Well, I crossed my fingers and masked up the GSI conveyor. A couple of shots of Tamiya gold leaf on the brackets and then a mad scramble to get the tape off. Here's how it turned out. Then entire conveyor... And all the parts put back in place... Ahem. I wish I never had to touch the conveyor again, it's so fragile. I know I will though, decals and weathering yet to go. I'm very pleased with the results however. Scott tinkered with the pipes Tuesday, I'm interested by how that may turn out. Thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Welcome back to another epic review of last night's work session on the RGW. While Rey continued tweaking the well cars and Doug ran trains, I started the evening putting in the 16g wire pipes at the mill. There are still two more to go, one to feed the trains the other trucks, but I need to build those ports. All in all, I am happy with the wire pipe, it gives you a lot of options of how to arrange them given their flexibility. I will take this apart again and add more color to the pipes but for now I'm going to leave it in place. Prior to the evening, I had painted some extra parts in the mill colors. I wanted to run a test of a couple of different yellow paints and application methods. As you can see I choose to test a uniball paint pen and a standard acrylic. The day before I painted one part in rubber black only and the second with flat aluminum. As you can see in these pictures, both paints cover well. I am going to use the acrylic paint to complete the safety rails. Basically because controlling a small brush is much easier than the pen. I will say, however, the volume of paint and the color from the pen would be excellent in other applications, like graffiti. Well that's it for now, thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
I really like the first photo where the vantage point is somewhat lower, almost looking up at the tallest structures. It creates a good sense of the scale of the facility. I've been using paint pens for scenery work and touchups since I started building my layout back in 2017. Another great application is frame stripes on diesels, since the decals tend to break up a lot, sometimes into many tiny pieces that are absolutely futile to try to line up again without severe frustration and a very rich output in cuss words. For CN, I have two reserved for loco frame stripes, yellow and white. With a delicate touch, I can add the safety colors on the handrails at the ends of the locos. Art and craft supply stores are my friends! Keep up the great work!
Quick update for Tuesday July 23. I started the evening pulling all of the stand alone mill items from their base. Then gave the bases two coats of varathane, making sure to cover the holes for the elevator and the conveyor. Later in the evening I pulled the tape and put back all of the structures. I won't miss the blue tape... Meanwhile Scott, just back from a trip in the Yukon, did some cosmetic surgery on two of our new lowboy trailers. We elected to cut off the ramps. We found the look out of the box just didn't work for us. This new look will suit our purposes well. Not much else to report this evening. More next week. Thanks for checking in. RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Some incredible modeling Mike! You and yo crew have done some outstanding stuff!! But you gotta get some heavier loads for those 3 axle low boys
Another quick update for Tuesday. Rey was back from an extended break, with tell tale signs of his work everywhere... From upside down aircraft flats... To his iconic small screw assortment (we refer to it as iconic because it was once dumped on the floor, scattering screws in every direction. Thank heaven for a large magnet.)... Did I mention that the gardener's found his glasses in my front bushes? Not sure, but there has to be a story in there somewhere. Anyway, Scott was busy adding details to the heavy equipment trailers including signage and mud flaps. I'll detail that more next week. Doug was working the back 40 with a load of oil cans. At one point every loco on the layout started moving. Yes you read that right. Not sure what buttons he pushed, but he's been put on throttle restriction for the next month. As for me, I started by creating a replacement pipe for the main bins. The first version got twisted so that the wire jacket was out of sorts and would not fit in the conveyor. I tried to fix it, but gave up and fashioned the new one in the picture. Oh well. Later I moved to the ground and started recrafting the ground piping. A few more pieces to go before I can call this done; including a center housing for a conveyor belt. Well, that's it for tonight. I'm sure more riveting updates will follow. As always, thanks for checking in. M RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD
Nice!!! My Dad lost his glasses at one time, way back - couldn't find them anywhere. He kept repeating, "I just had them on! Where did they go?". That last question was answered when Mom opened the fridge and started laughing herself to pieces... From that point on, every time Dad was desperately looking for something, Mom suggested he try the fridge. I'll add your story to the list of weird places to find one's glasses...
