Weekend Update - 9/19/2010

[Puddington]

Ok; I'll start............
 
I finished the second "Grove" sleeper - "Apple Grove"; I'm pleased with the appearance of the passengers on this side.



I have been thinkin about that old Donny and Marie song "I'm a little bit country, he's a little bit rock and roll" while contemplating my next scratch build.....

What has arch bar trucks; steam lines, wooden side, truss rods and a steel sill....an Ajax brake wheel and carries "living creatures"......

A Horse Express car.............

The Canadian Pacific Railway had horse express cars from the 1890's. The Palace Car Company built the first and around 1914, the CPR shops turned out 18 wooden side 48 1/2 inside length cars for themselves.

These wooden side cars ran, unaltered into the late 1960's and early 1970's. They spent the summers and fall hauling the most valuable race horses in Canada to North America's premier race tracks. In the winter they were left on race track sidings to store hay for the animals.

Now; my crystal ball informs me that a copy of these cars wasn't on Micro Trains top ten list so... time to scratch build one...

0.030 v groove styrene was used for the sides. An Athearn express reefer frame was used and the sides were adhered to the body.



The ends were made of the same material and a curved roof line was developed. The roof is made of 0.015 styrene and will have a wooden walk way and 0.010 brass wire "panels" added. The doors are made of 0.015 scribed styrene and strip.

Here's where we are so far.



This one could take a while !
 
 

[mark dance]

More flying plaster this week...

I finished carving all the rocks between Coykendahl and McRae canyon (a total of approx. 35 feet of mainline) and sprayed them with dilute india ink to get them ready for the painting to start next week.  The two tunnels in this area, Bulldog tunnel and Paulson tunnel, were lined, their portals carved and/or secured and access hatches cut and blended in with surrounding scenery.

I also experimented some more with laying down snow on rockwork and coating trees.  I wanted to see what the combination might look like so I gave the rocks a quick wash of paint and a bit of white highlighting, laid down some snow in the canyon and made up and placed a few trees.  The rock still needs colour, the portals need painting and weathering, etc., (oh, and of course I have to build a snowshed!) but the overall impression is coming together.








Next week I hope to have the rock painted between Coykendahl and Bulldog which is 50-60% of the rock in this area.  I can then begin laying down the dense forest cover in this area.  I will likely come back to the snow scenes in a few weeks.

[up1950s]

Done with this one .
 

 

[Puddington]

That's a work of art Richie.........I bow to a steam monster !

[SkipGear]

Mark,
 That scene is so COLD. the snow gives it a great feel of being there.

Richie,
 The steamer looks great. You may be able to get the boiler a little lower on the frame by removing the electrical tape holding the plastic insulator around the motor, if you haven't already.

[DKS]

Finished a background building--the public library:







Also, in preparation to return to the world of stop-motion animation, I ran a quick test to convert images from a DSLR into a video. The software is ImageJ, and it works like a charm. To save time, the images were shot without any planning or measuring--the movements were done entirely by eye (ordinarily every move would be planned down to the millimeter). I'm contemplating doing an animation of a structure kit building itself.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Man Richie, that's gorgeous.

And David, that's wild. I can't wait to see the finished project.

[John]

Not much for me the last two weeks .. work has taken over my spare time ..

I did get started on a MiJack to get started on the intermodal yard .

[71jeep]

Just finished this G39 I know it is a bit out of my era but I just like these cars I remember seeing some of these along the Delaware river heading for Bethlehem steel when I was kid.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Not much for me the last two weeks .. work has taken over my spare time ..

Hey, whaddya know? Me too...

However, it's not all bad.

I got a chance to sneak out for a few hours yesterday to snap this with my new (to me) Rebel:



Also, and this is the part of work that doesn't suck, I'm doing a project for the Baltimore Chapter of the NRHS. As part of it, I've gotten to see a LOT of really cool Baltimore area historic rail photographs, like these:

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Just finished this G39 I know it is a bit out of my era but I just like these cars I remember seeing some of these along the Delaware river heading for Bethlehem steel when I was kid.

That's nice. Real nice...

In the late 70s, CR actually used those to haul coils too, which means they weren't always in unit trains (but also weren't able to be interchanged).

[sizemore]

Worked on a contact sheet for some decals for the ACME Labs/BYR Shops this week. Also worked on the Battle-Wagon after being rear ended from two weeks ago...didn't know I needed some parts which I have to order tomorrow.



Everyone loves a bare butt! Ok maybe not all.

The S.

[TrainCat2]

Allen, That Jenny looks great! Very nice solder job

I started building a Train Shed diorama. Here are two pics, the rest are in the new thread I started for the build.

[up1950s]

Thanks all , might try that removal of plastic Tony , I did it on the last one , don't know why I left it on this thing .

[Andrew Hutchinson]

Bob, Is the train shed angle iron all bent up by hand or did you use some other technique to achieve the relief during the etching process?

Thanks,

Andrew Hutchinson