Spent some quality time with my father-in-law while down in Palm Springs. We got in some modeling and airbrushing. We started with a City Classics kit, mining row houses, a 3 structure kit. After despruing and filing, we airbrushed the sides of the structures using Tamiya flat white with a touch of flat gray. We thinned the mix with 91% rubbing alcohol. We later painted the rock foundations full strength flat gray and the window/door trims blue. Due to a lack of time, we set the kits aside to dry for 24 hours then boxed them up for the trip home. On another evening we airbrushed an SD40-2 shell that we actually worked on together earlier this year, but ran into a problem with dullcote which, well, wouldn't dull. After stripping off the decals about a month ago, I brought the shell with me and Mike repainted the long hood. It too went in the box for shipping home and I will finish the decals sometime soon. That's it for now, thanks for checking in.
A slow night last Tuesday, but we had one significant event as Wain brought in the yard panels for our review. Here he is showing Reynold how he transfers the yard schematic to the lexan panel using a printed copy of the plan and automotive striping tape. The background color is Brick 3050 by Montana Gold. It was recommended to us by of all things an employee at Tap Plastics (where we bought the lexan) who in a former life was a graffiti artist. His recommendation of this brand of spray paint was right on the money; high degree of satisfaction and ease of use. We gave the panels two coats with 24 hours in between coats. Later in the week Wain sent me these pictures of the first coat of Tamiya light blue, which we are using for the mainlines. He is airbrushing two coats and brush painting a final coat for depth of color. He is anticipating having all three panels painted and ready for drilling by this Tuesday. Should be fun.
Wain sent over this tease last night. Told me I had to wait for the unveiling this evening. Tick, tick.....
, What a project!! You are so lucky to have those folks to give their time and talents. Looks likes you all are having a good time.
Wanted to give you guys a look at the three yard panels. SEATTLE PASCO SOUTH SEATTLE FRANKLIN Franklin has the first set of holes drilled. Blue is mainline, yellow industrial tracks. Pictures aren't in the best light, I'll get more up in the next week or so.
They look great Michael! Your RR is quite an endeavor! I need to go back and look at the videos you have posted. I always watch for your updates and have learned more than a thing or two in my reading. Thanks for posting! Dale
Nice. Had I not seen it, I would probably never have considered bright red for panels, but it looks sharp and the track layout really stands out.
Thanks Tom. The brick color was an attempt to use the RGW paint scheme. It's not exact, but close. We knew we were going to use the yellow for the yard tracks, but the blue came by a bit of trial and error. M
Quick update from Tuesday. Scott and Doug continued our "neatness" project, whereby the under shelf items are being consolidated and anything unnecessary being tossed. It's the precursor to cleaning the railroad so we can operate. It also is designed to clear out as much space as possible under Seattle Pasco yard so we/I can start installing the 33 tortoise motors. They need to be in before Wain finishes the panels. I spent the early evening working on Black Diamond city hall. It's an old converted fire station in real life, so I am doing my best interpretation by using a Walthers kit and then fabricating the storefront to replace the truck bays. I used Cadrail to design the storefront, including a revolving door and brick inlay panels. We then used a Cricut Maker machine to cut three levels of .020 styrene to form the storefront. We found in our research that .020 was about the max thickness the cutter could handle. I worked the Cadrail drawing so that each layer was slightly wider in the windows, allowing us to put in acetate later on. This picture shows the first two layers being glued together. After getting the third layer attached I put it in place for fit. The three layers, once laminated, give a nice rigid form to work with. No brick inlay yet, that's later. Then added the top and bottom of the revolving door (nothing glued for that yet). Put it back in place for looks... Very happy with it so far. But one thing I did discover, the cutter doesn't get all pieces cut all the way through, so you need to finish trimming the parts out. Found a scalpel blade (thin blade) was necessary so as not to break parts off. Later in the evening I poured the Pad/driveway for the gas station. First it requires the Woodland Scenics paving tape, then masking. Then you mix up a batch of Smooth-it. Then you pour in the smooth-it, and using the tape as your guide, level it out in the space. Looking forward to getting the station in place. That's it for now, thanks for checking in.
Hey Mike, How much sanding do you have to do with the Smooth-it? I’m thinking of trying it on my layout. Thanks, Dale
We like the stuff. Sanding is very slight. We had more to do than I think would be normal because our surface was really not the best. Even then, we hit it lightly with a sanding sponge and it turned out great. We had a couple of low spots, so we filled them in with spackle, resanded and once it was painted there was no difference.
Wain brought in the panels and he and I spent quality time discussing the next phase, which is the drilling of the LED locations. He sent me these pics from earlier in the day as he was completing the drilling of the push button locations. Was pleased to get a couple of items in the daily mail, first was my Walthers order of UPS items. I purchased the store, two tractor trailers, one box van and one delivery van. Neat stuff. Also received some GP38-2 frames bought off eBay to receive two shells I've had in box for years. Here's a BN heritage unit, very creative. As for the concrete base for the Shell Station, started by sanding it as smooth as was reasonable (not much actually) then painted it Woodland Scenics concrete color. Here you can see the orientation of the station: That's it for now, thanks for checking in.
Already have a name for it, Ken's Neighborhood Shell, after a good friend of mine from Trainboard. Thx for all your support. M
Earlier today Wain sent over some pictures of his progress on the control panels. All the push button holes have been drilled through and the recesses completed on the back side. He did a quick test fit on Franklin. If you look closely, you'll see the black dots where the LEDs will go. This is really fun to follow, but the anticipation is killing me.
Wain sent these over yesterday. They are the trim pieces for the yard panels. The panels will be wrapped in this protective wood frame and then attached to drawer slides. The trim will be painted our fascia color, Olympic Knight's Armor gray.
Most of our evening was spent continuing our clean up project. We need to get all of the tortoise switch machines installed in Seattle Pasco staging yard. There are 21 turnouts that have been waiting for this for some time, so we need access to accomplish the task. Here is a shot of how it looks after a night of clean up, reorganization, consolidation and relocation. You can actually see through to the other side of the island. We haven't been able to say that in years. So where did everything go, well what didn't go to the garage was put in bins, marked with contents labels and then placed with like kind items. Next week we tackle the switch machines. Reynold was busy working on 100 ton coal hoppers and here is one of several he completed. He also brought in a dummy GP35 chassis for our W&P locomotive. Scott took the loco home to convert a powered GP38 to the new chassis and a Lenz decoder to install. Before we started cleaning I did some touch up on the gas station pad. Then traced out the floor and cut it out of .015 styrene. I had previously found a checkerboard pattern on the net and shrank it to the size I wanted. A glue sick and an exacto fit the pattern to the floor. Here are a couple more shots with the floor in its place under the station, nothing glued of course. That's it for now, not sure I'm looking forward to being under the yard all next session, but we'll give it the college try (with a bunch of ibuprofen). Thanks for checking in.
