Family Folk Art Restoration

I come from a line of crafty women.  Both grandmothers were creative, artistic people.  From my Dad's mother came rolled-paper beads and crocheted dish cloths.  From my Mom's mother came painting and well, an unusual folk-art sense.  It is that creativity that gave birth to a set of figurines depicting the Nativity.  

Granny worked for the Celanese corporation as a quality control technician testing samples of 'dope', the airplane-cement like material that was spun into fibers for cigarette filters.  Once the testing was complete, the mostly-full tube of dope was thrown away.  Granny saw an opportunity and used the residual dope as a media to cover aluminum foil armatures to make Mary, Joseph, shepherds and Magi.  

But Jesus...Jesus wasn't made from dope.  I'm not sure why, but she chose to make him from some sort of clay.  The manger was foil, dope and coffee stir sticks.  But the baby was made from clay.  I'm sure there's some deeper theological meaning which can be applied in this situation, but not at this time.  For the moment I was concerned with the practical application of glue to that substance, whatever it is.  The baby was beginning to break into pieces.  That just won't do.

The other night I carefully cleaned the old straw from the baby and gently washed him with dish soap and water.  He had become sticky somehow, and was gathering grot.  After drying I applied a dab of Aleene's Quick Grab Tacky Glue to one break, stuck the legs in place and waited overnight.  Success!  The joint was good.  So I glued the remaining bits, gathered some fresh straw, and placed him back in the manger.

We live in a place where the threat of fire is real, each year.  We have bags packed year round in case we need to evacuate in a hurry.  After the pets are collected there's a short list of personal effects to grab.  This nativity scene is high on that list.  It is truly priceless and irreplaceable.  Thank you, Granny.

With Thanks to Mr. Ed

 

Before we left Washington State our neighbor gifted to us this wonderful Christmas Train.  I've mentioned him before - he also gave us a few tombstones which we've since customized for our own Pet Cemetery.  As soon as Halloween was over and the yard cleared, Ed's front lawn and house facade became a Christmas wonderland of lights and decorations.  

We used to have a more extensive collection of outdoor lights but sadly they gave up the ghost years ago.  Incandescent blue globes lined our fence top.  Gradually the color chipped away and I even repainted them once with rattle can blue paint.  One string kept getting 'shorter' as I borrowed functioning bulbs to replaced the burnt out ones.  Eventually they just got to be too much work to maintain.

Maybe next year we'll add chasing rope lights to simulate track along which this train can travel.  And of course it will need a destination...perhaps a manger scene?  And ooh - the Grinch could be hiding in the trees ready to ambush the train and swipe all those presents.  Oh, OH!  And the train has to be leaving Santa's workshop...seems the model railroader's curse of expansion isn't limited to the train room.  Ah well, maybe next year.

He Painted EVERYTHING!

Just watch.  You'll see.  No, really, watch this first.  If you're in a hurry, skip to 8:30.

I'm not a military modeler.  I messed around with airplane and sci-fi kits very briefly as a kid, but that's about as close as I came.  Still, I appreciate good model making and finishing.  I found this channel via suggestions to watch his diorama construction videos.  Wow.  "A tiny bit better" he says?  No, the results are stunning. 

But more than the results, it is the process I find most interesting.  Many fantasy model makers, tabletop wargamers, and military modelers do one thing VERY differently than model railroaders when building a diorama.  They may use the same scenic materials, adhesives and paints, but it is in how they apply them where the difference is most apparent, or rather, the sequence of application, with an extra step.

Model railroaders or folks who make model railroad dioramas will generally select materials based on color - a certain color dirt, another color palate of grasses, etc.  We may tint with washes or powders, but essentially we're relying on the color of the material to be at least a base for the finished color.  Texture is important as well, but we tend to look to the color of the material since we're spoiled for choice.  There is such a variety of colorful scenic materials out there (but try to find gray grass...).

Other model makers, like Martin from Night Shift in the video above, focus more on the texture of the material first, and the color second.  Get the texture right, and then you can paint it any color you like.  In the video above, he applies ground cover from dirt to grass to special photo etched plants.  Then he paints it.  All of it.  He paints it dark brown.  All of it.  Dirt, grass, plants, all of it.  Brown.  

I've never seen that.  I've never seen anyone fully scenic a diorama base then paint the whole thing brown.  I've never seen that.

As alluded to above, I have seen other diorama makers paint the whole thing black then work up the color with washes, drybrushing, etc.  But that doesn't usually include the grasses or other elements added later.  Buildings, sure, and of course rocks and even the dirt.  But all of it?  And then to bring back the color so precisely!  

This does enable him to do some precision work, matching the color and texture of the mud in the ground to the color and texture of the mud on the tank treads.  It unifies the scene naturally by utilizing  the same color palate throughout.  But is it really necessary?  Is it worth the extra effort?  And what would our miniature railroad worlds look like if we applied a similar process to them?  Is that even possible?

I'm still processing this.  Scope me, I'm outta here.

 

Yes, This IS Narrow Gauge!

Asked, and answered.  See this post for the question.  Here's a video I stumbled across that proves, definitively, the answer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY93ir1zwmQ

From the video description:

"Some nifty HOn3 coaches I recently picked up, painted up by the previous owner (I re-painted the roof tops, which were pretty worn/damaged). The coaches have fully die-cast bodies which sit on wooden frames, and are quite heavy! These three alone were causing the 0-4-0 to slip just a bit at the top of the steepest incline on the layout. They are quite attractively painted and detailed, and make a very nice addition to the fleet."

I've been a subscriber to S. A. Hamann's channel for some time, and I'm not sure how I missed this video before.  Maybe I had other things on my mind back in March of 2016.  Even so, I'm glad I found it now.  Seems I'm not the only modeler out there who likes a colorful paint scheme!  

Oh, the narrow gauge bug is biting HARD!

Milk & Mail - Baggage Improvements

Making progress again on the Binkley Shorty Baggage.  Here are two images; the roof and its improvements, and the underbody detail.

Upgrades to the roof include a screen overlay and framing for the clerestory sides, simulated canvas covering for the roof, and drip strips over the doors.  Prior to these additions I also used square styrene stock to extend the clerestory overhang down along the curved ends of the roof.  This is a detail often missing from these cars where the modeler has to shape the bullnose ends.  Here the bullnose profile has been provided as a metal casting but it must be filed to match the width of the clerestory sides and the overhang profile extended somehow.  I precurved the styrene and attached it with cyanoacrylate adhesive.

The floor received an air tank made from dowel 'turned' in a drill and shaped with files to simulate the bands around the tank and reduce its size.  The kit came with a brass casting for the tank but I will use it on the combine.  I chose to add the brake cylinder and levers casting though the instructions don't call for it.  It is a Binkley/Red Ball part.

Next will be a little more work on the sides, adding the end railings, assembling the Walthers trucks, and priming.  After that I will apply a similar roof treatment and underbody detail to the combine.  I may just get these cars completed by Christmas...but I'm in no hurry, so we'll see.  Thanks for reading and following along with this project.

Is This Narrow Gauge?

 

Try your best to ignore the messy paint work and focus on the trucks.

Recently I began raiding my collection of rolling stock in order to see if I had any passenger trucks I could use for the Binkley combine and coach I've been rebuilding for the Morning Milk & Mail train.  But, I hear you say, I thought you already had trucks for these cars?  Yes, and no.  I had planned to use Selley trucks re-built with metal wheels but this is tricky work to unsolder them without damage.  The one set of Binkley trucks I have I had planned to use under the Binkley/Red Ball Fruit Car, and these have the beginnings of zinc rot showing.  Hence, the "robbing Peter to pay Paul" effort, hunting for trucks.

But that's not what this post is about.  My search led me to the Ulrich "Sierra" cars I had stashed away.  Back in 2001, when I was living with my wife in her parents' home with only an occasional kitchen table to use for modeling, I embarked on building these beautiful kits.  I nearly completed one car before we were able to move.  At that point life got busier, my modeling interests shifted and the cars were packed away until a few years later when I began painting one and building an interior for it.

That's as far as it got before we moved again (and again), and yet again more projects came and went.  That brings the story up to today.  See, I had always wondered if these Ulrich cars were too small for HO standard gauge.  The trucks somehow seemed too big, but I didn't have any point of reference other than photos of models  These cars aren't an exact match for the Sierra cars so often seen in Westerns and other TV shows, but they're close.  Still, they seemed too small.

A while back I stumbled on an orphaned HOn3 combine on eBay that I couldn't live without.  On close examination it seems to be a scratchbuilt car using styrene.  Really fine work, though the styrene has warped with age.  I think the trucks are Kemtron but I can't be sure.  So when I pulled out the Ulrich cars to look at their trucks I decided to do a little experiment.  Carefully removing the trucks from the scratchbuilt car, I set the Ulrich car onto them.  Bingo.  Now it looks right (see the photo at the head of this article).  That means I can now use the Ulrich trucks for the Binkley cars and once again pack away the Ulrich cars for the day I find some HOn3 trucks on which they can ride.

See for yourself the size similarity - the brown combine is the scratchbuild, the brightly colored coach is the Ulrich car.  Length isn't as indicative as width in determining an appropriate size for standard or narrow gauge.  In fact, the Florida Railway bought narrow gauge passenger equipment and set it on standard gauge trucks.  That looked as strange as the Ulrich cars on their standard gauge trucks, at least to my eye because the carbodies were too narrow for the trucks.  Other railroads took small standard gauge cars and placed the on narrow gauge trucks.  Again, this looks odd, but hey, there's a prototype for everything, if you look long enough.

Pet Cemetery Project 2021

Model Railroading has taken a back seat lately to a few pleasant distractions.  A surprise visit from in-laws led to a flurry of overdue cleaning and straightening, a late honey harvest needed to be bottled with wax to clean and process, and most enjoyable of all, my oldest son and I returned to the annual work of building tombstones for our family Pet Cemetery.  

The core of the tombstones shown in the photos above were given to me by a neighbor in Washington State.  He used to set up a big graveyard in his lawn each September for Halloween.  Yes, he started setting up a month early since he didn't get around so easily and he had that many props.  People used to come from all over to see it.  Naturally we had to get into the business as well, so rather than compete with another human graveyard, we chose to plant a Pet Cemetery.

Being a kitbasher at heart, I can't just plunk down any old pre-made prop.  Where's the fun in that?  So, I take the pre-made foam stone and add bulk to increase the thickness.  Sometimes I'll carve away parts to change the shape, as in the first picture, or I'll add more to widen it or create a thicker base.  For larger stones I'll insert PVC pipe into the base so the stone can slip over rebar, or drill holes in a wooden base to pin it to the ground with 12" ground nails.  

Once the rough construction is done we will mix a batch of paper mache' clay following Scott Stoll's recipe (www.stolloween.com) and begin applying it all over, taking care to maintain the pre-carved details we want to keep.  In the past we've carved letters into the face.  This year, however, I purchased some plastic fridge-magnet letters from a local thrift store which we hot-glued to the stones (not seen in the photos).  They'll be covered with the paper mache' mix, minus the paper.  When all that's dry, after any carving, the stones are painted and sealed.

Unfortunately due to the other aforementioned events, the construction of our two stones we planned to add this year was delayed.  Still, we set up the cemetery at our church for the second-annual COVID Halloween drive-thru.  Right now we're still applying the paper mache' coating, with carving and painting yet to come.  Maybe by Christmas they'll be done.  It is not a quick process, taking about a month from start to finish working a little each evening a few times a week.  That's fine, as it is good father-son craft time and the resulting object becomes a memorial to those good times.

Attaboy Culture

This is an opinion piece.  A long one, and one that may run against the grain for some readers.

I have grown weary of model railroad forums for a variety of reasons.  Today's post will focus on one which has been termed, "Attaboy Culture"*  This term comes from the title of an article on the "Doog's Models"site.  In a nutshell, the author points out that often when a modeler shares their efforts in an online forum, that effort - no matter how well or poorly executed - is rewarded with a string of compliments, often gushing praise.  Any attempt to offer a suggestion that smells the least bit like a criticism, constructive or otherwise, is itself criticized by the crowd who had offered the praise.

While the article I referenced does a fine job of describing the phenomenon, I think there's more to be said.  The author doesn't mention YouTube but I've seen it there too.  Model builders, makers, and creative artists will share a video - often well made - about their latest creation, er, sometimes well made.  The comments are filled with Attaboys, and these are often "liked" by the video's creator.  But dare to ask a question that challenges the maker, and at the least you won't get a like, and at worst, the crowd of adoring fans will heap scorn on you or report you to YouTube for bad behavior.

What irks me about the Attaboy Culture in model railroad forums is perhaps a trifling thing to some.  I would check in regularly on a thread about what promised to be an interesting project.  There might be twenty new posts since I'd last checked.  One post would show a couple pictures and some description of the actual project.  The other nineteen would be Attaboys.  Any legitimate questions about technique might get lost in the chorus - and they often do.  Complex build threads might be dozens of pages long, but the real model-building content could be condensed to two or three without the Attaboys and general chatting, often off-topic (but that's another topic altogether).

However, what really worries me the most are the potential long-term effects this culture will have on our modeling community.  Seems to me there was a time when the general assumption among model builders was that a person wanted to improve their skills.  Hobby magazines promoted this ideal in editorials and the NMRA developed the achievement program to challenge modelers to grow in all areas of the hobby including authorship and volunteering, both of which were opportunities in themselves to promote the hobby and share your knowledge.

While those early hobby magazines included how-to articles from skilled people, perhaps even experts in a given technique or area, they also showed photos submitted by folks whose skills weren't well developed.  The assumption seemed to be, "start where you are - and good for you for starting! - but here's how you can do better, and doing better is a satisfying and integral part of this hobby".  You didn't have to be the greatest modeler, with years of experience, to share a photo of your work.  However, to author a how-to, you needed some experience.

I see YouTube videos and project threads on hobby forums in which the work displayed makes it very clear the person is a novice, perhaps even doing a technique for the first time.  Good for them.  Nobody is born with the ability to weather a boxcar or build a tree; we all have to start somewhere.  But these mediocre efforts are often met with that rousing chorus of Attaboys and lauded as if they were the greatest modeling ever.  So what happens when a really experienced modeler shares their effort?  Often the same thing.  This creates a false equivalence that reduces the hobby to a popularity contest.

When a magazine published an article or a photo, there was a vetting process.  Photos that showed a work-in-progress or a beginner's effort were described as such, and rarely was a feature article printed that showcased the work of a rank newbie unless some exceptional talent was on display.  Attaboys, such as they were, came a month later in the form of a letter to the editor that the magazine chose to publish often alongside a criticism of the same work.  These were clearly opinions, found in the editorial section of the publication.  Often there were questions that had been submitted about the article, and the author's reply would be shared alongside.

But today, thanks to the internet, anyone of any skill level can share their work, and comments can appear immediately.  Some unscrupulous types on YouTube make no effort to say they're beginners, instead relying on slick video production techniques and snazzy graphics to give the impression that they've been at this for years and what you're seeing is the product of experience.  If you have the actual experience you can spot their lack thereof, but if you don't, well, then you can see why their channel has over a million subscribers.  On a platform whose algorithms reward clicks and likes, well-produced videos, regardless of the content, often beat out the poorly filmed video even if the content is superior.

I can learn from anyone, whether they're a beginner or the world's leading authority on the subject.  Often I'll read an article or watch a video and perk up at one line that made the whole thing worth reading or watching.  But many times I'll cringe as the builder makes a rookie mistake that instantly reveals their skill level.  That's not the problem.  This essay is about Attaboys.  The problem is when this creator makes no effort to acknowledge their lack of experience, and passes themselves off as an expert or hides behind fancy editing to entertain the viewers.  Clicks and Likes.  Attaboys.  Serious questions ignored.  Suggestions for improvement criticized.

In one of Allen Keller's Great Model Railroads videos, George Selios recalls an incident with a publisher of a major hobby magazine.  They were hesitant to publish more articles about his Franklin and South Manchester railroad.  Why?  According to George, they felt like his work was too intimidating.  George's reply?  Nonsense!  People want to be inspired by good modeling, by excellence, and to have something to aspire to.  Clearly the hobby press was headed a different direction.

Has this hobby become anemic?  Are the seasoned veterans being replaced by ranks of novices?  Not yet, though that day may yet come.  So many fine modelers are aging, and haven't made the effort to become authors or make quality videos, to share their knowledge.  The NMRA is continuing to age and shrink in numbers and while the pandemic has brought many regional gatherings online, bringing many hidden gems and beautiful railroads to the public eye for the first time, the quality of the videography is less than stellar, and often serves to highlight the reasons why many younger modelers have opted to avoid the NMRA.

Fortunately, I still see fantastic work being done and shared in forums and videos.  There are newer modelers demonstrating skills from new technologies like 3D printing to scratchbuilding massive structures from cardstock (in N scale, no less!).  There are more experienced model builders blogging and making good quality videos.  The internet is still a young, adolescent medium, compared to published printed magazines, and can resemble a wild west boomtown at times.  Hopefully as it matures, this Attaboy Culture will take a backseat to a more meaningful interaction between modelers, new and old.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

*see this post for more.  I endorse the ideas, but not the profanity.

An Iffy Idea

In the most recent issue (October 2021) of Model Railroad Hobbyist there's a mention of a new structure kit from Frenchman River Model Works.  What caught my eye was the name of the kit's designer, "Thomas Yorke", as his structures are well known in craftsman kit circles for being little works of art, in a funky, dilapidated sort of way.  I'd also purchased items from Frenchman River before and have been pleased, so I clicked on the link to see this new little building.  Little did I know what a rabbit hole I'd fallen into.  Here's a link to the structure:

http://frenchmanriver.com/HO-187-Scale-Iffy-Tire_p_452.html

Now the ad in MRH mentioned that this was based on a structure in Colorado.  I was puzzled to read Yorke's description on the Frenchman River site where he mentioned that the name came from a place in Georgia.  The model is typical Yorke, with exposed brick and crumbling stucco, as you'd expect if you're familiar with his work.  That's a good thing, in my opinion.  However, I think there's a missed opportunity here.  Yorke called the place from which he borrowed the name, "too pedestrian".  Now I had to see for myself.

A quick Google search revealed the address, 5100 Buford Highway in Norcross, Georgia.  Google Earth provided a chance to explore from the street view as well as from above.  Both views are...interesting, and not at all what I'd call "too pedestrian".  See for yourself.

Clearly this had been a service station at one point with a market or convenience store in the brick building right next to it, now joined by a passageway.  There's a wealth of detail, from the hubcaps in the window to the stacks of tires and the old vending machine under the lean-to shed on the left.  But what the front view doesn't clearly show, is what I believe makes this truly unique.  Look at this overhead view:

What the heck happened to that brick building?!?  It is as if it has been cut on the bias and half the structure just wiped off the foundation!  IFY?  I'd say more like Fishy.  There's gotta be a story behind this, and I'd bet it involves aliens, a tornado or a semi, or some combination of those.  Using the historic imagery slider on Google Earth, you can go back as far as 1993 and the building is like that.  Why?

If you model Colorado or just like ghost towns of the old west, go with the Yorke model - no doubt it will build into a fine structure.  But I submit that the building's namesake is also interesting and may do more to catch the attention of younger folks more interested in modeling what they see most of the time in the rest of the country.  It is also the sort of structure that raises more questions than it answers and that makes it especially appealing to me.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Fit Check VIDEO!

After gluing the cab floor and boiler backhead into one unit and adding styrene strips to the cab walls to hold it in place against the frame, I decided to do a fit check of the whole thing at this point.  So, I reassembled the loco and took it for a quick spin.  As I suspected, the longer Aristocraft boiler and cab closes the gap between engine and tender by approximately 1/8".  Even with the closer spacing the engine will still successfully navigate my 15" to 16" radius curves.  YES!!  That means I don't have to make a new drawbar.  I also decided I'm going to add a plug to the headlight wires so I can mount the light up through the boiler into the headlight housing and not have to fiddle with jamming it up in there each time I reassemble the engine.

Okay, enough blabbing.  On with the video:

Like, Subscribe and all that jazz, because when this thing is done I'll be making a follow-up video for sure.  I'm just tickled with how this project is coming along.  After the struggles of the 2-6-0 project, this one is a breeze.  On to the detailing.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Backhead

Here's the backhead and cab floor just set in place, not glued to each other, to test the fit.  The boiler and backhead will be glued to the floor.  This unit will remain loose, unattached to either the frame or the cab.  When the cab and boiler are set down over the frame it will effectively sandwich this in place and hold it there.  Then, if sometime down the road I decide to add more detail, I can remove it to make that work easier.  Currently I'm deciding if I want to add a plug inline with the headlight wires to make it easier to assemble and disassemble the engine.  The best part is no part.

Milk & Mail - Fruit Car Primed

With the completion of the sides, ends and roof details, I could prime the body for the Fruit Car.  I elected to upgrade the fascia and door track and add a slide bar but chose to keep the original door stop even though it is a bit oversized.  Whenever possible I like to use original kit parts.  For the damaged end I had to bend a new pair of railings and replace the broken two-part sill casting.  I covered the roof with tissue paper to represent canvas and replaced the roofwalk with 2x6 planks and 2x2 supports.

The underside was primed first with my usual Dark Walnut while the rest of the car received gray.  The trucks will be borrowed from one of the other two cars in this train, that is, either the shorty baggage or shorty combine from Binkley.  I will replace the wheelsets and reassemble the metal trucks with Loctite Weld.  I have been able to unsolder these vintage trucks with some success, but not without damage.  Next I'm going to try and simply cut them apart with a motor tool.  The original car rode on arch bars with flat springs.  I think it will fit better with a passenger consist on wood beam passenger trucks.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Frame Work

This update is really Part 2 of the last post on screws.  I finally finished the frame extension and mounting plate for the boiler screw.  I've been working steadily on each, but the marvelous gray goo I'm using to weld the parts together takes time to cure.  Still, I'm very pleased with the progress at this point and looking forward to the next step; creating a boiler extension inside the cab and mounting the backhead casting.  After that it's just a matter of adding details to the boiler until I'm happy before painting, lettering and weathering.  This isn't a firm date, but I'm shooting for finishing this engine before Halloween.

There's a nut "welded" up above the brass plate in the last image.  I didn't get a shot of that before I put it in place in the boiler, but I used liberal amounts of the Loctite Weld to secure it to the brass bar.  Getting the headlight LED fed through the smokebox up into the headlight housing might be tricky.  I bought two nuts so that I could have a spare if something didn't work, but also I can use one to hold the cylinder saddle in place when the boiler isn't attached.  This has turned out to be a challenging project, but very satisfying working steadily, step by step.

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Cab Screws

Recently Marty McGuirk over at his Central Vermont Railway blog wrote about removing a switch to get around a derailment issue.  This quote grabbed me:

 "...I fretted over this for a few weeks, but the fix didn't take more than a couple of evenings."

How often has that been the case for me?  Oh the hours I've wasted wondering what to do - or rather, not wondering, but simply avoiding the issue!  Too many times I have worried about the problem instead of thoughtfully pursuing a solution.

Yesterday I fretted over screws.  I was hunting for #00-80 (or 0-80 depending on where you look) 3/16" flat head screws.  I need two to attach the rear of the cab to the frame extension for the 2-8-0 kit-mingle I'm currently working on.  Remember the old days, when you could walk into a hobby shop and buy a little baggie of Hob Bits or Walthers screws for a couple bucks?  You'd get no more than a dozen usually and that's all a person typically needs.

You can still get those little baggies but now they're five bucks plus another five to ship it.  Alternatively you can get an assortment of 75 screws of varying lengths, all brass, flat head, 00-80, (with 25 nuts!) for $20.  While the assortment is a better deal on a per-screw cost, what am I going to do with the other 73 screws?  Sure, they come in a nice case but now I have to store it.  And I'm not going to pay $10 for 5 or 6 screws.

I trolled eBay for screws for far too long and this is after I had cogitated (fretted) for a few days prior to looking.  What saved me was that old ad slogan for the Yellow Pages - I let my fingers do the walking.  Setting aside political differences, I called my local Ace Hardware.  Yep.  They've got 0-80s.  So this morning I purchased four screws for the princely sum of $1.29.  Behold - the source of my worry, now solved:

P.S. - After checking the main boiler screw from the Athearn frame, I realized I now need a 5/8" 2-56.  Back I go to Ace...

Kit-Mingled 2-8-0 - Boiler Swap

Oh my poor Shifter.  This little 0-4-0 has been put off for over 12 years now through moves and shifting locales and all sorts of reasons.  I had claimed in my end-of-year goals that this time would be different and for sure I'd finish it by Christmas, but alas, it may not be so.  One thing I've learned about how I approach my hobby during lockdown is to follow the muse and pursue the passion even at the cost of delaying a project yet again.  Momentum is precious when the anchor of settled inertia takes so much effort to weigh.  Best to change tack and sail with the wind.

No, I'm not building a ship - lest the nautical references mislead you.  I'm swapping a boiler and cab to create a unique locomotive.  John Allen, of Gorre & Daphetid fame, was fond of heavily modifying locomotives to make them different from everyone else's.  I have always felt the same way.  The 2-6-0 I modified last year got a shortened tender and a high headlight; for fitting on a short turntable and to give the engine a 'family' appearance, respectively.  This time I'm applying a boiler and cab from an AristoCraft/New One 2-8-0 to the smooth running mechanism of an Athearn (nee MDC/Roundhouse) 2-8-0.  

The donor boiler is slightly longer than the original but offers a few features that make the conversion worth it for me.  Not visible in this image are the open cab doors on the front of the cab - a thing often seen in real life but rarely on the model, something I've always wanted to include on a model engine.  Like the 2-6-0, (and the Shifter) this engine has an auxiliary dome just in front of the cab and a side-mounted whistle (family likeness, again).  I also like the brass detailing already built-in and will be featuring that in the finished model.  

I'll be borrowing the backhead detail from the original boiler using Oyumaru thermoplastic and superfine Miliput to make a copy.  The great thing about this thermoplastic material is that the mold can be remade if it doesn't turn out well on the first try.  I was fortunate and got it right first time.  Here you can see two castings in Miliput.  I'll use the top one but it will need a little more Miliput to fill a couple imperfections.  It smooths easily with water.  The little side tabs will be cut away before it is installed.

I'll have to make a boiler segment for inside the cab along with a rudimentary floor and of course a place for a skinny engineer to sit.  The fireman may end up living on the deck behind the cab.  We'll see.  Brass for the bits to attach the new boiler to the old frame (or is that the other way around?) has already been cut and shaped, and I have all the detail parts I'll want to use.

More on this project as I hit new milestones.

Four Flats - Finished!

 Feels fine to finish these four flats.  Forgoing alliteration, finally, the fotos:

This has been a great project, though I'm not in a hurry to begin another with so many cars in one fell swoop.  The next one like it will be the Purina (former freezers) ventilated box cars and that's only three cars but they will require more work to refurbish.  Look for that in 2022 when I will hopefully build the corresponding feed mill and delivery truck.  The Milk & Mail series continues and I've once again pushed aside the Shifter in favor of a different locomotive kitbash/detailing project.  More on that in upcoming posts.

As always, open the images in a new tab for a closer look, and feel free to click on the Four Flats tag in the Labels list for all the posts related to this project.  Thanks for following along!

Four Flats - Decals

After a few days waiting for the mail (and working on the Fruit Car in the mean time) I set to the task of applying decals to the flat cars.  Here's my setup:

And here's a closeup of the right-side data.  Note the decaling casualty, the vertical brake staff:

I've gotten pickier since I lettered box car 1603 a few years ago.  That's why I had to order new data sheets to go on these flats.  Research is wonderful and terrible, especially as a freelancer.  For these flats I came across a car builder's catalog with similarly sized and constructed truss rod flats that showed a capacity of 80,000 lbs, and a light weight of around 28,000 lbs.  The data sets I had from Rail Graphics (unfortunately out of production) didn't include a light weight anywhere close.  I would have had to chop up tiny little numbers and rearrange them - not fun.  Decaling already stresses me out a little.  I didn't want to complicate it any further.

Sure, some modelers would have said, "So what?  Just use any number, nobody's going to look that close, and once weathered it won't be that legible."  But, just like detailing building interiors, I would know it's there.  In fact, looking closely at box car 1603, I may go back and re-weigh that car.  Right now I've got it a little too heavy for its age and construction.  Wouldn't take long, especially since I've got all the tools and parts out and handy...

Milk & Mail - Fruit Car Underframe

After describing the project overview, I decided to begin working on the Fruit Car first.  No particular reason, just the whim of the muse.  I began by deciding how much detail I wanted to add to the underside.  Here's where I landed:

This amount of detail seems sufficient to indicate brake gear.  I'm always hesitant to add the connecting rods that extend from the levers out toward the trucks for fear that it will interfere with the wheels.  This time I just left the rods off altogether.  

I want to upgrade the car beyond its original kit parts using materials and methods that would have been available to the original builder, as much as possible.  But these days I'm feeling more of a pull to just get things done and move on to the next project sooner than later.  Maybe it's my age, or perhaps it is the circumstances of our world driving this feeling.  Regardless, I press on.

Up next I will turn my attention to the fascia boards and sides.  Though, at the time of this writing, I have received the data decals for the Four Flats...so as soon as I commit to a lettering arrangement, I may return to them.  We'll see.

The Morning Milk & Mail - A First Look

A few days ago in my post, End-of-Year Goals, I described the projects I hope to complete by the end of 2021.  One of those is the set of cars that will become the "Morning Milk & Mail", an all-stops passenger train that leaves early in the morning, handles the mail and picks up the milk on the Pine Branch.  I also have a set of Selley short passenger cars that will become the limited express hot-shot which will make no stops, but I decided to start on these Binkley cars, and the Red Ball (Binkley?) Fruit Car that will run with them. **

Originally I had planned to use a Selley Combine on this train, but then I found the elusive P-35 Binkley "Shorty Combine Caboose" that was marketed as a companion car for their "Oldie" Baggage.  These weren't "Sierra" cars*, or "Overton" cars; at least they weren't marketed that way that I've seen.  Interestingly, if you take the Binkley 1870 Baggage-Mail car and chop it in half right down the middle, you'll get the Shorty Baggage and the Shorty Combine.  Is that what they did?  I can only guess, but I think I'm on to something.  It would explain why the baggage door isn't centered, and why the small baggage door on the combine is so close to the windows.  Hmmm...

What I'm starting with are three cars in varying degrees of completion.  The Fruit Car I purchased used.  It was missing one truck and had some damage.  Close examination reveals it may have taken a tumble to the floor at some point.  I will be replacing the damaged parts and making a few upgrades.

The Baggage is a complete kit - but with incorrect parts.  Instead of the two-part end sills per the instructions, it has a nice set of end sill castings from Binkley made for their Business Car et al.  I will be building it as instructed, making few changes or upgrades.

Finally, the Combine is a real challenge.  Somebody built it years ago and it has seen better days.  Fortunately it only needs a new baggage door and some cleaning.  I will do as little as possible to repair this car with the aim of bringing it up to a better standard of construction.

So many rolling stock 'orphans' I see were built with good intentions, probably by someone just starting out in the hobby making the kind of mistakes we all might make, even being careful.  But these cars aren't the Athearn or Roundhouse plastic shake-the-box kits of my youth, or even some of the more complex plastic kits.  These were kits that summoned the craftsman in the builder, using terms in the instructions like 'measure', 'shape' and 'cut'.  Simple words, but they are qualitatively different from 'assemble' or 'insert'.  They require the builder to think differently, to assess the work and make decisions based on the state of construction and desired outcome.

*Binkley did market a set of Sierra cars, but these were the cast metal bodies from the same molds as the Laconia Sierra cars, later sold by Ulrich and Walthers.  I have a pair of these, have built one, and the other is awaiting construction.  They're narrow enough (for me at least) to be HOn3 cars if riding on suitable trucks...

**At the time I'm writing this I'm waiting on decals for the Four Flats project.  Turns out I didn't have the ones I wanted to use, but thankfully I located some on eBay.  Hated to lose the momentum I had going on that project, but glad to put my energy into this one!

Four Flats - Decks Weathered, Sides Painted and Ready for Decals

 

A quick update to show the decks fully painted and weathered.  The first application of color was a thin coat of Mudstone over the gray primer with a few boards picked out in a lighter tan to show replacement work by the shop.  Next was an all-over wash with Burnt Umber acrylic ink, thinned with Matte Medium and water.  After that dried I applied a black oil wash, cleaning select boards with a pointy cotton bud for variation of the effect.  The black wash seeps into the cracks, defining the boards as well as all the gouges and distressing I had applied earlier.

The sides were brush painted with Brown Iron Oxide.  Brush painting took me about as long as it would have if I had taped off the decks and undersides, strained and thinned the paint, and applied it with an airbrush.  I noticed this time around that my brush work has improved; at least I'm more comfortable with it, thanks to the miniature painting I've been doing lately.  That, and using the Matte Medium and water mix to thin the paint.  This mix makes the paint flow well and settle down without losing coverage or showing brush strokes.  The craft paint I use is too thick straight out of the bottle and benefits from a proper thinning.

Once the sides had dried I gave them a coat of gloss varnish from a rattle can and have allowed that to dry/cure for over 24 hours.  I gauge the time to let it dry based on how well I can still smell the odor.  Not scientific, but it hasn't failed me yet.  Today I spent some time laying out the spacing for the decals and selecting what I will use from the Rail Graphics freight car lettering sets.  Funny thing - they didn't make a Flat Car set for the 1900-1920 period, so I'll have to cobble together the relevant data from other types of rolling stock.  I also spent some time looking at historic shots of other prototype flat cars to get ideas for what to include and how it might look.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far, and check back soon for the next Four Flats installment or click on the tag in the list on the right to read any of the previous posts.  As usual, open the pictures in another window or tab to see them larger.

End-of-Year Goals

Yes, I know it is only August.  But August is nearly over, the kids are back to school, and the Chinese Pistache trees are beginning to blush.  So, I'm looking ahead to what I'd like to accomplish by year's end.  The Fall brings birthdays for my wife and both my boys as well as the holidays.  Not sure if we'll make it to Thanksgiving in Nevada this year, due to the virus, the weather, or both.  

All that to say, I'm trying to be realistic about what I might accomplish.  The Trail Drive of Christmas 2020 stretched well into the Spring of 2021.  I do have a tendency to fall prey to the planning fallacy.  That said, here's a look at what I'm thinking I'd like to accomplish.  All are projects in need of completion:

Firstly, the 0-4-0 Shifter.  I started this project not long after I got married...in 2001.  It is time to complete it.  Back when I started I had planned to use incandescent micro bulbs for the headlights.  I need to decide if I'm going to keep them or find suitable LEDs.  Next, the Ice Factory.  I have all I need to complete this scene, it is just a matter of chipping away at it.

Finally, the Fruit Car and the two passenger cars are going to become the Ocali Creek's Morning Milk & Mail train, an all-stops out-and-back on the Pine Branch.  Once completed the 2-6-0 will pull this until I detail and repaint the 4-4-0.  Not that this train will actually go from anywhere to anywhere on the railroad as built - I'll need staging wings on the main line to make this a reality.  Until then it'll run loops just for fun.

I'd also like to get track painted and weathered, and perhaps some scenic contours roughed in, but I'm not going to put that on the list.  Same with installing the passenger station scene or streets.  And of course, I'm going to finish the Four Flats first.  I'm in no hurry, but I'm ready to set some goals again and work towards them.  This post is, in a way, going on record and staking my claim.  Here's to a productive Fall!

 

Four Flats - Shakedown Run!

 

Three of the four flats in this short clip have only been assembled, minus brake wheels and a couple minor tasks yet to do under the deck - adding a brake rod and additional weight.  However, at this point they are fully operational as you can see.  The car with the gray deck is the pathfinder model, built first to see how the rest should go together.  Up next, final assembly, priming, and then on to painting.

Oh, and if you want to know more about the engine pulling this train click on the 2-6-0 tag in the labels menu, likewise click caboose to learn more about the caboose.

Four Flats - Distressing Decks

The first image is a comparison shot I made to share on my Instagram account.  On the left is the wooden deck that comes with the kit.  Note the wood grain running perpendicular to the grooves.  Note the places where the grooves between the "boards" didn't quite go far enough.  Even if I were to cut in the grooves, then stain this and weather it, the single-piece construction would be blatantly obvious thanks to the out-of-scale wood grain.

The brownish piece on the right is card that I've scribed to match the board size of the kit-supplied deck.  Already at this stage it is an improvement.  The "grain" of the card stock runs parallel to the direction of the boards.  I could simply stain this piece with various browns and grays and it would look great.  However, I prefer to prime cardstock first, especially in this case, to avoid as much warping as possible.  This isn't Strathmore.  It's more like shirt cardboard.  I'm not even sure where I found it.

In this next image is the pathfinder car with its deck primed, and the other three card decks in various stages of distress.  Note the dental tools and Xacto knife I use to add nail marks, cracks, etc. to the boards.  I particularly like the tool with the conical heads, as it is useful for pressing down on a board to make it lower than its neighbor, as well as making drag and scuff marks to imply something heavy has been shifted that dented and gouged the deck.

This last shot is a close-up of the pathfinder model's deck, ready for some color and weathering.  My plan is to paint and weather the deck, then the sides, all brushed on by hand.  I just need to remember what shade of brown I used on the Ocali Creek box car I did a few years back as I want to match it. Honestly, I know I took a picture of the car with the two colors I blended and for the life of me I can't find it. 

Found out about Flynn

A few posts back Russ Bellinis and I were chatting in the comments about Bill Flynn.  Russ's suggestion to check one of Bob Chaparro's SoCal groups was right on.  A quick search of the messages on the Model Railroads of Southern Calif group produced this post from January 23, 2006:

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of longtime PRR
modeler Bill Flynn of Tustin, California. Bill passed away on
January 21 due to complications from several cancer surgeries.
Arrangements are being coordinated by Saddleback Mortuary.

Bill's Southwest Subdivision/PRR was a showpiece model railroad with
its four-track mainline, detailed scenery and many scratchbuilt
structures. This railroad first started in Bill's two-car garage.
As we all do, Bill came to the conclusion he needed more space
to "do things right" so he fill-in his seldom used swimming pool and
built a layout room over the former pool site. And he did it right.

Bill also was a strong supporter of the Cajon Division/NMRA and
hosted many open houses for division, region and National
conventions. He was a friendly face at many local meets. He will
be missed.

Bob Chaparro
Moderator

Well said, Bob.  George Sellios has said that really fine modeling is inspiring.  Bill Flynn's railroad inspired me.  Here are some images I took of Bill's pike back in April 2004.

While these two overview shots of an under-construction railroad give a sense of the scope, it is in the smaller scenes and finer details where Bill's talent really came to the fore.  My favorite area was a small town at the end of a branch line on a narrow peninsula.  It inspired Pinto on the previous incarnation of the Ocali Creek back when it was still set in Appalachia, and to a lesser degree influenced design choices I made at Ocala Springs (Pine Branch Park), my current railroad under construction.

I still learn something every time I study these photos.  That, to me, is the mark of a great model railroad scene (and a hallmark of many great Disney attractions).  There's always something to catch your interest and it may not be the same thing each time you look, though it may have been there all along and you just didn't see it before.