100 Posts Already

Teaser picture for following posts....

Well doggone it's not that 100 is a particularly significant number per se, but still 100 posts in eight months is not bad going, for this type of blog. So where am I today? As I'm writing this, you are reading it in my future, and my past, so the answer as to where I am is relative to time & space.

Anyhow, the layout progresses. I find myself thinking about doing one thing and end up doing something else. For instance I keep switching between doing freight cars, see my accidental weathering comment last time, to working on the track. In this case I've painted the track with rail rust using a Floquil pen device, and then dry-brushed all the sleepers.

So it is all starting to look good. My partner said that the layout was starting to look like the tracks down at our local station, which I think is just right.

I'm also looking at all the forlorn freight cars that are still awaiting wheels, and I have had a few new cars arrive in the post, which I've not taken out of their boxes because they would just be sitting around gathering dust while I wait of my back order of the rest of the wheels I need.

It all feels like Waiting for Godot.

My mood being driven by work stresses, which appear to be taking a turn for the worse, so motivation come from the pleasure I take from the things I do, and ultimately isn't that what any hobby is all about?

May & Modelling

Well, by now the sun is usually shining and model making takes a back seat to going out to barbeques and having fun while one can. Today was cold enough to still need a coat, and it is the middle of may for Heavens sake. Oh well, mustn't grumble, could be raining...

Layout work this weekend involved fettling the tracks over the baseboard joins, which is now done in spite of being distracted and accidentally weathering two freight cars. How does one accidentally weather two cars I hear you ask?

Good question.

I was just painting the wheels and axles and thought to myself what if I I paint on some rust and wash it off with thinners? Not yet finished, but I shall show them soon.

Five Down, Thirteen to Go

A parcel arrived from Caboose Hobbies arrived yesterday. Opened it up to find some Reboxx wheels and ExactRail S2 Barber trucks, which is all well and good. Unfortunately, only a partial order of the wheels with only one packet of 1.030 axles in the parcel. However, I broke them out and immediately sorted them out by length; as they vary across a range of 1.026 to 1.029, so I can have matching length axles in my trucks.

As a result of my efforts I was able to get five cars back onto the layout. As you can see hovering above are my Suydam CNS&M passenger cars, still waiting for Bill to get back to me with the power truck solution.

Included is my caboose with PSC leaf springs in Kadee archbar trucks, and that I have started weathering it too. Got to blacken those leaf springs.

B&O 381132 Box Car Weathered

One of the good things about taking photographs of your models is that it gives you a fresh perspective on what you have done. Useful when weathering cars as it enables one to finesse the end results. I quite like the way this car has turned out. However, its sister, a Milwaukee horizontal rib box car I was working on at the same time, has gone back to the bench for some further work.

SCCX 1492 Tank Car Weathered

Before...


And after. First of my tank cars that I've weathered.

The process was one of applying washed, Games Workshop inks, and then washing off the excess using windscreen wash. After that I dusted with powder pigments and then drybrushed the trucks and couplers.

Gloop: The Modelling Season

Modellers of the North East parts of America talk about the fifth season, or season of mud. In modelling terms we have the gloop season, where one is gluing own texture onto the baseboard.

As can be gathered from the title of this post I have started into my gloop season.