Jefferson progress report

[John Greenly]

Jeff,

looking at your scene I can feel the gravel crunching underfoot and the grasses brushing past my ankles.  Care to say a little about how, and with what materials, that magic is done?

thanks,
John

[Jeff Young]

Hi John,

For the scrub oak, I break off small SuperTrees branches, soak them in diluted matte medium, and then flock them with static grass.  After the matte medium dries, I spray paint the result dark brown.  After that dries, it’s back into the matte medium, and then a flocking with sage-green medium-ground foam.  After drying again, a final spray-coat of diluted matte medium finishes them off.

The willow shrubs are clumps of wallpaper brush hairs glued into holes in a board, sprayed with diluted matte medium, flocked with golden static grass.  After that dries, they’re sprayed again and flocked with spring-green SuperLeaf, allowed to dry again, and then a final spray-coat.

The grass is a mix of Silflor Prairie Tufts, Silflor Buffalo Grass, and static grass.

Weeds are mostly home-made, although there are some stalks of Silflor Yellow Buttercups (the tops of which were used in my Silica scene to model goldenrod).

There are also wild roses, which are made from filter foam painted green, very lightly flocked with lavender fine-ground foam, and then cut into tall, thin pieces.

The purple wildflowers are wallpaper brush hairs dipped in white glue and flocked with purple fine-ground foam, trimmed to just the purple bit, and then planted in a small clump of summer-green SuperLeaf material.

The dirt is from Boreas Pass, glued down with matte medium diluted with isopropyl alcohol.

If I missed anything, don’t hesitate to ask….

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Robert McFarland]

Could you do a visual step by step on what you just described?

[Jeff Young]

Hi Robert,

I didn’t take any pictures, but I can next time I do a batch.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Jim Courtney]

Since Paul Scoles passed away, it looks like it's up to Jeff to start producing scenery videos.

Great work Jeff, you may be the current master of modeling Colorado scenery,

(PS--I see the bear, too . . . )

[Chris Walker]

And get on the horn to Bob Brown.  This is exactly what the mag needs.

[Keith Hayes]

Sweet, Jeff. Looks just like South Park. You need to swing by next year and scenic Poverty Flats for me.

[Jeff Young]

Thanks, everyone.  I'll have to do some research on Poverty Flats. ;)

For Jim and Don:

[Oldbear52]

Jeff: Your work makes me want to start on a couple of modules to try my hand at scenic work.
I am currently living in a retirement home and space precludes me from any sot of layout. But a couple 5x2 modules could be a start towards building a future layout.
Keep up the excellent work! And watch out for bears.🐻

[Lee Gustafson]

Jeff,

Very nice scenery work. You have set an excellent example. Thanks for sharing it's impressive.

Lee Gustafson

[Chris Walker]

Jeff,
what is your inspiration for Whitepine, any set prototype for there or freelanced? Whitepine was up the top end of Tomichi Creek west of the Monarch Pass area and may have packed ore out to Sargent or maybe Pitkin.

[Jeff Young]

Hi Chris,

Whitepine is the one part of my layout that’s freelanced.  I don’t have room to run big coal trains over Marshall Pass, so I wanted a reason to have a bit of interchange and smaller engines in Sargent.  A poorly maintained line up Tomichi Creek to the Whitepine area mines seemed plausible enough….

(I also did a bunch of research on Romley, but I couldn't square modelling Romley as a branch and still having Alpine Tunnel open.)

Cheers,

Jeff.

[Jeff Young]

Oh, and thanks everyone for the nice comments!

[Chris Walker]

Thanks Jeff,
I've never seen any pictures of the mines up there, other than the Lewiston which seems the typical understated mine structure(s) of the Gunnison country.  I'm interested in whether if you had any specific structures for inclusion there or just some generic mine models?  

Looking at your scenery talents, I await your treatment of this place with eagerness.

Whitepine.
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/90037/rv/singleitem/rec/5
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330coll22/id/12936/rec/1

[Jeff Young]

Hi Chris,

No, I never found any photos of specific mine buildings up that way.  My current plan is to kit-bash a Model Masterpieces 40-stamp mill and a Timberline Red Mountain Mine to add a tramway between them.

Tramway to be based on Leavick:



Cheers,
Jeff.

[Jeff Young]

Note that the original town of White Pine was long gone by my time period (mid-20's), having gone bust in the silver panic.

Many of the mines were consolidated and re-opened in 1902 by the Akron Mining Company, which later sold out to the Callahan Lead-Zinc Company in 1930, and lasted until 1953.

http://cozine.com/2011-may/the-rise-and-fall-of-white-pine-colorado/

[Gerard]

That is some of the best scenery I've seen.  Talk about realistic.

Jerry

[South Park]

  Jeff and others, ....

  How do you keep great scenery like this from becoming fuzz and dust collectors ?

  This was always a problem for me when I did modeling like this.  Today, I think
I would experiment with an air gun, but back them, I did not have such a resource.

[John Greenly]

Jeff,
thanks so much for the information on your methods, all this stuff is new to me.
 I looked it up and am eager to try all these materials out!

John

[Jeff Young]

My town of Jefferson is starting to have a bit more shape:





And, for you readers of NGSLG, this may look a little familiar:



Cheers,
Jeff.