Weekend Update 5/17/20

[up1950s]

https://www.workboat.com/blogs/the-noreaster/return-rail-car-float/

https://www.rina.org.uk/bargeline.html

https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/12/07-carfloat

https://ancienhippie.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/new-york-new-jersey-rail-takes-delivery-of-new-carfloat/

https://nynjr.com/construction-progress/

https://nynjr.com/about-nynjr/

[dougnelson]

Not just origami.  Holy @#$% this PRR F25 kit takes some work.  No fold and run.  On the plus side, I have learned soldering.  I watched a YouTube video and I am now an expert.  So far, everything is soldered.  The progress shown is about 10 hours of work, not including soldering school.  Still a ways to go, but it is starting to look like a rail car.  It is a depressed center flat car.

[DKS]

Owing to an accident, I had to rebuild the oscillating desk fan. So I made it better--now it's gear-driven.

I experimented with a bunch of LEDs and holiday light effects chips to try and make a fireworks display...

And then I started work on a rotating police car light:

You can read all about this silly stuff starting here: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=49183.msg664990#msg664990

[Iain]

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Finished the grab irons on NS 8001.

[cec209]

DKS  Amazing work!
Charlie

[chicken45]

Not just origami.  Holy @#$% this PRR F25 kit takes some work.  No fold and run.  On the plus side, I have learned soldering.  I watched a YouTube video and I am now an expert.  So far, everything is soldered.  The progress shown is about 10 hours of work, not including soldering school.  Still a ways to go, but it is starting to look like a rail car.  It is a depressed center flat car.

The bending sucks, but it looks pretty good!

[chicken45]

Shameless repost from my build thread:

I think I'm about done with the bricks.
There is a lot of subtle blending of colors. I started with a base paint, then painted different shades of individual bricks and did a wash for mortar. Eventually, after more layers and colored washed, I decided I needed to emphasize the mortar again. I used gray oil paints (the artist tube kind) and the super fine particles and long working time really helped.
For the runoff stains, I painted bricks dark gray, then drybrushed them to blend. Then I tweaked with black pencil and drybrushed in some red brown.








What do yinz think?

[peteski]

Josh,
the bricks look good (coloring, mortar), but the corners are what they are. But that is a moo t point. It looks good when viewed in-person (not in a macro photograph) on a T-TRAK module. 

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Owing to an accident, I had to rebuild the oscillating desk fan. So I made it better--now it's gear-driven.

I experimented with a bunch of LEDs and holiday light effects chips to try and make a fireworks display...

And then I started work on a rotating police car light:

You can read all about this silly stuff starting here: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=49183.msg664990#msg664990

Are you planning on vacuum forming the beacon dome? I am really interested in how this turns out. I had a similar idea, but it was to use rotating fiber optic. The top part that fits into the beacon would be cut at 45 degrees and the rest painted black. But I couldn't figure out how to get a proper sized dome to cover it.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Pete was kind enough to provide me with decals to correct the many errors if the first run of the TLT newsprint cars. As a recap, the models featured these issues:

Only 1 of the 6 numbers TLT produced in CN were for the right type of car.
All cars are missing the French "Canadien" spelling on one side as per prototype.
The door guides on the top are moved left one panel which is very noticeable.
The cars ride high. A scale 15" high.

I tackled most of the issues, but the paint was one I couldn't fix because proper decals are not available.

Pete to the rescue:
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And here is the initial batch:
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Paint is a witch's brew if Testors Acryl, Tamiya and Modelflex. The old reporting marks were painted over and the new decals applied. As you can see, the new decals are a very, very close match to the original.

I'm also using my part two FGE 5145 shells to experiment with extreme weathering. These shells were minor defects so they lend themselves nicely to abused cars. This is actually the second attempt on these cars. I wasn't happy with the last experiment. Still lots of work to go.
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[DKS]

Are you planning on vacuum forming the beacon dome? I am really interested in how this turns out. I had a similar idea, but it was to use rotating fiber optic. The top part that fits into the beacon would be cut at 45 degrees and the rest painted black. But I couldn't figure out how to get a proper sized dome to cover it.

I've already made the dome. I used a 1.6mm red LED and drilled out the guts. Works out to around 10 scale inches in diameter. I'll make a base out of thin-walled tubing and paint it chrome. I should have it done this weekend.

[DKS]

I completed the installation this morning. First, I made a dome fixture by attaching the dome to the top of thin-wall brass tube. Then I assembled the car around it, complete with a patch of road so the whole thing will be removable.

[jereising]

Thanks to Scale Trains' 50% off sale I bought some new old power for the Sub...(in reality UP has many of these on dead lines or for sale).

But of course they needed PTC to run on today's rails, so I added the standard UP antenna farm.  The locos are - as all Scale Trains products have been - near perfect.

[w neal]

More backlogged painting projects. Not 100% correct, but frankly Scarlett...

[davefoxx]

Not 100% correct, but frankly Scarlett...

Haha!  What a good use of that quote.  It's your railroad, so if you don't give a damn, neither should we.  I think those SWs look good.

DFF