Weekend Watch: Model Railroad Construction with Luke Towan

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Weekend Watch: Model Railroad Construction with Luke Towan

Model railroading is a hobby that has managed to thrive and stay popular for quite some time. In the hobby you’ll find all kinds of styles from cheesy iconic setups of the fantasy towns of the 50’s to crazy visualizations of imaginary futures. One thing they all have in common is, they’re small and almost always hand made.

Luke Cowan’s youtube channel, Boulder Creek Railroad, is a fun and sometimes quirky exploration of how to construct these miniature sets.  He covers all kinds of aspects from fabrication of earth structures to electronics for your tiny world.

Many of his videos are infused with a silly bit of humor, such as the intro to this chain link fence tutorial. He follows that up with incredible clear and detailed instructions.

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Many of the visualizations you would want for your miniature world will require a bit of electronics. Here, you can see how to add the flashing lights to a police cruiser.

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Trees are one of the things that can make or break your model railroad scene. A silly looking tree will stand out for some reason, even more than silly looking people. I’m not really sure why, but at least for me, that is the case. Here, Luke shows how to make these incredibly realistic looking tall pine trees.

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This is the video that got me hooked. Just watching this railroad come together was fascinating and I couldn’t look away.

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Be sure to go check out his channel and subscribe to see more great tips for model railroad building.

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I get ridiculously excited seeing people make things. I just want to revel in the creativity I see in makers. My favorite thing in the world is sharing a maker's story. find me at CalebKraft.com

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