Hammertoe, my 16mm scale 45mm gauge Indoor layout

[DCooper]

Greetings all.

I wanted to share my little 16mm scale 45mm gauge Indoor layout I call Hammertoe. I hope you enjoy my journey.

I was looking to build a very small indoor layout for fun and to take pictures. Additionally I wanted to try out some ideas I had to see if they would work. Not having much room to work with, I settled on a 1300mmx 700mm footprint that I could just manage to sit on top of an Ikea display case that I could just sneak into one half of my bungalow.

The first thing I wanted to try out was all extruded foam baseboards. I had messed about with some mix of foam and wood on a shelf layout but this time I wanted to see if I could just use stacked sheets of extruded wall insulation foam.



As it turns out this worked quite well. Two thicker sheets as a base and then some more with cutouts for the terrain and another for a view break down the centre and I was quickly in business.

I had already played about with battery power and remote control via bluetooth ( LocoRemote controller) and loved that there was no track wiring to worry about. A major headache I was very much trying to avoid.

I just wanted a simple loop of track with one point and a small spur for an industry. Also on the must have list was a few bridges, a largish water area, a tunnel and a culvert.



All of this seemed to be doable and I jumped ahead. I knew I was going to have lots of rocks to carve and went at the foam with an inexpensive hor wire cutter and knives, etc. Covering the roughed out foam with premixed wall spackle thinned with water.

For track I went with some lovely 3D printed 45mm gauge industrial sectional track printed by LocoRemote. This worked very well and let me squeeze in the loop within the then 600mm width. ( A have extended the original 1200x600 sheets with a single sheet of 50mm all around to make the fascia making all my baseboards out of foam.)

For motive power and rolling stock I have used the excellent PS Models kits by Phil Sharples. Great kits that have been so very much fun to build,



Over the last two years I have slowly added to the layout, adding rolling stock and working on the scernery.



Refining as I go and adding details.



I've tried my hand at making my own figures from Super Sculpty to bring a bit more life to the scene.





And now I just about finished my first lap around the layout so that all the major scenery is in place.







I'm now going back over the whole layout adding details and improving things as I go. I love that there is always something I want to add of upgrade. I have a lot more ideas for figures and characters I want to add. Things to spruce up and change and many many photos I want to take.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at my little efforts and if you have any comments and suggestions I would love to hear them.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by for a look.

Dan

[LNR]

The rock work, plant growth and bridge structure in the creek scenes is superb. They'd be good apples coming from that location.
Grant.

[Allu]

Really excellent work! This shows how much can be achieved in tight spaces. I have used extruded foam before when I was modelling in smaller scales and it is a really good material. Easy to cut and sculpt without debris and if several sheets are laminated as in your case, there is no need for any understructure. There is several different types of extrded foams and some (if not most) of them can be used outdoors as they are waterproof. Your layout is a piece of art

[ge_rik]

Wonderful, nay, inspiring!

The figures are not only well sculpted, they are really well painted. Every detail on the layout is perfect. I'd be as proud as pie to have this in my house.

Rik