Weekend Update 10/23/11

[central.vermont]

Made some progress on my NSVA Build-A-Truck model:



Testing the blade on the plow yoke. The blade will be in the raised position when complete. I really wish I could have done a tapered blade, but this is the best I can do.

Dan,
That truck is looking great!! Are you going too put a wing blade on it also? 

Jon

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I was thinking about adding a right side wing, but the dump bed is mounted to close to the cab to fit a rachet tower for the blade. Maybe next time.

Man, now I am going to have to model a winter scene for this thing.

[Scottl]

Catt, I just chopped the vertical section of the railing a bit and glued the rail and stanchion together again.  It is holding together reasonably well with handling.  The prototype basically did the same thing- you can see it in the photograph in the background, and notice they did not have a stanchion between the cab and the vertical lift. 

[wm3798]

Dan, could you delicately sand the profile of the blade just at the edges to give the illusion of a thinner blade?  Maybe disguise the back with a rib or something?

I like the color scheme, too.  Safety Yellow is just another aspect of creeping "Generica"... it's harder and harder to know where you are without a GPS.

Lee

[Puddington]

Bacon......see the crew lounge for more................

[up1950s]

Man, now I am going to have to model a winter scene for this thing.

Not really .

In the maint yard being painted and prepped for the next season .

An oil truck hit something and lost its load , so they are using it to sand the road once the fire department washes most of it away .

They could be sanding first with a regular dump truck going backwards , then the oil sand mixture gets plowed together and loaded into drums , the the drums go into a truck , the fire department washed the left over , and the road gets sanded with your gem .

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've got three projects to report on this week (it feels like it's been forever since I did any real modeling).

First, making more progress on the layout. Got track laid 2/3 of the way across the front, and the rest of the drywall compound sanded and ready for the rest of the track (next weekend).



The second is my Conrail Bowser N5 caboose. It amazes me how half-assed Bowser did with these. The basic model is ok, but when it came to decoration time, they really phoned it in. For example, on the ends (which slide out the top, in a rather ingenius way), have spots where the brake wheel on the end railings created a "shadow" of bare plastic. Needless to say, there was much that needed fixing in that department. Luckily D&H Avon Blue was a good match to the stock paint.

Here's what I had to do to it:
1. Lower it, significantly. I filed down the bolster, and then applied BLMA's awesome 70t trucks to it, bringing it to a satisfactory height.
2. Swapped the couplers. The bodymounted rapidos went into the trash, and a set of Z scale 905s were screwed in in their place.
3. The roofwalk was removed, and the holes were plugged.
4. The window frames were painted to give it the appearance of the cars that were retrofitted with new frames when FRA Type II glazing was applied. I've cleaned up the edges a bit since I took this photo.
5. I painted. A lot. The cupola, the ends, the roofwalk, the end plaftforms and steps, all were painted their respective proper colors.



I'm still looking for a good way to simulate the orange blinking marker lamps that the cars had on their ends (see: http://thecrhs.org/Images/CR-23095-Class-N5C). Any suggestions?

[wm3798]

You'll need a T-2 (or whatever) function decoder, a lightboard from an old engine with yellow LED's, and some fiberoptics.  Once you establish track pickup, maybe with Kato trucks or Bachmann tender trucks, you're in like Flynn.

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I was thinking about that. It's awfully tempting to light them. They have to blink though.

Since I'm using the BLMA trucks, I've got metal wheels already. I just need some pickup into the body. The trickiest part though, is getting the fibre optic to where it needs to be. They tended to kinda "hang" on the end railings, like in that N5C pic. I guess I could move it up to the roof though. Hmm... then I'd just have to put a ring of gray on the end of the fiber optic. That would be really cool, although I think I might try it out on the upcoming ex-Reading wide vision car that I've got. There's a lot more room inside there to work.

[wm3798]

There should be a CV setting in the decoder to get the blink.  That's how I did that beacon on the S-2.
L

[diezmon]

Finishing up my GHQ flat. 



it's a two pack, so one down...

[central.vermont]

Well I haven't done anything on the layout that warrants posting but I did get some 1:1 done in the front yard!! 
My buddy Mec_Fan came over and helped me rip out the old mailbox and installed this nifty switch stand. The target was tie wrapped on just for the visual because it needs to be sandblasted and painted first. The switch lantern also needs to be mounted permanently so it doesn't
"walk away". It will also be tied in with the lights along the driveway so it's lighted when guest's come over. As a bonus the switch does throw so when the plow man goes down the road this winter he won't remove the mailbox!!!
The bottom photo has a burner from one of my lanterns in it lit. You can just see it.

Jon

[Dave V]

Ed, that looks phenomenal...!  I will need to do that with some of my N5s.

[sirenwerks]

I'm still looking for a good way to simulate the orange blinking marker lamps that the cars had on their ends (see: http://thecrhs.org/Images/CR-23095-Class-N5C). Any suggestions?

Take a look @ Ngineering's website, namely the beacon simulator here - http://www.ngineering.com/lighting%20effects%20for%20streets%20&%20highways.htm.  There's got to be a way to power it using a micr-switch and a watch battery.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Jon, I love it. Are you going to go with the origonal colors or will it see green and gold?