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Post by dti406 on May 17, 2015 4:58:34 GMT -8
Early check in due to my son's fiance graduating from John Carroll this morning. Some cars finished this week!   Finished my third Anderson's converted Hopper to Covered Hopper, Tichy Kit painted with Green Tinted Model Master Silver Paint and lettered with Kit supplied decals.  This car was inspired by TBird1958, this is a Front Range Welded side 50' Boxcar, widened door opening for a 10' Plug Door on which I replaced the cast on rods with Evergreen Plastic Rods, Details West Extended Coupler Pocket, Plano X-over Platform, A-line Sill Steps and painted with Floquil BNSF Green then lettered with Modern Rails Decals.  Atlas Post 71 4650 CF Covered Hopper kit, painted with Scalecoat II MofW Gray then lettered with Islington Station Products Decals. Thanks for looking! Rick |
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Post by mlehman on May 17, 2015 6:48:01 GMT -8
Great looking cars, Rick.  For some reason, I can't help thinking that the American Borate car is a billboard ad for another new "reality" show on the TV I mostly don't watch for the reason it's so boring...   This week was mostly about dirt and rocks -- or a good start on a reasonable facsimile of the same around Snowden at the end of the Cascade Branch... I started by getting my rocks in a row. The premise of Snowden is that it truly is the end of the line, because it ends up in a sort of box canyon of rocks that prevent the RR grade from proceeding, thus the need for a pipeline to bring the crude oil to a loading rack I will build there.  Due to the shallow scene space that's available, I relied on background mountains of foam to add some visual depth. I like these mountains to dwarf the scene, but I think the whole business needs to drop about 2" to look just right.  The distant ones turned out OK, but the"closer" small ones in front probably need another hack when I get some more paint. I'll also "detail" them some once that's done.  After painting in the base coat of "dirt" between the rock castings, things are starting to look better.  Like most of the Cascade Branch scenery, most of this area lifts out for easy access.  I also finished up a new water tower for Purgatory, a roughly condensed version of Rio Grande standard tank design. It is built around a circular form I recycled from the spacer that protects the icing bad in a roll of cinnamon buns, which turned out to have just about the right proportions for this project.  I also ran a train or two just for fun...  |
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Post by oldmuley on May 17, 2015 15:40:06 GMT -8
My Russell Snow Plow is almost complete. All that's left is some weathering and a little graffiti and it's ready for service.  |
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Post by mrsocal on May 17, 2015 16:19:45 GMT -8
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Post by mrl250 on May 17, 2015 16:26:14 GMT -8
Nice work everybody!
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djh4d
Full Member
Posts: 205
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Post by djh4d on May 17, 2015 20:38:23 GMT -8
I'm a little late to the party, but here's the recent addition to the fleet: CSXT 2  Enjoy, -Dave |
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Post by mlehman on May 17, 2015 23:29:38 GMT -8
Awesome Russell plow!  Great tanks, Scotty. Dave, Never too late, it was slow earlier. How about a few more as I color my landscape? The initial pass (I'm using acrylics and some old WS Earth stain) has the "dirt" portions in brown and rocks in a sort of greenish brown I made from the WS Earth and some yellow I had on hand. This was the only pic I think I have of these colors before I covered them with a black wash. Just kind of a color card in the background here.  Blackening the rocks really helped them pop.  Then I made another sandy tan colored wash to highlight the rocks.  It came out reasonably well. Needs more trees...  |
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Post by atsfan on May 18, 2015 7:14:25 GMT -8
I'm a little late to the party, but here's the recent addition to the fleet: CSXT 2 Enjoy, -Dave Nice background. How,was it done, painting? Thanks  |
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djh4d
Full Member
Posts: 205
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Post by djh4d on May 18, 2015 17:00:28 GMT -8
Nice background. How,was it done, painting? Thanks Thanks, it was hand painted. -Dave |
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Post by riogrande on May 18, 2015 17:45:44 GMT -8
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Post by mlehman on May 19, 2015 0:31:00 GMT -8
Jim, Those are going to be some impressive cliffs when they're finished. |
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Post by riogrande on May 19, 2015 3:38:18 GMT -8
The track laying in that yard took me the last several months but like I said, I'm really slow - it takes me several hours to even cut in a couple pieces of track - it's very tedious work to cut all the rail so it all fits fairly tightly and neatly and partly because I didn't have much time with my wife being between jobs etc. I did have a 4 day weekend last weekend to work on it and most of the yard finished up.
I still have to add the power wire feeders in for the upper level and have basically run out of code 83 flex, so I'll need to order more switches and a few more sticks of flex.
The canyon walls where I'm putting in the cardboard webbing is to be roughly based on Ruby Canyon near the border of Colorado and Utah.
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Post by mlehman on May 19, 2015 6:40:19 GMT -8
SNIP The canyon walls where I'm putting in the cardboard webbing is to be roughly based on Ruby Canyon near the border of Colorado and Utah. I suspected that might be the case, based on the "foundation" angles you have going on there. Meanwhile, the forest ranger's recommendation to try the new strain of GMO-enhanced, steroid-fertilized conifers yielded some quick results as trees sprouted right up almost overnight.   A lot of them were still a little droopy as the glue was drying when I took the pic last night, but they'll perk up. I also took another hack at the "intermediate" mountain range that turned out more pleasing.  |
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Post by riogrande on May 19, 2015 7:13:47 GMT -8
I'm trying to shape the canyons with the cardboard stips rather than some other way. I'll lay the plaster cloth on them. The hard part is how to handle how the track from underneeth comes out from under the bridge but behind it too where the canyon walls come down. I guess I'll just have them come straight down to the bottom track behind the bridge and put a tunnel mouth in there. Here is a classic olden days shot in Ruby Canyon:  This was generally the look I am going for - 45 degree angle walls leading up to near verticle cliffs:  |
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Post by mlehman on May 19, 2015 10:39:46 GMT -8
Jim, Yes, VERY inspirational I think you're on the right track using the bridge as a view block. Under the ideal state of having a bit more room to work with, you could angle the track coming in from the left away from the wall with a short curve or a wider curve, instead of the straight track until you're past the bridge. That would give you a better angle to hide the "tunnel" entrance, but I just don't think you have room to do that. I think what you have should work, though. I did something similar where the track emerges on the Cascade Branch from its passage through the wall, but it relies almost wholly on the angle of the track to disguise what's going on. The track seems to emerge from a cut as it rounds the mountain, but it's really a tunnel back there. Here it is in pink.  This is the angle you really can't see.  A wider view of the normally unseen angle taken from a pop-up that's in the corner.  |
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Post by atsfan on May 19, 2015 16:42:30 GMT -8
The track laying in that yard took me the last several months but like I said, I'm really slow - it takes me several hours to even cut in a couple pieces of track - it's very tedious work to cut all the rail so it all fits fairly tightly and neatly and partly because I didn't have much time with my wife being between jobs etc. I did have a 4 day weekend last weekend to work on it and most of the yard finished up. I still have to add the power wire feeders in for the upper level and have basically run out of code 83 flex, so I'll need to order more switches and a few more sticks of flex. The canyon walls where I'm putting in the cardboard webbing is to be roughly based on Ruby Canyon near the border of Colorado and Utah. Put Momma to work helping! Wine, music, hey it is couple bonding time. She can mark stuff. Use the Xuron cutters, the works. You are using Xuron cutters right to move fast? |
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Post by riogrande on May 20, 2015 1:27:09 GMT -8
Happy wife, happy life!
I use Xuron cutters for the big cuts but the Dremel for the precise cuts. It takes me the longest when I'm fitting track between to pieces that are already installed since it has to be precise to fit in between. There were a bunch of spots like that in the latter phase of the yard, some 7 or 8 so it was tie consuming.
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Post by kentuckysouthernrwy on May 20, 2015 15:32:13 GMT -8
Happy wife, happy life! so it was tie consuming. I find that ALL track laying is tie consuming.... |
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Post by stevef45 on May 20, 2015 19:23:29 GMT -8
Kinda getting back into modeling. Slowly workingon this SD45 for FWWR. Had to get the cannon SP subbase doors and will have to figure out a door for the last one. Cab is on, nose will get finished tomorrow. Then it will get stripped. Those nose is notched like a SP nose, just the putty hides it. Also i got a sd40-2 in kcs that will get stripped and have a 116" nose added to it for FWWR.  |
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Post by mlehman on May 21, 2015 4:58:58 GMT -8
Steve, She's a little homely now, but once she has her new nose finished she'll be ravishing. Me? I did more trees, for a total of about 300. That puts the layout total somewhere above 7,000. A couple of pics   |
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Post by stevef45 on May 22, 2015 16:52:05 GMT -8
cleaned up  I had to customize the subbase for this model. I had to use the SP doors for the engineers side and a mix of regular subbase and conrail ones.  The KCS unit I got, its getting stripped right now.   |
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Post by mrsocal on May 22, 2015 18:50:36 GMT -8
Really cool stuff going on here but I am going to put my neck out on the tree stump and ask... Why don't you fellas run a thread on your builds for all to follow along and not just drop a few pics in the SPF? Steve I want to follow along and hear as well as see your step by step build to maybe pick up some great tips that I did not know or even give a tip or two that might help you in your build. Ive been around long enough now to say that there is a lot of chit chat and not enough modeling around here, me included. The chater about this that and the other is great and I love reading it but.... we need more how to and builds going on to keep it alive and interesting. Don't you agree?
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Post by stevef45 on May 23, 2015 19:35:03 GMT -8
Mrsocal, i've got enough pics now that I could start a build thread. Might do it later tonight. I do miss seeing all the build threads from other members.
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