Weekend Update 5/1/16

[arbomambo]

Bill,
OUTSTANDING WORK!!!!


I've been detailing the next of my 1st and 2nd run Kato Freight F units for Santa Fe (I have 8 cab units in all to do...)
I made a deeper hole for myself when I realized I needed to alter the pilots AFTER I applied the BLMA cut levers!...
So, I carefully removed the molded step, inserted some scrap styrene triangles to fill the gap, recontoured the pilot profile, then used Mr Surfacer 500 to fill any gaps.
I cut small bits of 400 and 600 grit sandpaper and glued them to the tip of toothpicks to create some mini sanding sticks; these pics show how I eas able to smooth the area w/o damaging the cut levers...whew!
I'll add the footboards on either side of the pilot before I respray the flat black...
Bruce

[bnsfdash8]

Progress on NS 1633

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Painted York:

http://conrail1285.com/painting-york/

Here are a few examples.









And bought some cheap crap from China:
http://conrail1285.com/cheap-n-scale-buildings-from-china/

[Cajonpassfan]

Got my undec Atlas S2 painted up for service on the Milwaukee Road. What a great little engine. I did however, change the speaker as suggested by John Colombo and it was a noticeable improvement. 

Beautiful work Bill!
How do you find the sound better, deeper?
I have two of these to paint, you're an inspiration
Best, Otto K.

[Cajonpassfan]

Making some progress at Summit.
Otto K.

[Cajonpassfan]

More Summit progress...I love doing scenery (after years of benchwork and wiring )
Otto K.

[skytop35]

Beautiful work Bill!
How do you find the sound better, deeper?
I have two of these to paint, you're an inspiration
Best, Otto K.

Hard to describe for me but the engine sounds were improved.

[Scottl]

Nice scenery work Otto.  I like the first shot especially, with the hills blending with the backdrop.

I would like to see more.  It would be great to see an layout engineering thread from you.

[thomasjmdavis]

Bruce,
As always, your modeling work is truly inspired- I don't know how you find the time to do all you do.  I'm retired at this point, and still can't get done a fraction of what you do in a week.

However, I do have a question about Kato's work on those blue freight units.  I've seen many photos of them at this point, and while the ones on their website don't show this, several of the photos you posted, and some from other modelers show an uneven paint job on the yellow.  The nose stripes look "SF yellow" but looks like the blue is bleeding through in the rest of the emblem and anticlimber. Is this apparent in the model under room light?  I have been waffling on picking a couple of these up- in the limited run world we live in, they will be gone soon, but at the same time, I don't want to drop 150 bucks on a bad paint job.

[arbomambo]

All of mine are the old (20 year old) heavy, non-DCC friendly release...
I can't speak for the new release, but someone told me the paint was improved...I do know that smaller details, like kickplates and builders plates are now part of the new paint jobs (the Microscale sheets with these items are a little nicer than the Kato paint)...
that being said, under normal lighting, the cigar band emblem is opaque; no visible bleed through that I can tell...
I'm very satisfied with all of my older release (Floquil Santa Fe yellow is a very good match for the Kato yellow used on these; important because I  paint over the silver-painted molded Horizontal grills on the Kato units.
Bruce

[w neal]

Spent the weekend at my friend Jim's house being his willing ballast slave. I did ok, I guess. The stuff is so fine that it memorizes and preserves every brush stroke. Yeesh!! 

Just promise me you won't look too closely when you see it in person. PLEASE! 








One 4' module with multiple tracks took 4 hours of shaping, I swear. I love my job. I love my job. I...

[Cajonpassfan]

Nice scenery work Otto.  I like the first shot especially, with the hills blending with the backdrop.

I would like to see more.  It would be great to see an layout engineering thread from you.

Thanks Scott, coming from you, it's much appreciated.
I suppose I do need to start a layout thread one of these days, maybe after I retire and have all this free time on my hands? 

Bruce, your F units are awesome, they look good even at huge magnification on my iPad.
As to the yellow being less intense over the blue, I had a similar issue with an early set of Catwhiskers
and solved it by applying a second set of decals over the first, just over the blue underpaint. Just a thought...
Otto K.

[basementcalling]

The talent on this board always amazes me. Y'all got serious skills. All I've got these days is a serious mess.. Wire under benchwork doesn't look photogenic.

[arbomambo]

Thanks Scott, coming from you, it's much appreciated.
I suppose I do need to start a layout thread one of these days, maybe after I retire and have all this free time on my hands? 

Bruce, your F units are awesome, they look good even at huge magnification on my iPad.
As to the yellow being less intense over the blue, I had a similar issue with an early set of Catwhiskers
and solved it by applying a second set of decals over the first, just over the blue underpaint. Just a thought...
Otto K.

I had considered that-I have a number of the Microscale sheets, but the cigar bands don't quite match the Kato versions
Summit is looking good!...although it may go faster if you used foam...LOL

[peteski]

The talent on this board always amazes me. Y'all got serious skills. All I've got these days is a serious mess.. Wire under benchwork doesn't look photogenic.

It depends on the installer.  we have some really neat wiring experts here on TRW.  Bob Gilmore is one of them. His wiring looks like a work of art.  There are few others whose names I don't recall, but I remember seeing photos of their impeccable wiring jobs.  Friend of mine is also really neat when it comes to his layout wiring. No surprise there - he worked for IBM for around 30 years and he installed and serviced their mainframe computers.



Remember, neat wiring is much easier to troubleshoot than a rat's-nets later on when something is not working properly.