Weekend Update 6/9/13

[mcjaco]

Looks like my modeling hiatus might be coming to and end, and the models can come out of their hiding places. 

House went under contract Saturday.  Now it's time to start looking for one with a basement.

[John]

I've gotten tired waiting on BLMA actually doing Vader style signals in N (at a price I could afford) .. so I am starting to build some of my own .. the first couple look like crap, but I will get better at it ...

[Lemosteam]

1701? Is it on a 5 year mission?

Nerd alert!!!   

[6axlepwr]

I highly suggest for railroad colors you give True Color Paint a try. Thin it with acetone. I thin it about 60% to 70%. The acetone flashes off really fast and the paint is dry to the touch very quickly. Paint goes on smooth as glass and the colors are great.

Brian

[jnevis]

Pffft, you're still a rookie...    Next summers PCS from Germany will be lucky number 13 in 19 years for us.

I consider myself lucky.  I only moved 7 times in the 20 yrs before I retired, only once OCONUS and back my first tour.  There were four WESTPAC cruises though.

I finally SAW my workbench and layout over the weekend, speaking of moving.  Trying to pare own the "stuff" so we can move later in the summer closer to work.  85 miles each way on the DC Beltway SUCKS!

[sirenwerks]

I consider myself lucky.  I only moved 7 times in the 20 yrs before I retired, only once OCONUS and back my first tour.  There were four WESTPAC cruises though.

I finally SAW my workbench and layout over the weekend, speaking of moving.  Trying to pare own the "stuff" so we can move later in the summer closer to work.  85 miles each way on the DC Beltway SUCKS!

I know of a house in Ellicott City that will be on the market soon (knock on wood).

[Skeebo]

I grew up in the Air Force and where they didn't drag me for 18 years the Navy did for another 11. Plus my dad made money by flipping houses, so we moved every two years. I'd built 10 layouts and tore down nine layouts, none of them making it past basic hard shell scenery except for the last one, it  being a modified SP version of MRR's Clinchfield. That one made five moves. Best thing that ever happened was after the first gulf war they decided I was extra and dumped me on the street. I've lived in the same house for 16 years now and am well along on my 500 sq. ft. triple deck dream layout. At one time I actually envied people who'd never left their home town. I personally will not move again until this layout is finished!

Jim

[peteski]

I highly suggest for railroad colors you give True Color Paint a try. Thin it with acetone. I thin it about 60% to 70%. The acetone flashes off really fast and the paint is dry to the touch very quickly. Paint goes on smooth as glass and the colors are great.

Brian

That picture was tongue-in-cheek Brian. We have been through this on one of the other Floquil discontinued thread. I have been using (and still have plenty of) Accupaint. It is pretty much the same as TruColor. It is perfect for painting N scale rolling stock and locos.   But I really think that 60-70% thinner is a bit much (since full-strength, it is already airbrush-ready). You must like painting with colored water.    I would also be leery of using too much acetone (I know that the paint does contain some acetone), since acetone can melt and craze styrene plastic.

The reason I (and probably many more modelers) are lamenting those paint lines being discontinued is because they were ideal for painting scenery and structures. Items that needed to have flat finish.  While there are several alternatives, I still preferred Floquil and PolyScale for those tasks.

[peteski]

1701? Is it on a 5 year mission?

Actually, it looks morel like it just came back from a 5 year mission, to boldly go where no railroad engineer has gone before. 

[delamaize]

I consider myself lucky.  I only moved 7 times in the 20 yrs before I retired, only once OCONUS and back my first tour.  There were four WESTPAC cruises though....

I only moved Once durring my 5 year enlistment, that was from my HOR to Ft. Rucker. Moved twice with my ex wife's commission though, once from rucker (ETS for me, PCS for her) to Lewis, then once to baumholder, then back here to my HOR after the divorce. I never tried to move a layout, I always got rid of them before trying to move them, I had heard way too may horror stories.

[Ike the BN Freak]

Pffft, you're still a rookie...    Next summers PCS from Germany will be lucky number 13 in 19 years for us.

I've only had 2 PCS moves in 9 years...but the AF likes not moving enlisted folks it seems.

However as a brat, I did 7 moves in 18 years, so in 26 years I moved 11 times...yup, I'm ready to stop moving and settle.  I mean the longest I've lived in one place was just under 5 years, and that is tied with Ellsworth AFB, SD and Las Vegas, NV.

[PGE-N°2]

Here is the entrance to East staging...I have been wondering about this area ever since I first sketched it out but I didn't have much choice as the tracks on the other side pass below and behind some dramatic scenery (McCormack Creek trestle) and the prototype had no tunnels anywhere near this area to hide the passage through the backdrop.  Once tall trees are in place I think it will be passable and the jarring effect will be reduced.  We shall see...


md

Mark, another option you might want to consider, even though it never existed in reality either, is the ever popular highway overpass to conceal the staging entrance. Or, taking a page from an old issue of MRP, if you backlight behind the backdrop, and continue the track ballasting and rough scenery through the opening into the area behind, it can fool the eye into thinking that a dark tunnel portal is actually an open gap through the scenery into an extended scene beyond.

It might also be possible to blend the scenery up into the backdrop using something similar to the awning cloth you used at the Slocan City lift gate. If fixed at the right angle, it could help draw the scenery downwards, and conceal most of the gap and you would only need to leave the smallest necessary opening for the passage of trains. It's a fairly small space, so building the scenery on a gradual slope up into the flat backdrop would be quite effective in covering over the entrance, especially since the viewer would be looking down on it from above.

[mark dance]

Thx for the ideas...always welcome.  I will try the large trees first!

md

[nkalanaga]

And, if the trees don't work there, I'm sure you can find a use for them elsewhere on the layout, so you won't have lost anything.

[mark dance]

 

And, if the trees don't work there, I'm sure you can find a use for them elsewhere on the layout, so you won't have lost anything.

I stopped counting the trees after 6 thousand!
md