Hinshaw Valley Engineering Report

[tom mann]

 

[tom mann]

Saturday, November 6
---------------------
12:00.  Arrive At Gary's
12:01-3:00.  Bullshit about weathering techniques
3:01.  Try to move layout upstairs
3:10.  Watch Gary remove floorboards
3:30.  Add layout to truck, cover with tarp
4:15.  Arrive at home, layout gets stuck going down staircase
4:30.  Un-wedge layout, move it through entire house
4:31.  French wife, raised on metric system, now appreciates large size of US 4 and 8 foot dimensions.
4:45.  Install layout into train room

[davefoxx]

Saturday, November 6
---------------------
4:31.  French wife, raised on metric system, now appreciates large size of US 4 and 8 foot dimensions.

You had to "french" the wife to get the layout in the house?  Bravo, my good man!  ;D

[Philip H]

You had to "french" the wife to get the layout in the house?  Bravo, my good man!  ;D

Newlyweds- only thinking about ONE thing!

Seriously - sharing this story got both my wife and my mom to laugh!

[GaryHinshaw]

Now she knows she married a real Mann.  Bada bing.   :-*

Just for fun, I'm going to haul the "Hinshaw Disaster" clip over from the WM Report.  You could recreate this scene before you reinstall the bridges.   

[tom mann]

As Gary said, he came over to participate in some video work for the upcoming weathering DVD.  I wanted Gary to speak about his fading techniques, to save me the effort of stealing them and presenting them as my own.

I showed him so many finished, unfinished, and half-assed weathering projects that I probably turned him off of the hobby, and it probably could have lasted hours more.   He also got to see 5 Rich Yourstone-weathered models, and an NScaleSteve painted Milw Diesel.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Holy crap, there's a name I hadn't heard in a long time.

I can't believe how long I've known you people.

[tom mann]

I replaced both spurs with ME code 55 and removed a few ties.  Next up is track weathering!

[tom mann]

The other night, my daughter and I painted the track and started adding cardboard strips to fill the large scenery gap that splits the layout down the middle.  We airbrushed the ME code 55 undercoat light gray, and then she painted it with a wash of ivory black.

[GaryHinshaw]

Must see pictures....

[tom mann]

Here is the state of the upper spur:



I'm not a fan of the large industry there, but wanted to create a view block.  As you can see, I though of using the grain elevator *after* the 1st layer of plaster.

Thoughts?

[davefoxx]

Hmm.  I don't know, Tom.  It seems odd that there's no road access to the structure or even a parking lot for the employees.  In other words, it looks too crammed in there.  I know you're using it primarily as a view block, but there must be a better way, e.g., foliage and trees.

Hope this helps,
Dave Foxx

[DKS]

Since presumably the building is restricting front/back views, and wouldn't necessarily be viewed from the side all that much, why not make the building shallow? Say, just one row of silos deep? Or maybe just lose the set of silos in the foreground of the photo... at any rate, I think I'd selectively compress the structure in the front/back direction almost to the point of being a shallow-relief background building.

[tom mann]

Actually, in my mind, you would never really view this scene from this angle.  I want to get photos of the hoppers from looking up the slope, and the tall building provides a nice backdrop.  But the cool scene is from across the layout, where this building would be visible in the background of a cool bridge scene (as opposed to the far wall and ceiling. ;D

I just want my pictures...could care less about the employees... ;D

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I don't like it. It's not believable, and feels really jammed in there.