Weekend Update 10/7/2012

[wazzou]

More fleet upgrades to some Micro-trains cars.  I Lowered the car and made changes to the sill to more closely match the NP PS cars. 

[Bart1701]

I've been working on adding the water to my rivers. Here are some shots of the final product.











The water was done with many coats of Acrylic Gloss Medium brushed on to the riverbed. It took quite a bit of time, but I am pleased with the results.

Thanks,
Bart

[NARmike]

Not much for a modelling update from me but I did manage to post to my blog a detailed account of the building of my Heart River Bridge deck... So if any of you have grown tired of clicking the link and seeing the same old stuff there is now something new.

Excellent work this week, by the way!!!

Bart... your water is the best I've ever seen! Perfectly reflective and shaded...Looks like you could dive right in! Have you posted a detailed account of you techniques somewhere? I would really like to see the whole process.

Bryan... What are you using for your ballast? I have not seen ballast done that well before.

Mark... very nice weathering. The Smith trailer is perfect... Again... Can you show us how you did it? Also, I was just wondering where the Canuck's extra flags went on your C-Liners... that was a great touch!

Andy... Great start to your Ft. Nelson layout I just wish I could work as quicly as you

I'm anxious to see what the rest of you have been up to this week!

Mike

[MVW]

I've been working on adding the water to my rivers. Here are some shots of the final product.

Bart

Beautiful work!

Jim

[mmagliaro]

More fleet upgrades to some Micro-trains cars.  I Lowered the car and made changes to the sill to more closely match the NP PS cars. 

Lowering is such an easy thing to make such a big improvement.   Nice looking car!

I saw your picture, turned around 180 degrees in my chair to look at
a similar green NP car and thought, "Yikes!"... marched straight to the workbench, filed down the bolsters, and put the trucks
back on.    I have Fox Valley wheelsets on mine, so I didn't have to worry about the flanges clearing the underbody.  Just
a quick file job is all it takes.

Your car looks good.  Thanks for inspiring me!.

[MVW]

Lowering is such an easy thing to make such a big improvement.   Nice looking car!

I saw your picture, turned around 180 degrees in my chair to look at
a similar green NP car and thought, "Yikes!"... marched straight to the workbench, filed down the bolsters, and put the trucks
back on.    I have Fox Valley wheelsets on mine, so I didn't have to worry about the flanges clearing the underbody.  Just
a quick file job is all it takes.

Your car looks good.  Thanks for inspiring me!.

I'll second that. To be honest, I've always thought that guys who lower their cars have way too much modeling time on their hands. Now I've got to give that a second thought, especially since Max assures us it's relatively easy. Nicely done, Bryan. And beautifully staged and photographed.

Jim

[packers#1]

Great work everyone!
Well, so far this weekend I have destroyed my B23-7 shell (good news is I can replace it and get a high hood shell for my C420, so my loco roster will be "complete") but also completed this build, sans paint and signs. This industry has evolved from some google earthing I did in Jefferson, WI, where I saw a Purina Dog Food plant; not sure if it is distribution or manufacturing. My building is a distribution warehouse made from the three-story bit of a DPM Goodnight Mattress company, while the annex is a severely cut up and rearranged Gripps Luggage Manufacturing kit. There are a few spots where the structure is rough, but some paint, signs, weathering, and well-placed bushes/brush will bring the three foot rule into effect. I will also be adding a loading dock and raising the building up to track level. I hope to finally get around to starting a thread for this layout in the layout engineering forum, but for info on it click here
Sorry for some of the grainy shots, I have an olddddddddddddddd camera.
Front view of the warehouse. There will be  loading dock by the spur, and some brush in the corner:

Rear view of the warehouse; I'll be putting a tree in the corner where the two kits meet. This area will rarely be seen.

[vt_railroad_guy]

Laying foam on my daughter's layout.  Please excuse my less than stellar cinematography.

[mandealco]

Mark
Nice weathering on the CLC/FMs, particularly the grills.
Cheers
Steve

[SAH]

The AC&Y came alive for the first time on Friday with someone other than me at the throttle.  A couple of brave souls attending the North Carolina Rail Run signed up for the maiden voyage.  Things worked fairly well and we had a good time, which is the point of the whole thing of course.  I have a few things to improve upon and am looking forward to getting to it.

The last freight car I finished just before NCRR is shown in the AC&Y Layout engineering thread, with pertinent details.  Looking forward to working on a few other projects now that prep for NCRR is over.

Have a Great Week,

Steve

[kelticsylk]

The water was done with many coats of Acrylic Gloss Medium brushed on to the riverbed. It took quite a bit of time, but I am pleased with the results.

Thanks,
Bart

Bart that water looks great. I hope mine comes out that good.

Frank Musick

[wazzou]

Bryan... What are you using for your ballast? I have not seen ballast done that well before.

Thanks Mike...I use Arizona Rock & Minerals ballast.  I mix parts of NP, GN, UP and a little CN&W mauve to match the ballast from a pit on a branch of the Northern Pacific here in SW Washington I intend to model.

Thank you Jim and Max.

[mark dance]

Mark... very nice weathering.  Can you show us how you did it? Also, I was just wondering where the Canuck's extra flags went on your C-Liners... that was a great touch!

Mike

Hi Mike...than you for the kind compliment.  The weathering is various combinations of airbrushing (Tom Mann's generic fades, grime and dirt mixtures), pan patels and AIM chalks following protoype pictures of the equipment.

And the Canucks flags are parked until the lock out is settled

md

[bc6]

As usual there are some great contributions this weekend, I didnt think I'd have anything to contribute but I just finished up my project tonight. Jon aka Central Vermont recently hooked me up with some custom painted shells and I wanted to decal them with my leasing company logo. There is a SD50, Dash 9 and SD90MAC that I decaled and numbered, I hit it a couple of times with some dullcote to get rid of that new look. One loco took me 3 different tries to number it & another took me two tries to number it lol.

[bbussey]

More traveling for work this week so not much modeling time available, but I managed to advance one of the Gs.  I used a flat overcoat to protect the decals and kill the shine.  Modified the window bars and added the Sinclair antenna as per the real 4885, reassembled and took it for a quick spin on the test oval.  Now it just needs weathering to finish it.





And, I finally found some suitable pantographs for a New Haven EP3.  Tomix makes a few different designs, but they are available only in Japan.  A friend picked some up and sent them to me.  This will give me some incentive to build an EP3.