Still a prized possession. This old Front Range GP7 SL-SF 577 still soldiers on, its on it second set of wheels, second set of motor brushes, weathered it up a bit more, beacon added to modernize it, has a Richmond Controls lighting kit for the headlights and beacon. Andre built it many years ago, I was fortunate enough to grab it, clunky hand rails and all, still one of my favorite locomotives.
You did a nice job on it Tom. I have a couple GP7s to get started on and yours have been good motivators.
Tom, what decoder do you use in your Front Range jeep? I have 5 of them that are now ready to go DCC and it looks like a TCS AX-6 would work nice for non sound. Thanks, Tony LaLumia
Still old school DC for me Tony. Getting less popular every second but thats where I am staying for a while, may be making a move in the future to DCC, but will be liquidating a 100 or so locos before I start DCC'ing the RR and 50+ locos.
This is not to be considered "my Thread", so lets see your weathering images. Any Scale any era. I know we would like to see Don Wirth's before and after images.
Tom, In regards to the comment on keeping your locos and layout to DC makes common sense. The size of your layout and loco inventory would be a vast expense and the time invested to convert each loco. My first layout was DC. My second layout is DCC. Why? My loco inventory when I converted was only 5 so converting was not an expense. I operate on 2 layouts that are DC and the owners are not in any way are going to convert to DCC. These are large layouts and have a significant amount of locos and they all run great. John
Tom, you have seen most of my weathered FRISCO fleet. If you don't care about other Railroads or if you want to see some weathered vehicles I'd be glad to share. I am about 75% done with my big project for the ST Louis RPM show this summer but it is the dreaded MKT word.
Steve, I think there are a few guys here that include MKT, MP and others. We just want to see images.
Here is a couple I did up for a friend. The general grime is craft acrylic washes, the rust is oils and then a layer of pastels over it all. The graffiti on these is just decals, the guy prints these and wanted to show them on models.
Here's one more for now. This is a scratchbuilt 1/16th scale dumptruck. I will add my MKT project tomorrow.
Thanks! Sorry I had to contaminate the site with vehicles. I think we all have other hobbies though. I have a couple other things to add tonight.
Here is a few pics of my project for the St Louis RPM in June. The deadline is closing and I have a ton to do still. This is the caboose on display in Boonville,Missouri. My first plan was to make it simple and just use available kits, that plan lasted about a day of course, I cant live with it like that. Any idiot can build a kit I need to do it the hardest way possible. Some of the trailer weathering, I made a basswood deck for it and Plastruct diamond tread: These Darby cabeese has smooth roofs, so I sanded the ribs off then laminated .030 styrene to the roof: The body needed a few other mods to correct it:
Here is some of the caboose weathered a little more and the tractor and trailer: Here shows the grunge build up on the tie rods, axle etc... This is made with artists oils and pastels mixed together and covered with gloss clear. You can see the heat stained exhaust too, Solder with Tamiya clear tints: Start of the tractor assembly: I'll post some of how it looks currently tomorrow. If anyone is interested.
I know the 577 is a repeat, but the 517 is just off the table a few days ago. Had them out out on the MRR switching today. This photo shows the pair sitting at the east end of receiving yard in GJ.
The caboose is 1/29th Tom. USA trains is what I started with I had to rearrange the windows and make cushioned draft gear for it besides the smooth roof.
