Weekend Update 3-22-2009

[John]

It is that time again. Show us your accomplishments for the week.

For me, some initial placement for the refinery, and put down the track spur for it. I need to pick up some oil storage tanks next

[diezmon]

More SOO work for me.  I'm experimenting with using krystal klear for numberboards..

[up1950s]

[wm3798]

"Need a big log?  Think Beaver!"

Sorry, Richie...  It's the Madison Ave. pitch man in me... ;D

Lee

[atsf_arizona]

SNFF 2009 03 22

A while back I'd posted about locating and repairing problem with blown
speaker on the N scale Precision Craft Models E7, including some
pictures of the mechanism and sound and how it goes together:

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=106148

This is a net-it-out shorter version of same narrative:

http://precisioncraftmodels.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1133

A followup.  Another one of the speakers failed again. 

To Precision Craft Models credit, once I could get through to
them (had to persevere and keep trying), since the time was so
short since the first replacement speakers, they sent another pair of
replacement speakers at no cost to me. 

This time the speakers they sent were not wired into a harness,
so I needed to unsolder the failed speaker and
solder in the replacement, wasn't hard:









Then simply plugged the speaker harness back into the board, as shown in the URLs

above.

And when they are running properly, the PCM E7s with sound
are good looking locos:





Just wanting to document my experience for the benefit of all.

[Erik W]

I’ve spent the last month or so working on my first non-mountain scenery.  This section is at the narrowest point of the layout, just under 2 feet from fascia to backdrop.  I only sceniced about 4 square feet.  I wanted to test some new scenery techniques (trying to do dirt roads better, better ground cover texture, scenicing around structures, etc.)  The most fun part of this, when compared to the mountain scenery, was adding cars, figures and details.  I will probably weather the yard tracks more, but I wanted to wait until I have the whole yard painted and ballasted so I can do it all at once. 

Here are the photos, with plenty of Rio Grande action.























Erik

[Caleb Austin]

As the grass outside turns greener, the layout does as well.

[cv_acr]

Erik: that looks really nice.

John: good start on the refinery, of course to really look like a real refinery you'd need about ten of those kits (ah, kit compression), plus a few other small buildings for offices, control rooms, lunch rooms, locker rooms, etc. Plus storage tanks (like you already mentioned), loading racks for tank cars and trucks, water cooling towers, etc. And pipelines connecting everything together. (All above ground on posts and racks).

[John]

You are right .. I really could use an extra refinery kit ... but the section is only 1ft wide, and will need some space for the tanks .. I am going to try and squeeze some more piping and stuff in there .. I will pick up a traincat loading platform ..

[3rdrail]

Erik W, a couple of questions. First, the two buildings have completely different color schemes. Are they both representing D&RGW structrues? if so, why are they painted differently? Also, why is there no bare earth at the left end platform of the station building dock? The station also appears to "float" on the landscape.

Your work is so good that these very minor discrepancies become relevant.

[tom mann]

So, I was floored by the photo that Jamie posted to the Atlas forum showing Jos' trees.  I decided to follow Jos' techniques (outlined on RailroadLine) and see what I could do myself:



After studying Jos' techniques (and this guy is a real master; a real artist), I did the following:

I twisted 22, 24, and 26 ga floral arrangement wire around a 1mm music wire.  After I cut myself a few times (  : ), I had a basic tree shape.  This is where studying tree structure really comes in handy.  The advantage to this technique over supersage/supertrees is that you have complete control over structure.  The trees I've built using a supersage frame with supertree material grafted on looked artificial.

The next step is to coat the wire framework with a mixture of glue and sawdust.  This allows you to bulk up any branches that need it, in addition to covering the twisted wire.

Next is to coat the glue/sawdust with a thinned plaster mixture.

Next, pull apart aquarium filter into small, quarter-sized pieces (my tree is about 7" tall).  Glue these where appropriate. 

Paint it!  My tree is a gray base color with a spray of raw umber.

Sprinkle on green static grass over the filter clumps.  This further creates a twig structure.  Finally, add Noch leaves.

At each step of the way, this tree looked so bad I was going to give up.  Now that I know what to look for, the next attempt should be better.

I encourage you to read Jos' write ups.

[TrainCat2]

I got the first PRR H30a built this week. On this hopper, I used the .009 PB wire instead of the etched grabs.

[wcfn100]

I did some more work on the Aerotrain.  First up was to figure out some sort of draw bar for the cars I wanted to have permanently coupled.  If I wanted to keep a 15" radius possible, I was only able to shorten the distance between cars by a little bit.






I also started to tackle putting the decoder into the locomotive.  I'll have to give my apologies to whomever designed the main circuit board, but it had to go.  I did harvest the organs to be reused, but there just wasn't enough space.  Now the dilemma is whether to activate the inside head lights that CC left blank.  If I do, I'll run out of functions on the decoder to do the interior car lights for the first half of the train.

Jason

[sizemore]

And so it began...



It's just going to be a roundy-round to work on new scenery techniques/products as well as give me an oppurtunity to run trains. The trackplan will mimic the Lou Sassi/Dave Vollmer plans with an added run around. Need to pick up 2" foam from Home Despot.

Also fried two decoders, the first I screwed the pooch which I can totally accept. The second is the result of crappy engineering -a loose fitting board with exposed electronics sandwiched in a poor area. I programmed it, then threw it on the test track, ran it forwards and reverse, then decided "hey lets turn on the lights" worked great in forward...kicked it in reverse then smelled wonderful fried resistors and electronic bits. I'm weary about doing this a third time.

[Erik W]

Erik W, a couple of questions. First, the two buildings have completely different color schemes. Are they both representing D&RGW structrues? if so, why are they painted differently? Also, why is there no bare earth at the left end platform of the station building dock? The station also appears to "float" on the landscape.

Your work is so good that these very minor discrepancies become relevant.

Gregg,

Thanks for the kind words and constructive criticism.  Only the station is a D&RGW structure.  Your points about the station are good ones.  Since the station is not glued down like the other structures (the reason it appears to "float") it should be easy enough to replace the groundfoam with some dirt . . . and then glue the station down and settle it into the scenery.

Erik