Gidday All, Cold Friday night but toasty in front of the fire.
Looking forward to the Good Stuff as per usual. [:D]
Have a Great One Folks,
Cheers, the Bear.
Morning here in Houston TX Bear
Supposed to hit 100 here today
Is that a C&O Loco ?
Here are three cars that I finished this week!
Eastern Car Works Airslide Covered Hopper Kit, added airlines and sill steps, painted Scalecoat II Aluminum Paint and lettered with Microscale Decals.
IMRC ACF 4650CF Late Phase Covered Hopper. I used this car as it had the circular hatches and the correct discharge gates that the prototype had. Added A-line Sill Steps, painted with Scalecoat II MOW Gray and lettered with Islington Station Products Decals.
Exactrail Evans 4780CF Covered Hopper Kit, painted with Floquil Reefer White and lettered with Herald King Decals. I especially wanted to do this car as the RTR Car had the completely wrong color green stripe.
Thanks for looking!
Rick J [2c]
Bear and Rick,
Nice pics!
The intense MOW focus has continued and the layout is running better than ever. Here are some railfan pics I worked in while along the ROW.
A view of wrecking equipment at the Durango roundhouse.
Double-headed C-19s work the Wilde Mine at Sheridan on the old Silverton Railroad.
Plow on 463 indicates winter snows will soon be flying.
Double-headed diesels crossing the Rio de las Animas.
Dual-gauge territory.
Another great start to the weekend, guys and girls. Mike, before moving to the State of Jefferson I lived in Colorado for almost 40 years, and I have to tell you how much I continue to enjoy your work depicting the Rockies.
The newest addition to my stable, the N&W Y6B. BLI was sharp enough to include the prototype “hooter” whistle in the decoder’s programming.
Keep the good times rolling.
Wilton.
Wilton,
Thanks! Nice looking Y you have there. I’ll bet it sounds great![Y]
I enjoy my visits to Colorado, so am steeped in how things should look – within the confines of a basement anyway.[:D] I do take lots of pics and use some dirt and talus picked up for scenery purposes. Another thing that’s helped was Greg Grey’s Green Frog how to on backdrop painting. The example he uses in the video is Durango. The colors you have to mix up for that and the combinations he recommends really work well with the look, as I use them as a guide to the scenery as well.
Mike,
The Y6B has a very large tender, and it seems to me that BLI used the space effectively - the sounds really ROCK. Your backdrops are impressive, for sure. I did a quick Google search of Greg Grey’s Green Frog but didn’t find anything relevant to painting. Could you share more information about his products? I am struggling with accurately creating large rock walls for my scenery (I use lightweight hydrocal and Woodland Scenics rock molds), and must say yours are very realistic - may I ask what techniques you used to create them?
Wilton.
Wilton,
I gave you the wrong spelling of Greg’s last name. It’s Gray. Here’s a link to the specific video, “Painting Backdrops”:
http://www.greenfrog.com/product93.html
Most of my rocks were molded using WS molds, so you’re on the right track. I started off staining them, then switched to spraying, brushing, or dribbling once I learned more about mixing up the colors I needed from Greg’s video.
I use an extruded styrofoam base. I use Sculptamold over that for a scenery base for just about everything except the castings you see in the pics. It’s easy to work with and cheap if you buy a 50 lb bag. I embed the rock castings on the wet Sculptamold. Try to keep all castings close to each other. You can use the Sculptamold for “fill” in between castings, but be aware it takes stains very differently and paints somewhat differently than the unsealed castings. Painting the castings will help even this effect out.
Good start to the weekend, guys! Mike, I really enjoy looking at your Rio Grande photos every week–your modeling is absolutely remarkable, IMO.
Well, it’s 108 in the garage today, so no work on the MR. Here’s an archived photo of one of my Challengers pulling a train over Deer Creek Viaduct. Scary ‘overhang’, but that’s what you get with prototypically articulated brass. The 4-6-6-4 is an older re-motored Westside model. She will pull anything you want to put behind her. Period.
Tom
Mike,
Thanks for the link to Green Frog. Thanks as well for the tips on making rock formations. I fought with the gaps between the rocks at first, then started using drywall joint compound as a filler, and also to “stick” the molded rocks to the scenic base. It is always ready for use, and is easy to manipulate, form, and clean up. I am still refining my coloring techniques. I have an old copy of Dave Frary’s How To book on realistic scenery. A lot of the pictures in the book are in black and white (it’s an old book), which sort of defeats the purpose of teaching coloring techniques…
This is one of my recent efforts, on a much smaller scale than what I have been contemplating.
Information is Power.
Wilton.
This week I finshed a small project that I have been thinking about doing for many years - a test track. Now I can get the amperage of my old locos and know what decoders to select. I am using my 50+ year old MRC Throttle Pack as a power source. I can bypass the amp meter for other work like cleaning wheels
(Please excuse the messy workbench)
This is the test track in use doing a stalled current test on my Athearn BB GP7. Shows 1.5 amps, now to find a decoder for it
For anyone who has a project that has been sitting on the sideline for years, maybe this will help
It’s a round tuit
[swg]
Well, since this is “Photo Fun”, [:D]
A number of modelers have asked me about the Alclad2 Kandy colors in action, so I’m sharing the photos below as samples.
I teach Collision Repair & Paint Refinishing at a high school. Since painting is part of the curriculum, I brought the Alclad2 Kandy colors to my class and generated some excitement. One of my students first airbrushed a layer of the Bright Silver Kandy Base, then proceeded with thin layers of a few of the colors on to a seascape mural that was painted on to the deck lid (trunk) that came off of a Toyota MR-2. He had fun with it and the results, imho, were quite nice! The deck lid was then sealed with a PPG clear coat. (Sorry for blurring his face, but he’s under 18).
I know it’s hard to see in the photo but if you look carefully you’ll see a whale “underwater” on the right side:
Here in the classroom, I taped several unwanted compact discs on to masking paper on the board and demonstrated how to apply the Kandies with an airbrush. Before hitting the CDs, I drew some
Tom,
Thanks! You’re scenery is A-OK and I always draw inspiration from it and your motive power, too. You’ve done a great job capturing heights and trackwork together with some honking big locos. Amazing!
Wilton,
You’ve got a pretty good start there. If you follow the links through my images, you can poke around in my ImageShack file and see how I’ve taken similar height castings, then tapered and filled above and below with Sculptamold. I’ll also perch a row of rocks to form a butte or other projection to help add drama to an other big ol’ limp of a mountain that I start with. Anyway, if that doesn’t work or you have more questions, I could sort some out and start a thread on this.
Antonio,
It’s hard to keep students’ attention, but I think you’re working that angle pretty well with this. Good teaching!
Awesome work everyone. I love the N&W Y6b. This week I modified my Bachmann 2-6-0 turning it into a 0-6-0. I removed the front truck. I cut off the cow catcher shortened it and glued it back on. The front truck kept derailing even on straight track no matter what I did to it, so that is no longer a issue. I also shot a short video with my M1’s.
Good stuff gang!
My contribution, a brace of Midland GP38s shoves a cut of cars out of an interchange track, while they place for another road on the track. 
Saw the prototype do the same thing last week! And if I had a layout light as bright as the sun, the paint colors would have matched properly!
GiddayTerry, I’d never really thought about it as it belongs to Mike, of the AMG, http://modeltrains.kiwi.nz/ and I got to run it at one of the exhibitions. It’s an undecorated Bachman Spectrum 2-6-6-2 which I just assumed that was a generic model, but your question prompted me to have a look. According to this review it is a C&O H4, http://rrmodelcraftsman.com/reviews/cm_extra_bachmann_2-6-6-2.php however it does not have a Vanderbuilt tender so in all honesty I’m not sure what it actually represents. [%-)]
I do like articulated locomotives though.
Great work so far Gentle Persons.[bow]
Cheers, the Bear.
Thanks Terry.
Cheers, the Bear.
Tour de Layout
Allez! Allez! Peter
Karl,
Simply AWESOME!!!
Excellent Shots & References!!!
Now, if I could beat some track, & hold a stick over my lense… Hmmmm…