LOL, I heard The Rock had those as well? Thanks for the kind words Carl. What to use for what Carl? What to use to cut them with so you get nice clean cut ? If you're asking about getting them all cut with clean ends, I'd suggest if you can, cut each one individually, I used a sharp exacto knife. Then wrap them together with tape to hold them in a bundle and shove them in the dongle tube? Am I following you correctly?
Allen, thanks for your reply. I was not very clear with my question, was I. What I was going to do is decide how long the fibers need to be to just slip into the dongle with a little pressure. I was going to put some clear Gallery Glass around and inside the bundle of fibers. then a piece of heat shrink and carefully tighten it up for extra hold. Then take a rail cutter and snip the fibers all at one time to required length, then polish the ends with some 1000 grit wet/dry paper. Think that will work? I know the fibers need to be as close as possible to the same lengths, so they transmit a like amount of light. I apologize for the hi jack of your thread.
Man the Depth Charges! Hard to Port! (sorry the Navy guy could not resist!) Your work is amazing on the locomotive!
When I cut my fibers, I cut them one at a time and I did it with a new knife and I didn't polish them, it seemed to work just fine. I was afraid that it wouldn't work until I tested them after I cut them. I would suggest cutting them one at a time, then gather them up, wrap them in tape or heat shrink tubing and push them against a block to get them as close to even as possible. Then shrink the tubing or apply some glue to secure them, then push them into the dongle tube. No worries about hi-jacking the thread, you have a legit question.
From what I understand, they don't. PP F&F was setup to transfer money to friends or family. It's not like paying for Goods and Services. But I'm sure they'll change that when the G&S start showing a decrease and the F&F starts showing a major increase of usage.
Love it David! I think about that every time I type "U-Boat" I also reminded of a contest I seen years ago, someone build a German U-Boat, painted in BN colors and added six axle trucks to it. They did a real good job of it! Thanks for the kind words!
Very nice! I can't wait for a video of the whole layout being operated. Including switching, yard work, and..........
Might be waiting a while BC? I've actually thought about working on some videos that follow the loco around, maybe do a series on it? Thanks Philip. Thanks George.
Well it's official. I'm a glutton for punishment. Over the Labor Day weekend I just couldn't rustle up enough ambition to start working on scenery or ripping up the tracks. Since the workbench was cleaned up and the tools were handy, I started in on the GP35 builds. I had originally planned on 5 but after looking at the original two that I painted years ago, I was just not impressed and knew I could do better than what I did back then with what I've learned since. Plus there were some small details that I did not do correctly: painted the end handrails the wrong color, the fuel tanks were also the wrong color and I did not like the way the number boards turned out. So I scrounged up two more GP35's and added them to the pile. So now I have 7 GP35's to work on. That should give me one of each basic scheme that they wore while in service on The Rock. Two will be the same Plain Jane Maroon and Yellow scheme w/o the lettering on the long hood, but there will be a slight difference. When I painted the U33B's I had some of the paint peel off the shells while I was unmasking them, so this time I thought I'd shoot a primer coat using the TCP Primer. Interestingly, while looking for their primer, I found out that they three different colors of primer: a standard Gray primer, a Light primer and a Clear primer. Since the last two 35's were black (both molded in black plastic), I chose to use the Light primer since the nose and rear on 5 of them would be painted yellow. This stuff went on smooth a silk and covered very well right out of the bottle, just like they advertise "Airbrush ready". It also dried smooth as glass, just like their paint does. Since the handrails are molded in Derlin (I think?) I also sprayed them with a Plastic Adhesion Promoter. This worked quite well on my KATO SD40-2's that painted a long time ago and the paint is still hanging on with no flaking. It's hard to tell the quality of the coverage in pics, but here's one of the black shells after the primer dried. At least with these builds, I won't have to make the headlights out of Fiber Optics as I can just glue the LED's to the back of the headlights. Have already tested it and they should be just about as bright as the U33B's. As of this post, the only paint I have left to spray is the yellow on the ends. The two Solid Maroon units already have most of the decals applied, so I'm well on my way.
One other rattlecan paint that actually works on Delrin and other engineering plastics is Tamiya's Primer for plastics. Sold at a lot of hobby shops.
