Weekend Photo Fun April 13-15

Bear:

I like the sketch.

Here is the Simpsons truck with headlights. This is the one that took 4 attempts to get one of the headlights lined up. As you can see by the picture I still don't have it quite right. The driver's side headlight is still a bit brighter than the passenger side (sorry - NO PASSENGERS ALLOWED! Do you remember those signs on delivery trucks?). Anyhow this is as good as it is going to get re headlight alignment on this truck.

For those of you who might be interested, Simpsons was an iconic retailer in Canada for decades, and joined with Sears Roebuck to form Simpson Sears as a clearance outlet in smaller Canadian communities to get rid of surplus stock. They could hardly deal with their success. Growing up in the 60's Simpsons was THE place to shop. Bit the dust a long time ago but any Canadian long in the tooth will recognize the logo.

Next step will be tail lights. The SMD LED's are on the way! I have some smaller wire on order to so I can hide the wires better before they go down through the layout surface.

Dave

I had a wonderful day playing with my new batch of 3D printed models! :D

I'm hoping to get these all painted on Sunday.  I have to try and find some place that still carries Polly Scale paint.  

Mark!

WOW! The detail is incredible! You are obviously on the leading edge of a new facet in modeling. Scratch building will be taken to a whole new level.

Dave

hon30critter

Mark!

WOW! The detail is incredible! You are obviously on the leading edge of a new facet in modeling. Scratch building will be taken to a whole new level.

Dave

It's not really scratch building, it's more like "scratch baking".  Or "scratch printing".  We are going to need a whole new vocabulary here. 

Three areas I've been working on lately, they're all in the same general area on the layout.

The Iron Works building in the background, a Con Cor kit if I remember right.

 Putting in some 'pot topper' grass, foreground in this picture

 and the area around the old abandoned shack. in the photo below.

 Today I hope to get started on some folding facia shelves like the ones in a recent Model Railroader magazine.  My operators need a place to sort card cards..   

Jarrell

No cars finished this week with the holiday weekend and being sick the week before.

I went to the club and shot a video of one of my trains running on the layout.  I am still learning how to use the video on the camera!

You may recognize some cars and engines from previous posts!

Double click on the picture to start the video!

Thanks for looking

Rick J

Not a photo, but a couple of drawings I made while I had nothing better to do

The drawings were made with Atlas RTS 8.0, using the various graphics functions.

Happy Friday 13th. ...JaBear: I like the 4-8-2's;  ...Dave: great job with installing headlights; .....Mark: very impressive N scale models. ...Jarrell: Your layout looks terrific in your pictures. .... Rick: very good video......... Ulrich, I like the drawing.

On my layout, I am operating my Rapido Trains heater car. The GN passenger train has 2 GP7's not equipped with their own steam generators. They are substituting for normal passenger locomotives. So, my Rapido steam generator is in the consist. Rapido did a fine job with this model, and it produces its own "steam".

Here is a close up of the car as the train backs into Union Station. Look carefully and see the "steam".

Here is the train shortly after departing Union Station as it passes two CB&Q trains.

Did some work on my SD27J mounting the air tanks on top of the long hood just back of the cab and adding the section of pipe running back of the tanks to the other side of the hood.

Jarrell, excellent scenes and photos. Gary, oh so steamy!

I1sa with a coal drag at Stoney Creek. DJ.

Great work as always guys!

Dave I remember Simpson Sears. That truck is cool, I want one.

Here a mixed freight heads into the Alberta foothills.

Brent

Looking good as usual folks!

Here's my first contribution in a while. In this photo we see HATX SD45-2 #914, on lease to the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway, hauling a local freight upgrade in the evening sun. The loco is an N scale Intermountain.

My picture is not very glamorous.  I've been working on adding a fascia to my trestle section to cover up the wedding cake layers of foam.  It's just taped up right now.  I hope to glue it on tomorrow and blend in the scenery to the edge.

Before photo

After photo with the flash on( it's dark this morning) :oops:

Wow great start to the weekend. As always some really nice work. Over the past month I have been working on tagging 9 of my ExactRail 64' Trincool Reefers. Each reefer takes me around 6 hours to complete as all these tags are done freehand absolutely no graffiti decals used. Here is a small sample of my work. Most of these reefers still need to be weathered but the tagging is complete.

Love how this one turned out.

All of these reefers were tagged using real photos found on rrpicturearchives.net

This one was inspired by my love for Monster Energy

These two tags I saw on a bridge pillar near one of my favorite railfanning spots

And lastly, one of my best tagging efforts to date

Hope you all enjoyed more to come maybe next week.

Will

In a bit of fun earlier today I ripped the diverging rails and points off of a non-functioning turnout and put in a straight piece of rail. Turnout was a Bachmann #5.

This little project is a historical one. SP206 was used as a shop goat in 1958 at the Oakland yards, found one obscure photo in X200 South in 1977 issue that showed it.  Adding all the little tiger stripes was a real killer.

After not participating in this thread for a couple of months, I'm now going to throw in a second contribution for this week (when it rains, it pours, eh?). I was playing around with the camera this afternoon and managed to come up with this interesting "night" photo that I figured I should share.

VIA P42DC #906 is on the head of a corridor train that has almost finished its run to Montreal. It's getting late, and the crew are looking forward to finishing their evening run as they pause to wait for a signal, basking in a determined photographer's floodlights.

The P42 is a Kato N scale model, and the photo was taken in broad daylight with some "creative" lighting.

Been working on the scenery on my Free-mo module. I had a little free time and took a few shots and played around with them in photoshop.

Looking out the back window of the Plymouth Satellite on the way to Pittsburgh... July, 1970

N Joy!

Lee

It's 1943 and the Yuba River Sub is 'borrowing' foreign motive power like crazy to keep up with the increase in wartime traffic.  Which explains the big "Beast From The East" C&O Allegheney pulling an eastbound freight through Deer Creek, CA.

Tom

I just finished painting my first N Scale Stagecoach!  I think I'm in love! :D

Good stuff again this week guys. Keep the photos and ideas coming.

Dave, do you have a "how to" for the headlight installation?

Here is one from a recent operating session with the youngest grandson:

NYC F7 passes Berea tower on the inner mainline loop of the BRVRR layout. The model is an Athearn BB with a TCS T-1 decoder. The trailing unit has a MRC 1626 diesel sound decoder which has been operating for 7-years without a problem. 

Keep the photos and ideas coming guys. I love this thread.

Running across the desert on the Loan Pine Local.

Great modeling everyone. Jarrell- great job on your layout. Garry- Is that new brick wall on the back side of the yard?

All I have been doing lately is some weathering using latex  and acyrlic paint put on by hand

BRVRR

Here is the procedure for installing LED headlights:

First, some models are well suited to having their headlights illuminated and others are not. The easiest ones to work with are those that come with clear plastic headlights. Model Power, High Speed (I think High Speed is simply a different name for the Model Power product) and Athearn are  manufacturers who build their models this way. If you have a model with painted headlights you can still illuminate them but it will involve drilling out the cast metal headlights and coming up with some sort of lense to fill the hole and allow the light to shine through.

You will need to buy some 0603 warm white LEDs and suitable resistors (1000 ohms is good). The 0603 LEDs are available through Ngineering http://ngineering.com/ to name one North American source. I bought mine through eBay for very little money. The only problem with eBay is that you are taking a chance on the actual colour of the LED. That is still not a huge problem. If the LEDs are too blue, use a yellow Sharpie paint pen to change the colour. The resistors I purchased from Digi-Key http://www.digikey.ca/ca/en/digihome.html. They are an excellent source with low prices and next day delivery! You will also need some 'magnet wire' which is very fine single strand insulated wire. Ngineering and Digi-Key sell that too.

You will need some 5 minute epoxy to glue the LEDs in place.

The first step is to solder leads to the LEDs. You will need a low wattage pencil style soldering iron (15 - 20 watts or there abouts). Forget about using your Weller gun!

I hold the LEDs in spring loaded tweezers (see the picture below) so that one contact pad is sticking up in the air. I then cut two lengths of magnet wire (six inches or so) and clean the insulation off of the ends for about 1/8th". If you are using two different coloured wires to identify polarity you can get the same polarity on all your LEDs by looking at the back of the LED. There will be a green 'T' on the back with the bottom of the 'T' pointing to one soldering pad. If you always solder the same colour wire to the same side of the LED you won't have to fiddle with figuring out which lead is which.

Now comes the tricky part - soldering the wires to the LED. First thing to do is decide on the orientation of the wires relative to the front of the LED. For headlights you will want the wires to come off the side of the LED (see the picture). This keeps the LED/wire assembly as flat as possible so it can't be seen in the wheel well. If you are making lamp lights you will want to have the wires coming off the back of the LED. To solder the leads I first apply a tiny bit of soldering paste to the LED pad and to the end of the wire. I then 'tin' the wire and the LED by touching them with the soldering iron to deposit a small amount of solder on each. Then I line up the wire with the LED pad and touch the iron to the joint. Sounds simple enough but because the parts you are working with are so small you will need to practise a bit before you get it right. Be prepared to be frustrated at first. Also expect to lose a few LEDs to having them fly off into neverland. Just cutting them out of the plastic strip they come in can be tricky. Also note that the LED only has so much tolerance for heat. Most 0603 LEDs are rated at 3 seconds @ 200 degrees F maximum. Too much heat and the LED will fry or the soldering pad will come off.

If your leads stick out past the LED just cut them off with an Exacto knife.

Once you have the leads on the LEDs (don't forget to add in the resistors) the rest is fairly simple. You will have to take the vehicle apart to get at the back of the headlights. Put a spot of epoxy on the back of the headlight and on the LED and push the LED into place. The reason for putting epoxy on both is to have the LED fully encapsulated in the epoxy so when you paint the back of the assembly there will be no risk of fouling the LED. Note that the LED must be lined up exactly with the stem on the back of the headlight. If not, the light will be much dimmer. I use small spring clamps to hold the wires with the LED in place. This can be challenging because it is hard to see around the clamps to make sure that the LED is still lined up with the headlight. I always check the alignment as soon as the epoxy is firm by applying power. You may have to reposition the LED. If so you will have to scrape out the epoxy and clean off the LED and start again. Don't pull on the leads to get the LED out!

Here is a picture of the 0603 LEDs with and without the wires attached, and the tweezers I use to hold the LED. There is actually an LED in the tweezer jaws but it doesn't show well in the picture. This is as close as my camera can focus:

Next step is to paint the back of the headlight and surrounding epoxy black to contain the light. I also paint the wires black so they won't show. Once the paint is dry you can route the wires down the center of the bottom of the car to where they will be inserted into the surface of the layout. Under the layout you will need to attach a larger wire to carry the load. You should not rely on the magnet wire for more than a few inches.

Again, be prepared to be frustrated at first. After a bit of practise with the soldering you will be able solder the leads to an LED in less than a minute for each LED. The possibilities are endless with these little guys!

Dave

I just finished painting the first pickle car! :)

Dave,

Thanks for the reply and the quick "How To". I have several autos on the layout that would benefit from operating headlights and taile-lights too, for that matter.

Something to do on a cold winter night.

Thanks for the source addresses as well.

Allan