Weekend Update 11/25/12

[wmcbride]

Jim,

Pretty neat. Having read your mega-thread on Trainboard, I apologize for asking but what's the approximate height of your layout at Bealville? I'm looking at a similar desk placement

Thanks,
Bill McBride

[BCOL 747]

Nothing I enjoy more than stopping in on Weekend Update to see some fantastic work from everyone. After a six month hiatus on the layout I built this module to test some scenery techniques. As I am modeling the Pine Pass in BC I have to find some way to mass produce thousands of trees.



Have a good week.

Chris Dittmar
BC Rail, Chetwynd sub.

[Scottl]

Chris,

That BCR Dash 9 is excellent, as is the scene.  Have you considered bumpy chenille for mass producing conifers?  It is a good approach when you need hundreds (or thousands).

[jereising]

Jim,

Pretty neat. Having read your mega-thread on Trainboard, I apologize for asking but what's the approximate height of your layout at Bealville? I'm looking at a similar desk placement

Thanks,
Bill McBride

Right around 64 inches, Bill...

[pennsyfan1361]

Chris,  I like the trees are they the bottle brush method?

Nothing I enjoy more than stopping in on Weekend Update to see some fantastic work from everyone. After a six month hiatus on the layout I built this module to test some scenery techniques. As I am modeling the Pine Pass in BC I have to find some way to mass produce thousands of trees.



Have a good week.

Chris Dittmar
BC Rail, Chetwynd sub.

[BCOL 747]

Scott and Pennsyfan1361, thank you for the kind words on the Dash-9 and module. Scott I have enjoyed your CN locomotive conversions for many months now. Excellent work!

I have been experimenting with a mishmash of every technique I can come up with for trees and still haven’t found what I want for foreground conifers. On this module I have used a combination of bottlebrush, bumpy chenille and store bought. There is an evasive weed here in northern BC that with some carefully trimming and a little ground foam makes fine background trees. (Please don’t ask for the name because I have no idea what they are, LOL!)

Chris 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I froze my man bits off railfanning Amtrak's big day. Saw lots of toasters and a brace of NJT silverliners.  Definitely a good day.

[BCR751]

I think Chris may be referring to an INvasive weed known by a few local names such as Hardhack or spirea.  It grows all over in BC, particularly in moist poorly drained areas. The Latin name is Spirea douglasii.  And, he's right.  It does make fairly good background conifers but they do require some fiddling to get them to not look like "bulging pines".

Doug

[Matt Noel]

Ed, I was excited to see some MARC rolled through Newark Penn tonight

[Packer]

I got a new GP38-2, a GP18, and a few cars this week. I weathered a few cars, and started on an autorack kit. I would take pics, but I don't have any more batteries and don't have the $ for batteries.

What's odd is my camera won't take the rechargable AA batteries I bought for my Xbox controller...

[kalbert]

Spent the weekend ruining an undercoated GP7 shell to replace one on an Atlas unit I picked up at a show a few weeks ago. Certainly glad I did not strip the original one! White and Red is not an easy combo, not sure why I thought I could do it. Looks better in person I swear... It was supposed to be one of these units: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=17091

[davidgray1974]

No modeling this week but did view some layouts while visiting my parents in PA.  Went to Roadside America in Shartlesville, Pa on Friday and then hit Northlandz in Flemington, NJ on Saturday.  Great time had by all not to mention it helped everyone walk off what we added on during Thanksgiving.  Hope everyone made it back safe and sound!   

[Kisatchie]

No modeling for me either, unless you call gluing the underframes on 2 Intermountain reefers modeling. I just couldn't get into putting any kits together. I did buy a number of freight cars and a Tichy wrecker train on ebay, though.


Hmm... I handcrafted a
1/48 scale model of the
Eiffel Tower this weekend.
Now I need a place to put
it...

[Ian MacMillan]

It went and visited John Newick's BAR/MEC layout this weekend.


Plenty of work on the layout this week thanks to some help from those in the Engineering thread.I have been working on the industrial complex on the west end of the layout, adding a poured concrete wall as suggested. I still have A LOT of work to do in this area such as outbuildings, fences, wires, shrubbery, and what not.




I also had 23 Berlin Mills Railway boxcars show up, so now its time to start numbering my half.

[lock4244]

As I expected, got nothing done this weekend after Friday evening. It's cold and I like train watching in the cold weather, and we had snow in Scarborough this morning and up on the Moraine on Saturday and Sunday, so I found myself shooting CP's Havelock Turn.

Below was taken last weekend. Mostly just the parts of the M420 kit all trimmed and fitted with nothing glued at all. The chassis was milled but not yet wired.


Friday evening's handiwork. Three chassis. On the right is complete and wired, tested and ready for new truck frames. Middle is milled and half wired. Left is milled (you can see the drilled holes for the wires on the inside of the worms).


A closer view of the completed chassis. My soldering may not be pretty, but it's adequate. Note the chassis wherer the fuel tank would be have been ground down. As the M420 had a large gap between the fuel tank and underside of the walkways, this is step necessary on this model and leads to the brass contact strips being removed. Hence the direct wiring from the wipers to the light board.


Would really like to get going on these this week... should find some time to glue a few parts to my hand.

Forgive the optical illusion... not parallelograms.