Weekend Photo Fun - July 3rd to July 5th, 2020

[dti406]

Good morning from sunny, hot and humid Northeast Ohio!

This is the thread where modelers can show their completed projects, works under construction and old or new layout pictures.

Got a couple of new cars done this last week!

Atlas FMC 5077CF Boxcar Kit, painted with Scalecoat II Silver, White and a mixture of Big Sky Blue & ATSF Red Paints and lettered with Herald King Decals. Car was built in May of 1976 and was one of the infamous IPD boxcar fleet with many various colors and many unknown shortline railroads leasing them to rebuild the shrunken boxcar pool of the late 70's. Don't know how long this car stayed in this scheme as that light green lettering would sure fade in the sun.

Eastern Car Works kit of the PRR G26 65' Mill Gon, painted with Scalecoat II PRR Freight Car Red paint and lettered with Champ Decals.  Car was built in 1931, one of 1,650 built and they lasted hauling steel products from the mills into the PC and Conrail days.

We were finally able to go back to the club last week, but with only limited attendance for each period that we were assigned to, as there is limited space for social distancing in the layout room. I took my new Rapido Ann Arbor FA-2's to try out with a number of the Ann Arbor, DT&I and Green Bay and Western cars that I just finshed to populate the train.

Thanks for looking!

Rick Jesionowski

[snjroy]

Nice job on those cars Rick and thanks for kicking off the WPF thread. I found the time to work on my layout last week (!). Among other things, I converted this HO bobber caboose to HOn3. Runs great...

Have a great weekend everyone, especially our fellow American neighbours for their 4th of July celebrations.

Simon (from the great North...)

20200628_204055 by on Flickr" alt="" />

[RR_Mel]

Good start Rick, like your 18 wheelers, I'm still in vehicle mode.

It looks like Simon is going to have a nice gorge when he gets finished.

I'm still stuck at my workbench, although my Arthritis does appear to be on its way away.  This is my Con-Cor Long Dump with a gravel load.







Taillights still work after building up the gravel load.



Still a lot of detail work to do but It’s coming along pretty good, finishing the tractor is next.


Mel


 
My Model Railroad  
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
 
Bakersfield, California
 
I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
 

[peahrens]

Rick:  Thanks for kicking off WPF.  I like the gondola and scene.

Mel:  Nice trailer and load, especially the lights.

 

Last weekend I built the load for this Blue Box flat car.  It is two kits of two generators each from American Model Builders.  Happy 4th of July weekend.

20200628_130249 by Paul Ahrens, on Flickr

 

[Jimmy_Braum]

Rick: thanks for starting. Nice work as always. 

Simon, I have a soft spot for narrow gauge. Awesome 

Mel, nice load indeed. 

Peahrens: nice job. 

 

Have a safe weekend, from the HO scale Wheeling and Lake Erie East end.

[Motley]

Happy 4th everyone, don't get any firecrackers in your eye.

Rick, I like that gondola. Im a gondola fan.

Mel that is really cool how the end dump gravel trailer moves.

Jimmy is that a D&RGW SD45? I like anything D&RGW, nice work on that scene.

I've been laying more track, not much to show right now.

Here is an MTH Dash 9 I weathered up a bit.

An intermountain PFE. Its got some great detail.

[Jimmy_Braum]

Michael you were close- it is a Rio Grande unit- a GP40 under ownership of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway 

[Motley]

Jimmy_Braum

Michael you were close- it is a Rio Grande unit- a GP40 under ownership of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway 

 

 

NICE! Mangement of W&LE is doing a great job.

[hornblower]

Upon researching my fallen flag railroad and the locale I needed to model in my "what-if" 1950's scenario, I discovered that a 1/4 mile paved oval race track existed right near one of my modeled scenes between 1946 and 1957.  It was known as the Huntington Beach Legion Speedway as well as Talbert Speedway and hosted motorcycle and midget races.  Being a retired race driver myself, I had to include this scene (slightly relocated by modeler's license) on my current layout.  The scene is located at the end of an aisle so only the south turn is modeled.

Everything except the people and the pick-up truck in the infield had to be scratch built.  Soldering little tiny headers together was a pain!  However, I did remember to model these midget racers turning right to turn left!

Another scene I needed to include was the Newport Boulevard overpass at Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach.  As the Newport Boulevard bridge needed to be against the backdrop at one end of the scene, I decided to use a mirror under the bridge to make it appear that Pacific Coast Highway continues beyond the bridge.  I made my own first surface mirror by carefully stripping the backing paint off a regular glass mirror.  A very gentle polishing of the newly exposed metal coating gave me a decent quality first surface mirror that I placed directly behind the Walthers bridge. The effect impresses a lot of layout visitors.

[Little Timmy]

DTI406:  I love gon's !

Yours was worth a second look !

I got my half load done...

I may need to hit it with a "light" wash , to tone down the Gray a bit ..... and add some depth to it .

I will be finishing my "experament" with my hand poured lenses in a bit . 

Stay tuned, when you will hear lirrle timmy say ......    "Well, .. that turned out  Craptacular" !

[Little Timmy]

peahrens

It is two kits of two generators each from American Model Builders. 

THAT"S SO COOL !!!!!!!

 

[Little Timmy]

Little Timmy

I will be finishing my "experament" with my hand poured lenses in a bit . 

What a DISMAL failure !!!

The lenses dried, but their flexable.  Like contact lenses. I will try again with a better resin/epoxy..... after I clear this mess off my glass..... which should only take the rest of the night.

( heavy sigh.......)

["JaBear"]

Gap by Bear, on Flickr

[tbdanny]

Happy July 4th to those in the USA.  There's some fantastic modeling going on, as usual .

Here's my own contribution; BVLC tank car no. 63.  It was built on the chassis of the IHC I converted to tank engine no. 9.

[tankertoad135]

Back when I was still in Rapid City, SD, our club created decals for the Rapid City Black Hills Western RR which once ran into the Black Hills from RC.  The decals are sorta hypothetical, and I just had to have a set.  The boxcar is from TM with Walthers old time data applied.  Here it is in service on the Mt Hood RR.

 

Tim, I remember an article from MR in times past about created lenses, but, for the life of me, cannot remember exactly when it was published.  Keep workin' at it Bro!!

[GMTRacing]

Nice work again this weekend.

Hornblower - did you make a mold for the midget cars or scratchbuild each one? I appreciate the different grille openings  and other details on the cars but the overall scene is fantastic. I never drove midgets but I think the influence caused me to try my hand on this Austin 7 special. 

Austin 7 by J.R. Mitchell, on Flickr

Still beavering away on the transition at the back of the yard. I missed last week as I was at Mid Ohio for a race and next weekend I'll be in New Hampshire for another one.  Love the pics you all post.

transition 3 by J.R. Mitchell, on Flickr

yard view by J.R. Mitchell, on Flickr 

The normal view of the transition through the yards.

[HO-Velo]

Rick,  Thanks for shootin' off the WPF with more eye-catching models.

Oh yeah Mel, 'Keep on Truckin'!

Hornblower, Great scenes and a grand reminder of local speedways and those exciting 'Friday nights under the lights'.

Happy Birthday U.S.A.  Thanks to all the contributors and viewers, have a good 4th, regards, Peter

 

[fmilhaupt]

A simple project to add a pair of GP35s to the two already in our Wabash fleet snowballed out of control when I got a few good deals on even more undec Kato GP35s. As a result, the Operations Road Show now has all eight GP35s the Wabash had at the time of the N&W merger.

Here are the six new units, moving eastbound.

[hornblower]

GMTRacing

Hornblower - did you make a mold for the midget cars or scratchbuild each one? I appreciate the different grille openings  and other details on the cars but the overall scene is fantastic.  I never drove midgets but I think the influence caused me to try my hand on this Austin 7 special.  Austin 7 by J.R. Mitchell, on Flickr

I tried both whittling away at pieces of styrene as well as casting copies of the styrene shapes.  I achieved mixed results with the castings.  I think the mold was just too thin and flexible.  However, I was pretty happy with the four styrene cars shown in the photo. I'd like to build a few more to fill out the field  bit.  I still need to find more HO scale wheels and tires. 

I love the Austin 7 special and it would fit right in at the Goodwood Revival although I don't know if you'd want to race it quite that hard!  Those guys seem to have more money than God!  I hope you have as much fun with it as I used to driving GT4 class with the SCCA.  I eventually had to retire as my eyes, which were never very good, went totally south.  

[Little Timmy]

tankertoad135

Tim, I remember an article from MR in times past about created lenses, but, for the life of me, cannot remember exactly when it was published. 

Yea, I don't remember  where / when I saw it either. But, I will be trying again sometime tomorrow....... ( This oughta be interesting. What with all the " cussing" and "gnashing of teeth".)

Anyway's,  since the local's here apperently take their fireworks seriously ( yea, there still launching flaming onions into the tinder dry brush.) I find myself up a bit later than usual.

So I finished the underframe of the " Buffalo Brine" reefer.

 

I normally dont bother with brake details, ( although I have actually installed working brake's on a  Tichy ore car ....... no I'm not EVER doing that again )  but since Tichy included all the bells and whistles in the reefer kit, I went ahead and glued them all on.  

Now, on to the body.

stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll here Little Timmy say....

" Buffalo Brine ???? Who would drink beer flavored with pickeled Bison Brisket ???"

[hon30critter]

Hi everyone,

As usual, lots of great stuff!!

hornblower

I still need to find more HO scale wheels and tires. 

Hi hornblower,

Great racing scene!

Maybe these guys might have suitable wheels and tires:

https://ho-slotcars.com/index.html

Dave

["JaBear"]

hornblower

Everything except the people and the pick-up truck in the infield had to be scratch built.

Those scratch built midgets are a credit to you, Sir.

 

As a young cub, I dabbled in speedway, sharing an old 500cc single banger powered solo bike. My only claim to fame (??) was that I was lapped by the great Ivan Mauger in the 3^rd lap of a 4-lap race!!! Much later I was a volunteer with the “Crash Crew” at the local speedway. The track was only suitable for cars, TQs and midgets, so your scene reminds me of generally enjoyable monthly Sunday afternoons.

 

Thank you to everyone else for sharing your really Good Stuff.

Cheers, the Bear.

[gmpullman]

Good day, Folks,

Thanks for starting off this Holiday edition of WPF, Rick!

Great stuff as always, fellas'.

I continued with my "patched" Penn Central, ex NYC Parlor car.

P-C_Parlor by Edmund, on Flickr

I partially removed some of the old New York Central lettering and applied Penn Central "patches" over the letterboard. I saw scores of cars like this in the early '70s.

Along with painting the interior and adding window shades I installed an ESU lighting decoder and added a keep alive to it.

P-C_Parlor-DR by Edmund, on Flickr

The super-cap tucked nicely in the aisle where there are no windows.

The ESU lightboard comes with a pair of red markers already attached so, why not? Next time I'll probably use smaller LEDs, though.

P-C_Parlor-marker-b by Edmund, on Flickr

P-C_Parlor-marker by Edmund, on Flickr

P-C_Parlor-wire by Edmund, on Flickr

I'm really impressed with the performance and value of these light boards. I'll try to get a video posted soon. One neat feature is the "faulty" ballast function you can apply to any group of LEDs to make the light flicker.

You can also imitate the old fluorescent starter flicker when you power up the lights, a really neat feature! Of course, the marker lights can be turned on or off at will.

Still plenty of weekend left! Hope to see more great contributions 

Thanks to all, Cheers, Ed

[hon30critter]

gmpullman

The ESU lightboard comes with a pair of red markers already attached so, why not?

Hi Ed,

Can you provide a link to information on the ESU light board? I've never heard of them. I just purchased about 200 sitting figures to populate my CP Canadian train but I haven't decided on the lighting yet.

Thanks,

Dave

[gmpullman]

hon30critter

Can you provide a link to information on the ESU light board?

Gladly, Dave 

 

http://www.esu.eu/en/products/interior-lighting-sets/ntt-h0-digital/

They have two shades of LED. The "warm white" is a bit closer to a flourescent look, as the Budd/Canadian would have. The yellow is closer to incandescent.

I bought mine from SBS4DCC but I'm sure they're available in Canada. I paid less than $20.US and IMHO that is a steal! 11 LEDs +2 marker lights, a DCC decoder, adjustment pot and an option to add another LED function.

Here is the English instruction sheet. (50708 - 09)

http://www.esu.eu/en/downloads/instruction-manuals/interiour-lighting-sets/

ESU offers a supercap 50710 but I bought some from, IIRC, an ebay seller for about a buck apiece. eBay 5.5 volt 0.22 farad coin capacitor.

Have Fun! Ed

 

 

[CapnCrunch]

Thanks to everyone for sharing your projects.  Hornblower, I know exactly where your model of the PCH bridge is located.  Well done.  Are you going to model the iconic Arches Restaurant that's off to the right?

Late to the party update with my pre-railroad layout construction.  Per the pics that follow, I am working to make the garage habitable once actual railroad construction commences.  The garage has a flat roof and gets too hot in the summer so I am adding insulation.  The first step was drilling vent holes through the front and rear fascias between the roof rafters.  The next step will involve installation of rigid 2" insulation along the underside of the rafters.  In the meantime, I had to remove all of the existing flourescent and incandescent lights and replace them with LEDs.  The second pic shows three lights temporarily in place in the back half of the garage with three more to be added  across the front.  The railroad layout will be along the wall to the left.

Tim

 

[SeeYou190]

This has been aniother amazing weekend of photo fun. It is way too hard to post detailed replies to each contribution on this tablet, so I'll just have to say a blanket "great work everyone".

I will be contributing again next week, I promise.

-Kevin

[hornblower]

CapnCrunch

Hornblower, I know exactly where your model of the PCH bridge is located.  Well done.  Are you going to model the iconic Arches Restaurant that's off to the right?

Actually, my scene depicts the west side of the bridge near the Superior Avenue/Balboa Boulevard intersection (distance compressed) so I've mainly modeled generic beachfront cottages between Balboa Blvd and the Santa Ana River.  

My newly completed Balboa Peninsula scene includes a few other landmarks like The Crab Shack, Woody's Wharf and the old Balboa Theater.

[scilover]

Wow, this thread is amazing. I love seeing people making and designing their projects! I was always interested in starting one but was always daunted by the process of making one.

["JaBear"]

"Wow, this thread is amazing. I love seeing people making and designing their projects! I was always interested in starting one but was always daunted by the process of making one".

 

Yeah, it can be daunting, but it can be very satisfying when project is eventually right, and finished.

I say eventually, because it would be a brave modeller to say they get it right, first time!!

Give it go, you could be pleasantly surprised, and we like photos of others really Good Stuff!!

Cheers, the Bear.