The Main Thing

No retrospective this year, nor a hopeful look forward with grand dreams and visions of what might be.  Sorry, I'm just not in that state of mind this time around.  Maybe its the pandemic, or maybe our impending extinction weighs heavily on my soul.  Who knows.  The important thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, even with our hobbies.

"Some folks build a railroad systematically; some folks don't.  The main thing is, enjoy it."

- Malcolm Furlow.

I'm sure glad I have my health, my family, a roof over our heads and loving, furry companions.  But I'm also glad I have a terrific hobby and this platform from which I can share it.  More to the point of Malcolm's quote, I have noticed a shift in how I enjoy this hobby.  In years past, both at work and at leisure, I've been happy to have deadlines, goals and challenges.  But recently I've decided I'd rather not, at least not grand, far-reaching goals.  At the moment I'm happier with vague ideas of what I might want to do, perhaps.

500 pieces of enjoyment, a.k.a. FUN!

Oh, there are still deadlines in my life, and daily tasks that need doing, and I derive great satisfaction from a cleaned kitchen, folded laundry and vacuumed carpet.  But with the challenges we all face in the world today and the restrictions in place to try and keep us safe, I don't see the need for any additional burden.  

Will I continue to build my railroad systematically?  Not for the time being.  A few short years ago I had great hopes of following a schedule and making rapid progress, yada yada yada.  That fell by the wayside, but it was still helpful to have the goals and targets and stick to the sequence I had laid out in the schedule.  That just isn't fun anymore.  

So if there's one resolution for 2022 it's this: enjoy building the railroad.  That's the main thing.

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.