Adding grass

Now with almost all of the painting complete on my 25R panel, its time to add a little grass. Its basically the same as doing the dirt. Mix water and white glue (I use wood glue) and then brush it onto the areas you want to have greenery. Sporadically adding it helps unless you are going for a fully grassed area. At LAX the areas between the runways are usually only green during the winter months but i think it looks nicer so thats the season period Im going with. Lightly sprinkle the grass on and then tamp it down with the palm of your hand or something flat and heavy. Its going to get a little messy. Let it dry for a good while before brushing away the excess.

Glue added lightly where I want the grass

Loosely sprinkle fake grass over glue. Multiple colors look more realistic

Tamp it all down with the palm of your hand or other.

25R update

Finally got around to working on my 25R piece again this week. Taxilines were painted for the taxiway Juliet intersection as well as all the little yellow lines along the taxiway. I then outlined all the taxi striping with a black sharpie marker. This really covers the little flaws in the yellow lines. I used a pinstriping brush for the taxi lines and was very pleased. Much faster than masking and fairly straight.

After that I was ready to begin scoring the concrete areas to make it look more like concrete sections. I use a giant drywall T square I bought from the Home Depot which works really nice. Using a pocket knife I carefully slice down the length of the runway and then come back and do the opposite side. Watch your fingers when doing this. I ended slicing into my left pointer finger going to fast. After a trip to the LAX urgent care, I was back at it although 3 hours later.

 

Now with the lines cut into the concrete areas it was time to dirty them up a little. Normally I use a grimy black powder I picked up at a Model Railroad shop but thats in my hangar and not at home. I experimented with using a wash (50/50 water and black acrylic paint). It worked to get into the grooves I had cut but didn't give the right effect for the tire rubber marks. Under all of the black rubber which I'll add later are thousands of tiny skidmarks. These are made using a black china marker and making tiny little skids all down the touchdown area. 

25L with the runway rubber added

 

25R Runway lines

A couple weeks ago I decided to finally add the runway lines to the 25R section I've been working on. I started with the center lines because that would give me a better visual on the center of the runway for measuring off the aiming point bars. I used white acrylic paints for all the lines. Several passes with the brush to get that perfect solid white were needed. Next up for this section will be taxi stripes, hold short lines, cutting the concrete into sections, and then weathering.

Painting stripes

I use Testors enamel paint for doing all the yellow taxiway striping on my airport. Its a lot thicker and provides a better solid yellow than anything I've found so far. I use acrylic paints for all the rest of the areas. Everything is painted by hand, but heavily masked off. Definitely be careful which tape you use for masking, as I have had some pull the paint off from underneath the area being masked.

Adding earth

One fun part of creating a new section of LAX is the addition of infield land areas. The areas between the runways and taxiways at LAX are a mix of dirt, grass, and light scrub brush. I've found a relatively simple way of replicating this using actual dirt and some basic Elmer's white glue. Some fake grass or similar from model train scenery really looks good too. First I paint the area to be filled in with a dirt like tone. Next Ill take some white glue (wood glue works well too) and thin it out with water. I've found that a thin mixture works better than straight white glue. Brush it on everywhere you want dirt to stick. Next take your dirt and pour liberally over the glue section. Press down firmly and then sweep the excess away gently. I like to run my hands along and cause different areas to appear slightly different. This will help make it look a little more natural and not so filled in. I typically will let it dry overnight before adding any grass. For that Ill take my thinned out glue mixture and dab it on where needed. Then take the grass and sprinkle it on the glue. Press down and sweep away the excess. Lots of tips and tricks can be gathered from the model railroad community by searching google.

Earth tones painted prior to glue

Glue being brushed on

Adding dirt that actually came from LAX

After sweeping away the excess dirt

While the glue was still wet I made a service road with my finger

Current progress

My previous posts have all been about sections built quite awhile back. Currently I have done nothing except work on the South side of the airport. From the cargo center, I expanded northwards to give me a little piece of runway to use as a background. From there I went west and continued to build parts of 25L and 25R. Next step will be to start on the FedEx ramp adjacent to the cargo center to the west.

 I opted for keeping the runway boards parallel with the runway itself and angling any board that will be south of the runways. This created a wedge area that needed to be filled in, hence the triangle portion north of the ICC.

Another board was then added to lengthen 25L. The blank boards with the jets on them will be the future DHL/FedEx ramp. In this photo above, I had not begun to build 25R.

 

Here is the current layout as of May 2014 (excluding the cargo center and Terminal 3). Note the second piece of 25R has been started but is not complete.

 

Terminal 3 rebirth

After having done a decent job on the cargo center (I thought so at least), I decided to revamp the original Terminal 3 I had built back in 2006. I took another MDF board and began laying out the ramp. I used the old terminal I had made of wood previously, yet another structure that needs to be converted to styrene one day. This board was a lot of fun to build, because I had personally taken measurements while working there. As of 2009 when I began constructing the new T3, I no longer worked at LAX. Excited about the new board, I began to conceptualize whether it would be possible to build the entirety of LAX in a modular format. Thus began my goal of building the entire airport to scale.

Shown here missing some ramp markings

Pushing AirTran out was part of my nightly job

Cargo Center

With the desire to have somewhere to set all of my cargo birds, I decided to build the ICC which is in the Southeastern corner of LAX. I took 2 MDF boards and with a little help from google maps, I recreated the parking areas where cargo is unloaded/loaded. Not having much experience scratchbuilding buildings from styrene, I opted for wood blocks and began painting them. It wasn't long before I decided they didn't look good enough. Still to this day I have not gone back and rebuilt them. Future project...

It begins

Decided to write a blog detailing the progress on my 1/400th scale model of LAX. The idea began way back in 2006 by building Terminal 3 where I was working at the time. Not having much of a budget, I opted for scraps of wood I had gathered and then cobbled together a Terminal and tarmac. As you can see, it ended up being a little smaller than expected.

This got the ball rolling and I soon started planning to build another section of LAX. The difficult part was finding a suitable base to build it on. Something that was light and durable with a good amount of size. I finally found a 24x48 piece of 1/4'' MDF bpard at the Home Depot. Construction began in 2006 and went on into 2007 for the first of what was to become the ICC or International Cargo Center.