Well, another weekend is behind us, how did you do? About all I got done this weekend was to instal a 5" speaker onto the winshield channel of Jess the Railfan Jeep, and run the wire into the dash so that I can better hear the scanner. I can now plug the scanner in and hear better what the crews are saying a bit easier with this speaker rather than the scanners small internal speaker. The rest of my time was spent in New Hampshire getting Jess ready for her trip home, so not a lot of railroad activity this weekend. How about you? Did you get some more layout work done? How are those detailing projects coming? Any show reports? Leave your comments below and any pictures you may have so we can see your progress. We'll do it again on Friday March 30th. ​High Greens!
Good morning! As predicted, we spent much of the weekend dealing with pre-trip stuff for our trip to Italy. Part of that included looking at train schedules and planning side trips to Pompeii and Venice. I did get a bit of work done on the cobblestones, though. I'm using the "Electric Avenue" stuff from Proto 87 for the street running track and cobbles. The cobblestones come as thin sheets, about 9x12 inches. On the one in the back, I've sprayed it with gray primer, weathered it with India Ink in alcolhol, and then sanded it down a bit to restore most of the gray to the tops of the cobbles. The other two pieces have not been painted or weathered. Here's a close-up of the way they look, still shiny: I'm going to look for more of a tan colored primer. I'd like a lighter, browner color for the tops of the cobbles. I've been trying other stuff I have around the house, but so far none of the scrap samples I've tried have given me the look I want. They're all finish coat paint, though, and they just aren't taking the India Ink wash as well as the gray primer does. On the other hand, who doesn't love a trip to a good hardware store? Just for a sense of perspective, this is an HO-scale Mather boxcar (P2K kit) on the track: The cobble sheets are only layed in place, not glued down yet. I've made a template to get the curve right, so that's going pretty well, but the piece between the rails took a lot of cutting and sanding to get right. Now, though, I can make a template from that and hopefully the rest of the cobbles will go more quickly.
My club had a good day at the Kingston NY show Yesterday (Sunday). Our HO, O and G layouts ran well with no problems to speak of. Attendance was good according to the shows promoter and they have already scheduled another show for next October. There was no room for our T-Trak layout or the small N scale layout of a club member that we usually bring.
I love those cobblestones...street running is so cool! This weekend I spent a couple of hours editing footage of last Thursday's Columbia & Western op session. It is a little shy of 15 mins long and traces an RDC as it goes Westbound from Nelson to Cascade as well as showing meets and operations around the layout (and introducing the crew!) For those of you interested in operation - and don't mind a bunch of totally unrelated chatter during sessions - I hope you find it interesting! [video=youtube;8UTaBFbaA0A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UTaBFbaA0A[/video] I also received the bents I need for the two large snow sheds so I started on the assembly jigs to hold everything square. ...oh, and I watched the kids with my wife back East with relatives. I guess I got more done than I thought. md
Well, the vineyard got almost completely ignored. We had a committee meeting planned, but nobody knew when so we all stood around waiting for the head of the committee to come by and tell us. Then when he got there we put it off again. So I never got started. I did however do some sample static grassing using the gras-tech applicator and some Silflor grass. Results were good and I hope to have time to get the pictures up.
I was not able to get anything accomplished this weekend due to working long hours. And my bonus check did not cover the cost of the DCC system I want. So I have to save some more money before I get to shop. overall an uneventfull weekend. Hopefully next weekend will be better.
I got some work done on my Minnesota Commercial layout. 1. Rough fitted in blair line grade crossings to make sure they will work. 2. Installed several sheets (and cut) of foam to raise the "ground" level up higher for roads and structures. Since I am using Unitrak for the layout, I wanted to raise the ground level for track served industries, raise road levels in most spots and to reduce the mainline look of the Unitrack. I will be using Sculpt-a-mold, Flex pasts, and Smooth It on the layout where it makes sense to do so. Should get to this in a few weeks. 3. Installed six Digitrax DS64 stationary decoders, now I have to wire up the turnouts and program everything. (planning on getting this done this week) 4. Once the roads are paved (or before) I will be installing five Logic Rail Grade Crossing Pro Infrared detection boards (along with the grade crossing signals). Hope to start this next weekend).
I finished my first hydrocal kit. I was really nervous at first but it is a lot of fun to build. Just follow the instructions on painting it....Oh I did make changes to fit my scene
5 minute epoxy works best but you can use white glue or canopy glue but Randy of Downtown Deco give a good argument for expoxy. CA is the worse choice.
The structure looks superb. Judging from this and your last photo, your urban modeling has a wonderfully gritty feel to it with the old brick buildings and streets that look-well, bad enough to be in Michigan. Very nice work.
