Thanks Robert , it has been quite a few years since I have done any Campbell kit. I like it !!!!! Mike
View attachment 60467 View attachment 60468 View attachment 60469 Here is the latest from my paint booth. I like the NYC unit the best
I'd agree, the paint scheme really fits the shape well. The BN isn't at all shabby, either, and I'll leave the Borg alone...
I love stuff like this !!! These are really sharp !!! REALLY like the BN !!! Not a huge fan of UP, but that silver really brings out the truck details. GF said a CRI&P "Rocket" scheme would look great on these, too. Then she went on to mention other electric lines from our general area. ICG, IT, CSS, North Shore, etc. She knows too much. This is supposed to be MY hobby !!! Again, great ideas, and very nice work !!!
Well , Building Bents today. Watching the tube and working with tiny wood, what more could one ask for? 4 Down and 3 to go! Mike
I have been going through my fleet of stock cars, changing out couplers, wheels and repainting where necessary. It started out with a Pecos River Brass car I found at the train show in Oklahoma City last month. It is a Santa Fe Sk-Q type. All my others are not very prototype for the roads I model but that's OK. At least I repainted all the green ATSF cars to mineral brown. (Santa Fe never had green stock cars) Most of the fleet is made up of Microtrains NYC Dispatch stock car prototypes painted up for Santa Fe, T&NO, SP, MoPac, I-GN and San Antonio Pacific. (You have to have Flash Blackman explain the last one listed.) Pecos River car.
Just got these two track cleaning cars back from the painter. He elected to add the "MOW" lettering. Had dcc decoders installed in them. This allows me to run the vacuum mode at a high setting, but run the locomotive that is pushing or pulling the track cleaning car at a snail's pace.
Well a day and a half and I now have a usable Trestle. Now to cut out the space. The kit was very nice but really time consuming and barely enough wood (so don't make more than a couple errors). Now for the paint booth maybe tomorrow. Mike
Sharp looking work on the trestle bents Mike. Sure know about the lack of extra material in the Campbell's kits. One of the last HO kits that I built was the Union Ice Company model that I built for a friend a few decades ago. I'm trying to repair an ice house loading dock that was started before I moved. Some books fell on it during moving. Repairs done, brush painting the dock with acrylics has been a "many coated affair". Cutting the groove in the deck to model the ice transfer chain comes next. Robert Before: After paint, and the left half of the image has the weathering powdering done, the right half of the deck is still waiting for the washes to dry.
Mike and Robert, excellent work both! Please keep sharing as progress continues and those get installed.
Started printing the front pieces for the roundhouse. I'm working on the drawing for the new inside bracing and will print them out next week. I think Ill try printing the back wall and add brick overlay to them. If I don't like they they turnout, I'll go head and use one of the stock pieces and shorten it and cast them. Rodney
Very impressive window casement printing!! Please keep us updated with your progress, Rodney and thanks for posting. Robert
Thanks, when I was talking to Jason yesterday, he was telling me about your roundhouse but I couldn't find any pics of it. The plan it to glue some very thin clear plastic to the backside for the windows.
Here is the new Kato bridge. I used Atlas code 80 flex rail to span the bridge and just slipped on the Kato ends , nipped off the rails and installed the Kato joiners. All it now lacks is paint. Mike
Not so much the “work bench” as I am now procuring all the parts and materials to completely redo my layouts wiring. Gone will be all the old Atlas sliding-switch controllers, clustered on various lengths of plywood bolted by various means at various locations. Gone also will be the rat’s nest* of wires all arranged willy-nilly the result of. . .Actually, better left unsaid. In the above’s** place will be fascias with surface mounted toggle switches and an easily understood linear track schematic. A more streamlined wiring layout, most especially with the common wire, and with all the wires actually labeled as to their actual block number. Wow, imagine that. This will hopefully be completed sometime before our sun expands into a red giant and swallows the Earth. Or we are all killed in the Zombie Apocalypse. *Actually the rats, and their nests, were displaced by raccoons and their correspondingly larger nests long ago. **Yes I know that’s not an actual word, but it’s not going away so deal with it.
That should make an outstanding scene, Mike. Just out of curiosity, having done a smaller bridge before, have you given any thought to fabricating the guard rails for the track over the bridge?
