Weekend Update 8/19/18

[Cajonpassfan]

It's amazing how much work on the "layout" involves tasks other than "model railroading". A while back I built a wooden platform out of two by sixes and plywood to raise the floor at Summit yard to reduce the viewing height from 65" (too high) to 58" (perfect!). I'm 6'-1" and it was a bit too high even for me. My shorter friends hated it. Last two days were spent carpeting the platform with some left over carpet. My knees hurt, my back hurts, but it looks good😎
Otto K.

[C855B]

It's amazing how much work on the "layout" involves tasks other than "model railroading". ...

I have absolutely no idea of which you speak. Could you explain the concept?   

[Cajonpassfan]

Very funny, Mike
Otto

[GaryHinshaw]

Way late for the weekend, but I have a bit of an update too.  I've been taking a bit of a hiatus from layout work to upgrade some freight cars with body mount couplers, FVM wheels with resistors, and some basic weathering.  I've done about 2 dozen recently, shown here on the still-bare layout:



I've been focussing on covered hoppers and tank cars for now.  Here's a sample, an Atlas 17K tanker:



I'll post some more shots in another thread.

Well I just got home from an extended time back East.
...
Oh and Gary (@GaryHinshaw), Morgan says "hi"
md

Welcome back!  (Thank goodness the smoke has abated a bit now...)  Is that a wax Morgan?   

[chicken45]

Export them as JPG's from iPhoto, then use the JPG's when posting to TRW. That's what I have to do to get the orientation correct.

Chris

The key thing here...is effort. I usually upload these directly from my phone.

Normally I upload them to my Flickr account and link the images.
I've been buying lots of things off Amazon lately and using the RW link, so Tom said to help myself to storage

[Mike Madonna]

Way late for the weekend, but I have a bit of an update too.  I've been taking a bit of a hiatus from layout work to upgrade some freight cars with body mount couplers, FVM wheels with resistors, and some basic weathering.  I've done about 2 dozen recently, shown here on the still-bare layout:



I've been focussing on covered hoppers and tank cars for now.  Here's a sample, an Atlas 17K tanker:



I'll post some more shots in another thread.

Welcome back!  (Thank goodness the smoke has abated a bit now...)  Is that a wax Morgan?   

Gary,
The cars look great! What did you do to the trucks/wheels regarding "weathering"?

[jargonlet]

I've been taking a bit of a hiatus from layout work to upgrade some freight cars with body mount couplers, FVM wheels with resistors, and some basic weathering.

The cars look great. As for the wheels with resistors, I understand what they do but how many cars in a train do you use them on?

[C855B]

The cars look great. As for the wheels with resistors, I understand what they do but how many cars in a train do you use them on?

FWIW, I use one on every car, inner axle, 'A' end. Long cars (>60') get two, on the inner axles. Ostensibly no car should escape occupancy detection. The longest train (the most cars) on my RR is 60-70 ore jennies, which corresponds to ~150Ω, or about 0.1 amp of parasitic current draw.

Given the interruption in supply of the FVM resistor axles, I am researching conductive glues to do my own. I found a promising formula in a paste of artist's acrylic paint and powdered graphite, so will be playing with that hopefully in the next few days. This will be great if it works, because "real" conductive glues from electronics suppliers are silver-bearing and very expensive.

[Cajonpassfan]

Dang, Gary, that looks GOOD! Or maybe it's the ballast that makes everything look right
Otto

[peteski]

Given the interruption in supply of the FVM resistor axles, I am researching conductive glues to do my own. I found a promising formula in a paste of artist's acrylic paint and powdered graphite, so will be playing with that hopefully in the next few days. This will be great if it works, because "real" conductive glues from electronics suppliers are silver-bearing and very expensive.

Try Anders Products Wire Glue. I have it and it looks to be water based (acrylic?) with powdered graphite as the conductor.  I bought a small jar few years ago and IIRC, it was relatively inexpensive.  They also sell it as keypad repair kit.

[C855B]

Yeah, I forgot about the Anders glue. Six or seven bucks a jar on eBay or Amazon. Saw lots of "silver" glues in syringes on eBay for cheap, as well. I might roll my own since it's free for the trying. We have acrylic media and paints in multiple densities in the studio, and there's a tube of lock graphite hiding in a toolbox somewhere in the workshop.

The point is the FVM wheelsets are mostly a convenience. It's easy to dab a conductive glue or even a partially-conductive glue on the ends of a 0603 or 0805 10K resistor and angle it across an axle insulator. That's pretty much what the FVM wheelsets are, anyway. I got to thinking about this after opening a new pack of the FVM wheelsets and the resistors on half of them had fallen off in shipping. Easy enough to fix.

[GaryHinshaw]

Gary,
The cars look great! What did you do to the trucks/wheels regarding "weathering"?

Thanks Mike.  The recipe is pretty simple (despite the long description that ensues).  For the trucks, I spray them with a mixture of Vallejo Dark Earth and Nato Brown from the Model Air spray-ready line.  I just put a few drops of each colour directly into the airbrush cup and stir it in the cup before spraying. I'll vary the ratio depending on how grimy vs. rusty I want the trucks to look (the Nato Brown is a rusty red), and it's good to mix it up a bit on the different cars.  When I paint the trucks, I put a set of old plastic wheels in them to avoid getting paint in the axle cups.

For the wheels I use a mixture of Burnt Umber and Saddle Brown from the Vallejo Model Color line.   Again, I vary the mix depending on how rusty vs. grimy I want the trucks to be.  (The saddle brown is a rusty red, and the mix in the tank car is about 50/50, but you should experiment.)  The technique is very simple: I clean the wheel face with an alcohol-soaked Q-tip and swab it dry; I mix the paint on a palette (a plastic sandwich bag) and paint the face with a yellow Micro Brush, about two sweeps around the axle, making sure to cover the full wheel face.  Don't worry about getting paint on the axle tips or treads for now.   After about 30 min, the paint will be dry to the touch and have a very smooth, flat finish.  I then clean the axle points with a dry Q-tip to get any residual paint off (this makes the finished product very free rolling).  Finally, after the paint has set, reassemble the trucks and wheels and polish the treads with a polishing wheel in a Dremel.  (This is mainly to make sure the resistors do their job, but it looks really good too.)   I also polish the rim of the wheel to get a nice clean paint separation between the face and tread.  I finish off the whole thing with a liberal dusting of Bragdon powders (a mix of Weathered Brown and Soot).

The cars look great. As for the wheels with resistors, I understand what they do but how many cars in a train do you use them on?

Same as (the other) Mike: one inner axle per car.  I don't really pay attention to A end or B end.  Fortunately, I have a pretty good stash of 3601 and 3601R10's to last me a while.  But I hope they get back in production soon.  I really have no interest in rolling my own resistors, given all the other projects I'm behind on... 

I posted a few more tank car examples in this very old thread.

[DKS]

When I first glimpsed this image, I thought it was HO (or even larger). Then I checked who posted it. Gary, the result is stunning.

[robert3985]

When I first glimpsed this image, I thought it was HO (or even larger). Then I checked who posted it. Gary, the result is stunning.

What DKS said.

It's amazing what paying attention to a few small details does to help N-scale models look more prototypical...particularly the appropriate weathering on the (on these models) prominent wheel faces and truck side frames, as well as the blackened rail sides, and properly sized ballast "stones".

The only giveaway is the size of the turret safety rail up top, but even that isn't too obvious.

I especially like the polished tire surfaces, which really add to the prototypical "look", especially in contrast to the weathered wheel faces.

EXCELLENT!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[chicken45]

I bought Gary's ballast (S&S) and I'm gonna start asking him how to do ballast like he does!

"If I buy Tommy Dorsey's trombone, I'll sound like Tommy Dorsey!"

Maybe.