Today was hot. I mean for Montana. Anything above 90 degees and people really do complain. I learned long ago never to complain about the weather. Those same people who are complaining it's too hot at 93 degrees are going to be the same people in three or four months complaining it's too cold when it gets down to 10 degrees or so.
Just go with it...eat some raspberries...relax....or move.
I've been working on painting some rolling stock. I have a small fleet of mostly box cars of varying names. (mostly those found in the northwest in the mid 60's) Things like Milwalkee, Northern Pacific, Union Pacific and Great Northern along with ATSF are mostly what will make up my rolling stock. In order to make the Montana Western a bit more realistic I needed to paint my own rolling stock. So here we are.
I started with (5) 40 foot plug/sliding door box cars by Micro Trains. So far they are painted with Montana Western Red (a.k.a. Wisconsin Central Maroon) thinned about 15% with airbrush thinner and applied with a Paasch "VL" airbrush. I think the next batch will need to be thinned a bit more though.
I am currently working on applying the decals. What a pain in the you know what that is. Some are pretty small. The data decals aren't bad nor are the "Montana Western" herald and slogan decals that I had Rail Graphics do for me. The ones that are tough are the reporting marks and number applied to the sides and ends. (the ends are rediculously small) It's taking me a few evenings to get them all done. I work on a couple of decals then let them set before I work on the next one. Never could get the Micro-Set to work so I scraped that part and simply go with the Micro-Sol. This works great and I would definately recommend it for anyone doing decal work. I think the Micro-Set is over rated especially if you are going to apply a flat finish like Testors Dull Cote afterwards.
I just got in the mail today (I have to get just about everything via internet since the closest hobby store is about 1 1/2 hours away) another (3) undecorated 40 foot sliding door box cars from MT that I will work on when I get the first set of 5 done.
I have also been weathering most if not all of my other road named rolling stock but in doing so I will sometimes paint over an existing reporting mark and apply M.W. to add to the Montana Western fleet. I have a couple of gondolas that turned out great. One was originally CNW and the other was an ATW. I have also done some of the same with a couple of boxcars as well along with a few hoppers.
With each piece I learn something new. New and better ways of painting and applying decals. Each one seems to turn out better than the last one.
Even though I am not in a place yet to start a layout I probably get just as much joy as those of you who are able to enjoy an actual moving piece of equipment.
Well that's it for this entry. Until next time....eat raspberries while you can.
Eric
Anaconda, MT
