Weekend Update 12/11/11

[Philip H]

I got around to ballasting track this weekend - pics when I finish weathering, etc.  I always do this last (!), mostly because I can never ballast profile to look right now matter how hard I try.  But its coming along.

[mcjaco]

Wow, I don't think I've seen so many MiNi guys post in one SPF thread!

MiNi got together last night for some train running, football watching, and as Skibbe's photo shows, beer drinking. 

Caught this hawt action with my phone.

[JSL]

Got some facia and backdrop primed. Now what color for the facia black or dark green? Opinions. Pictures soon.

JSL

[MichaelWinicki]

Got some facia and backdrop primed. Now what color for the facia black or dark green? Opinions. Pictures soon.

JSL

Boy, tough call on fascia...

For several days I held up color samples, did testing with certain colors, and had other people take a look and give their opinions.

I tried going the flat-black look and found it to be too abrupt a difference from the colors found on the layout.   Later I read a comment by Joe Fugate who found the same on his pike.

But I didn't want a green that would look too much like the colors found on the layout either. 

Eventually I settled on "Pewter Green" from Sherwin Williams, which is kind of a grayish-green.



That color has been up for a couple years now and I'm pleased.

Also I got it as a semi-gloss.  Seemed to be the best of both worlds when you consider light-reflection and simply being able to clean it.

[rickb773]

Being partially color blind, I'm the last person who should be giving you an opinion on facia color but I chose a dark green to match the Woodland Scenics dark green figuring that would make everything blend in.

From my blog (http://rickb773-prsl.blogspot.com/): "So my analytical noggin decided to blend it in with the Woodland Scenics colors on the layout. I picked their standard dark green. I coated a 3x5 index card with scenic cement and covered it with WS dark green grass and went off to Home Depot again. I ordered a can of their cheapest flat paint to match the green. Ha! They couldn’t match it with their cheapest paint and had to take a step up to the Behr paint line and even then they said they had to max out the paint pigments to get a match."

That worked fine on my old layout which had a lot of dark tree covered eastern mountain scenery. On my new shelf layout I'm beginning to think I should have matched the lighter grass blend colors since this is flat Southern New Jersey scenery.

[mcjaco]

^ Most paint lines have five levels of bases for tinting.  For Benjamin Moore 1A is used for the paint with the least amount of pigment (and is the cheapest of the bases), and 5A is used for the colors with the most pigment (and is the most expensive). 

I don't see how one line of paint would not work, but the other could.  Sounds like their color matching wasn't good.  Trust me, color match guys in paint stores are hard to find.  If a company finds one, they try to hang on to him.  It really is an art.

[JSL]

I been going back on forth on black or dark green. Thanks for the pictures Samples taped to the fascia doesn't work well for me. Pictures speak a thousand works. Thanks again.

JSL

[Dave Schneider]

Playing with some N scale size printouts of the Everette Street Depot area...  Public Service Building, USPO Annex, and REA Building are lasercut acrylic assemblies under construction.

Mike,

Looks like a great start to the Milwaukee depot! Too bad Walthers is making you build everything from scratch, but the results will be stunning I'm sure. The curved trackage through the trainshed will make for great photos. Looking forward to watching the progress.

Best wishes, Dave

[chuck geiger]

Dave, Beer Line with a beer...way to go

[sirenwerks]

Playing with some N scale size printouts of the Everette Street Depot area...  Public Service Building, USPO Annex, and REA Building are lasercut acrylic assemblies under construction.

Mike,

Very nice beginning. I'm looking forward to seeing this progress. Is the dotted line that ends in the beer bottle the North Shore line?

[cv_acr]

I tried going the flat-black look and found it to be too abrupt a difference from the colors found on the layout.   Later I read a comment by Joe Fugate who found the same on his pike.

My club went with a dark charcoal grey that the paint store called "Ominous". It fades away from the layout but is not too stark. (Actually in our case it actually matches the rock colour fairly well. The Sudbury area is famous for the rocks that were weathered black from years of emissions from the local smelters.)

[chuck geiger]

Agreed the theatrical flat black look is gone, colors that exemplify the colors on the
layout are the new in.

[Sokramiketes]

Mike,

Very nice beginning. I'm looking forward to seeing this progress. Is the dotted line that ends in the beer bottle the North Shore line?

I think the note on that line is a 20" watermain, but the North Shore curves adjacent to the Milwaukee Trackage right at that intersection.  Hopefully I can include a bit of the North Shore depot on the next module.

[wm3798]

I use my favorite color...  Cheap.  I picked up a can of mis-mix green, it's flat, darkish, and plentiful for my purposes.  I think I paid $5 for a gallon.

Lee

[dnhouston]

Finished the HO bridge I was building for a friend.  Now it's back to building benchwork...

Side 1


Side 2