622 is still on my workbench

But soon to transition to the paint shop! Here she is on road trials:

A more thorough treatment of the summer's progress is here:
https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/34518#comment-448594

And that is an abridged version of my main blog at  pembroke87.wordpress.com.

Cheers,
Rene

Loco build

Rene,

I've been enjoying your detailed blog posts as work on #622 progresses. Thank you for sharing your work and inspiring modelers to step up and push their skill sets forward.

Eric

Wonderful model Rene

Enjoying your journey! Such an interesting build.

Thank-you

I don't know about "inspiring," Eric.  However, if anyone ever thought that they alone made mistakes in their models, then they should come and read my blog.  It's all out there!

Rene

Super Swamper Ag Trucks

Working on a pair of Super Swamper equipped Ag fertilizer Trucks.

Structure lighting

Lipstick on a Pig

I took one of those corrugated streamline cars from IHC/Rivarossi, and designed and printed an interior. I've already got a capacitor-equipped LED circuit ready to go, I just need the replacement Walthers trucks to finish drying. I'll then change out the bolster spot, add actual couplers, then it'll be finished. If all goes well, I'll toss the models up onto Thingiverse.

Oh, and those figures are those cheap ones, like 100 for $3.

Odd place for a yard...

One advantage of working on small sections of the layout is I can do trackwork at the comfort of my workbench and then move it to the layout. I am modifying a series of commercial switches to match a prototype location. I also have a few sections of flex track I am working on.  Once the track is checked on the layout it will all be spray painted camo brown and return to the workbench for detailing and weathering. I also plan to add feeders and rail joiners before moving it from the bench back to the layout. 
 

Following

Following

TT projects and more

It seems the October workbench has been vanished into the past, so I though I'd better revive it.

I have got some TT scale kits underway at the moment. Some 2-bay offset hoppers and a Santa Fe coal hopper painted and ready for decals. In the background are some Northern Pacific woodchip cars that still need a little work before painting.

At the back you can see my Russian narrow gauge engine shed in progress and on top of the plastic tubs you can just make out a couple of N scale Victorian Railways Z guards vans and a Q flat that I hope to have finished real soon.

The TT US rolling stock is from a local Australian manufacturer TiTan Models. Crazy to think that TT scale US outline rolling stock is made in Europe and Australia, but not the country of origin.

Nice work.

Rene, That 4-4-0 looks like many prototypes. I have seen a lot of photos where the steam locomotive has a lot of open space in the under carriage. I just run an un modified Bachmann 4-4-0. 
 

This is my multi level prototype based scene. I finally have settled on a system for representing the railroad street trackage in Lancaster city. I am modifying (chopping) the Blair Line curved railroad crossings. The Mulberry Street bridge over the old Pennsylvania railroad mainline. 
 I cannot fix the orientation of the photo. The first 5 tries all showed upside down. 

Trees

October has been tree month on the workbench. These are drying as I need to run to the dollar store for more cheap hairspray. These 20 trees are for the 6 and 9 year old grandkids slot track and will be planted by the kids during online education recess on Monday. I have another 32 trees complete to the adding leaves part but as usual I mis-calculated the spray needed. Trees made this month ranging from 4” to 7” height total 320 and bushes to 3”with wire armatures is 161. Bushes made with twine, 6. Hopefully enough till March. Now I need to find a consistent method for pine trees. 
 

Tom

Paint booth progress

My workbench progress often moves in fits and spurts. Six HO scale resin freight cars have been to the paint booth.

I sprayed these with a coat of Vallejo German red brown primer. The two short flat cars on the box are F&C kits for Pennsy F22 heavy duty cars. The two fishbelly side sill cars are also F&C kits for PRR GR class composite gondolas. I started these in 2014.

The truss rod cars are private run kits from Yuma Car & Foundry that follow Nickel Plate Road wood gons with steel center sills and eight truss rods. The prototypes were built between 1905 and 1908 with nearly 2,500 cars installed. By my 1926 modeling moment, there were 1,550 cars listed in the ORER, representing almost 50% of the 1926 NKP gondola fleet.

The following day, the cars were painted with appropriate car colors. Decks and interiors will be finished separately.

I used Vallejo Amaranth Red on the Pennsy cars. A few drops of rust and boxcar red were mixed in  to tone down the bright orange color.

These NKP gondolas were painted with Vallejo dark rubber from the Panzer Aces military color line. One of these is on the workbench now in the middle of decal application.

Eric

BEDT 30... Special Project Underway...

Hi,

I've been using this critter for special projects for 2 years! It just got another overhaul, new paint, and lettering. Maybe in another two years it will settle out?

Have fun! 
Best regards,
Geoff Bunza

  "The TT US rolling stock

Hi Steve, Great collection of TT scale modern cars . What kind of engine will you use to pull them? ....DaveB

A breakthrough.

I’ve been working on the ground light, step light and high walkway light project for over a year and a half now.  It has evolved from 0402 LEDs glued onto the bottom of transparent fixtures to adding personally hand soldered 0201 LEDs into the fixture.  The 0201 LEDs have been soldered to both 38 and 40 gauge magnet wire which takes a considerable amount of time.  Setting and gluing the LEDs into the fixtures and painting them with two coats of black paint takes a considerable amount of time as well.  The first batch of 0201 LEDs were in stock in the US at a reasonable price.  The different manufacturers or brands were all the same color and looked like the LEDs used on the newer EMD and GE locomotives, slightly on the blue side.  The breakthrough has been finding an LED that represents the warmer incandescent look of the older tungsten filament lightbulbs made in the recent past.  Here are a couple pictures of the search results.

The picture above is a reminder of the size of the LED and shows the two colors of wire to indicate polarity, red is + and neutral copper color is -.

The picture above was taken in lower light and against a white background and the color in the photo looks pretty accurate.  The LEDs are mounted in the fixtures in the photo.  
 

Raw and wired LEDs and LEDs mounted in multiple fixture configurations are available by request.  Both LEDs work with 1K resistors on the nominal 12 volt powered outputs of common DCC decoders.  The 0201 LEDs also mount very nicely in N-Scale headlight and ditch light sized openings and the 40 gauge wire takes very little space.  I have been impressed with the results by a local installer.

Outdoor layout expansion

Here's the progress of my bench work for the phase one stage of my layout. My attempt at TOMA outdoors...

The "deck" is covered by hardware cloth and then landscaping fabric followed by spline/ladder roadbed. The wide section is 7' wide and the narrow spot is 2' wide. This is just a simple mainline, siding and spur to a feed mill. Eventually the feed mill (6'x7') will occupy a large portion of the section. 

Outdoor layout?

Will that benchwork get real grass covering? .....DaveB

@Dave

Eventually, I will add ballast, and in the areas needed a 1/2-1" of dirt to grow some ground cover.

Something similar to this photo. In this photo I used sand to fill in the ladder roadbed and provide some terrain shaping. I'm sure after this winter season the ballast and sand will need some refreshing until I can get some small lower covering ground cover. 

On my previous layout on the ground I used a plant that was a dwarf fern (Brass Button) that if I can find it again I will use again. The leaves scale pretty good, and it grows when I abuse it and don't water. Plus it 'kinda' looks like the weeds you find along the ROW.

@Craig

That looks like a lot of fun. Very realistic feel working with natural materials. I'd like to do an outside layout but my years of working in the sun have made my skin too sensitive to spend time out there.....DaveB

The little details

Preparing the small details always seems to take an inordinate amount of time and effort. I have been tweaking and painting various bits of white metal, wood, plastic, card, 3D printed items, and adding some home made decals to populate a very small corner of the yard on my layout. Still not finished yet.

N scale, by the way.

Shipping office

Working on a shipping/receiving office for a pier in HO scale. 
 

TT @ DaveB

Dave,

I'm not too sure how modern you mean. The offset hoppers are 1940's and the ATSF coal hopper and NP woodchip car are 1960's...

As to TT pulling power, I have an EMD SW9 in process of becoming Meeker Souther MSN 103 that is currently awaiting decals.

I also have 'part' of an ALCO RS1 print project not quite on the workbench. It is sitting on a donor N scale Atlas C628 mechanism. The wheelbase is correct for the RS1 and, dropping out the centre axle, the bogie wheelbase is also correct. I previously made a bogie frame for a Tilllig mechanism, so will adapt that to suit the Century.

Will be a while before that one gets really underway. More projects to finish first...

Tried something new, a dual gauge crossing.........

Good stuff posted here, as usual. My contribution is an O scale crossing of On30 and O standard gauge done with code 100 rail. My On30 rail is code 70 but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I could possibly make a crossing using two different codes of rail!!

I downloaded and printed the excellent templates available free from Fast Tracks’ website of 14 degree crossings in O and On30 and cut them up to combine the two gauges. I then pasted this to some homasote. I used track gauges and determined both templates were the exact rail gauge. I then glued down the PC board ties to the template and started cutting and filing and soldering rail. I sure missed the ease of using a Fast Track jig but for a “one of” like this it’s pretty expensive to have one custom made. Working slowly and using track laying gauges, NMRA gauges and 2 sets of trucks I had a working crossing in about 10 hours!
 

It was kind of a fun project, a bit of a pain in the butt combined with a sense of accomplishment.

Peter