Imperfection makes practice

Tree #15, from batch #2

I’ve been thinking about Galen’s posts on the importance of practice (Practice and More Practice), but it wasn’t until I read the following paragraph in Robertson Davies’ 1951 book, Tempest-Tost, the first novel in his Salterton Trilogy, concerning math teacher Hector Mackilwraith’s methods of instructing his students that I felt I could begin to clarify my own formative experiences regarding practice:

It was in dealing with stupid pupils his wit was shown. A dunce, who had done nothing right, would not receive a mark of Zero from him, for Hector would geld the unhappy wretch of marks not only for arriving at a wrong solution, but for arriving at it by a wrong method. It was thus possible to announce to the class that the dunce had been awarded minus thirty-seven out of a possible hundred marks; such announcements could not be made more than two or three times a year, but they always brought a good laugh. And that laugh, it must be said, was not vaingloriously desired by Hector as a tribute to himself, but only in order that it might spur the dunce on to greater mathematical effort. That it never did so was one of the puzzles which life brought to Hector, for he was convinced of the effectiveness of ridicule in making stupid boys and girls intelligent.

Way back in grade school I was one of those mathematical dunces. 

And, it's true, ridicule doesn't make people better, practice does.

For some reason I never could figure out how to do long division. And it was made quite clear that I was a stupid pupil. I recall one pedagogical method was for the teacher to write ten or so division problems on the blackboard and then summon pupils to go up to the board to solve them while the rest of the class looked on. More times than not I was either the last to finish, usually with a wrong answer, or asked to return to my seat before finishing, much to my embarrassment. Things came to a head when I had to take home a test for my parents to sign that I scored 2 or 3 out of 10 on. When my father saw the test paper he blew his stack. There was much yelling, screaming, and shouting, not to mention a brief contribution of crying from me. He signed once he’d calmed down, and told me to bring my exercise book home the next night.

Batch #1 of trees are a bit too fluffy

The next evening, with my arithmetic exercise book of shame front and centre, my father went though it and tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. He even tried a few problems for himself, and much to his consternation, he couldn’t figure out what was going on with these problems either. It turns out at that time in the mid-1960’s the school system seemed enamoured with so-called New Math, and was using its techniques to teach grade school pupils how to divide numbers. Long story short, for either of us to make any headway, my father taught me how to do division using the method he was taught as a schoolboy in the 1930’s. After many nights of doing problems in the evenings at home under my father’s supervision, I finally got the hang of it.

Gluing sand 'bark' to a tree armature

Soon enough, there was another test of division skills. I did a lot better and scored 8 out of 10, but I had to take that test home too for my parents to sign. My father thought I should have got 10 out of 10, and as it turned out I did get 10 correct answers, But, like Hector, my teacher deducted points for using the wrong method. There was some more yelling, but thankfully it was now directed at my teacher and the school.

I only recount this as it’s the first serious experience I can remember where practice made a big difference on something I was doing. There was one-on-one tutelage from my father of course, but it took the form of me doing one division problem after another, with him pointing out any errors along the way until the whole procedure became second nature. I’d like to say I transformed into some sort of mathematical wizard after that, but I didn’t. I was still one of Hector’s plods, but I at least knew how to compensate using practice. Years later in high school, and then university, practice for me went beyond just rote learning procedures. It became a tool I used to see the patterns in whatever math I was studying, which allowed me to better understand what was going on, and this I considered something of a personal break though. I never became what I’d call a true mathematical thinker, but at least I could get the odd glimpse into the world of real mathematical thought. This has lead to a lifelong belief that one can learn just about anything if one’s willing to commit to some sort of practicing, although with the realization that one may never have the skill of someone who is a natural talent. 

Painted tree trunk

But, to withstand the rigours and possible boredom of practice, one needs motivation. Grade school me was motivated to master division because I wanted an end to the punishment and humiliation of the Hectors. I didn’t really care about being able to divide one number into another. When I practice making HO scale Eastern White Cedar trees for my layout my motivation is a desire to make a model tree that reminds me of a real tree I’ve seen.

I’ve looked up tree making instructions in books, magazines, blogs, and videos, and eventually used a hybrid approach given my constraint that I can’t use spray can paints, airbrushes, hair spray, spray can glues, or any other sort of aerosolized paint or glue. The only concession has been the use of Mod Podge matte spray, which is some sort of watery matte medium delivered by a pump action spray bottle. For that product the sprayed particles are water droplets, much larger in size than their aerosolized brethren, so they don’t remain in the air very long because they’re big and heavy, and don’t go far from the spray nozzle for the same reason. 

With that constraint I’ve beavered away on making trees - 19 so far - which I’ll discuss in detail in a future post. Here I’ll just mention a few points concerning this practice activity:

Branch substructure: stained & teased Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber

1. I was initially quite happy with my first batch of 10 trees. But as the days went on, and after viewing them over and over from different angles, I realized that many didn’t have site specific characteristics that would have grown into them had they really lived in the layout’s modelled terrain, and the leaves and branches weren’t airy enough - they seemed a little too dense and puffy.

2. I painted the trunks and branches a stereotypical dark brown mixed from a flat brown and black acrylic paint. I should have studied my reference photos more and realized the trunks were multiple variations of grey. My model tree trunks look ok, but I know they and their branches need a different colour. So, the message is, consult your reference material frequently, and try not to slip back into stereotypes and preconceptions.

Adding poly fiber to branches - too fluffy!

3. It wasn’t until the 15th tree that I obtained an airiness to the leaf and branch structure that I liked. This was accomplished by applying the teased Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber that I’m using for the secondary branches in far thinner layers than I initially thought reasonable, and applying much less static grass than I had been doing. It took 14 trees to realize what to do. With the first 14 I was mesmerized by the look of the trees, and it took me awhile to shake that off and look at them critically. Back in grade school division days, my father provided the critical feedback while I was practicing, but in modelling, I’m a lone wolf, so I have to provide my own feedback while I work. I find that the only way I can provide my own effective feedback is to step away from a project for a few days or weeks and then come back to it with fresh eyes. I’d say for practice to be effective, it’s key to get feedback when you’re doing the work, not months later when every tree is glued in place and the layout is ‘done’. 

4. The first batch was made by applying the same construction step to all trees at once so that at any given time they were all at the same stage of construction - it was like an assembly line. In the second round I only applied that approach up until all the armatures were covered with ‘bark’ and painted. From then on I would pick 1 or 2, take them to completion, and then install them on the layout. This allowed me to focus on making specific trees for specific locations, instead of pursuing a bulk, one-size-fits-all, assembly line approach. It also gave me breathing space between foliage assembly steps so I could consolidate my learnings into the next couple of trees coming up for finishing instead of applying the same mistakes to all trees.

Tree #18, from batch #2

My trees aren’t yet perfect. They’re maybe half way there. The imperfection of what I’m producing drives the need for more practice. Practice may make perfect, but imperfection makes practice.

$1 Die Craft

For the first time since 2019 I attended a swap meet, and like swap meets of yore, there was a smattering of E. L. Moore lineage stuff for those in the know. Ok, well, that means me :-)

I saw this assembled Life Like Die Craft Manufacturing Company, a variation on the Schaefer Brewery kit, for sale for $1CDN (80¢ US).  Even though it's missing a few parts, I couldn't argue with the price and bought it.

On the base's bottom is stamped: Life Like, Made in Western Germany. I suspect it was manufactured by Pola.

After looking the rest of it over it is indeed made from the old Schaefer Brewery molds. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I think it'll eventually find a place on the new layout.

Live sawdust location

Live sawdust location: A small area on a layout where structures and details are not glued down so they can be changed out for others to allow different scenes to be created.

Usage: Linda's layout included three live sawdust locations near the front edge.

Source: The term first appeared in the third instalment of Dave Frary and Bob Hayden's Thatcher's Inlet series that appeared in the Feb to May 1972 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman. They define a live sawdust location as:

These areas - usually about the size of a structure and in no case bigger than 3-1/4" x 4" - are set aside so that the structures and detail on them can occasionally be changed so as to provide a fresh look to the town.

They go on to note that these areas are usually flat and level, and are painted brown.

Why use the term "sawdust"? Likely because in the early 1970's dyed sawdust was often used as ground scatter material to give the illusion of grass, weeds, or soil. So, keeping it unbonded, that is, loose or live, made it easier to change the scene when the mood struck.

The live sawdust location is something of a variation on the changeable railroad idea described by Robert E. Gilbert in his June 1962 Model Railroader article called, A changeable railroad.

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 2nd ed., 1999.

Rendered Small

Back in early 2019 I posted a link to this film's trailer. Luckily I stumbled across the full film at PBS North Carolina. An amazing collection. These are the roots of model railroad structure building, and E. L. Moore was an artist who bridges the old folk art world and the newer world of model railroads.

The Essential Plastic Modelling Tools of 1968: Brush painting vs airbrushing in How To Go Plastic Modelling

A few months back I bought a copy of Chris Ellis’ book, How To Go Plastic Modelling, published in London in 1968 by Patrick Stephens Limited. What got me to dive back into it over the last few days was that old bugbear of mine: airbrushes. Spraying inside the house is a nonstarter, so spray painting is limited to a few good weather months when it can be done outside. It seems like an expensive tool whose use to me is limited, but it also seems to be a table stakes item if you want to be a serious model maker. I saw a notice for a video over at Boomer Dioramas called, Why Should Every Modeler Learn to Use The Airbrush? , and happened to be reading the brush painting posts over at The Brushpainter, so I thought I jump into a few old books to see if they had anything to say on the need for an airbrush back in days gone by. I started with Ellis’ classic.

Most books of this sort begin with a list of tools you’ll need. Here’s his list of ‘Essential Tools’:

Craft knife

Spare blades

Assorted pin drills

Razor saw

Plastic-handled screwdriver

Half-round file

Emery boards

Assorted glasspaper

Tweezers

Steel ruler

Pin chuck

Ellis also has a list of ‘Luxury Tools’:

A small vice

Carpenter’s D-clamp

Minidrill

Weller soldering gun

Weller soldering iron

Pliers

He notes too that many common household tools can come in handy for model work.

Interestingly, there are no painting tools in either list. Both are focused on construction. It isn’t until the Painting and Finishing chapter that he lists a few, and those are brushes because the chapter assumes brush painting is what’s going to be done. Ellis recommends going to an art supply store and buying the following brushes from a known maker of quality artist brushes like Reeves, Rowney, or Windsor & Newton:

#00 and #1 rounds 

#2 chisel-edge

The chapter concludes with some musings on using spray cans and airbrushes. Regarding brush painting versus spray painting from cans:

Thus far I’ve barely mentioned spray painting. But go to any hobby shop and you’ll see tempting counters loaded with the stuff in aerosol cans. Frankly, I would say that the average modeller scarcely ever needs to use it. For a 1:72 scale aircraft the quantity of paint you need is small, the areas to be painted are precisely defined, and there’s lots of detail painting to be done anyway.

Which seems to suggest that small scale models, without broad, flat areas, are just fine for brush painting. These days, for example, if you take a look at a few videos over at Quick Kits, you’ll see that’s just what some people still do.

It isn’t until the chapter's last paragraph that Ellis talks about airbrushing:

Air-brushes are, frankly, so esoteric that I would be surprised if one reader in a thousand has ever used one, or maybe even heard of one. These are very fine spray guns looking rather like a fountain pen and used in intricate painting processes such as photograph retouching. You need such accessories as a compressor and much else besides and if you got an air-brush outfit complete for as like as £15 you’d have a bargain. An air-brush expert would hardly have bothered to read this chapter at all, and unless you are very rich or work with air-brushes as a matter of course, I would say that its use for painting models is largely academic. There are several well-known modellers who use air-brushes, and they generally carry off lots of the prizes at model competitions as well. There is certainly no more realistic way of reproducing a spray-on finish than an airbrush, and I envy those who are wealthy enough and skilled enough to use them. But for the average plastic modeller, air-brushes are something to think of if you ever come into a fortune or become a professional modeller. Meanwhile, like everyone else, I get no nearer to an air-brush than drooling over some of the beautiful air-brush finishes I see at IPMS model exhibitions and competitions!

I was hoping he’d say something like airbrushing was just plain no good given my desire for confirmation bias :-) But no, the paragraph is something of a wistful sigh that the majority of us will need to get by with brushes as best we can until we either win the lottery or professional circumstances provide us with an airbrush. That’s not the situation today. They are far from esoteric, but it still is true you’ll need one to be competition ready. In 1968 the writing was on the wall for brush painted models.

Working on scene composition

As I work on the second round of trees, I decided not to make all nine in one big batch, but to make five, install them, then make the next four. I wanted to play with scene composition, thinking that in the process I might get other ideas about how the remaining trees should be shaped. It turns out this isn't a bad approach, and I have some different ideas about how to make the remaining trees.

That float plane is a laser cut kit of a DeHavilland of Canada, DHC-2, Beaver, from Osborn Models. I've just about finished painting it. The colour scheme is based on the one used by the old Ontario Department of Lands and Forests, and it's somewhat more complex than I bargained for.

Now you see it, now you don't

The 'other side' of the layout, the side behind Edward Street's buildings, needs a lot of design work. To get started I added a removable strip of 0.020" styrene to the building pad to cover the track where the future streetcar barn will go. This was done to allow me to add buildings without the scene looking too odd and having to explain why track is running through foundations. I need to work in the sidewalk and pad colours in that area to make the strip blend in more, but it's a start.

King Cars

Posting that video yesterday got me thinking about some short videos of the TTC's King Street streetcars I shot earlier in the month. Here's one. These day's I'm appreciating much more these seemingly banal scenes of normalcy.

South to Toronto

Over at Orange Crate Art Michael has posted a passage from Robertson Davies' 1958 book, A Mixture of Frailties (the third instalment in The Salterton Trilogy) that describes a train trip from Montreal to the fictional Ontario town of Salterton (which is likely Kingston, Ontario, or somewhere thereabouts). The part about "the snowy landscape" got me thinking about a VIA Rail trip we took from Ottawa to Toronto in January 2019, well before the pandemic kicked in. I shot a little out-the-window video on that trip. So, here's 1 minute of a trip that usually takes about 4.5 hours.

A look down the street

In between E. L. Moore research I've been painting on the layout. The focus has been on sidewalks, roads, and the city building pad. Once in an acceptable state, I test placed some buildings along Edward St. (nee Young St.). I put a lot of store in feelings I get from scenes, and was happy that this stretch of road gave me a feeling that it seemed like it could be a downtown Toronto street of old. One that is sort of mixed up of course, and has a fantasy element baked in, but I'm thinking that with additional thought and detailing I'll be able to capture the feeling I'm after.

Recently Updated: Rube's Rhubarb Plant

I noticed that I had forgotten to post a picture of the only surviving rhubarb 'log' that goes with Rube's Rhubarb Plant. Problem solved, and you can find the photo at the end of the post.

A few more tree armatures

I'm working on a second round of Eastern White Cedars and have bent up a few armatures. Some of them are being made for specific locations where the particular features of the landscape would significantly shape their growth. I think I've got the hang of the procedure to follow to efficiently create these armatures, and hopefully now know enough to write a post on how. Stay tuned!

Going out with a bang: More E. L. Moore Outhouses

All images courtesy James L. Dixon

This being the last post documenting the collection of E. L. Moore models owned by his grandson, I thought we'd go out with some outhouses. I say some, as there's more than what I've shown in this post. The rather suggestive ones I've withheld as I don't want trouble with Google's net nannies. I'll put photos of the complete collection in the book.

ELM considered himself something of a Specialist in HO-scale outhouses, and we've seen some examples of his work before (here and here).

In the above image, the 3rd outhouse from the left is actually the outhouse for Mr. Pottle's Potworks that appeared in the September 1975 issue of Model Railroader. 

ELM described how he built his outhouses in an article called A Mighty Relaxin' Job that appeared in the November 1975 issue of the NMRA Bulletin. As you might imagine, the article was something of a hot potato. It was first offered to Railroad Modeler in August 1972, but much to ELM's chagrin, they rejected it, for obvious reasons. RMC and MR wouldn't touch it.

Well, that's that. Again, I thank ELM's grandson for allowing me to post pictures of his collection, and give us a more complete understanding of his grandfather's work.

A new E. L. Moore cabin

All photos courtesy James L. Dixon

The date on the bottom of this cabin says 1978, which if it's to be believed, means ELM decided to pick up where he left off in the early 1960s and build another cabin. It looks like this particular one was unpublished, and is a new find.

We've seen some cabins before. There were these two, where the larger one appeared as a background building in the lead photo to the unpublished article, The little church on the hill, and the smaller one looks like it was based on a photo from the book, Cabins in the Laurel. There was also this cabin, whose construction was described in ELM's December 1963 Railroad Model Craftsman article, Easy To Build Cabin or Cottage. 

Love that bear skin. 

An aside. In the '60s my grandmother had a bear skin, much like that in ELM's model, hanging on an inside wall of her garage. My uncle had shot the bear during his time on the Pinetree Line. It was making frequent raids on their camp looking for food.

I think all the cabins ELM made relate back either to his time in the Great Smoky Mountains or to his childhood days in rural Michigan. I can't yet prove this conjecture, so it's so far just another of my speculations. 

As per his usual technique, ELM didn't build the walls from individual logs, but carved log shapes into sheets of balsa.

It looks like the fireplace's stonework is texture paper, and not cut in with a wood burning tool as per his usual method. But, it looks good.

Like many ELM projects, the roof comes off to show a detailed interior.

The living area almost looks like a reading room. This seems like a theme across a few ELM builds. That other large cabin includes a bookcase full of books, and then there's the Bookery.

As you can see, the attic level also lifts out. In his other large cabin, the attic level was the sleeping area.

Overall, this is a very nice project, and given that he returned to this theme later in life, it might have a personal significance for him that I haven't grasped.

A second Elizabethton Depot

All photos courtesy James L. Dixon

This is the second Elizabethton Depot we've seen. Like the first, this model is also dated 1967 on the bottom, even though the original upon which the design of these two 1967 versions are based was published in the December 1964 issue of Model Railroader in the article Down by the Depot. Both of these '67 versions have more refined construction than the '64. You can see a photo of the original in this image of downtown Elizabethton on the Elizabeth Valley Railroad.

Unlike the first version, this one is mounted on a base that could serve as a platform on a railroad.

It looks like ELM has modelled one front window as being propped up by a ruler.

The outhouse is not in good repair. You can see its roof is missing.

And from this overhead view you can see a sidewall is also missing as well as one of the front privacy walls. Here's what the outhouse looks like on the first version.

I can see the scale on the left side of the shed.

Yeap, there it is. My guess is that it's a commercial item, but it might be scratchbuilt.

The decorative trim along the ridge line is a little damaged, but there's enough left that a replacement could be made that would exactly match the original.

Like many other ELM models, the roof is removable and exposes a fully detailed interior. The roof design is the same as used on the first version.

It has an excellent interior just like the first version.

I like how the desk in the centre room even has books on it.

The red chairs look comfortable. 

Also, in this view it's clear that ELM once again carefully set the window glass in the frames, as Paul pointed out in the five window schoolhouse post. That's some nice attention to detail on ELM's part.

I wonder if ELM built both versions at the same time, or one after the other? If I knew at the outset that I wanted two models, I'd do them at the same time. It's a trivial question of course, but another that'll never be answered.

One of E. L. Moore's cameras

Image courtesy James L. Dixon

I'll admit that this post is getting into the realm of fannish memorabilia, and away from strict documentation of his work, but ELM was a photographer, so there's some sense in looking at the cameras he owned, whether they were for professional or personal use.

This is one: a 35mm Agfa Solina, manufactured between 1960 and 1962, and sold in the US by Montgomery Ward.

I don't think ELM used it to take photos of his models, but instead used a Speed Graphic for that; likely one he used in his photography business.

The Speed Graphic could shoot large negatives, which would be suitable for magazine work, unlike the 35mm film used by the Agfa Solina. Maybe his Speed Graphic is still out there too? Time will tell.

E. L. Moore's Tugboat & Barge

All photos courtesy James L. Dixon

We've seen a couple of boats by E. L. Moore before. One was a tugboat whose construction was described in Add a Harbor to your Pike, a 2-part article that appeared in the January and February 1968 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman.

The tugboat shown in the photo, the Taurus, also appeared in that 2-part article. However, the Taurus is a kit that was sold by a company called Model Shipways. ELM notes in the article that he used it to figure out how to build a boat model, and then applied that knowledge to scratch build the other tugboat and the barge, also shown in the photo.

The articles also described how to build a sail loft, which we have also seen. If all these boats and the loft could be acquired, the harbor scene from the articles could be recreated. A tantalizing idea.

Is this the well from the Spumoni's Country Estate?

All colour photos courtesy James L. Dixon

No.

But, it's highly reminiscent of it.

Image from E. L. Moore Archives

Back in 1955 ELM published a photo essay in the July issue of Railroad Model Craftsman called Spumoni Country Estate. Over there is one of the featured photos with Ma Spumoni lifting a bucket of water from the well, and Baby Spumoni trying to keep his diaper from falling off.

It's not the same well as in the lead photo, but it may have inspired it.

There's no date on the bottom, so its vintage is a bit hard to figure out. I'm going to take a guess that it was built in the mid to late 1970s based on two flimsy pieces of 'evidence'. And what could be flimsier than some texture paper :-)

The roof is papered with a sheet that looks similar to that used on the 4th version of the Schaefer Brewery, which was built in 1979. The papering on the well's body looks like the same material used on Mr. Pottle's Potworks that was published in the September 1975 issue of Model Railroader - and come to think of it, I think ELM used the same style of roof sheets on the Potworks. So, my guess is that leftover texture papers from a project(s) undertaken in the 1970's were used to make this little model. As I've said before, this is the internet, and this is my contribution to its wild world of flimsy speculation :-)

E. L. Moore's blacksmith shop for his single stall engine house

All colour photos courtesy James L. Dixon

In 2015 when I saw the single stall engine house that was the subject of ELM's article, Home for Small Locos in the March 1973 issue of Railroad Modeler, I wondered what had happened to the accompanying blacksmith shop. I need wonder no more, 'cause here it is!

The blacksmith shop I saw back in 2015 was the one ELM wrote about in Yard Blacksmith Shop in the October 1965 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. It was similar to this one, but the two aren't identical.

Image snipped from Railroad Modeler, Mar. '73

You can see the single stall engine house's blacksmith shop over in the image on the right snipped from ELM's Railroad Modeler article.

ELM doesn't describe how to build this little model in the article, but the construction methods look pretty much like those used in his '65 RMC article.

The end wall is quite simple. 

As is the full side wall.

Where things get interesting is inside. Unlike the RMC blacksmith shed, this one appears to have a fully preserved interior.

And finally, there's the bottom. Looks like it was built in 1969. FK? I think that refers to ELM's friend, Fred Kelley. Mr. Kelley once owned the single stall engine house model, as you can see if you look way in the back in this picture. So, him owning the blacksmith shop too doesn't seem like much of a stretch. Although, maybe the shop was meant for Mr. Kelley, but he never received it.