Been gone for a couple weeks to Duluth, Two Harbors and the Iron Range. Saw some great track and the two museums.
Here is the Yellowstone from Two Harbors.
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Here is an early Ore Car.
An early model train from their collection
Here is the firebox from the Yellowstone at Duluth. The wife tries driving. It is wonderfully restored and simulates running with all the wheels and gear working. It is the best stationary display I have seen. The rest of the museum is also worth the drive.
Back to HO this week. Got so many projects I don’t know where to start. My wife suggests the garden. I think there is a plant out there that will make birch trees and her Astilby looks good for big pine.
The plaques are rosters and history. I did not get the full text. There was enough stuff for hundreds of pics, though I did not see a pic book for sale. We only had two days and that was not much time. We had fishing to do you see.
Nice pics so far, guys! This week, I have been trying to complete the Walthers gas station kit for the layout. I got this kit on eBay, and it is pretty old, so the decals have been giving my fits! They want to fall apart when you slide them off the paper. I messed up the big Shell on the sign, but maybe it’s not too noticeable. If only the prices on that sign were real. Anyway, here’s the progress …
An overall view.
Close up of the gas island.
Close up of the meter box and electric cables that I custom made. The cables will be hooked to a power pole once I build the power grid.
Close up of the main building.
Now, I just need to decide how/where to put it on the layout. [sigh]
I added a little digital editing to this one and just thought I would post it to see what you all thought. I added a little diesel smoke, and heat distortion.
I have read people sometimes will spray the decal with a layer of dullcote or something similar to help keep them from breaking apart.
Nice looking station. You can do some good weathering of cars going in, and new coming out of the car wash. The sad thing around here, I would have to add drug dealers, and cops, they seem to like the Shell stations for their business around here [V]
Lookin’ good![tup] I’ll have one side of my rustbucket boxcar ready for tomorrow. One side has taken me nearly three hours! And this one’s not for eBay, either.
I won’t mention the roadname, as I plan on having a guessing game. Yeah, it’s that rusty.
Here is something I actually built in the last month or so. This is a Rio Grande Models V&T ventilated boxcar. The kit consists of a few laser cut pieces, a bunch of wire, strip wood, metal castings and some wheels. Almost like scratchbuilding. Somehow these kits always turn out really well…
These are also something else I have built in the last few months. A couple of Walthers C-30 wood cabooses. Now many of you are saying wait a minute, these came assembled. True enough, but I put on the grabs, railings and roof railings. Took almost as long as building them from kits. The weathering on the first is way over the top, but then again I love that look. Great cabooses except for the trucks.
Future site of Sanford & Son scrap yard, dealers of fine scrap. The ex SF caboose will be repainted and a sign erected. I will post more photos as it progresses.
This is the result of a week of painting and 4 hours of construction. It is the Hoist House of the Muir Model’s “Tonapah Silver Mine” which means I’ll probably be working on the kit for a few more weeks.
Frankly, for what I’ve done so far, I could have built the real thing faster.
Thanks…I see someone else who likes stuff looking like it is going to fall apart. The technique is scratch back. I painted the car grey and then painted brown over it. Then while the paint was soft, I scraped it with a fine saw blade. It took some messing with it but that was the basic technique. I am told by SP fans tha tthe line never let things get that bad…
