Weekend Update 5/22/16

[up1950s]

[chuck geiger]

Reminds me of this classic:

[wm3798]

Reviewing what Mike accomplished building the Kanto Sub with his son Sam, made me realize I really do have time to work on something...

And in just the nick of time, I received a pilot kit of the WM's Owings Mills Station from Medford Trains.  I've been tasked with writing the directions, and doing a test build.



So far it's going together nicely.  Hopefully I'll have another update before the weekend is out.

I'm pretty excited about it, because Jim was able to use the reference photos I took of the station back in 1988, about a year or so before Chessie the Knife looked the other way as arsonists worked their dark magic.



It's also nice to see my old friend John Craft in the photos... he also left us way too soon.

Lee

[C855B]

School is done for the year, so finally, finally, finally I am getting back to MRR activities.

First, paint testing in preparation for the C855 project:



Shortly put, I am not happy with the poor Armour yellow match between the commercial models and MRR paints. Three different manufacturers seem to agree on the yellow, so why are the available paints so far out? I don't care who's right, really, I just want everything on the layout to be in the same ballpark.

Paint test at the top is Scalecoat II over Scalecoat II white, on white PVC. Paint test on the top right shell is TruColor over Scalecoat II white, on Shapeways FUD. Second shell down is Scalecoat II yellow over Scalecoat II M/W gray as a primer. Bottom shell - the total disaster - is TruColor yellow over TruColor "primer", which is entirely too dark. It's looking like the end game will be Scalecoat II white as a primer/sealer, and a bit of tint matching work with TruColor.

Work has resumed on the layout. The lighting struts are all up as of yesterday, tracks and light heads are in progress, and a new software-based controller has beaucoup flexibility over the inexpensive hardware panel I was using for testing.

[wazzou]

@C855B - I think all of the commercial shells you displayed are too orange. 
IMO, the upper right she'll is the closest match for the 1960's era, YMMV. 

[C855B]

No doubt, I have lots of reference photos floating around that agree with that concept. But like I said, I'm more inclined to propagate the error of the commercial makers. I'd rather keep a somewhat consistent look on the RR, as opposed to being "right" with my paint jobs, implicitly committing myself to matching the rest of the fleet. I have to pick my battles.

BTW, the Harbor Mist Gray for all of them is too dark. I'll lighten my mix to match the lightest of the three, the Kato U-boat.

[mighalpern]

trying to make progress.  Just stuck on how to make this area work , finally committed to a huge slab.
un-sanded grey grout



trying to make room for fencing among other things.
will see how this plays out once dry

[MichaelWinicki]

The color variation is stunning!

Glad I model the PC. 

[up1950s]

One manufacturer does it wrong , then 2 others copy that , then , oh no , a proven expert does the same . I'm going to get a tear tat by my eye for you .  . Please rethink this , please please please , but in the end please yourself .

[C855B]

Richie, you're going to make me get out more of the fleet for a side-by-side. What I do know is this "too orange" thing with the makers has been going on for over 40 years - the Rivarossi Atlas E8s I bought in '74 are noticeably on the dark side. And no, there are no cookies.

I have one Atlas/Roco GP30 in a junk box where both colors are closer to photos, but it's going to stay in that box. (I do get it out every couple of years, if only to run for a good laugh.) I do recall from "the day" that UP was not a popular road in N, so there evidently wasn't much pressure to get it right. Even these days with UP-paint models flying off the shelves, Kato keeps moving the dial further towards "orange!". Must be latent Milwaukee fans...

Anyway, I'm certainly willing to reconsider. Now that I have the space and time (and refreshed skills) for painting, conforming the fleet to "more correct" might not be an impossible option.

[Xmtrman]

I had what I think is a good result of using all TruColor over FUD using Harbor Mist grey as the primer.

Pardon the glare but I hadn't dullcoated everything yet.

There's enough natural variation out in the real world (lacquer vs. water-based vs. Imron, etc.) that I don't worry about it.

[SkipGear]

School is done for the year, so finally, finally, finally I am getting back to MRR activities.

First, paint testing in preparation for the C855 project:


Shortly put, I am not happy with the poor Armour yellow match between the commercial models and MRR paints. Three different manufacturers seem to agree on the yellow, so why are the available paints so far out? I don't care who's right, really, I just want everything on the layout to be in the same ballpark.

Paint test at the top is Scalecoat II over Scalecoat II white, on white PVC. Paint test on the top right shell is TruColor over Scalecoat II white, on Shapeways FUD. Second shell down is Scalecoat II yellow over Scalecoat II M/W gray as a primer. Bottom shell - the total disaster - is TruColor yellow over TruColor "primer", which is entirely too dark. It's looking like the end game will be Scalecoat II white as a primer/sealer, and a bit of tint matching work with TruColor.

A recent find that matched the Kato excursion cars almost perfectly was Testors MM Deep Yellow TES2118. This was spraying over the gray. Can't remember what I used for Harbor Mist Gray but I believe it was also a MM Military color.

[C855B]

Good to know. I was wondering how much of the revised MM palette would cross into rail colors. So there you go. Actually, the excursion train near-orange is what I had in my mind about Kato shifting the color, again. We had a discussion on TRW a while back about the variation within the Kato passenger sets, and that the COLA set was obviously different from the smoothside 'A', 'B' and 'C' sets, and annoyed folks (...like me...) who were trying to build a City of Everywhere.

BTW, the A-B-B-B-A set of E's I have for the CoE are BLI. Their yellow is a touch brown. Frustrating.

With thanks to the folks here keeping me honest, I think my particular solution will be the TruColor yellow, and lighten their gray to better match the references I have. (I really like working with the TruColor, which was new to me after years of kinda struggling with Scalecoat. It sprays nicely, covers great with very thin coats, and cleanup is a breeze.) It turns out that nearly all of my "signature" custom models are waiting for paint - things like GP9Bs, SD24Bs, GP30Bs, DD35, C855B... what is this thing with cabless locos, anyway? Even the GP35s to match the DD35s are unpainted shells.

So we're good, I guess. I'll cringe a little bit with mixed consists, but that'll plant the bug to get more serious about weathering (Robyn calls it "schmutzing"), which will better explain the variations.

[peteski]

Paint test at the top is Scalecoat II over Scalecoat II white, on white PVC. Paint test on the top right shell is TruColor over Scalecoat II white, on Shapeways FUD. Second shell down is Scalecoat II yellow over Scalecoat II M/W gray as a primer. Bottom shell - the total disaster - is TruColor yellow over TruColor "primer", which is entirely too dark. It's looking like the end game will be Scalecoat II white as a primer/sealer, and a bit of tint matching work with TruColor.

To me these results are not surprising.  Light color paints require light color surface to achieve good coverage for true color rendering.   Yellows, oranges, and reds look the best applied over white surface (primer).  I see the same results when I pain automotive models.  There is even a pink color primer available for 1:1 automotive paints (as a brightening undercoat for red paint).  The final results also depend on how opaque the light colored paint is and the thickens of the paint layer.  But as a rule of thumb, those colors need a white base coat.

[Kisatchie]

I changed 7 Kato Unitrack #4 turnouts to "non-power routing" so they'll play nice with DCC. It involved unscrewing 14 screws total and then screwing them back in the proper holes.


Hmm... big whoop...