Here is my next weathering project, this one an ExactRail car. As I await several bottles of paint, one of which to patch the car with, I’ve been working on the rust detail. This car has three different types of weathering mediums on it, and currently two layers of weathering. Final photos when finished!

Due to a recent session of carpentry-related layout work on our HO scale September 1927-era Sugar Pine Lumber Company/Minarets & Western Railway layout, I've been spending some time with the compact shop vac doing general cleanup. The existing shop vac tools didn't help much with the helix, though, with its 3-inches of clearance between levels. I needed a narrow vacuum tool that drew from the side, not the end.

Been working on landscaping and structures of late. One thing I really wanted to have was a representation for the Gibbard furniture factory in Napanee -- on the riverside within sight of the viaduct. Had caged some DPM modules similar to the actual shapes and finally started building. Did not have enough to complete the structure so assembled a wall section and made castings using Smoothcast. So far so good. Not paying any attention, I worked on this whole business for a few weeks before comparing my structure to the other Walthers items in this little streetscape. Not good...

For the last four years I've been working on my N scale Deerfield and Northern RR. The Lady of the Manor had given me permission to use the larger of two spare bedrooms. This allowed me to go from eight foot by thirty inches to an eleven foot by six foot by forty inch wide. A few months ago I suggested I might tear down the layout. "Are you crazy", the family asked. "There are mistakes" I replied. "It looks great to us" they reply.

I’ve created, I think, the ONLY weigh station that REALLY works for less than $25. This is NOT a random weight generator, it really weighs your freight cars. It may not be obvious to set up because of the preparation you will need to do, but it sure will add operations to your layout. You can use it in your yard or in a large industry were weighing is required, such as coal, grain, etc.

So how does it work?

In preparation for the upcoming Railway Modellers Meet  (http://railwaymodellersmeetofbc.ca) layout tour coming to my layout room on May 4th I've been madly cleaning and preparing the room for the onslaught of people expecting to see something interesting.  

HI, I decide to begin weathering some of my locos, but first I want to practice. I have an old AHM dummy EMD GP18, also is important to say that I do not have all the proper tools, like airbrush, my local hobby shop is very bad with no weathering supplies.

So I decide to use acrylic paint and I found black powder for artist

Here you can see a picture before, and then after

The planned southern terminus of my layout is Toledo, OH, a plausible place for me to be able to place a lake freighter. However, HO scale lake boats are not very easy to come by and tend to be expensive. Enter Scalescenes.com, a UK paper model site with digital downloads, much like Clever Model here in the US. Last year, they released a OO modern cargo ship which caught my eye, as it is somewhat close to a lake boat in appearance: long and narrow. Before I go making alterations, I figured I should do a “dry run,” building the ship to spec. 

Shelf layout keep it minimal ..i think