Re: Weekend Update 6/7/26

[Jesse6669]

For the very first time I connected all modules of the Mackinac Northern and ran some trains.

Love those crop circles.  We are not alone!

Sumner, I am in envy of not only your modeling skills but the level of activity.

I also envy that ballast Ed.

As for myself, I took a break from layout scenery to do some more rolling stock--seems like one week on and one week off-- anyway, I was motivated by the thread about fading to do this Z-scale Conrail GP30 as an example of airbrushing ultra-thinned Tamiya paint as fading/weathering.


I also received the new batch of decals for the 48' Monon container and tested them out: 


Note to self:  Need to get a photo stacking app for my iPhone so I can do this without losing focus to the depth of field.

[chuck geiger]

Love those crop circles.  We are not alone!

Sumner, I am in envy of not only your modeling skills but the level of activity.

I also envy that ballast Ed.

As for myself, I took a break from layout scenery to do some more rolling stock--seems like one week on and one week off-- anyway, I was motivated by the thread about fading to do this Z-scale Conrail GP30 as an example of airbrushing ultra-thinned Tamiya paint as fading/weathering.


Ed that is the *****!

I also received the new batch of decals for the 48' Monon container and tested them out: 


Note to self:  Need to get a photo stacking app for my iPhone so I can do this without losing focus to the depth of field.

[PiperguyUMD]

Did some work on my WM H9 tenders. The previous iteration of this had the frame and shell as separate prints, so I needed to combine them and adapt them to fit on the Hudson tender frames. This is where I'm at after a few tries. The fit front to back and side to side fit is excellent. It needs to be lowered a bit more, but I can only go a few scale inches to clear the trucks. The front corner of the tender near the ladder should basically be even with the cab window. The boiler shell is stilling a little low in this photo, so between the two, I should be able to get pretty close.

One thing that surprised me - check out the close coupling! For some reason, I don't have any trouble navigating my T-Trak modules with the tender this close to the cab. Sometimes I guess is better to be lucky then good!

Now that the fit is dialed in, I'll add the surface details and this one is checked off the list!

[jpwisc]

I finished another tie load for White Pine. I had to splice two resin loads together to get the length for the car, then I painted them, added some real wood ties and weathered it to tie it all together.
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[CR4100]

I did some virtual modeling this weekend. Here's a mostly completed Trinity 6011 cu ft aluminum covered hopper. I did two variation of the pneumatic outlets and two arrangements of the different walkway supports. I have a test version in the printer right now.

Look for 3601 Cargill salt cars and 3621 sodium chlorate cars in the coming weeks. (Same profile, somewhat shorter.)

[Rasputen]

I repaired my friend's Con-Cor / Heljan turntable by making an aluminum hub for the motor to connect to, instead of the original hollow plastic part.
Hopefully it can now withstand something falling into the pit and jamming the turntable bridge.

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[jpf94]

completed the first of 30 of these cars today.  An excellent 3d print from Sam.