Only two of us last night, but we made the most of it. Scott went to work on the Renton Yard ballast. He has elected the old fashioned method of laying down ballast, laying it down the center then spreading it out amongst the ties. We are going to come back after it dries and fill in the bare spots; using as little ballast as practical. I worked on two projects, the Black Diamond Town Hall door and the interior of the Shell Station. I added another canopy cover and fascia trim to the door housing on the town hall: On the Shell Station, I built the front counter and tire display stand. It sits in the middle of the checkerboard floor. Here it is with the building in place. I'm thinking of a very light gray for the cabinetry and a dark green for the table tops. I am open to reasonable suggestions on that... That's it for now, thanks for checking in.
Looking good Michael. I wish I had paid attention to the interior of some of my buildings. Great job on the ballasting too, really looks like to prototype.
Here's a short recap of this evening's progress. Doug and Scott continued their work on the Renton Yard ballast project. Doug worked on the industrial run around, while Scott hit the yard. Here's the run around track : And two shots of the yard tracks: Scott used a seed spreader we found on eBay to lay down an ultra thin layer between the parallel tracks. I'm really pleased with the look. Reynold has just about completed the two BN Boeing cars. Here he is checking the clearance between the wheels and the body. As for me, I finished the revolving door side shields. Once dry I put the building in place: All that's left on this building is to place a cross divider as an interior view block on the top two floors and we can call this a wrap. Assuming, of course, I may add a gremlin in the door itself, but that's for another day. That's it for now.
Waay cool Mike! You guys get more done in a night than I have gotten done in the last year. That revolving door is just crazy neat.
A fun night tonight on the RGW. One of the major obstacles to completing Black Diamond was road signage. I've tried 3d printed masks, hand drawn words with paint pens and a few other crazy ideas, none of which worked, of course. So about 4 months ago my friend Chip and I purchased a Cricut Maker. I called Chip and we discussed using the machine to cut self applied paint masks. Chip went to work testing materials. What he came up with was a peel and stick product. After a couple of dry runs, more to home in on the right size of the mask, he sent me these we used tonight. I started by placing them at their ultimate locations. I played with locations, mostly to get correct angles in spots where the road veered. Then I peeled the back off and pressed the masks in place. I followed that up with blue tape around the edges to give me a little room for error while painting. I then headed to my paint booth area to mix paint. I selected Tamiya Flat White and Flat Light Gray. Roughly 20 drops of white, two gray and 15 windex did the trick. I walked back to the train room and fired up the airbrush. Then painted each location. It could not have gone better. All of the masks worked perfectly, not one single bleed. I could not be more pleased with the results. We still have some more to do, specifically "one way" and directional arrows, but this was really a superb solution. We also had more progress on ballasting Renton Yard. Scott is doing a wonderful job on this project. We look forward to our next delivery of mainline ballast from Arizona Rock. That's it for now. More soon.
Well Mike, there is a cottage industry for retirement there. Making mask sets for HO and N road markings!
I agree with Dale here. I would take 4 or 5 for myself in HO scale!! Really good stuff there Mike, they look great. Did you use any foam rubber type roads like the kind Bush makes?
Thanks Tom, we used the Woodland Scenics system for these roads. I've also used real asphalt shingles, so not sure these would be great on those or the Bush product. But they definitely worked well on the WS roads. Just curious, if you were to want masks, what would you need? M
I would take ho scale road centerline stripes and dashes..... Think one of my daughter-in-laws has a Cricut.
Spent the last couple of Tuesday's working on building foundations. I am using 0.40 styrene and putting foundations under every building that needs one in Black Diamond. This past Tuesday I started designing the interior of the Black Diamond bakery and Ye Olde Ice Cream Shoppe. I then started positioning alignment blocks in spots that will be hidden. Once I'm satisfied with the alignment, I'll begin building the interior and I'll drill a hole so that eventually I can thread lighting into the structure. I am also still working on the interior of the Shell Station. Wain dropped in to show us the panels, then headed out to the garage to solder. Scott and Doug completed ballasting the Renton Yard, you can see a brief overview video of that below and Ed is making excellent progress on the speed recorder install. That's it for now, thanks for checking in.
Looks like your moving right along there Mike on the buildings. I didnt pay very much attention to most of the buildings on my outfit, I suppose it still could be done. Getting back to the road signage I sent you a PM. I have used the asphalt shingles, tar paper methods as well as ready made stuff but havent tried the Woodland method. Keep up the great work!
Here's a quick update from last night, I was fortunate to receive the second allotment of painting masks early in the day so painted them in place. This included left turn only and one way signs. I also added all the stop lines freehand. Ed was able to complete the install of the electrical components of the speed recorder and set the module in place. Doug continued to add mainline ballast. I like the contrast with the yard ballast. That's it for now, thanks for checking in.
