the desired depth. I sculpted the sloping sides out of patching plaster.
Tonight's project was to paint the lake bed and surrounding terrain. I started out where each run drains into the lake. In real life both runs flow through stone-lines channels. Kittanning run actually flows alongside the reservoir rather than into it, however, as previously mentioned on this blog, I didn't have room to duplicate the particular feature. Anyway, I used Woodland Scenics "Concrete" pigment to paint the areas up to resemble spillways.
On my last layout, I'd used various shades of WS pigments for my lake bed. This time I tried something different. In an issue of Model Railroader, I saw a river that had been done by using gloss medium over a black surface. I decided to take some blue poster paint and mix in black until I got the shade you see in the above photo.
The banks and the surrounding areas were painted raw umber. The next step will be turf. I also started building a small intake structure out of Plastruct styrene strips. More on that once it's finished.
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