Frisco Friends, Back from the road, after spending much of March in hotel rooms and away from hobbies. I did sneak away from a conference for a long lunch and a quick side trip in Orlando to Colonial Photo and Hobby: Quite a nice store with plenty of model train temptations. The clock on the building is not working, it seems. I managed to score a few items for working on Crawford and Cherokee layout scenery. Upon returning home, some of my resupply orders for ballast and ground cover had arrived. Managed a bit of work on the Cherokee module: Sill needs a bit of clean up, including reattaching a throw bar that I knocked loose (hazard with FastTracks turnouts, I guess). The brown areas will get some static grass and various industries and buildings will go on the places with the gravel/chats. This module probably now weighs five pounds more that when I started.....that is a lot of ballast. Also spent a bit of time waiting on glue to dry, and worked on adding some green shingles to the Weir Frisco (cough, MKT) depot. Getting close to a good stand-in: Some roof braces, chimney, and roof seams and we'll call it good. And what is with that crooked window? More to come on the Crawford and Cherokee update thread, but wanted to send out an offering for the Workshop Wednesday! Take Care All, -Bob T.
Colonial Photo, neat place, I use to go their a lot when I worked for Florida East Coast RR. Great selection, if your in the area.
After wanting one for a while I finally decided to get a bachmann 2-8-0 and reletter it. The best deal I could find was on a western Maryland unit, so it needed a little bit of work before it was ready for decals. I finally got the decals put on this morning and I'm pretty happy with the results. Still need to get a tsunami decoder and speaker to install before I put the tender shell back on.
Here is a "Bar Mills" kit I have completed. I will install piers and overhang onto my lake scene. Gonna be a Cat House ! Oh Yea !!!!!! I put curtains in for Windows, worked great.
Happy Wednesday, A small offering for the Workshop Wednesday crowd. Received a couple of kits from Mine Mount Models, and nearly complete on a C&O motor car shed (err. Frisco motor car shed now). Mine-Mount-Kit-Front-cropped by rjthomas909 posted Apr 3, 2019 at 7:32 PM Mine-Mount-Motor-Car-Shed-3 by rjthomas909 posted Apr 3, 2019 at 7:35 PM Mine-Mount-Motor-Car-Shed-2 by rjthomas909 posted Apr 3, 2019 at 7:35 PM A very nice small kit, and a good project for a couple of evenings after work. ....now back at it. This layout's not going to build itself. -Bob T.
Among the other projects I have been working on. These 2, 86' Boxcars are included. The most difficult so far was bending and applying the coupler cut bars and hardware also modified the coupler draw-bars as well, because the ones that swing, have proven to be troublesome in hard pulls, and down grade buff forces. Weight was added to both cars. The GTW car I painted and decaled years ago, the Frisco car is a Walthers product, with the afore mentioned parts and some more decals added. Now to get some weathering on them and put into service man these things are big cars
I worked on my K11 kit some more: I'm having a little trouble getting the gear lash correct. It runs a little rough, so I'm trying to break it in some before I put a decoder in it. Superdetail kits are out of stock for all of these Bowser kits. I'm trying to round up some of the parts. I have lifting injectors, power reverse, tender markers.
These cast boilers are great old school stuff. Just curious. Can newer light weight "better" tenders be used? That would be great for tractive effort and details. But I dont know. As this is just a question. Some of these older tenders pull like a dozen cars..
Did not make as much progress as I had wanted on my 1400/1700 caboose, but did resolve a couple things that had to be done. Primarily was dialing in ride height and coupler height/mounts. I think I've got things set just where I want now. I'm using standard MT 1015s in the coupler pockets and they align perfectly with my other rolling stock. For fun I also added some underside details. I didn't go overboard but put enough to make it interesting. Lastly, I made the window frames for the cupola and positioned all of the pilot holes to be used for the various grabs around the caboose. Currently I'm working to resolve what to do with the end railings and am considering printing some grab jigs for consistent bends. We'll see how that turns out! Meanwhile here she is with adjusted ride height and new couplers: Cheers -Mike
Oh My, Or Holy **** that is some great modeling and efforts. I just hope you can find a way that would keep to the prototype. The comparison you show is substantial Mike. The roof line shows you are in the right place. You are doing a great job! Better to take your time and get it as close to best as you can, than regret the latter. I personally hope for the best for your efforts, as no brass or otherwise has ever offered similar. I am grateful and if not proud that you would undertake the endeavor Sir.
Yes, other tenders can be used. Most of these kits use the tender to pick up from the left rail, so as long as the electricity is ok it should work. I gather some modelers use plastic tenders, as they are easier to isolate, and use the tender trucks to pick up from both rails, for better performance and sound. Some modifications to drawbars, added weight, spacing, etc, may be needed for best performance.
Great stuff as always guys. Nice to see a bunch happening too. Mine for the week is another GP40-2 I finished for my usual customer and some TOFC trailers for him.
I finished installing ground foam on my diorama the other day. Started with real dirt and then medium green ground foam followed by yellow. Still need to paint the rock castings with a wash of black. The last step is to install trees and shrubs after I do water. Joe
I just thought about an idea of setting up the diorama for a DCC programming track when I make the move from DC. Does anyone know if there would be any problem or have a tip? Joe 1,400 messages, 1,666 likes
Joe, a Service Programming track needs to be isolated from all the rest of the track since programming in Service mode is indiscriminate; the CV changes are made to any/all locomotives on the programming track. Operations Mode programming (Main Line programming) requires that one select a locmotive by its address and then the CV change commands sent onto the mainline track include the specific locomotive's address as the addressee. One can wire a programming section into the mainline track using a 4PDT switch, creating a programming track section and a dead buffer section at each end of the programming track. I really don't recommend this practice, but I can send you a schematic of how to wire it if you insist.
Thank you Keith!!! The diorama is definitely separate from the layout. It will be a while before I make the change and will let you know when so I can get the schematic from you at that time. Joe
Over the weekend I had time to work on a couple more projects. I scored a deal on another F7 AB set so now I'll have a full ABBA set to display. Results on this batch turned out a little better. Still have some paint bleed issues, but the cigar band came out rounder this time. The other project was purely an experiment to practice decaling. I got both hood diesel sets from K4 decals on ebay. I had an extra GP38-2 shell setting around so I put some black paint on it and made a "what if" B&Y GP38-2. It didn't turn out too bad. I got the angle on the nose stripe too high though. Eventually this shell will get redone as a proper O/W unit.