Going Modular

[epumph]

I wish I could paint like that! Bravo!

[RailKing50]

@epumph They are by no means "museum quality", but I am getting better. I appreciate the kind words.

Two things that I find to be critical when painting stripes is to use Tamiya (or something similar) fine masking take with a couple coats of clear to help the paint from bleeding underneath of the tape.

These are all rattle can paint jobs. I haven't quite talked myself into getting an air brush yet.

[RailKing50]

Sanded the details off of an old Atlas Observation car to eventually become Conrail Office Car Special #4. Pretty straightforward paint job here.


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Stripes are getting easier now. (knocks on wood). I'm finding that the tape itself is not clean cut and has rough edges making my lines not as crisp as they could be....... Not a huge deal, unless you look really closely or take pictures. These are the last of the WM themed cars to be painted (thank goodness)..... Windows are left out until after decals are done.
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[sid]

no seeum pics me must bee blind

[RailKing50]

@sid .... any better?

[sid]

yeppers thank you. wish i had the skills to paint.

[RailKing50]

wish i had the skills to paint.

Trial and error my friend..... trial and error.

Some of my early paints are true abominations. Lol.

[dave68124]

If you hit the tape with a little dullcoat before you paint, it will help seal the edge of the tape. Still looks good.

[RailKing50]

@dave68124
The dull coat trick is a big part of being able to paint stripes. What I'm finding is that the tape edges have "burrs" and is not a clean cut. Its "clean enough" for bigger models, but is noticeable to me on these small models.... especially when you take pictures!

[RailKing50]

The first Club business meeting since May was held today on my Birthday, so I decided to take the day off. Spent the first half of the day with my family and then the last half of the day was spent running trains with my MRR family. Couldn't ask for a better day especially since all of my recently DCC'd engines performed well on the Club setup. I had only been able to test them on my test loop at home.

First up was the WM circus scheme KATO F units coupled up to the custom painted circus scheme passenger cars. A very sharp looking train if I may say.

These older mech KATO units run flawlessly. I'll definitely be on the look out for more in the future.
P.S. I really like the two shots around the roundhouse complex. Can't wait to get this scene further scenic'd.

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Next was the B&O President Hayes Pacific. Other then the boiler shell needing to be adjusted, it ran well; only struggling on some crossovers sporadically.

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A few shots of them side by side.
Fun fact: the headlight "lens" for the Pacific is hot glue.

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Lastly was the Western Maryland 2-8-0 Consolidation pulling a small mixed freight train.

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[RailKing50]

With our club deciding to hold our annual Holiday show, I decided to make lighting my town's buildings a priority. My modules are not at my house, so I am limited to what I can work on. Working in buildings is one of the few things that I can work on at home.

After completing the lighting install for several of the buildings, I couldn't help but line them up and connect them to the Just Plug System to see how they look.
My phone's camera doens't like the light reflecting off of the white surfaces. It looks better in person I would say.


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I have been filling my stores with pieces that I have printed on my Mars printer.

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The second floors have light blocks as well and will be controlled by an Arduino running a program.
The second floor lights below are tested with a 9Volt battery. They will be dimmer when I install them.

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I am pleased with the rolled roofing technique using masking tape. They are looking a bit boring though. They could use some roof top access doors, clutter, etc to add to the look of them.

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[el Gato Gordo]

Very sharp! The lighting really makes the interiors pop.

[RailKing50]

Finished up three more building light installs. The white building has three individual upper rooms while the blue building has two rooms to individually control. The industrial building is in the process of being worked over. It was a $5 bin buy getting another lease on life. I painted the base and roof and then dirtied it up a bit. Needs some junk laying around.

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Something that I had been wanting to do for a while. I made a campfire out of a tealight that I saved from an event. Pretty pleased with how it turned out!

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Messing around with Fiber Optics for the next project.

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[RailKing50]

Screen grabs from videos don't make for the best pictures, but here is a quick shot of my smoke stack with the flashing lights. Very subtle, but will look great when we have some "night" op sessions!

I am reworking the stack and shop building for my MoW area. More pics when I get some more work done on the building.

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[RailKing50]

We had a work session this week at our space in the mall where our modules are set up. We are planning on having a Run Session in place of our annual Holiday Show With the impending shut down due to covid, it may be canceled as well. Either way, it was nice to get the N scale members together to get some work done on our modules.

I focused on several projects, but the ones below can be shown in pictures.

This side of my yard module was very flat and open.... not very Appalachian at all. So hills were added, a track side neighborhood was planned out, and a coal distributor is being set up. The coal distributor stub track will go off of the layout and will not be connected to live rail. You can see in the second picture where the cars will be above the ground to dump the loads. A curved trestle will need to be built for the distributor. The flat spot on the new hills is where the houses will be. Should be able to fit 4 houses and their back yards in the space.

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Another vantage point of the new area. Really happy with how the yard module is progressing.

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These two sidings will be the MoW area. There will be a lot of JUNK in this area as the scene progresses. Originally I had a medium LEFT hand turnout for the tracks. It was swapped out for a curved RH switch.... much better flow.

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Another hill popped up behind the roundhouse.

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And finally, the roundhouse received its new turntable! Can't wait to make some engines dizzy on this.

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[el Gato Gordo]

And finally, the roundhouse received its new turntable! Can't wait to make some engines dizzy on this.

Needs calliope music!

[RailKing50]

Had a good MRR weekend which divided up my time between painting, lighting, and DCC'ing. Was able to clear the work bench off by completing several projects that had been cluttering it up....... I can't help it.... I told my wife I work on 7 things at a time. So it is nice to knock a bunch of them off at a time...... just to start more. When will I ever learn?

The two big projects that have been cluttering my work space up has been the MoW buildings. All were second hand buildings that I am "restoring" to fit my need. I did discover wax paper from the kitchen drawer makes a great window light defuser! I glued my smoke stack to this building and away it went into the box to be placed onto the layout eventually.

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I didn't take a finished pic, but here is one of the exterior lights that I added to this other MoW building. This building has 6 exterior lights as well as the inside being lit. The lights along the side will illuminate the small MoW sidings next to it, so that is why I felt the need to light up the side of it.

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This old storage tank came to me second hand as well. It had a SOHIO sticker on it that was just about ruined, so I decided to stick with SOHIO. I wanted something different then just the normal tank, so I painted it like an old advertisement that I saw for SOHIO. Can't find the prototype pic, so you'll just have to believe me!

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The Nn3 station received a restoration as well. When I get it placed on the module and some scenery around it, I feel like it went from toy-ish to something believable. Pretty pleased with how it turned out!
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Now for the DCC-fycation.

First up was the Conrail Office Car Special engine. This Life-Like unit is probably my 6th install of this chassis design. Super easy to do with the right tools. Hopefully decals will get here soon for it!
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Next was an Intermountain F unit that I received in a trade some time ago. The performance was poor, so it went back into the box until I could get around to it. Well, the issue was pretty blatant as when I popped the shell off, the two frame halves fell apart. No screws were there to hold them together!? I went ahead and DCC'd it with tape to hold it together while I could source the screws..... surprisingly enough the local Do-it Center had just the ticket.
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And finally, the latest DCC'd steamer. This Bachmann Consolidation came to me in a trade as a parts loco for my other consolidations. After cleaning out all of the fuzz and ground foam, I realized that it just needed a tender to fix the pick up issues. So, I found one in my parts collection and now I have another functioning consolidation. This one will be lettered for a former narrow gauge line (the one the station above it modeled after). They DID have standard gauge engines, but they were smaller, so I am using my modeler's license a bit. They did however add head lamps from scrapped engines to the rear of some of their engines, so I took this opportunity to try out a 3D designed and printed head lamp I made....... worked perfect! Again, decals are getting here soon to finish this engine off.

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[RailKing50]

Seeing how my I finished up a few projects, I decided it was time to start on the slug. With the recent acquisition of the Western Maryland BL2, I thought a WM slug unit would be cool to pair it with like in the pictures that I've seen. (Pic is from Alan Page's collection on rrpicturearchives)

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I know it will not be nearly as detailed as some of the master pieces I see on here, but it will be my first undertaking of such a project and it is about as basic as they come.

Here is what I started with:

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I picked up a cheap LL SW9 to use as the donor for this project. The mechanism will require DCC'fication and coupler upgrades.


Step one was to tear the engine down and begin to trim away at the cab end of the engine and boxed it all in with styrene.

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After boxing in the rear of the engine, I removed the stacks, bell, and headlight before applying the putty.

This is where I ended for the night. Once the putty is dry, I'll be able to sand to final shape.

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I'll be placing the order for the decoder, MT conversion couplers, and decals most likely tomorrow.

Constructive criticism is always welcome!

[RailKing50]

Cruising right along with the slug. Paint and decals applied. Next step is to clear/ dull coat, and wait for the DCC chip and MT Coupler conversions.

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Over the weekend instead of continuing to work on building interiors and lighting, I decided to add some rolling stock to my logging road. After realizing that I had not ONE cabeese for the logging line, I scrounged through my junk boxes and came up with the following materials to build not one, not two, but three different end of train cars.

I had two bobber cars to use as bodies along with an old timey passenger car. (Sorry B&O).

If you use your imagination, you can kind of envision what I am after.

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Not bad for one late night's work. Starting to take shape.

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How they currently stand. I opted as the body on the flat car to be a MoW train car. Complete with manual crane from the parts bin. I plan to further detail this car by adding more junk to the platform and a ladder to the roof.

Still not sold on the 4 window panel windows. Those may get removed before I paint the window frames. Everything needs dull coat still to help take the sheen off.

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[RailKing50]

Held a private run session on the weekend that what would have been our Annual Holiday show. (Thanks Covid)

Here we see the new logging equipment making its way up the mountain with the main yard in the back ground.

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The town without a name, looked pretty lively.

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End of the coach yard.
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I was able to put the MoW buildings up this weekend. Pretty tickled with how this area turned out!

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More pictures to come. Also, some track side MOVING pictures as well. We tried out a camera car.

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