I finished a GE Lamps covered hopper...

Just finished it today. It's the 6th decal set I did for the covered hopper:

Here is the scratchbuilt from wood Z Scale model:



Here is the prototype car:


I also did a Southern Ry car:


Here is the prototype paintscheme, but a round hatch car:


-Robert

 

Superb

 

Thanks for the kind words guys. The parts are all laser cut plywood, and the ribs are 1 solid sheet, so they are actually very easy to build.

The hardest part is decals, because they are so hard to see. The GE logo is .12" round, and all the decals have to be cut individually, which is hard with white decals to see on the sheet.

-Robert

 

I use Corel Draw, Alps MD1000, Bel Decal Paper, and seal the decals with Microscale Liquid Decal Film, brush painted over the alps ink.

-Robert

 

Robert, I like how you weather the trucks.
Would you like to share how you do it, and what brand of paint do you use.

 

I'll bring a bunch of my cars and other models to the Z Scale convention for people to check out and play with.

I like to weather all my stuff with Bragdon's chalk powders. It sticks well enough, bt with repeated rubbing with a brush, you can build up quite a coating of powder.

There are all kinds of colors. I use rust color on the lower parts of cars, and on the trucks. I don't seal it on, but just use it as is. It never seems to wear off the wheels and trucks, and because it is a powder, it don't gum up the wheels, but it does gum up couplers a bit, so keep it out of the couplers.

If you have already gummed up your couplers, MTL sells some graphite powder that you squirt into the coupler, and hook up the car in a train, and let it run around the layout. After a while the coupler will have loosened up slicker than snake snot!

-Robert

 

Here's more of the chalk weathered cars:






You can see that I don't bother with symmetry, but just dump a bunch of chalk powder where it goes, and brush it around.

-Robert

 

Jim did figure out how to make webcasts work using his cell phone service. I was hoping he would have it up and running this weekend at the BAZ BBQ at Ted Lamar's tomorrow.

Loren Snyder is bringing down the new MTL GP35 for us to test out and run through the paces, as well as the latest new MTL secret. We don't know what it is yet, but spy cams will be ready to bring pictures of it here.

Speculation is a new MTL bodystyle, but we don't know for sure. I hope it will be a new turnout to match the current flextrack line. Whatever it is, this Saturday is going to be great!

The weather has just turned today, and it's in the 80's in our backyard today in Fremont, so San Mateo aught to be very nice tomorrow.

-Robert