Finally made a start on my Frisco S scale stuff. First on the list is a short rake of S-Helper Service PS-2 covered hoppers, I've got about a dozen and they are nearly all for different railroads (none of them Frisco) so a strip down, repaint and lettering is needed as well as rebuilding the trucks into something a bit more fine scale. The obvious one to do first was the Big Nasty cascade green one:- Now you see it.. Now you don't... and a quick squirt of rattle can primer... Lettering removed with a bit of 400 grade wet 'n' dry used wet, the top picture was after 5 minutes, another 5 saw it all gone. Off to the local auto spares place tomorrow to look for a suitable grey, I don't know about your side of the pond but we have lots of grey cars over here all in different shades, several of which are in the right ball park. The primer on its own is too dark and matt so the decals (K4) won't stick. I also need to check if the bottom outlet gates are the right sort before I get too far. Hopefully I will post an update next week, Wednesday deadlines 'should' be good for the motivation.. Cheers Rob
A few spare minutes at work the other night saw the next 3 PS-2 hoppers stripped ready for painting and today a nice warm morning saw the trusty rattle cans deployed in the garden. All 4 ready for the K4 decals en-route from your side of the pond. Considering how many grey cars there are around the choice of ready to go rattle cans is very limited. Eliminate the too dark, the pearlescent and the metallic the choice is just one - Ford Polar Grey More next week (possibly) Rob
Hey All, Finally some time off from work today and able to catch up on a couple of projects. I have been working on a couple more Bitter Creek Model kits, a 34-ft boxcar (will be a K-C F-S & M car, and a 34-ft flatcar which I will make into a wood gondola with some Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Gulf decals from K4. These have been coming along very slowly. I have been struggling with getting sufficient weight into the flat car. You can see that I glued a bunch of "liquid gravity" to the underside of the car. I will probably have to put something inside the gondola to add a bit more. Maybe some lead weights covered with a little coal. Anyhow....... I also spent some time trying to finish out the first pass of scenery for the mining camp at Lightning Creek. It is coming along with a little static grass and dirt roads being defined. Apologies for the framing of this photo and no background. I am afraid that an outside corner is not going to be very photogenic. And yes, I know....WATCH THAT FIRST STEP out of the warehouse!!! Well, take care and have a restful Labor Day weekend. -Bob T.
Hey All, This month's "What's Neat in Model Railroading" features our own @modeltruckshop, interviewed at the St. Louis RPM meet (39 minute mark). The interview with Pete Monger at about 12 minute mark includes several of @modeltruckshop 's weathered models on a diorama. Several other shots of some great models, but nothing compares to the large scale Frisco caboose taco stand! -Bob T.
Thanks as always Bob! Those DTSL gp7s in the link picture belong to Peter one of my customers. I did those a couple years ago. Thanks for sharing!
This weekend, I managed some additional scenery for area in the photo above. This is the mining camp at Lightning Creek on the layout. It is an outside corner for a peninsula containing the mine, so may not ever have a photogenic background. Hope you all had a good weekend. Take care All, -Bob T.
Workshop Wednesday! All I can offer is a snapshot of the workbench. Working on "Wilson's Mustard" from Mine Mount Models and trying to finish up those Bitter Creek Cars.
I like seeing a Fluke DMM on your bench. What model? I have two 87-III and one 87-V. Two are in my travel work bags; one is for layout construction/wiring and one in my decoder/electronics travel work bag. The third resides at my work bench.
This old rowboat is little more than a snappin' turtle clubhouse..... Hope all are doing well...had some time tonight to work on refurbing this water surface and display this recent Miniprints (rowboat) project. -Bob T.
It's been a busy year for me, but last weekend I finally had some time to set down with the airbrush and start working on projects again. Right now the only shells that I have ready for paint are my "for fun" projects (not prototypical). So I started with one of the C30-7's I picked up supper cheap. I took the advice of some of our other member and found some better masking tape online. I tried the yellow variety this time and had better results this time around. There's still a couple small spots that ran through, but still better than the blue tape I had been using. I'll report back with more pictures after I get decals applied. C30-7 OW 1 by Iantha_Branch posted Dec 16, 2022 at 1:07 PM C30-7 OW 2 by Iantha_Branch posted Dec 16, 2022 at 1:07 PM C30-7 OW 3 by Iantha_Branch posted Dec 16, 2022 at 1:07 PM C30-7 OW 4 by Iantha_Branch posted Dec 16, 2022 at 1:07 PM C30-7 OW 5 by Iantha_Branch posted Dec 16, 2022 at 1:07 PM
Looks good Ethan. If I may offer, the Firemans side rear has a noticeable dip, in the white strip. Good news it is an easy fix to re-mask and shoot a bit more red and fix it up good. I gotta say that big GE looks good painted up that way. What kind of paint do you use? With Scalecoat now gone , I guess I gotta learn some new tricks.
Where is modeltruckshop or Steve Hurt?? Not right for him not to have posted some decaying, rusting something for this long.
I texted Steve a few weeks ago, he is in the process of a job change and moving to another house. He said he will be back posting on the forum when he is settled in. We all miss him!
Yeah I've got some touch up work to do before it gets decals. So I had to start from nothing on the paint subject a year ago. The short answer is I'm using Badger Modelflex paint. Take a look at this thread: http://frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/model-paint-summary-2022.13637/page-2 I've got a link to a place where you can find paint fairly reliably. I also go over what colors I'm using, including the custom blended red I used on this C30-7.
Hey All, Stuck inside with the cold blast and decided to work on pouring water (resin) for the Lightning Creek scene. I am using a two-part resin with some Woodland Scenics "Murky" water coloring. I'll go back over this when dry with some gloss medium extender to give it some waves/motion. Hope you are all doing well and staying warm! -Bob T.