The Western Maryland in Free-moN Modules

[PiperguyUMD]

I'm grateful to have it! I picked up a Medford's Trains Hanover engine house several years ago. Consolidations and an occasional decapod would look ok, but not Potomacs or Challengers. Whatever form my yard ends up taking, it will be modular. So absolute worst case scenario, The roundhouse will be a display case for steam!

[PiperguyUMD]

Well 🤬. Right as I get to the finish line with the K2. I have an idea for a patch that I’ll try tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll can make this as good as new, but I certainly can’t make this worse.

[chessie system fan]

Wow, that's a bummer!   

I found two design versions of Lee's yard in my files.

[PiperguyUMD]

Ok so here’s my patch job for the K2 tender. Since the shell is 3d printed, I went into the drawing and cut out just this little fin. Because it was so thin I was worried that I would even be able to get it to print in the first place. I put 4 in the file just in case and all of them printed! Sweet!



Next step - I squared off the opening as best I could. This was tricky with the tender deck and headlight conduit, but I need to keep it them place because it will help hold the patch steady while attaching it.



Once I was happy with the fit, I put a dab of CA in the corner, on the headlight conduit, and each tip of the patch. This will hold the patch in place while I weld the remaining edges with resin. So far so good!



It worked! It’s not the prettiest thing, but it’s very strong. I added a precautionary bead along the opposite side as well. In hindsight, I should have taken a moment to hit this with some 1000 grit sandpaper just to matte the surface. Fortunately you can’t see a glossy line from the outside.





A quick dab of paint and we’re there! I thought about masking everything and hitting it with the airbrush, but I didn’t want to risk damaging the repair. I thinned some tru color paint with a little lacquer thinner and was able to get a decent brush finish. Here’s finished product! Not as good as new, but not bad! Far better than leaving as it was! 

[wm3798]

Looks like you got away with it THIS time!

It's still a little tough to look at those close ups.  The print lines are pretty obvious under such scrutiny.

Lee

[PiperguyUMD]

Yeah, agreed. I printed the tender shell on my photon, the boiler was done on the M3 premium. Take a close look at the unpainted patch. It was done on the M3, not much to see there. Fortunately both are less noticeable in person and at normal viewing distance. I think some of the surface issues on the patch are from brush painting it, but in a wired way I think it helps it blend in. Also that was the least flattering pic I took



My kitbash chops are terrible. I wish I could dive into a project armed with my tools and a parts bin, but I’m just SO bad at it. Any seams or scars that a project using traditional techniques would be far more noticeable than the 3d print layers. It’s the deal I’m willing to make, and hopefully things will continue to get better.

[PiperguyUMD]

You gotta admit, you have to get pretty close to the boiler to see layers!

[craigolio1]

You gotta admit, you have to get pretty close to the boiler to see layers!

That does look good up close. And macro photography is not fair to N scalers. Haha.

Very nice job in the repair.

Craig

[btrain]

That is some phenomenal detail work you have there! The close up about had me fooled thinking it was an O scale model.

[PiperguyUMD]

JFRTM!

[wm3798]

Hi Tech meets Low brow.
Really nice work, Eric.

[PiperguyUMD]

Trying to get one last project in before the school year/orchestra season kicks up again. Ironically, just as 202 arrived on the road, her replacement is already in the shop. I've been dragging my feet on the Hammerhead RS3 for....years....



This is an Atlas Classic RS3 with a Skytop Models phase III long hood, and a 3d printed cab and high hood. Custom hand rails all the way around fit in 3d printed stanchions. Lots of goodies on the pilots, including WM style drop steps/stanchion/mu cable do-dads.







I was too clever by half though, using the phase III long hood. I used some fine wire mesh to replicate the air filters, which looked awesome right up until I started decaling. I had considered using the road name decals from one of my precious North East decals WM steam sets for 192, but I decided that this unit having the same size road name as my fleet of RS2s would bug me less than this unit being correct AND a different size than the rest. Armed with this knowledge, I plowed ahead with the Microscale WM road name decals. As you can see his wasn't so bad on the engineer side. The E and the N both fell on an air filter, but I can use some scraps to doctor these right up.



However on the fireman side, the fireball herald landed square on top of one of the air filters. Had I decided to use the correct size road name, the fireball would have ended up one door to the left of the air filter. CRAP! Not sure how much doctoring I can do with this one, but I guess that's where the fun lies?



After touching up the decals and clear coat, I'll 3d print cab glass. The chassis is on the work bench getting a Loksound decoder. Once that's all in working order, I'll attach the sill to the hood and install the hand rails. 192 will then get dulcoat and a light dose of weathering. She would have been 5 months old during my time frame, so she won't need too much.

I start teaching again next Monday, and have been invited to audition for the Navy Band in Washington DC next month. With teaching and practicing starting to hit fill stride, will I be able to finish before August 1st!? The race is on!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Washington DC, you say?

Gonna have any free time?

[PiperguyUMD]

I’ve wanted one of these premier service band jobs since I was 4 lol. I’ve been a finalist for Pershing’s Own twice, and the USAF Academy band. I thought that door had closed but I found out Navy upped the enlistment age to 41, so I might get one or two more shots. If all goes well, DC would be my permanent duty station for the next 20 years! So in that case hopefully lots of free time!

As for the audition trip, not sure just yet. I’m really not pleasant to be around the days immediately before an audition. They weigh pretty heavy on me.  After might be a possibility so long as there’s beer to celebrate!

Or drown my sorrows!

[brokemoto]

This is an Atlas Classic RS3 with a Skytop Models phase III long hood, and a 3d printed cab and high hood.

This is the combination that I used.  It came out swaybacked but only on the fireman's side.  The  engineer's side looks alright.  Did that problem show when you were building yours or do I just have a bad long hood?

My next thought is to sand the louvers from an Atlas China shell then use the actual WM pattern for the carbody filters (the CNW pattern, on the Skytop hood is somewhat different)  The thought was to use the entire shell, chop off a section of the short hood then carefully cut a section off the high short hood of your cab/short hood piece and fuse it to the Atlas shell.  I have an ideal candidate for this as a book fell off a shelf and landed on the box where I had your cab/short hood pieces.  It scrunched one of the cabs but the short hood is intact.

Initially, I left the stock handrailings in place despite their not being prototypical.    As I now have had some experience dressing up some Roco/Arnold cabooses and B-mann four wheel cabooses, I no longer shy from trying to make my own handrailings. Part of the dressing up was removing the clunky stock handrailings and in some cases fashioning new ones from  Woodland Scenics foam cutter wire.  In other cases, I did alter existing handrailings taken from various sources.

Nice work on the Pacific and hammerhead, though.