I enjoyed the article in the new issue of MR by Hal Miller who is an editor for Kalmbach on “Pounding Out Lava Rock”. I especially related since I too model Oklahoma and the red dirt was a problem at first.
He is “stuck” in Wisconsin, I am “stuck” in Kansas City but we share the same pain, trying to model the red earth of Oklahoma. I don’t know what region in Oklahoma Hal is modeling, I do Oklahoma City north to Guthrie, then the Enid District to Waynoka via Kiowa and red dirt isn’t easy, or wasn’t until I took a trip down home to Enid a few years ago. We were driving out in the country and I spotted a field on an oil lease road that had great Oklahoma sandy dirt, right color and all. My long suffering wife, who is a Kansas City native saw it first. “Look Bobbie Lee, red dirt.” That was her undoing. I pulled up onto the oil lease road, had her grab a plastic bucket I carried, and sent her out to gather as much as possible while I sat in the van. She got a large amount, the right color, and we left quickly. When we returned to KC I baked the dirt, sifted the dirt and I had true Oklahoma dirt. It sets well on the roadbed, accepts the adhesive, and really finishes the layout. Since then, everytime we go back to my home town, we get some more, just to make sure I have enough.
However, that ended when a member of the church I was pastoring, who is from Douglas Ok originally, started telling Joyce about tarantualas and scorpions, etc. now I have to get the dirt. Oh well.
Ah the perils of our hobby. If we are not inhaling noxious fumes, we are on the side of the road, gathering, weeds, dirt, and rocks. I admire your belief in the real thing, however with my modeling KCS in SW Louisiana and living in California I have not yet found a local source for the red, white and grey clays of the region, but I do gather river sands for texture of fields
I noted that you baked your dirt before putting it on your layout. Sounds like a good idea to me, but at what temperature did you bake it and are there any things to be careful about? Thanks for any help you can give.
That’s like the time I was in the UP of Michigan which has enough lichen to build a railroad across the entire country. My wife did not think it was a pleasent afternoons outing to pick lichen like cotton and stuff it in a garbage bag to take home. Neither did the state trooper who was called by some local telling him about the whacko along the side of the road.
Hello Pastor Lloyd. My wife actually did the honors of baking it, she is a good wife, but I am thinking 200-250. Main concern is to get any little critters or eggs out of it.
As I live in Lake County, Ca. We have volcanic rock in red, gray, white, and black. Also sandstone soils in many shades. Using a coffee bean grinder to pulverize them after breaking them down works very well.
I went out a few days ago to pick some goldenrod for some trees that i thought might work out----had a friendly neighbourhood police officer check me out----after said activity he said some lady called the police about some druggie out picking his crop[:-^]-----sigh[sigh]
A year or so ago I was sent to take Local Control on a level crossing (grade crossing) late in the evening. No-one had kept the weeds and baby trees cut back. Thinking no more about it I fetched a machete from my van and set about hacking my way through to the control box and phone…
It’s surprising how many nice policemen can show up in a short time [:P]
As an aside… I’ve done a lot of driving over much of the US, and have been amazed at the variety of color in soil and rock formations. The blacks, browns, greys, reds, yellows, and others can be so striking at times, almost looking “fake”. And when the sun hits some of the rock formations, all kinds of colors and shades can erupt. You know, its pretty hard to come up with soil/rock colorations on our layouts that “don’t exist” in the real world - somewhere.
I might add that on my last layout (of 14 years), I had a lot of rockwork. And, even though I knew better, I painted them way to dark - mostly browns/blacks/greys. While the formations themselves looked good, the coloration gave it a dreary effect - kind of like being in a very clouded area during a rainstorm.
East Texas piney woods has red dirt too. I got my bagful on Nov.28, 1983 in Sam Houston National Forest, from a private home where a dumptruck operator parked and cleaned out his truck. I asked if I could buy a bag worth and he said “take it.”
It’s the dirt in foreground around the implement unloading platform.
Not exactly a dirty story, but… I went to a beach near my home to find some of the tiny tiny little real seashells to display at an N scale seashell shop. Got them from the beach overlooking which I proposed to my wonderful wife.
So you sent your wife to collect dirt for you while you sat in the car? Your wife is a lot more accomodating than mine. I couldn’t repeat the words she would have said to me on here if I asked her to do that.
My wife is a princess among women. She has made curtains for around the layout, she has painted backdrop scenery, she has made a very large number of trees, she actually vaccums the layout room, helps with clean up and many other things. She is also six years younger than me and more agile.
I too baked dirt a bout a month ago. I dug up a couple shovel loads from the garden and spread it out on newspapers on the garage floor. I then broke up the chunks by hand and picked out the inevitable pebbles and bits of roots and one very disturbed earthworm. I then spread the broken up dirt onto old cookie trays and cranked up the oven to 500 degrees! I then popped the trays of dirt into the oven for an hour and sat back to enjoy the earthy aromas wafting about the kitchen. After the hour was up, I let the trays of dirt cool while I went out to mow the lawn. When I got back in I transferred the baked dirt into a heavy duty plastic bag and rolled over it several times with a heavy rolling pin. Next was to pour the dirt into a hand crank flour sifter and sift away. The result was extremely dry, fine powder dirt. Excellent HO scale earth!
