Gidday All, Time flies when you’re having fun, especially if it’s a short w**king week.
Back to assembling another freight car kit, this time “Rib Side Cars” # 4224,a 40 foot short rib, 12 foot door boxcar, a first for me. A choice of a wood or a steel roof walk and a decal sheet are included to allow for different build batches and numbers. The ladders and tack boards are separate and on this kit the grab irons are cast on, though in a yet to be assembled # 5262 kit I see that individual wire grab irons are supplied. First Kit that I’ve assembled that hasn’t needed extra weight to bring it up to NMRA standards. Thanks to the guys at “Rib Side” for making these kits.
To those who celebrate Easter have a Good One, and to those that don’t have a Good One anyway.
Nice car. I didn’t realize that Rib Side was doing double-door cars. I’ll have to check into that.
This week I got the basics finished on a project I’ve been nibbling at for some time. It’s an elevator and feed mill complex. The Grain Elevator is #HO-105 by Rocky Mountain Model Works. I built a platform surrounding it on three sides, kind of tricky because it’s on a curve, on a sloping site. Then I scratched up a small feed mill and hay barn, along with a small office. Still needs dirting in and lots more details, but its bulk is satisfying and I really like the busy look it gives to what was a bland entry to an industrial area.
Nothing wrong with cleaning the workbench. Sometimes, that’s how you find the projects you’d started on, but got buried. I’ve actually been doing a bit of spring cleaning myself. But nothing clean enough to take a picture of, so just one gold star for me.[*]
Hey Fellas! I broke protocal and found some things to post this week. It looks like some more great stuff again! bear, great job on the Milwaukee Road Rib sided car! Mike, your grain elevator scene is looking good! Dennis, I’m envious, I can’t ever keep my workbench neat! Dave, That’s a great looking club layout you guys have down there! I’m impressed with the great trains covering nearly every era of railroading at least from the 1940’s up.
Here’s my newest painting, I’m averaging about two a week right now. this is a Pennsy I1 decapod in the foothills of western New York:
This is our Key Imports brass B&O P5 pacific number 5220 getting ready to knock down the signal at Howard. I finally got the sound and DCC right in this great model:
And finally, a quick video of our MTH K4 1546 emerging from Empire tunnel with the eastbound express:
Well, it’s going to be a busy week, I have to get the Rail Museum showcases in order for our April 1st opening on Monday, and then I have to run the Museum for seven straight days, so I may not have anything to offer next week. If not, I’ll see everyone the week after. Have a great Easter weekend!
Nice artwork up there, Stan. Very nice, indeed. [:P]
I took this image a couple of years ago as an experiment. I like how it turned out, unusual though it may be for a ‘model trains’ photo, so, here it is reprised. A close-up shot showing the running gear of a BLI ATSF 4-8-4.
I been working on this backdrop scene for the past month, and is just about completed. I might like to add a little more detail to this scene. Anyone have any suggestions of what could be added, or changed?
Wow … You guys are off to a fast start! … Nice stuff … Bear, I like the MILW boxcar… Mike L, that’s a great looking elevator… Dennis, Is neatness a virtue?.. Stan, beautiful painting and a nice video. … Crandell, nice close up photo … Sam, your city is outstanding. Looks great as is. Perhaps a few more vehicles would add interest. … Terry in TX, O like the 0-6-0. Bet it sounds great.
Walther’s 86’ 8 Door Hi-Cube Boxcar, Lettered for the Kansas Oklahoma and Gulf a Missouri Pacific subsidiary. Car painted with Scalecoat II Aluminum and Boxcar Red, then lettered with Oddballs Decals.
Atlas 3510CF ACF Covered Hopper, painted with Floquil PC Green and lettered with Highball Graphic Decals.
I started on the fourth structure (or not-quite-structure as the case may be) for my N scale Hollywood backlot false front western town. This will be the first one that is an actual building rather than just a false front, my freelance design for a movie set building representing a frontier town LIVERY STABLE. The front of the building is an old time board-and-batten false front, but behind the front is an actual building. However, it is not a “period” frontier building. It has a “practical” interior (movie set term for usable), stable facility housed in a utilitarian corrugated metal pole barn shed, hidden behind the false front.
For the pole barn, I draw a layout of the framing on graph paper, painted bamboo skewers as creosoted poles and glued the ends of them down on the drawing, OUTSIDE the areas of finished framing. When that set, I glued cross members on top of that and then cut the whole assembly loose from the paper.
I studied photos of western town sets from the 1950s MGM back lot, 1970s Universal City Studios, visits to Old Tucson and Alamo Village, Bracketville Texas, and based my livery stable front mostly on the Universal example. After drawing a rough scale drawing, I laid out the front and cut it out on 1/16th inch board-and-batten wood sheet. Wish I could have gotten something thinner. I add scale 2x6 framing on the back side, visible from the “backstage” view of the movieset structure. Here are the assembled walls and framing of the pole barn interior, and the back of the false front, showing the side never seen by the camera.
I always liked coal mines and since my Maclau River RR is set in Virginia, I need a lot of them.
One thing I never have liked is the problem of running empties and loaded car in hidden track or tunnels to make the change in the mine. It ever seems to me to be not prototypical.
So I decided after some research and reading again the july 2011 MR about Jeff Ashby Nscale layout, I will use real coal delivered by my mines and transported by my trains.
After some try and error, I ended up whith the following device, which will be a standard for delevering real coal in my Nscale hoppers from the mines.
It’s made of brass for durability, the openning is 8x8mm and everything is soldered whith a hard solder, the move will be assured by a Tortoise for simplicity.
This involve in the future the scratchbuilding of a working hight lift rotary coal dumper.
This is a crude prototype I scratchbuild at my work for the working possibilities,
The model opening following the crude prototype, on all faces,
The door closed,
The door open,
The device installed in a crafstman wood model of a mine,
