Hi all, on my last layout i painted the backdrop. this time I plan on a combination of painting and photo. How hard is it to get them installed without wrinkle or bubble? Do you need o cut off the sky? How tall do they need to be? Really, I’m looking for some advice from those of you that use them.
My layout is small, 14’ x 10’, and I bought a couple Background Warehouse backdrops for it. They are 12’ x 3½’ Rocky Mountains and sky with clouds, they match from either end when placed together. The pair give me a half wraparound of my layout. I cut one at 2’ and attached it to the other section to make it 14’ leaving 10’ for the side.
As my layout is mounted on casters so that I can move it around our garage I mounted the two backgrounds to ¾” thick foam insulation board. I went with double thick, two ¾” making it 1½” thick, by using Scotch 77 adhesive spray. I taped the seams with 4” wide aluminum heat duck tape. The 1½” thick foam board is very sturdy and very light and easy to handle. I’m in my 80s and I removed both sections and replaced them by myself a couple of weeks ago, they’re really easy to handle.
I made 1” x 3” pine boards to hold it in place attached to the back of my layout. The two sections are easily removed, I used a couple of small pieces of Velcro to keep the two foam boards in place.
The backdrops came in a very sturdy 4” round tube mailer and there were no wrinkles it either backdrop. They are rather thick material and easy to install, they will stand on their ow
Mel, maybe you should invest in some locking casters and some aircraft style tie-downs![8-|]
Mark
I really don’t need locking casters. My layout is over built and I store my shop power tools under it, I don’t have a way to check the weight but I would estimate it at close to 2,000 pounds total. My goal when I designed it was to only take up one stall in the garage for both trains and tools.
I can not move it by myself, it takes at least two and a third really helps to get it moving.[*-)]
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
Thanks Mel, Who makes that backdrop?
Gary
Backdrop Warehouse.
http://backdropwarehouse.com/indexbdwh.htm
The two I bought were Blems and I’ve never found the Blemish on either.
http://backdropwarehouse.com/Blemish.htm
The non Blems are pricy and I’m very happy with my Blems. The only time I can see the seam where I spliced the 2’ piece to the 12’ is when I’m either looking for it or if the lighting casts a very thin shadow.
EDIT:
I was wrong on the size, they are 3’ high not 3½’.
Background Buildings designed on a computer and printed on a color Xerox machine. There is a one inch fom to give the photos a 3D effect at the corners.
A temporary arrangement to see how things would look. I’m afraid it may become permanent if I cannot get up to the trainroom anymore.
These buildings are white, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn looks just like this (sort of).
Here, only the graffitti was copied from Dyckman Street. I will need to place weeds and trees around it to disguise the edges and make it mor the way it used to look before the MTA rebuilt the station.
This one is a photographic backdrop, I cut the edges out of this view. It will need trees to disguise the edges on the layout.
This is a single track on my layou, but the second track and platform is a photographic backdrop. Look closely to see the top and botom of the photo.
At Smith 9th Street in Brooklyn the platform is against the wall, and I took a panoramic series of shots and then pasted them to the wall behind this station. Alas, the 18 stroy Iconic Kentile sign now only lives in photographs.
Layout of LION is a subway layout, so there are no sweeping vistas to be had, but I am sure that you will have good luck with photo backdrops no matter how you do them.
ROAR
I offer this advice about photographic backdrops:
I have seen many nice photographic backdrops on the wrong layout or in the wrong place on the layout, or simply incorrectly oriented/mounted. My one big peeve, or maybe disappointment is better, is when I see a landscape that is angled to the view and gives away the fact that the two are quite separate. You may have seen this yourself, the scenery on the layout goes out toward the wall at a certain vantage, and then there’s that jarring bunch of cornrows or a hedge that just doesn’t work because they look like the land is creased right at the base of the backdrop.
Camera angle matters!!!
You’ve got that right!
This background flat, from Kingmill, isn’t too terrible in this view…
…but an oblique view in the opposite direction just isn’t right at all…
…and viewed from above, the ruse is readily apparent
This view, of the background in Lowbanks, isn’t too bad (if you ignore the out-of-focus foreground)…
…but viewed from above (aerial photo courtesy of Secord Air Services), the effect is lost…
If the same scene is viewed obliquely, and the left end of the structure cropped-out, the scene looks better…
…as does a view taken with the camera on the layout…
This one, just to the right of the view in one of the earlier photos, benefits from the placement of the background trees…
This background structure, in Elfrida, f
Wayne, our forum is fortunate that you take an active interest in it, and that, when you do contribute something, it runs at about 113%. [tup] Thank-you for illustrating my point.
I often mull over what I post later, and if it seems right, I’ll edit. On second thought, it may be camera angle after all, but not just; elevation is more what I was talking about, as you correctly guessed. And, if you take a photo with a wide angle lens that distorts spherically, making buildings on either side of ‘center’ look like they’re leaning toward each other…blechh!
Anyway, be very selective about the scene you choose, and how and where you place it on the layout. A shot taken from well up a 6 story building, or from a town water tower, will look awful when mounted to show an expanse of flat-ish land going off into the distance.
Thanks to everyone for the posts and thanks Wane for those examples. The layout location where I want the photo backdrop is yard against the wall. There will be about 2” for coverup scenery (trees/Bushes/Poles etc.) so it will need to look like it begins on the same plane as the layout. Area adjacent to red line.
I’ve found ports, industrial and city scapes but scenery on the left and right will be Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains so I guess some kind of mining or other mountain industry. Any suggestions?
Gary
Here is a link to some backgrounds that might fit.
http://backdropwarehouse.com/TnEastAgricGrp.htm
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
As Wayne points out, pics of buildings are less effective than pics of scenery, IMO. Oftentimes the angle of the photograph does not line up with the angle of your eye as you walk around the layout. And pics of buildings are almost never shot at a downward angle, exposing the roof, so a pic of building as a backdrop really needs to be viewed at track level, again IMO.
Picture backdrops work best when the ends are concealed by trees or structures, as Wayne’s pics show.