Oh Gosh, golly, gee whiz! See what getting old gets you... in the Z scale of things. Sorry, about that. But you can know I'm an ardent supporter and love what you guys and gals are doing in Z Scale. Heck tip the Z up on end and you have N Scale. You are going to have the same problems in Z scale we've had in N Scale, HO Scale, S Scale, O Scale, G Scale and the 1X1 foot scale. Just look at all the fun we are having. Thanks for allowing me to rant. I said with a sheepish grin!baffled:
Recently I wrote in Ztrack about my favorite German webcam going offline. I plan modeling the scene on my layout. I found Luetke's Nursery shop with accessories was a good match for one of the buildings in the scene. This weekend, I had a chance to work on the kit. I still have some touch up to do and add details such as the interior, but I thought I would share my progress: I am planning an article in Ztrack on creating the scene. I do have it roughed in and already it is capturing the look of the town quite well. Rob
Myself altough I've been working very slowly these last months due to family issues and a terrifying amount of work I've just finished to set a pair of Kadee #309 electro-magnets initially done for HO. After many problems in the beginning everything works fine, thanks to a few fellows Z-scalers whose help was welcome.:tb-wink::thumbs_up: Dom
Making improvements on our mobile home kit (the "Villager"). The addition of decals for the awning has made a huge leap closer to realism as well as a major redesign of the utility meters. Imagine if you will a plain power pole near the meters with a single wire from the pole to the top of the "galvanized" pipe and weeds all around. This particular model will get weathered and put on my layout. I just can't bring myself to leave this looking nice and new so junking it up will be a lot of fun. Maybe a broken or upside down white "plastic" chair, a burn barrel, broken TV antenna on the roof... yes, this is the fun part about kit building :shade:
Nothing like a deadline to get things moving! So the last show of the season for us was here, a small one day show at Maryport in Cumbria in the North West of England. No great shakes, we didn't even take the usual paraphenalia like stools, mats covers etc. So what possesed me to start thrashing like a loon two days before the show painting the two HST (high speed train 125) power cars and a class 56 in Dutch livery? The HSTs were some resin castings that Graham Jones had sorted me with 4 or 5 years ago and had sat in a stock box for all that time ever since, the 56 (A British heavy freight Co-Co mainly used fior coal and steel traffic) was one of my own resin castings and I already had three examples in various colour schemes running on 'Midsomer Mardy' I was still applying a protective coat of laquer at 8 o'clock on the Friday night which really isn't sensible is it? Anyway the results can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcw1jQ8jwGM I haven't taken any photos yet as they are still gloss finish until I apply the numbers and I always think high gloss finish in Z looks awful and highlights every little defect. The class 56 uses a Marklin BR103/151 chassis and the HSTs use the BR111 with the coupling removed at one end, The only other mod is to reduce the height of the Pantograph/Track pickup selection switch by grinding it down to a stump to fit under the roof. Also seen in the video is a couple of protoype coaches for the HST sets in the two different 'Midland mainline' colour schemes. I am casting these in resin and they are looking promising but need to be lowered and closer coupled to match the power cars. This is Midsomer Mardy's last outing in this form. By October at Zedex 2011 it will be four foot longer with the baseboard connection being Z-Bend standard to try and kick start module modelling in the British Z Community. We will see how it goes. The extra length will allow us to run much longer trains both freight and passenger I'll keep you posted Cheers KEV
Kevin great video, I like the layout the trains were running on! The viaduct was neat and well, quite frankly, it just gets me in the mood for some modeling. Seeing different Z trains run motivates me for some reason. Thanks for sharing!
sorry, wrong scale. I moved this to N scale Working on lights for a cab car for NJT commuter train. Its a resin kit from Island Model Works. It will have dual headlights in push mode and dual red marker lights for pulling. Using a TCS FL4 decoder.
It's not actually a workbench! This is what is on my table in the RV I am renting. No place to eat food, and that is a fact!!! It's been a busy day today!!!! Hobo Tim
Getting Ready I airbrushed and detailed this CAT D10R dozer today. Also painted and detailed these three tractors today. They are riding on their respective 60' flat cars. Notice the decks are different. Also, I rebuilt the MOW Truck chassis. I am hoping to make a cab out of white metal for weight, but not sure I will have time before this weekend! I don't have my DCC set-up with me so I cannot test the truck to see if it is working good. Will have to wait till this weekend!!! Ugh!!!
