Wow, just another week before Thanksgiving. I still need to order my Christmas car from MTH. Well, for me the weekend is going to be more weathering. Nscalerones stuff is about done. Finished the Alco C420 last night. I just want to look all five locomotives over in natural sunlight and make sure they look nice and weathered then get them boxed up and ready to ship on Monday. I also have four freight cars that need to get weathered for a friend. I want them done before I head north for Thanksgiving. I have done some on the B&M layout, may continue that this weekend as well. The biggest thing that needs to be done with the layout so far is to document progress with a website and or a thread here on Trainboard. So how about you? What kind of modeling do you plan on doing? Any shows in your area? The days are shorter but railfanning is still going on. Let us know what your plans are, pictures always appreciated. We'll get back together on Monday and see our progress.
Goodbye Rusty Jones, hello rusty cars! To our left, a representative selection of old, toy-like cars I got back in the Eisenhower administration. And to our right, what they would look like today if they'd been left out in a scrapyard ever since. I took a tip from the MR article a month or so back. Using a hobby knife and razor saw, I carefully removed the hood from one car and a door from the other, and glued them on in an open position. I sprayed most of the cars with a rust-brown primer. I left a couple their "natural" colors, and dry-brushed on some acrylic rust red paint. Each was then treated with Instant Rust, which gets the "look of real rust" by using an iron emulsion and a chemical rusting agent to produce, well, real rust. Now, all that's left for the scrapyard is to glue down the junk piles and add some scenic materials around them to mask the edges. I've already glued down some field grass around the junk cars, and positioned the light poles. Oh, yeah, TRAIN SHOW! The Greenberg Show will be a few towns over this weekend, so I'll be heading over there bright and early Saturday morning. I don't have any particular purchase plans, but I love looking at the layouts on display, and there's always some detail part that catches my eye.
I have to paint, install, and have someone apply some microscale decals to my Details West TT-2 Trailer hitches to my Atlas TOFC. I didn't like the flimsy plastic they provided for their hitches, so I went outside the box. My Atlas Caboose and TOFC also need a pair of Kadee #5's installed. I may also pick up another set of #5's to add to my Kato SD70. I can't provide pictures as I misplaced my digital camera months ago. I still can't find it. Which sucks because I have a lot of photos I need to take. On the larger scale of things, I have a leak in my smoke resovoirs inside my Aristocraft GP40's. My plan is to deplete the smoke resovoirs, flip 'em upside down, and try to find the leak. The bottom of the units has a plastic fuel tank cover that is dripping fluid. So I know something is leaking. This cover also hides the weight on the bottom of the unit, which brings me to project #4. The GP40's need an additional set of weights to make them heavier, ironic because these units are heavy stock, but not heavy enough by large scale standards. Finally, I need to finalize my track plan for my HO Scale layout. I've been told "Don't go big on your first layout because you'll get overwhelmed." Well I'm not being overwhelmed. I just am trying to recreate Marias Pass; Whitefish to Shelby. That means I've been doing a lot of Google Earth work over the Whitefish-Shelby line online. I want to make sure I get this done right. Once I finish the track plan, I'll begin with the benchwork. The last thing I need, since my G-Scale track got damaged, and I haven't found any LGB/Western Germany style track, I am going to be using some Bachmann EZ Track 33" radii curves around my xmas tree so I can finally run my completed BN Empire Builder/Morning Zephyr set. I haven't ran an HO Scale train around my tree since I began to run my old LGB G-Scale train set. So this will be fun. Other modifications to my xmas layout will include a dual track system so my Kato SD70 can take a few laps as well. I stacked so many modeling plans this weekend, and I'm hoping to time manage them. Problem is, my car is in pieces (Reinforcing her chassis for an upcoming autocross race this winter. Yay! raise to stock height with winter rims!) and my Ram's radiator sprung a leak and it will be a week before my replacement fluidyne radiator shows up. This restricts me to one vehicle, and it's my g/f's. It's an eclipse like mine so storage space is limited to....a giant sound system in the back XD We'll see. For sure though, the Trailer hitches are getting done.
I might pull the trees I "planted" over Tunnel 26, and prep the area for a snow scene, much like Mike Dannemann did in the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of NSR mag. Now to find AZ Rock & Mineral "Snow"...
Pain stakingly applying lettering to the n-scale polar express I am doing for the wife.......one letter at a time, from a microscale alphabet sheet. Also trying deperately NOT to mess up a nicely detailed Berkshire as I paint over its stock lettering and apply my own.
I'm going to continue working on the boxcabs I'm building for GreyOne for the TB Build a Boxcab Challenge. Also might make a few more trees for my diorama. Have a good weekend!
I have no hope for modeling this weekend. This weekend will be insane. My daughter has a volleyball clinic in Hatboro, PA on Saturday and Sunday. It is about an hour drive to get her there. She went to this clinic in July in Virginia. She felt it was the best clinic/camp she went and since she is getting over her broken finger she felt she could use the clinic to get ready for club season. Also this time around she is going to concentrate on the Setter position. On Saturday my son will be going to the museum with my wife. He is going to help her with her morning Cub Scout class. In the afternoon he will be taking the Nature Merit Badge class. On Sunday he has to go to a Council meeting regarding his upcoming trip to Philmont Boy Scout Ranch in New Mexico. Since my wife is working I have to figure out how to get my daughter to her volleyball clinic and him to his meeting and then pick them up. They are both in Montgomery County but on different ends. This weekend is also Scouting for Food collection so I will be working with the Pack, Troop, and Crew on Saturday collecting their food bags and taking into the food bank.
Morning all!, well since having hand surgery, I have planned to have the trackwork on layout pretty much done. But Mr Murphy had other ideas!. In saying that, my hands are better now. So I plan on finishing laying track for half of the yard. Also need to lay some main in so I can run some trains. I also plan on dropping feeders, and maybe wiring the switch machines to accy decoders. As of now I can run from staging, up/down the 7 1/2 turn helix, through the industrial section and stopping at the south/east yard throat. I think I might have thought up a yard that might be too big in n scale. My A/D track is 12' long, so you can imagine how big the yard is going to be.
My plans for last weekend sort of got shot, and had to change gears. My company is shutting down for the remainder of the year a little earlier than usual, and I haven't been able to build up my banked hours, so finances are a wee bit tight to start the empire. WHY couldn't they have a shutdown in say, July or August, instead of December? Anywho, I scored a really good deal on the Scenic Ridge kit, as well as the track pack and building kit that come with it. (All 3 for less than the SR kit by itself) So, I've made a wooden frame for it and put down the foam base. I've assembled some of the snap track, and going to fill in the majority of the curves with what remaining flex I have around. Removed the manual throws on the points, and going to wire them into tortoises I've had in a box for a while. That will give me quite a bit to do to pass the time, and work on my scenery skills because I've never done scenery before. Found that there is a train show tomorrow also, so going to check that out in the morning. Maybe I can score some good stuff there without breaking the bank/allowance.
Finish my mining camp area. Buildings are built and weathered. Work will be on the grounds between the buildings. Jim
I'll be flying to Boise in the morning to pick up a new (to me) truck, which will allow me to transport my modules, get about when that weird white stuff falls from the sky and covers the roads, etc. I'll be driving it back, likely through some of that weird white stuff. It doesn't sound model railroad related, but it is, because it opens a whole vista of opportunities for me that being solely on 2 wheels for the last few years has forclosed. On Sunday, I'm going to try to do some garage arranging so I can get the motorcycle inside and start setting up my shop so I can begin building sectional benchwork for my new space. I won't be building the benchwork anytime soon (still need a lot more planning), but I gots me some woodworking jones....
Tomorrow will be DCC day. I'm going to be trying to repair my Dash9 which had a short a few months ago. I got a new decoder. Just need to go through and make sure all the potential shorts are covered in liquid electrical tape and I add some of the same tape to the regular frame contacts. Then I have an Athearn BB GP60 I picked up last weekend that will also get DCCed and if that gets completed I might start working on painting the handrails and adding a plow. There may be some work to do on the club layout scenery too, but I'm in no rush to do that.
Quick note, YoHo. Get a blender, and NOT a food processor. I tried both and the food processor results were terrible. The blender's speed and small blades made a huge difference.
Really? on other forums I've seen nothing but a preference for the food processor. For the following reasons 1: blades are bigger and sharper 2: bigger container 3: easier to control adding material. I did hear that it's easier to get material stuck under the blade, so it might need some more futzing with a stick to move the material around. True story, apparently Woodland Scenics started out making ground foam by feeding it through a meat grinder. Think I'll avoid that.
This has been my experience, YMMV of course. My blades on both were very sharp at the time, too, so it wasn't that. Now my food processor only has one speed, so that could certainly have been one of the factors. And I did find that the foam got jammed a lot in there. But my blender did a great job chopping the you-know-what out of the foam, so I stand by my recommendation.
Well, my budget on this is fairly low, so I may not be able to find a food processor in my price range.
Yeah, that's another factor. Blenders are usually much cheaper (like 2-10 bucks at a thrift store). I got mine for 50 cents at a yard sale several years ago.
Well we have a minor problem. The seller confirmed that the USPS took ownership of my package a few days ago. The tracking number dies somewhere around Chicago's USPS. Their post office tells me the package never arrived. Having been in this boat before, I know someone swiped my package. Seller will ship me out a new set of hitches on monday. So much for any of my projects.:tb-frown:
I have been preparing a crossover for replacement on my clubs layout. I am prefabbing it and will place it in position at our meeting next Wednesday evening. I'm using old model airplane servos to throw them instead of peco machines. It should be ready Saturday night. Sunday I will be at a show at the Polish Community Center in Albany NY with my T-Trak modules. I'll be with the Albany area N Trakers. Sort of a last minute thing.
