Website: http://railserve.com/lmra
LMRA mailing list - messages, photos, links, files, calendar - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LMRA
Meetings at the Highland Baptist Activity Center, Quaker Ave. and 34th St. - the first Monday of each month at 7:30pm.
June 2 - Randel Bittick and Jack Seay - scenery
July 7 - ice cream party at Allen Hagens house.
Current and Coming events:
Home layout tour - undecided.
Playday - Oct. 18
Cowboy Symposium - Sept. 4-7

HO layout for sale. Rolling stock, equipment and track all DCC ready.
Can be converted back to DC with  the plugs that I still have. Control system not for sale. Phone 799-1426. Homer Morrow.
  From the Desk of the club president. I would like to say a very Big Thank You to the following members: Jessica Warner, Andrew Burton, Ron Warner, Joe Price, Jan Kutch, Ron & Anne Pedersen, Keith Harvey, Homer Morrow, Andy Anderson, Allen Hagens, Dave Lamberts, Jack Seay, Curly Bunting, Bill Lynch, Rip Maples, Dave Hunt, and Sheldon Klock for the hard work at the May playday. If I left any one off the list please tell me at the June club meeting. Thank you one and all. Please let's all be ready for the October 2008 Club Playday. I did talk to Al fox today and he said that he was feeling better. I am waiting on a phone call from Don Payne's son or his wife. As soon as I hear from his family, I will let the club members know. Please all club members keep our fellow members in our prayers and thoughts please. Thank you very much. Randel L. Bittick

Refurbishing scenery

I have refurbished two HO corner modules in the past month that belong to the club. One I did yesterday, so I will describe the process.
Here are the materials I used: white glue, water, Woodland Scenics ground foam (you should get as many colors and textures as you can, you can drill holes in lids of plastic peanut butter jars to make shakers), extra-fine caliche, (I found a pile outside a baseball diamond and got a can, then graded into 4 sizes with collanders and tea strainers), a hairspray bottle filled with water, paper cups, a serrated knife, several paint brushes, sculptamold, and an eye dropper. You may need other things depending on the scenery.
Curly had already glued the foam base of the scenery to some plywood to stabilize it, leaving a 3/4 inch cliff next to the track. I trimmed the foam at an angle using the serrated knife. Be careful not to wipe the foam particles off the serrated edge like I did the first time I used this knife. I bled profusely. Some of the masonite fascia was loose, so I squirted some white glue in the gaps to stablize it. Cut the top off a paper or foam cup (a tuna can also works) so you can reach to the bottom with your fingers. Pour in a little water and add sculptamold until you can pick up a blob without it dripping. After using sculptamold (a mix of plaster and paper mache), wash your hands outside or in a bucket of water you can dump outside. Daub the mixture into cracks, holes, and gaps in the scenery. Since it contains plaster, it hardens in about an hour, but isn’t completely dry because of the paper, but can be scenicked wet using water based methods. Sculptamold is one of my favorite materials to work with. It has a texture that is slightly lumpy, can fill large gaps, and is great for getting just the right shape after cutting foam has left some unnatural angles to the scenery. Glue and paint stick to it well. While waiting for it to harden, I worked on the ballast. I mixed white glue and water, then used an eye dropper and paint brushes to get a small section of the old ballast wet, then sprinkled on some ballast. We put some newspaper on the floor and tipped up the module whenever I needed to remove loose ballast. Never touch ballast or ground foam when it is wet and loose or you will destroy it’s texture or shape. Always follow this important rule. There’s no faster way to destroy your work than breaking it. Since I didn’t have the right color paint handy, I colored the sculptamold with the extra-fine caliche. I spread on glue and water mix using the dropper and brush, then sprinkled and blew on the caliche. It also left a more natural looking surface on the steep slopes (not covered with foam) than paint would have done.
To cover the repaired cracks, I sprayed the area with water, dropped some glue and water mix on, then sprinkled on several colors of ground foam. It’s very helpful to keep lots of colors of foam handy, so you can match the previous ones used. I almost always use 3 or 4 colors on anything so it’s not a uniform and bland sameness. The one color I always use is Burnt Grass Turf (T44). It is used to blend all the other colors together, avoiding too sharp transitions. Step back and look at your work often to see areas that don’t look real. We tipped the module up several more times to remove loose foam and caliche. If working on a fixed layout, use a vacuum.
It took about 8 hours to rescenick the corner module, but it’s easy, relaxing “work”. - Jack Seay