Hi All,
Just added a series to my weblog on weathering a steam engine for my Port Kelsey railway.
This step by step essay shows the weathering of a Proto 2000 0-8-0 using a variety of techniques.
Have a look, there might be some information you can find useful.
It can be found here…
tim,
Very nice!!
nice job , thanks for showing us your technique . can i come over to use the laser engraver ? [:)]
Yeah, very good Timmy.
Very nice work thanks for sharing. Where can I find a laser engraver of this type?
Hi,
Laser engravers (or cutters) have started to come down in price over the last few years, but are still a bit expensive, typically in the $5-$6K range for a lower end model.
The one we use at Fast Tracks is a 35W M-300 from Universal, purchased locally from a Universal dealer. The M-300 is a larger size machine then the Versalasers, but perform pretty much the same.
Most citys will have a local reseller for Universal, and lately I have started to see some ads in the Model Railroad press for their “Versalasers”. Would be a great addition to any shop.
One thing about laser cutters is that they are like any other tool, they don’t do anything on their own, and some skill with CAD and design is required to get good results out the machine.
Very nice Tim. Thanks for sharing.
Are you going to volunteer to make some stencils for us? [:)]
Can we get that done commercially?
Hi,
I am unaware of anyone offering a service like this, which is too bad, based on the feedback I received there are quite a few modelers who would be interested.
I would offer to do these for people, but at the moment my time is quite limited keeping up with the Fast Tracks line of products, and by taking on additional obligations I don’t believe I could give them the full attention they would require.
On the surface it would appear to be a simple operation, and the actual engraving of the stencils would be, but like everything, the devil is in the details, and getting all the backend procedures in place to ensure a smooth transaction would require quite a bit of time and effort.
Some slick ! ! A great job on the old goat(my favourite type) Now that really looks like the switchers shunting around the yards in Moose Jaw about a thousand years ago. If I can remember, wasn’t there gobs of grease and lots of dirty oil all over the running gear, they certainly smelled of it. Again superb job.
Great technique, but the engine’s way too dirty for my tastes. She looks like she hasn’t been washed or shopped in years…
Class one roads were shopping steam until 1956, or even 1959 in the case of the IC. You’d always see a few filthy engines, especially around the end of winter, but you’d see as many shiny engines too. And even on absolutely filthy engines (see any photo of the Pennsy) there are still areas on steam that always remain BLACK and shiny.
Ah, but the Port Kelsey wasn’t a 1st class railroad, in fact I don’t think it had any class at all…[;)]
They didn’t call it the “dirty '30’s” for nothing! I have often heard comments that the steam engines did not get that dirty, but from the many images I have studied, they all looked pretty dirty to me, except some of the passenger engines which were wiped down daily. The yard engines were left to fend for themselves, and after a hard days work, looked a little worse for wear.
Especially on the Port Kelsey Ry.
See…
This one is really dirty, and I think the shop forman is upset about it…
Actually, I’ve never heard it called the dirty 30s before…
Remember, the Depression wasn’t depressing because of the way things looked. With REALLY cheap labor around, and companies competing for every scrap of business it could find, America soon found out that it was more cost-effective to slap a coat of really cheap (and almost always white) paint onto something, making the company look clean, new and prosperous. George Sellios may be a first-rate craftsman, but he’s a fifth-rate historian.
I’ve got loads of photos of shiny & new 1930s rolling stock, and at least five photos of Depression-era wash racks, with people scrubbing off steam. Yes, things DID get dirty, but a little elbow grease and pride was far cheaper than abandonment.
Hi,
Prior to being clean, every engine was dirty, so I guess we are both right…
Cheers!
Tim, fantastic work!
Orsonroy: “dirty 30’s” is the preferred term for the great depression in Canada, many books have been written with this term in the title, I beleive the term came from the horrendous dust storms on the prairies,ask someone from North Dakota or Oklahoma and I’m sure they refer to that decade as the dirty 30’s also. Up here there were NO jobs, hence the depression.
I agree. The entire decade was a bust in so many ways, and the drought just added to the misery. Those who lived on the pairies were very sorely pressed. It is a wonder our farms survived.
HOwever (I wish my computer would stop doing that!), because there was so little business and so little money, companies could not recapitalize, so they had to make do for much longer than normal. That meant taking care of what they had in inventory.
The rail roads did buy and build new engines, but fewer than during and after the War when the boom was on.