Weekend Update 3/20/22

[PiperguyUMD]

Nice work - can you share how the track was painted and weathered?
Tim

Thanks! Its a pain in the butt in N scale, but I basically follow Joey Ricard's method that he describes here:

The only change I made was that I varied the colors of the ties. In N scale, I wasn't able to get the same coverage with the final dusting of the darker pastels, so I used darker colors when painting the ties. You can see an in progress shot on the first page of my layout thread.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=48816.0

[Philip H]

And thanks to a recent remodel at Keesler AFB and our local Habitat Restore my rolling stock storage problems are solved

[peteski]

More RBB&B payloads completed.  Finished the last two water trucks and the Mack LJ canvas truck.



The cannonball truck is complete except for the front grill and advertising medallion, which will be applied when they arrive from etching.  Tough to get a good iPhone photo due to the bright silver finish on the truck and the flatcar.  This will be the 35th payload completed out of the needed 69 pieces, so I've crossed over the halfway point.

This is some really impressive modeling Bryan!  Not only the accuracy but the quality of modeling is superb. Amazing what can be done at home, especially in resent years, with CAD and 3D printing.

While I'm not a circus expert, I have been admiring my friend Roland Kelley's N scale version of the red and blue RBB&B trains. He belongs to a Circus Modelers group, and he built these models in the early '90s, using books and knowledgeable group's members for reference.  Roland had decals custom made, and the flats were a resin cast kit available at that time.  Most of the pieces are scratchbuilt out of styrene or metal castings (like the Detail Associates wheels).  Some are kitbashed vehicle models.  While not always 100% accurate, they still are a good representation of the prototype.

Here is a sampling of Roland's version of the train.

[Jim Starbuck]

I had very limited modeling time this week but managed to make a bit more progress on the SDL39 build.

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Jim

[bbussey]

This is some really impressive modeling Bryan!  Not only the accuracy but the quality of modeling is superb. Amazing what can be done at home, especially in resent years, with CAD and 3D printing.

While I'm not a circus expert, I have been admiring my friend Roland Kelley's N scale version of the red and blue RBB&B trains. He belongs to a Circus Modelers group, and he built these models in the early '90s, using books and knowledgeable group's members for reference.  Roland had decals custom made, and the flats were a resin cast kit available at that time.  Most of the pieces are scratchbuilt out of styrene or metal castings (like the Detail Associates wheels).  Some are kitbashed vehicle models.  While not always 100% accurate, they still are a good representation of the prototype.

Fortunately there are some additional models today which helps in crafting some of these trucks. I had to design the Mack LJ cab from scratch, but both Athearn and Showcase Miniatures offer (or offered) the Mack B cab. I could have used a Mack FT cab for one of the water trucks, but RBB&B had at least three LJ water trucks so I can skate by. Roland’s canvas truck #251 accurately has a Mack CH cab, of which I believe the only N scale model ever was the Camden & Amboy resin kit.  C&A was still active in the ‘90s but is long gone today.  I’m trying to hunt one down because I don’t want to design another truck cab from scratch. So I may or may not have #251 included once all the dust settles.

[TiogaTracks]

Not a whole lot of time for trains this weekend, but I did get a half-hour with my dad to fix a problem with Lionel Large Scale trucks.  Their axles were shorter, so standard G-scale axles bind up and don’t roll.  A drill extension bit and careful flexing on the truck frames let us drill them out.

I followed that up by getting two of my cars that ride on Lionel trucks fixed up: a Lionel boxcar, and, ironically, an MTH 4-bay coal hopper.  Here’s the freshly weathered and re-numbered hopper, next to an unmodified one (except a truck swap from the less accurate MTH trucks to the slightly more correct-looking Lionels).

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And here are my oldest and newest Large-scale weathering projects.  The AT&SF boxcar was done with just paint pens, as my first effort to “get serious” in my new scale of choice.  I think I’ve progressed reasonably well!

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-Steven

[peteski]

Roland’s canvas truck #251 accurately has a Mack CH cab, of which I believe the only N scale model ever was the Camden & Amboy resin kit.  C&A was still active in the ‘90s but is long gone today.  I’m trying to hunt one down because I don’t want to design another truck cab from scratch. So I may or may not have #251 included once all the dust settles.

Didn't our own Cody (VonRyan)  took over C&A molds?

[bbussey]

He did.  I've reached out, he said he had some, but he hasn't responded to follow-up queries.

[johnb]

[sirenwerks]

A smaller paper printing plant building for one of my Free-MoN modules.   

Nice! Not sure about your fire code, but it seems like there should be some egress for your employees, a steel door and stairs or two somewhere.

[nkalanaga]

JohnB:  Nice pictures, but I have to view the source code for your post to see them.  Is there a reason for the file name to have ".webp" after the ".jpg"?  If I remove that the pictures show nicely.

[johnb]

JohnB:  Nice pictures, but I have to view the source code for your post to see them.  Is there a reason for the file name to have ".webp" after the ".jpg"?  If I remove that the pictures show nicely.

.webp is a mobile friendly image...I normally remove it

and thanks!

[peteski]

JohnB:  Nice pictures, but I have to view the source code for your post to see them.  Is there a reason for the file name to have ".webp" after the ".jpg"?  If I remove that the pictures show nicely.

Webp is yet another photo file format introduced by Google. Not specifically to be mobile friendly.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebP  The old JPG format is not good enough anymore -- we need to march forward.  Seems that in John's case, his photos are stored as both JPG and WEBP (since each version is a separate URL).

[John]

I've been busy cleaning up the layout and doing some electrical work. I picked up some surplus Tonys PSX units from @seusscaboose to add to the other PSXs I have and will use them to further split the layout into additional power zones.  Also grabbed one of the Catalpa Falls cars from him ..  which will get added to the back of one of my Amtrak trains








https://www.catalpafallsgroup.com/catalpafalls

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  JPG "isn't good enough", or Google simply wanted to make life difficult for those of us not using Google software?

I had the same problem with pictures from a friend's iPhone.  Apple started automatically saving everything as a "HEIC" file.  I had to find an online converter for those.