The Average Eastern

[kelticsylk]

Bowser produces a N5 lettered for NYNH&H and New Haven, unless you really want a N5c.

Sorry, should have read N5. Thanks for catching that. I have a few here lettered for the Pennsy and thought I'd save some money by recycling them. I'm leaving all the N5c cabins in Pennsy livery.

[kelticsylk]

THE JOY OF PAINTING

You may have noticed the blog header has changed a bit. Since the PRR is no longer the primary focus of the layout I thought I should change it. My apologies to all the diehard Pennsy fans. I dug through my rather oversized library of images and found a Baldwin Consolidation similar to the 2-8-0 used by the Average Eastern. A bit of computer wizardry and I had an image of AE #11 even though the "real" 2-8-0 is still dressed in its NYC livery..

Average Eastern #11

Since I wasn't happy with my last attempt at brush painting I removed all the paint from the locomotive shells I was working on. I use brake fluid as a paint stripper. I fill a container with enough fluid to submerge the shells. After they soak a bit I "scrub" them with an old tooth brush. It make take a few soaks to get all the paint off. I don't like leaving the shells in the liquid overnight. Sometimes all you get is dissolved plastic...

Stripped Shells

Painting the shells proved to be an adventure. There were a few problems with the brush which appeared to be a wrong needle. Then the paint came out rough so I started over. It took a while to get back to painting and when I did I found the compressor had locked up. It's an AC motor so there isn't much to fix. The starting circuit had failed. The design of the motor is such that trying to repair it would destroy it.

A new compressor cost serious money. Canned air or an air tank (or even a spare tire) would work, but none of those options is as desirable. The only real solution was to get the compressor working. So I thought about it for a while...it occurred to me that the rotor shaft would fit in my drill chuck. Presto, working compressor...

Gutted Air Brush Compressor

Or so I thought. The paint just wouldn't flow even though I was getting air. I tried spraying some thinner, but still no joy. Somewhat desperate, I decided to try my Craftsman compressor. It seemed like overkill to use a 2 horsepower pump for an airbrush. I had also read that a compressor like this would produce air pulses that would ruin my attempts at painting. To my surprise everything worked great. I had airflow with the "kitbashed" compressor, but not enough. Apparently the drill cannot drive the compressor fast enough. The brush worked fine at the 45 psi the Sears unit was putting out...

Sears 2 HP Compressor

The thing that really burns me up about this is that I've had that air brush compressor for years and have barely used it. When I finally get serious about painting, it goes south...ARRRGH!!!!

After hours and hours of fiddling it took less than five minutes to paint the first DL109 in New Haven "pullman' green. Rather than remove the shell from the spray booth and go for the next ALCO I decided to leave things well enough alone. I'll let the paint dry before I do anything else...

New Haven Class DER-1a (ALCO DL109)

After painting I immediately sprayed thinner/cleaner through the brush. This helps keep the beasties passages clear. I do not like tearing an airbrush down after every use.

More adventure to come...

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

[kelticsylk]

THE JOY OF PAINTING II

After the travails posted last time I started to pull things together. The first thing I did was to make my airbrushes more "compatible" with the big compressor. The compressor air line is normally equipped with a "quick connect" so I can use it with a host of accessories. All my air tools have the fittings that work with this coupling so it only makes sense to add these fittings to the two airbrushes I have. After all, one never knows when one will need to inflate a tire while painting...

Quick Connect

With that out of the way I needed to clean up several of the shells. They still had some paint on them and it was ruining the new finish. I set up a kind ot production line so I could efficiently strip paint...

Paint Removal

The process goes from right to left. First a bath of clean brake fluid. I buy the stuff a quart at a time and pour some into a clear plastic container (a Bachmann box) that I have set in a splash basin (Chinese food container). I let the shell soak a bit and move it to the "cleaning station" (another Bachmann box) where I scrub it VERY gently with a soft bristle brass brush. If there is still paint on the shell I place it back in the bath for a while and repeat the scrub. The third station is yet another Bachmann box filled with soapy water. I scrub the shell with a nylon bristle brush. This accomplishes two things. The water stops the corrosive action of the brake fluid while the scrubbing removes any residual paint and oil. After the shell is cleaned I rinse it off in a sink and set it aside to dry. So far the process works pretty good. Several shells can be stripped in a very short time...

Clean Shell

I sometimes use the airbrush without a paint jar attached as an air gun to push the water off the shell and cut the drying time. Once the shell has dried it's time to paint.

When I originally "built" the spray booth I used a pretty good size box. I realized the box didn't have to be that large. The booth is equipped with a lazy susan taken from one of those revolving tool holders. The model can be turned to face the brush so the box can be smaller. I only need enough space to allow the paint to start and stop off the shell...

Paint Booth

Once the shell is painted I spray thinner/cleaner though the brush. If I'm changing colors I also spray some fresh clear thinner to clear out the previous paint. I make sure to use the correct thinner for the paint I'm using.

I try to leave the shell in the booth until it dries overnight. Sometimes I will remove it if the paint has dried enough to be handled.

I try to do the painting in batches. I may use different colors but shells of the same color are painted before switching colors. The process goes fast enough that I can paint an entirely different color on a new shell within minutes. This does present a small problem as the paint booth may still be occupied by the previous shell. Fortunately there is almost no overspray. I can use the top of the booth without painting the entire work area...

Lehigh Valley FA Unit

I think I was so happy that everything was working well that I went overboard. Within a couple hours I had painted eight shells in a variety of colors...

Colorful Collection

In the foreground from left to right...Lehigh & New England FA, Lehigh Valley FA, New Jersey Central H-15-44 (green with yellow stripes), Jersey Central H-15-44 (blue with tangerine stripes), two New Haven DL109 units (pullman green with gold striping). At the rear left is a Jersey Central F7 A-B set (tangerine & blue).

The tangerine and blue H-15-44 represents one of fourteen Fairbanks Morse units delivered in that paint scheme. The units arrived on the property in 1948. They were repainted green with yellow in the early 1950's.

The next step for most of the units is decals. The tangerine and blue units need to be masked off so I can apply the darker color. Hopefully I'll do a decent job on the FM unit stripes.

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

[kelticsylk]

CNJ Units and DCC

Because there are no ready made decal sets for the tangerine and orange H-15-44 I tried to paint the orange striping myself. The first step on all three of the Jersey Central units was painting them "tangerine". I chose a color I thought might be close, Russian marker red. It may not be the correct shade but I've seen all kinds of interpretations of "tangerine" on CNJ models.

Anyway, to tape stripe something large like a pickup truck or car takes some patience. To tape stripe a 3" long locomotive takes a lot more patience (and a bit of insanity). First I had to make appropriate width tape for the stripes. I took some Tamiya masking tape I had laying around and cut it to width with a model knife and a straight edge...

The Easy Part

That was the easy part. Putting the tape on the shell was a whole 'nother story. I started with the upper stripe and then discovered it was easier to do the lower stripe first. This stripe runs above the top of the radiator vent and dead straight down the side The hard part is turning the corner at the end. The stripe curves and changes direction at the same time. If I was striping a car this would be accomplished by slowly stretching the tape (it's vinyl) as I change direction. That's not possible with this tape, at least not at this scale. I was able to make it work, but not easily...

Lower Stripe

Still it was easier then the upper stripe. I had to piece the ends on that one because of the molded in lights. The resulting end pieces were very short. It took quite a bit of finagling to get it reasonably straight. After the tape was applied I used a set of tweezers with rounded ends to burnish the edges of the tape into the nooks and crannies on the shell. Once all this masking was done I sprayed on a coat of clear flat to seal the edges of the tape and let it dry.

The final step was a coat of "Blue Angel" blue. I let this dry enough to be handled and very carefully used the tip of a hobby knife to pull up the tape. Things went pretty well and the shell came out better than expected...

CNJ Class FPSD-37 (FM H-15-44)

While the shell might look good from a distance, it leaves a lot to be desired. For one the plastic used is some funky resin. The thing always feels a bit tacky, even without paint. The detail is not as crisp as the Atlas or Bachmann parts that are available. I think I'm going to purchase an Atlas H-15-44 body kit and trash this one.

The other CNJ shells were a LOT easier. The F units are two tone and the masking was pretty straight forward. Once again it was a bit of work to get the tape to curve, but the radius was much wider and more readily formed...

Masked F Unit

The blue paint was applied the same way as the road switcher. I sealed the masking with a coat of flat clear. Once that had dried I applied the blue. When the tape was removed I had a pretty good representation of a Jersey Central class FD-42. Granted the actual locomotives were F3s instead of the F7 units I used, but it's part of "repurposing" my diesel fleet. Since many F3's eventually received F7 style grills maybe I can fudge a bit...

Jersey Central Class FD-42 (EMD F-3)

One other thing I fiddled with today was this contraption...

Decoder Testing/Programming Station

Believe it or not this rats nest actually does something. Many of my DCC decoders are second hand and as a result need to be tested before I permanently solder them into a perfectly good locomotive. Actually, even new decoders should be tested so anyone who uses DCC should probably have a similar gizmo. The actual tester is the circuit board in the left center of the board. Most of the other items make up an Atlas Commander system. I actually have two Commanders. One is the hub of the layout DCC system. The on shown here is a "spare" of sorts that I use for programming my locomotives. Both units are second hand and a lot less expensive than newer starter sets.

The heart of the this decoder station is a tester kit made by NCE. I got their DTK DCC decoder test kit off the web for about $20, including shipping. The kit includes the tester itself plus two wiring harnesses. One has ends for those decoders with plugs. The other has pigtails that can be used for the plugless decoders. Although alligator clips can added to the pigtails I found some info on the web that suggests using microhooks made by E-Z-Hook. They make set of hooks colored to match the standard color code of decoder wiring, Model XM. I also purchased these on line. The price was about the same as the tester kit. It took a few minutes and some soldering to install them, but it's worth it...

NCE DTK Test Kit With XM Hook Set

The tester also has terminal connections for track power and motor testing. You might be able to see that I have added wires with clips to both of these. I plan to mount all of this on the board I'm using for the station and make everything oh so neat and organized. I should probably learn how to use the thing while I'm at it. I have at least a dozen decoders waiting to be tested and installed.

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

[kelticsylk]

DECALS BEFORE PAINT?

Since I can't buy decals for the tangerine and blue CNJ units I decided to make my own. This would be pretty straight forward if I had access to one of those old ALPS printers. They can print in white which means they can be used to create decals that can be seen on dark paint. Unfortunately they are hard to come by and because of that rather expensive. I've also read that the company that made them will stop supporting them in 2015. No more white ink after that. I know you can use an inkjet printer for making decals but there is one big drawback to that. No white ink.

So how can I make my own decals? I can use white decal paper! There is, however, a small problem in doing that. You would need to trim the decal so the white doesn't show. While that may be possible on bigger objects it is a viable approach at 1:160. I had to think on this one quite a while.

Then the other day I was reading an article on making said decals. The writer suggested that usable decals CAN be printed on white paper. The trick is to use a color background. The printer prints the background while leaving white areas "blank". This allows the white paper to show through. You just have to make the background a close match to the color of the model...

Decal Sheet in Visio Program

Ignore the white holes. They are problems with the screen capture, not the decals.

Anyway, I tried this out, using the CNJ units as a test. It works, sorta. I used Microsoft Visio to make the decals. I do this because unlike my photo editing software Visio doesn't pixelate the image when it's reduced and printed. I used an HP 6500 color printer to print the decal. The reason I mention the printer is the fact that I was surprised to find the resolution of the printer was so fine that even the smallest type face (1 pt) was readable, albeit with a magnifying glass. Those heralds actually look better than the ones on my Microscale decals...

Printed Decals

As you can see I carefully cut out the heralds and lettering for the CNJ F Units and applied them. The decals went on pretty easy except for one I left in the water too long (more than 15 seconds). The color broke up and ruined the lettering. Apparently Testors decal fixer doesn't fix too well. Fortunately I had made extras. After applying I used some decal set so they would conform to the surface...

First Set of Decals

Two things are painfully obvious in the images. First there is a thin band of white around each decal. Second the background color does not match the paint. I think the white is caused by cutting the white paper. I might be able to solve it by making the patch of background color bigger. If not, I can touch up the edges with paint, which brings us the second problem. The color match seems the bigger issue. How do I pull that off?

Like so many other problems, trial and error is the only real way to find a solution. Basically this means experimenting with colors on the computer until something looks reasonably close. I tried various tricks I could come up with like importing images of the prototype and the painted model into Paint Shop Pro and trying to match the color...

Sampled Colors

In the photo above I have taken samples of the colors from the model image. You can see two orange and blue rectangles in the color bar on the right side. I can now flood those colors into any other image in the program. I open the original herald (a nice crisp image) and change the colors...

"Flooding" the Colors

I was able to get a match on the orange, but I had to change the paint color. Rather than clean the shell and respray I brush painted the nose with Tamiya X6 Orange. This is more yellow than the previous color. Came pretty close...

Somewhat Closer in Color

The blue is a whole 'nother story. I brushed on three other blues I have on hand and missed with all four colors. The decal has to get darker...

Blue Angle Blue and Flat Sea Blue

Gloss Blue and Gloss Dark Blue

Fortunately I've had some experience with matching colors on a computer. Making digital models of trains requires trying to get the the "skin" looking like the real thing. Each color has a code. Change the code and you change the color. That's how I was able to create these...

Milwaukee Road "Quills"

New Haven DL109's

Matching real paint isn't as easy. I did a bunch of research on the internet and finally found a VERY helpful site called ScaleModelDB. This site will give you the equivalent color in model paints to the code you key in...

ScaleModelDB

It uses a hexidecimal code used for webpage colors. I can get that code from Paint Shop Pro using the color tool...

Color Tool and HTML Code

I keyed in #F9B93B and ScaleModelDB showed me that the paint closest to the orange in my decal is available in a plethora of Model Master paints. All of them are for model automobiles. The closest appears to be Roadster Orange.

Now I need to match the blue. Using the RGB code from Paint Shop Pro I found that the matching colors are not readily available at the local hobby shops. Luckily the same site has color charts for all the model paints available. I looked up what I thought was a blue I could use. I found that Tamiya Flat Blue looked right and used the database to find similar colors. This brought up a list of paints, but more importantly, gave me codes I could use in Paint Shop Pro...

Tamiya Flat Blue

I think the color is much too light for a CNJ engine, at least not one in the early 1950's Have to look some more.

So the gist of this long diatribe is that I end up creating the decals using colors I believe to be the closest to the prototype. I then match the decals to a color to paint the model with. I know it's totally backwards to the conventional wisdom but what do you expect from a guy who builds grades from the top down.

So now I'm back to looking for a good match to CNJ's "seamist" blue.

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

[eric220]

I've heard of that approach before, but I'm highly dubious of success. Even if you match the colors perfectly, the ink will be different, as will be the gloss, texture, and other factors that will cause the paint and the decal to appear different in changing lighting conditions. I hope you can prove me wrong.

[glakedylan]

what about painting in the places that will be white with white paint, just in those places
then when printing inkjet or laser decals, let the white spaces be clear
the white paint will then show through the decal and if done correctly should look like you were using white decals
fwiw

kindest regards
Gary

[eric220]

Gary, that might help the white border, but there's still the problem of two different color sources touching and trying to blend. One surface is paint on plastic; the other is ink on decal film. They aren't going to react to light the same way, so getting them to blend together seamlessly is going to be a big challenge.

[kelticsylk]

IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

The experiments continue. I'm sure anybody who read the last entry was thinking "Why, oh why, don't you pick the paint first and THEN match the decal?"  As I've written before, sometimes the most obvious thing escapes me. It's only over time that I realize what everyone else sees immediately (if not sooner). You are absolutely right. Over the past few days I have been going over the color charts looking for what I think is the closest to the prototype. I then use the HTML color code to produce that color in Paint Shop Pro.

Now that it appears that the background matching problem is solved (almost) there are two other issues to solve. First off I need something that REALLY seals the decals. The Testor's fixer doesn't seem to work at all. I've also tried spraying the sheet with Floquil clear flat. This works better, but if left in the water too long the decals are easily messed up. It may be that the water saturates the paper and destroys the decals from that side. Secondly, there are still colors that don't translate well. So far the reds, yellows and browns seem to work fine. The blue and orange in the CNJ colors does not seem to work like it should...

Printed Decal Fail

The colors on the herald with the blue Statue of Liberty, the lettering on the Jersey Central Lines and the smaller class markings are almost as they should be although the blue is lighter than the actual paint...

Blue Angle Blue?

Blue Angel Blue

The heralds with "yellow" Liberty should be orange. I found this may be the result of layering in Paint Shop Pro. Sometimes a color on a lower layer combines with colors on the upper layer. I was able to fix this by merging the layers before cutting and pasting into Visio.

Back to the color charts where I found Tamiya's Royal Blue, a much darker shade. I copied the code into Paint Shop Pro and the result looked much better...

Royal Blue

To make sure the color works I cut and pasted the herald into Visio...

Checking Color in Visio

So far, so good. On the computer screen it looks fine. The final printed color can be a lot different. I made a test print. I try to use paper with a better finish than the rock bottom copy paper. The ink is less likely to "blot". I placed the print-out by a window in natural light and snapped a picture...

Test Print Under Natural Light

As a final test I took a photo of the printout and the shell together...

Final Test

At this point I ran into that bugaboo that has caused SO much controversy amongst model railroaders. In the image there is a definite difference between the two oranges. The paint on the shell appears to be warmer than the printed version. To my eye they are so close I cannot tell them apart! The orange on both are nearly the same shade. Same with the blue. This is true under natural, fluorescent and incandescent light. What the camera sees and what I see are two different things. I would like to drag out my 35mm camera to see how the colors appear on film but I'll settle for the evidence of my eyes.

One thing that is evident from this exercise is just how various factors affect the "actual" color of an object. Rather than try to get a "perfect" mix that obviously cannot exist I'm going with good enough. As long as it looks the way I think it should it's fine. Weathering with washes and chalks will provide the variations we see in actuality.

Having said that and making the corrections suggested by these tests I think it's time to start applying these decals

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad





 

[kelticsylk]

LOSS AND GAIN

I failed to find the perfect "fixative" for the decals. My first attempt with Floquil flat clear seemed to work, the second attempt did not. I would have thought an enamel paint would last longer in water, but that was not the case. I sprayed another coat of clear but this time it was acrylic. Despite the fact that the enamel had dried overnight the ink still ran when I sprayed the acyllic on one sheet...

Bleeding Decals

The other sheets came out fine so I applied some and then sprayed a cover coat of flat clear. I wanted to see how the colors matched when all was said and done....

Model Master Insignia Red

Model Master Bitish Crimson

Testors Flat Red

To me the Ontario & Western caboose is the best match. The British Crimson on the boxcar also seems to work. I trimmed the white away after the decal had dried. It became really apparent that the match was nowhere near close enough. Trimming the decal works fine with some heralds but it's impossible for the lettering. For me the idea is a failure.

That's the bad news. The good news is that I'm able to run trains again. Only Track 1 is in place right now. I wanted to test it out before laying parallel tracks. This first one will be the guide for the other three so it's probably a good thing to make sure it's right. I had to "enhance" the roadbed by laying on a thin coat of joint compound and making sure it was level. There were sections of the styrofoam spline that were not square. I should taken better care to see that they were. Filing in those areas and sanding was the only way I could think of to repair it. I also had to widen the curve around Clark's Summit. The radius on the inner track was too tight for the 2-10-0. The curves inside the tunnel under Gateway were also redone. They didn't flow the way I wanted.

The first train to run in months was a VERY short freight headed up by an Pennsy I1s. I made a short video of the train running along the north bank of the Split River, just east of Quotidian...

Tracks 2, 3 and 4 should be in place tomorrow.

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

[kelticsylk]

Most model railroaders might be familiar with Baldwin "sharks". They are a very distinctive looking locomotive. Their extrodinary car bodies were designed by Raymond Loewy, a major player in industrial design in that era. The shark nosed style appeared on two diesel models and on one steam type in that period, all products of Baldwin Locomotive Works with the strong influence of the Pennsylvania Railroad...

Pennsy Shark

What many modelers may not know is that the mechanicals of the original sharks were based on an earlier locomotive design. In the 1940's Baldwin built a series of car body diesels meant to compete with the bull nosed products of General Motors...

General Motors FT Set

Because of design patents the sleek lines of the Electro Motive locomotives could not be duplicated. Baldwins major competitor for second place in diesel production, American Locomotive Company, came up with the unique streamlined noses of with their DL109, PA and FA products...

ALCO FA Set

Unlike the ALCO designs, which many railfans consider works of art, Baldwin's attempt did not inspire a great deal of enthusiasm. The locomotives were somewhat pugnosed with windshields that brought to mind the droopy eyes of a cartoon character. This series of Baldwin's DR designated models became known as "babyfaces", a somewhat derogatory moniker along the lines of "A face only a mother could love".

The first series of these "babyface" diesels were 2000 HP passenger units. They could not be considered successful. Very few were purchased and production never reached any major numbers. Aside from the sharknose version of this model, the Pennsy BP20, the only memorable version of these locomotives were the double ended DRX-6-4-2000 units of the New Jersey Central...

Central Railroad Of New Jersey Diesel Class PD-30

Another series of passenger units, even more obscure, were known as vest pocket passenger diesels. The DR-6-4-1500 sold a whopping nine locomotives...

Vest Pocket Passenger Unit

The freight version of the babyface design, designated DR-4-4-1500, also failed to topple GM as leader of diesel production...

Babyface Freighter

Of all the "babyfaces", this model had the largest production numbers. One hundred five units were sold to five different railroads. The Jersey Central purchased fifteen, the New York Central bought another six. The Missouri Pacific owned twelve, the last of the babyface freight units produced. The remainder of the production run went to the Pennsylvania. These are the most familiar of the DR-4-4-1500's although none of them wore the babyface car body. These fifty units were the first generation of shark nosed freighters...

Sharknose DR-4-4-1500

As far as I know, there have never been any N scale models of any of the babyfaces, at least not by any major manufacturer. Thanks, however, to the miracle of 3D printing and a fellow who goes by the Railwire handle of Piperguy an N scale DR-4-4-1500 is readily available. I just received an A-B set my wife gave me as a birthday gift...

DR-4-4-1500 A Unit

 

Baldwin DR-4-4-1500 B Unit

"Babyface"

I still have to wash off the wax that is part of the printing process. I was a tad excited and took these as soon as I opened the package. While I'm told there may be some evidence of the layering action from the printhead, a magnifying glass is required to see it (at least at my age). From the normal viewing distance I doubt anyone can see it.

I'm planning to paint these units in the "as delivered" color scheme of the Jersey Central. The tangerine over blue is my favorite...

Tangerine Over Orange

To my mind the more familiar green and yellow paint applied later is not as atractive. They will match the set of  F-Units I'm in the process of painting....

Jersey Central Diesel Class FD-42

Meanwhile, back on the layout, some more progress. Track 2 of the four track section has been put down and tested. I use a Pennsy 2-10-0 to pull the test train. It has the longest wheel base on the roster and the curves have to allow for it. The radius the decapod can negotiate is the absolute minimum for the Class 1 mainlines. I took a shot of the I1s and her charges at Average, her mass overwhelmed by Hollow Mountain towering in the background...

I1s At Average

I'm still working on the decal project altough I've changed direction. I'm falling back on the tried and true silk screen method, albeit with a 21st century slant. The screens will be created in a much simplified way using ready made emulsion screens...

The emulsion screen as provided by EZ-screen is rather expensive, especially when you can buy it from http://www.store.cbridge.com/c/PEZ/PhotoEZ+Products.html for half the price. I'm already creating the stencils for the emulsion by modifying the previous set in Vizio. Because I'm using photo sensitive emulsion no color background is required. The stencil need only be in black and white. Probably the most involved part of the process is creating all the variations...

Pennsy Decals

Caboose Decals

Boxcar Decals

Aside from saving money (I hope) making your own decals means you only make the ones you will use. No more odds and ends of lettering from time periods you don't model. You can also make a full set with different road numbers instead of cutting out individual numerals. Hopefully this idea will work the way I'm planning on. If not, at least I'll have some artwork I can send to somebody who actually knows how to do this.

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad

[eric220]

Interesting solution. I'm interested to see how it works out.

[Chris333]

Oh man I hope that works (rubbing hands with evil grin)

[eric220]

Oh man I hope that works (rubbing hands with evil grin)

This

[kelticsylk]

5 AM

What does a model railroader do when they wake up VERY early and cannot fall back asleep?

Silly question...Work on trains of course!

Yes, I am that crazy (or obsessed or whatever).

So I found myself awake. First thing to do is make coffee. What else do you do when you can't sleep? I know, that is counter intuitive, but it seems to work that way. The second thing to do is go out to the garage and clean the new Baldwin shells. Read up on it and everybody has a different idea. I settled on full strength household surface cleaner mixed with Dawn, no water. I set up the little assembly line I use for stripping paint but used the cleaning concoction in lieu of brake fluid. A short soak in the goop, a light scrubbing then a rinse in soapy water. Repeat process a few times and then wash off the soap with clear water...

Baldwin Cleaned

It looks pretty much the same but without the wax. I could now get a better look at the detail...

Oh, That Face

Overall it looks pretty good. There are "artifacts" from the printing process but they have to be magnified to be readily seen...

"Artifacts"

I suppose they could be sanded smooth, but I'm not confident I wouldn't ruin the shell. I can't see well enough and my hands are a tad shaky in these golden years. I think I'll leave well enough alone. If painting really highlights these then maybe I'll revisit the idea.

I have the four track section nearly complete. The curve at Clark's Summit still needs to be completed, but  that's only about six feet of mainline...

Clark's Summit

I did a major rework of the track through Gateway tunnel. The curves were just too tight and didn't flow well...

Gateway Before

I widened them and split the mains, similar to the Pennsy tunnels at Gallitzin. There is also a more graceful transition that eliminates the abrupt changes in radius that caused derailments...

Gateway Now

This resulted in a better looking track arrangement at both portals, as the mains split quite a ways from the tunnel mouths...

>
West Portal at Average

East Portal

The method for building the scenery shell was a bit different from conventional. I did not use balled up newspaper to support it while it dried. The cardboard matrix supports itself for the most part. I had to cut away the east side of Gateway Point to access the track underneath. As you can see the shell holds itself up well...

Self Supporting

The tubular upright was placed there because I wasn't sure such a tall section of the matrix wouldn't collapse from it's own weight. It probably wasn't neccessary and now I can't remove it without breaking the mountain further than I already have.

I finally fell asleep and woke up somewhat refreshed. I've had my coffee and a nap to boot. By that time the PhotoEZ sheets had arrived in the mail. I jumped on that project right away. The screens can handle ink or paint and that has given me some ideas. Using the sample stencil that Circuit Bridge sent with the package I did a couple of experiments. It had occurred to me that what PhotoEZ creates are essentially stencils like you use in painting letters on boxes or other things. Can the stencil be used with an airbrush just like any plain old stencil?

Drum roll please!

YES!  Using the sample screen I tried first with a brush and got what you might expect. A smeary mess. Then I fired up ye old air brush and made a light pass. The crazy idea actually works. It appears that I can airbrush my own decals...

PhotoEZ Sample

How well will it work with N scale lettering? Tune in the next adventure and find out.

Regards,
Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad