Finishing the turntable

The last task on the turntable (other than installing it, of course) was to add the nut-bolt-washer castings and the truss rods with their turnbuckles. Attaching the 96 NBWs was tedious, but after losing a couple dozen of them I finally got them all installed. Stringing the monofilament to make the truss rods was a piece of cake by comparison.

It took some experimentation to get the coloring right on the turntable pit. It is molded from a cream-colored plastic that I guess is supposed to look like aged concrete, but is way too yellowish for my taste. I tried a series of streaky black washes, but that just made the yellowish color darker. Applying light grey powder on top of the washes gave a pretty good concrete effect, though, especially as it also toned down the rust streaks I had applied where the approach rails meet the pit.  I may eventually add some weeds to the dirt floor, but otherwise it is ready to be installed on the layout.