Round 'em up and brand 'em!

I dreaded this portion of the module because I needed to take a laser-cut wood model and kit-bash it, something I've never done.  The kit, the Quality Meat Stock Yard, is from N Scale Architect.  It was designed as a receiving pen for a slaughter house/meat processing center and not as a shipping point for cattle.  That's actually a major distinction, apparently, at least as far as the design is concerned. The classic cattle pen that I wanted need its chutes to be arranged differently so that once a cow is in the chute its got nowhere else to go but up and into the stock car.

Below is a photo that another modeler, Dwayne Ward, displayed on The Whistle Stop forum site. He constructed the kit as designed and reading his posts it seems he wasn't overjoyed with the final product. It looks great to me, though; he did a very good job.  You can see there are four ramps in the foreground.  In practice, the cattle would debark from the cars, down the ramps, and enter into four sorting pens.  From there the cattle are funneled into two chutes where they are then sorted into one of three larger pens.

You can see a couple of things in the above picture.  First, there are two large structures that I didn't want. These are storage barns.  I'll break up one of them later to use a portion of it in a different part of the module as a smaller hay barn, but for my purposes they're out of place attached to the stock yard.  The thing is, each structure serves as a wall at opposite ends of the pen.  Take them away, and the pens are open.  I needed to find enough fence within the kit to close off each of the open ends or find another fence source. Well, fences are hard to come by in N Scale and I wasn't going to buy a second kit at $45.  I tried building a four-rail fence using scale lumber, but failed miserably. Second, there are only two chutes, but four ramps.  Like I said, that might work for a receiving pen, but not for the classic stock yard that I wanted.

So I broke out the N Scale ruler and began measuring pieces.  The big problem I ran up against is that this model is "tab-and-slot" construction.  There is generally only one way to put it together (and have it work out well).  I decided to build my version using only two chutes.  That way I could keep the center portion of the stock yard intact and then take the remaining pieces and use them to construct the missing fence.  Here's the front view.

You can see that there is an entrance to the cattle yard on the far right side; a portion of fence funnels down to an open gate in the right hand pen.  Because the chute fences were designed with laser-cut gates to allow for movement between the pens, I didn't cut them out of the fence.  I didn't cut them apart, either, foregoing illustrating how they swing open.  With other cuts in the structure yet to come, I felt the yard needed the support of an unaltered fence.  After all, this model is made up of very thin micro-plywood, probably no thicker than my thumb nail; apply too much pressure and it all snaps.

In this shot above you can see where I made some other cuts.  I cut one of the chute fences on each side of the center pen at the last segment of fence then bent the cut piece toward the middle.  I took two of the unused gates to finish off the chute, although I did leave one of the gates open and will have cows entering the chute and at every stage along the way.  You can see the L and reverse L shape of the two chutes.  This is the way stock yards tend to work so that cattle are funneled into one of the chutes and pushed through to the ramp and the waiting dispatch car.  In fact, researching such things (as I've never been around cows in my life), I found that some modern stock yards actually use circular chutes.  I think that may cut down on the amount of real estate used; or it could help to keep the cows focused on only what is in front of them. It's a dangerous thing, moving cattle.  They spook very easily.  If they get nervous when in the chute they could panic and tear down the whole structure.

The chutes do have stations; that is, gates within the chute.  Cattle would be moved from station to station, with the gates opening and closing to manage the flow and loading of the animals, to segregate the cows in case something happens, and to complete several tasks.  One of these tasks would be weighing the animal. Another could be double-checking brands or ear-tags.  Today, the cows probably have bar codes.  But my stock yard is being used in the late '50s, so I don't have to worry about all of that newfangled nonsense.

This view from the back will show several things. The first is that I built a third ramp and set it aside. This is an extra one, not fully functional.  Looking at it close up, and from another angle, you'd see that the door is open and off its hinges. I wanted to model a ramp in disrepair. The next thing I did was to add gate supports. These are the tall fence posts with cross beams that rise above the chutes; they were fairly standard in the older cattle pens.  The ranch hands would use the supports to hold onto or throw a rope over to hold a cow in place.  The kit was too flat without them.  Luckily I had enough pieces left over to build them.

Another thing to look at are the posts.  The kit comes with posts lasered into the wood, but these are flat. There are also about 80 lasered bits of wood post halves in the kit that have self adhesive backing. These are very small and the adhesive does not grip very well.  You can see that I have put quite a lot of post halves on both the inside and the outside of the pens, though some of these posts are leaning a bit, or very crooked. I'm going to have to go through the structure and drop a little CA here and there after I do a bit of straightening up. These added posts give the model much needed texture.

Finally, I'm planning to put in kick rails along the chute fences and on both sides of the chutes. These rails would be used by the ranch hands to stand on and reach over the fence and into the chute to slap the rear end of a cow to get them moving..

The instructions (and other builders) suggest painting the pieces with acrylics using dry brushing and other methods.  I could see that there was some grain in the wood and I didn't want to cover that up. Also, I didn't want the fence to look like it had a layer of paint on it. I'm sure other folks are better at painting than I am, but I really wanted to preserve the grain and the scale of the piece.  So I used a staining pen.  The staining looks a lot more even in the photos than it does in person.  But some of that unevenness will be dealt with using chalks to create dust.

One thing I've alluded to earlier are the open gates on the ramps.  The kit comes with the front of them ramp lasered in one piece; the gates can be seen, but they won't open.  To get them to open you need to cut very carefully down both outer sides of the gate inside the frame.  You're left with a loose gate and a very, very delicate frame. Doing this, though, allows for a more realistic situation where a cow is on the ramp and stepping into the dispatch car. One of my ramp gates is open.

Another problem with the kit is that it does not provide for track being used, either on roadbed or flat on the ground.  You can see on this photo above of Dwayne Ward's version of the model that the foreground ramp has its front end elevated, hovering without support above the ground.  I suspect he needed to do this to get the ramp close to the level of the floor of the dispatch car.  Having seen that (and testing with my own model against non-road-bedded track) I realized that the model in fact does not take into account using track.  I used a scrap piece of wood from the model kit and glued it to the base of my ramps.  It won't be enough height, though, so I'll have to put the entire model on a base to give it more height against the rail.

Ultimately, I'm pleased with the finished product (or what will be the finished product). I've got a classic-looking stock yard that works. With strategically-placed cows and cowhands it should look like a working ranch.  Unfortunately, neither Woodland Scenics nor Preiser make horse-riding-cowboys in N Scale.  I'll have to improvise with some of the other horse-riding figures and workers and lots of bales of hay.

The Grass IS Greener!

After I finally got back to the layout, I decided I'd keep the hills for a little while at least, even though I wasn't happy with them.  Every video I saw showed people making nice smooth hills and having no problems getting their Hydrocal-soaked paper towels to lie flat and fairly smooth.  That's not what happened to me.  They looked too craggy and paper folds had created odd shapes, and my attempts to smooth the plaster had only left me with whipped cream-like points that hardened far too quickly.

But instead of tearing them out I made a wash out of Woodland Scenics stone gray coloring and brushed the hills with it.  Immediately, the hills took on a new look and a new life.  They weren't perfect: some areas were lighter than others; some got too dark.  But overall it left me with something to work with.

I started by using earth tone chalks, applying to certain areas that I thought would color nicely. Using a short, stiff brush, I worked in several colors in a number of areas before I realized I could spend a week on just chalking the module, and then when I added ground cover the chalked areas would get covered up..

You may notice something in the photos in this posting.  It being the middle of summer with temperatures in the high 80s, low 90s, I switched out my extremely warm halogen lights with two huge curlicue CFL bulbs.  They throw a yellowish light, but they do have a large 4200 lumens each (when compared to other CFL bulbs).  And they throw off very little heat.  Much easier to work in the garage during the summer with those bulbs.  I'll save the halogen for the winter.

So I switched to ground foam.  I used the standard method of spraying Scenic Cement and sprinkling green ground foam onto the hills.  I used a couple of colors, then added bushes a couple of places.  You can see a fair amount of detail in this shot.

In this image (above) you can see the multiple colors of grass.  One section of the hills (the right side) was too steep to take any grass.  This I colored with a couple of chalks.  You also can see the cardboard cutout of the base of a gravel road I'll be adding a little later.  It is crossed by a track (placed only for visualization) that will hold stock cars.

This next photo shows two tunnels: a two-track concrete and stone and a concrete two-lane automobile tunnel.  I used old concrete acrylic for the top portion of the train tunnel and several layers of various colored chalks for the stone portion.  I used concrete acrylic for the auto tunnel.  You can see some areas that need fixing.  There is also a concrete road along the right edge of the photo that crosses the entire width of the module.

This shot shows the other side of the module.  You can see a lot of detail here: the grass, bushes on top of the portal, chalked portions of the hill.  Much more to do, but it's a real good start.

But before I can go any further I have to build a stock yard, which will be on the other side of the switch that you see in the foreground.  It's a complex laser-cut kit that I have to kitbash to get it to look like the stock yard I envision.  So it's going to take some time before my next posting.