Killashandra - Irish Nn3

[Chris333]

How's the new loco run?

[VonRyan]

It runs surprisingly well. I can get it to do a fairly slow speed although it doesn't seem to like the turnout for the siding. It doesn't come to a complete stop, just pauses for a fraction of a second.

It also likes to make the track dirty. I suspect there may be a bit or arcing. I probably should use a finer grit sandpaper as well. Currently I'm using 1000 grit wet/dry.

[Chris333]

Maybe the flangeway needs opened up a bit at the frog to match the Marklin wheels. If you have a thin file that should work.

[tappertrainman]

Fantastic ballast work there!  You must have a patient hand. 

James

[VonRyan]

Fantastic ballast work there!  You must have a patient hand. 

James

Nah. Just a small paintbrush. Makes it easy to move those last few granules of ballast without disturbing everything else. It helps that I have access to hundreds of paintbrushes from when my grandmother ran a ceramics studio.

[VonRyan]

So I am looking around on ebay.co.uk and I came across some interesting kits in the OO9 section that look like they would be perfect for the layout. If the were N.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PARKSIDE-DUNDAS-009-KIT-TRALEE-DINGLE-RAILWAY-COVERED-CATTLE-WAGON-REF-NODM71-/130749543607?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item1e7147b4b7
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PARKSIDE-DUNDAS-009-KIT-TRALEE-DINGLE-RAILWAY-BUTTER-VAN-REF-NO-DM-72-/160866491193?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item257463db39
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PARKSIDE-DUNDAS-HoM-KIT-IRISH-NARROW-GAUGE-OPEN-WAGON-12MM-GAUGE-TRACK-REF-DT05-/131195730542?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item1e8bdffa6e

The open wagon and the cattle wagon are the most useful to me.
And I'm no expert, but it would appear that the artwork present may be enough to make etchings from. Then again I could be wrong.



-Cody F.

[garethashenden]

Open wagons are good scratchbuilding projects. Start with the box. Do all four side in a strip of styrene sheet. Scribe the planks first so they are consistent. Then cut the sides from the sheet and assemble into the box. Add the wheels and the rest of the details.

[VonRyan]

Open wagons are good scratchbuilding projects. Start with the box. Do all four side in a strip of styrene sheet. Scribe the planks first so they are consistent. Then cut the sides from the sheet and assemble into the box. Add the wheels and the rest of the details.

I plan on scratching some open cattle wagons from strip-wood.
I just figured that for the open wagons, etching or even 3d printing would be easier for making a 10+ wagon coal train.

Plus I have quite a bit of work ahead of me to modify that Märklin 0-6-0 into something resembling a Hunslet.
I'm also thinking about making it look more like No.7 "Tom Rolt" of the Talyllyn Railway since the heritage of part of that loco is Irish 3' gauge.

[VonRyan]

So it's been awhile.
Not only am I working a new job as the maintenance assistant at Camp Dark Waters in Medford, NJ, but I am living here at camp almost full time. Between all the work I was doing earlier in the season and just getting used to how this camp runs in general, I have had no time to myself except for sleeping.

Now that the season is nearly at the half-way point, I finally started to get some time to myself and have begun to try and make use of that.

So, I have brought the layout with me in hopes of at least finishing the task of carving out the final road so I can do all the sculptamolding and then ballast the rest of the track and move on to scenery.

Also, having been listening to the song "Come out ye Black and Tans", I have decided to name the little rural hamlet that is just off the layout "Killashandra".


Anyhow, at the moment the layout is sitting in a box (on top of my icebox) along with my Märklin 0-6-0 and my MRC power-pack. I just need to designate a place for it to officially live and I shall start back to work on it tomorrow evening.


-Cody F.

[Chris333]

Try not to leave it out in the sun, the rails might end up looking like spaghetti 

[VonRyan]

Try not to leave it out in the sun, the rails might end up looking like spaghetti 

It's luckily not in sunlight, but my 8'x12' cabin (aptly named "Moon Mansion") can get sorta toasty at times.
Should I keep a fan aimed on it?

[Chris333]

Can't say for sure. Just keep it out of direct sunlight for longer than a few photos.

[VonRyan]

I finished carving the road a couple evenings ago. Now I just need to finish everything off with sculptamold and more medium-brown paint.

After that, I can finish ballasting all the track, and finish off the bridges.

[VonRyan]

Got most of the sculptamold work done last night. Still a bit more to go and then everything gets more medium-brown paint.

Still need to take a progress photo, but my phone doesn't have enough space.
Working on fixing that currently.

[VonRyan]

Ok, so it's about time that I got those progress photos posted.

First off is the one of the road-carving. Once I got it started, it just came naturally and everything just seemed to work out well.


After that, it was just a matter of bringing the needed materials to camp to start the next phase of roadwork. In this case, it is sculptamolding.
The actual road needed to be created and turned from a simple vision into a more concrete reality.
So not only did I start getting the road into shape, but I glued down the center hill beforehand. That way I wasn't relying on the sculptamold to hold the hill down, plus I could also start blending in it's contours to the surrounding landscape.





That is the layout at current. I still have some more work to do on the sculptamold part of the road to finish it off before I can sand it smooth and give everything another coat of medium-brown.

The parking lot here at camp is a fine dirt, and I believe that I have located a patch of a suitable color, so I plan on harvesting some of that to sift and use for the dirt road and such on the layout.


I may end up bringing some other projects back to camp with me so that my roster isn't so high and dry at Chantilly. That ultimately means that work on Killashandra gets put on hold.

(My F3B's decoder doesn't want to respond anymore. It originally was a contact issue with the phosphor-bronze strips to the decoder, but after soldering the connections, it would seem that something else is now wrong. So that means my F3 A-B set is out of commission for the show. My Key H10 isn't the greatest of runners, and although I'm giving in and adding Bachmann tender trucks, I don't know if I'll have time to make the needed modifications to get it up and running before Chantilly. I also am trying to do a basic conversion of a Bachmann bobber caboose into something more Pennsy-ish so that I have an appropriate caboose for use with a Bachmann 4-6-0 I recently inherited.)