A Long-Overdue Entry

Wow, two and a half months since my last entry! I know I pretty much dropped off the face of the earth after December, but life has been crazy around here. That said, I have made quite a bit of progress on the layout. I just haven't found time to blog about it. So brace yourself for an extra-long post!

 First and foremost, I completed the small mountain in the back left corner of the peninsula. It was the usual procedure of building up a mountain out of styrofoam, cover it with plaster-soaked paper towels, paint it "raw umber" and cover it with lichen.

What made this project a challenge was the lack of accessibility. There no way to climb up on the layout to get to it. On top of that, the left side of the peninsula borders the stairs. What ended up doing was balancing precariously on the half wall between the layout and the stairs. I had about eight inches to sit on and do the work. Nerve-racking for sure, but I didn't fall and break my neck, always a plus. 
 

 Next up, I finished off the house on the hill.  This project was dead simple. I brushed the entire hill with Mod Podge matte medium and applied the various layers of turf.

The next step was to add some Woodland Scenics trees. And this is where the trouble started. See, I've never had much luck using WS Hobby Tack to affix the foliage to the armatures and I decided to try something different. While browsing the craft aisle at my local Wally World, I ran across some Gorilla Spray Adhesive and thought I'd give it a shot. Well, I tried it out on one tree and ass soon as I stuck the armature in the bag of clump foliage, one of the branches broke off. Undeterred, I tried out a second tree. Again, several branches broke off. 

After having several trees lose branches, I had to stop and scratch my head. At first, I thought I'd gotten a bad batch of tree armatures. But just to be sure, I went ahead and assembled a tree with Hobby Tack and guess what. No issues what so ever. As it turns out Gorilla Spray Adhesive is not safe for plastics. Good to know.

As I near the end of the heavy lifting in Johnstown, I'm starting to get going on the detailing phase. This involved purchasing a bunch of cars from eBay seller "Chuckthprinter," who offers not only a nice variety of 1940s and 50s vehicles but also a bunch of other nifty N Scale details.

The cars I bought were five packs with some assembly required. First, thing I did was glue the wheels on with CA, always a fun experience. Three of the four wheels would go on without issue but the fourth? The wheen and car would repel each other like two magnets, usually getting my finger stuck together in the process.

Once the cars had their wheels affixed, I took a pencil and colored in the windows. Then I used a silver Sharpy marker for the bumpers and other chrome trim. This being 1956, cars can't have enough chrome, right?

I've been slogging through Johnstown for nearly two years now. I can finally see the light at the end of that particular tunnel. I have only one really big project left to finish, carving out a drainage ditch beside Superior Paper.