The Roach Coach Part II

I have mostly finished the diner buy adding window blinds. This will go a long way to solving the issue with having no interior. I will likely light the interior and have silhouettes to suggest occupants.
 The weathering will wait until I install the building. The kit contained steps for the entrance that will also have to wait.

The Roach Coach part I

I have this City Classics diner that I intend to put on one of my 2' long modules. I painted it a couple of years ago with a " Chrome" paint out of a rattle can. The finish is nice for something out of a can. This is one of those many projects that get started and then sit and get forgotten. I found it again about a couple of weeks ago and I'm determined to finish it. I bought a Miller Engineering illuminated sign to go on the roof and had cut a slot into the roof for mounting the sign. The sign has a tab that inserts through the roof slot and a electrical plug from the lighting module attaches to the tab. My biggest challenge will be the interior.  I can't show in interior because of the large plug for the roof sign will be visible. The plug will be in the middle, behind the vestibule and I my best solution at this point is to prevent an observer from seeing into the diner at all even though the structure will have interior lighting. What I would like to try is some blinds in the windows
That will prevent a observer from seeing in but let light out in a night scene (when the roof sign would be lit).
My problem is the see through blinds, I think I saw some laser cut ones some where.

For the red striping I used a red Sharpie pen to apply color to the side of the diner. The red ink has a nice shine to it that goes with the chrome finish.I applied some styrene for a foundation to the structure that will allow me to build it into the scenery.

I added a couple of plumbing vent pipes by the bathrooms and kitchen plus a Walthers Air cooler unit.

A roof top sign has to have a support structure so I built this from Evergreen channel and scraps.

Next thing to add is the window glazing and a couple of signs, and blinds if I can find some. A little weathering is in order too.
The steps that come with the kit will have to wait till I install the structure.

Grime & Dirt II

I actually have a couple of  before/after images to share. I saw this Fox Valley SOO boxcar at the National Train Show for a very nice price along with four other highly detailed cars. I roll my eyes when I see HO scale freight cars with $35-$45 price tags. Yes they have fantastic detail, but if you actually use them as intended, how well does that detail withstand regular use? Another thing I think many people don't realize is that all that super detail disappears when the car is viewed in a moving train. I personally intend to use these new cars (with fantastic detail) in photos, more than in operations. The camera sees all, and chunky detail is very obvious when viewed in photos. A prime example is in the previous post. The handrails of that Erie Lackawanna RS-3 look way out of scale because they are. They just don't look so bad when viewed in person. And since the loco is not a museum piece but a working loco that will be run regularly, I don't mind the handrails as long as they don't break.

At this point I have already broken 1 stirrup step while getting the shell screwed to the frame and adding extra weight. I'm not going to go into detail on how I weathered these cars. There are great tutorials in the "Rustbucket Forum" and recently INRAIL's blog in Railroad Model Hobbyist so I wont boor you with my fumbling descriptions.

This is only the second freight car that I applied a fade too. I tried to keep it very light because the car would only be a couple of years old.

The rust fairly light too. I kept it to a few areas that would see wear.

I'm thinking the coupler has to much bright rust color, but then it might look this way if it sat a couple of weeks unused.

I don't have a "clean" image of this car, because I was so stoked with acquiring these new cars that I dove right into weathering when I got home.

I kept the weathering light on this one too for the same reasons as for the Soo car. Just a little rust and some dirt. 

Again, no clean image. This is the first car I applied a fade to, it's ok for my first try. This car was a bitch to get disassembled for adding weight and it sustained damage which can be seen up close.

Grime & dirt

Jeff Patterson got me to look into a website called "The weathering Shop" and its associated forum "The Rust Bucket". The people on these sites do weathering, that's all, just weathering, and they are Good, real Good. They even have how too articles, you should check them out. When I have time I'll add a link .
So then Jeff got me into trying some new techniques on weathering, using water mixable oil paints and then my new favorite, powders. AIM weathering powders in particular. Between reading articles on the Weathering Shop, and helping Jeff weather some of his freight cars, I finally caught the bug to weather some of my new freight cars that I picked up and the National Train Show last month. I also weathered a EL RS-3 before the National Show after all, I needed something to run that looked grimy in a cool kinda way.

Since the RS-3 was the first piece of my own that I used powders on, I'll show it first. All weathering below the walkway was done with Acrylic paint. This isn't new to me, but I think this is the best I've done yet. The roof, and hoods were done entirely with powders. I had disassembled the shell, given it a coat of Dulcoat for improving the powders adhesion. Then added a layer of powder, then sealed it with Dulcoat. I used two layers of powder to get the effect you see here.

The pilot was weathered with Acrylics also. Dry brushing on a highlighting color brings out the details.

What I really wanted to show here is the rust color up by the bell. When I added those details at the top of the hood, I brush painted them with plain yellow paint, not a match for the yellow the nose was already painted. The weathering powders blended it all together nicely.

I'll post images of some freight cars next time.

A year later

I'm surprised that its been a year since my last post. I had it in my head that my last post was in the late summer of 2012. I wasn't going to post anything on this blog that wasn't related to work on The Waterfront modules, but I think it would be good to broaden the subject as long as it still involves HO modules.

I've spent most of the last year rebuilding a module for a buddy of mine. It was my idea and I wanted a break from working on the Waterfront module. Building a module of a small eastern North Carolina town is pleasantly different from an industrial waterfront.
I have also been working with a few friends on building scenery on a third friends modules. Jeff Patterson, Randy Costanza, Richard Raburn, with help from Robert Cutman, Mark Neugent and Sam DeShong worked very hard on Joe Balint's ramp and flyover modules. I think the Flyover module project was sufficiently large to justify is own blog. So I'll have to set one up and put a link in here somewhere.

I'll start with some images of the module I rebuilt. "Nottingham" was built by Hunter Jones almost 20 years ago but now belongs to Thomas Hall. As part of the reconstruction I renamed the module (with Tom's blessing) to Nashboro. The idea behind the name was to have a name that sounds so familiar to those who know North Carolina well, that they would be sure they had been through the town or at least heard of it.

The two images above show Nottingham in good condition when I received it. At this point my intention is to remove everything but the track and ballast.

The image above is of a similar angle and shows much of what has changed.The original brick structure has been reused and only moved about 3/4" for track clearance. The oil depot office was glued down so well that I would have destroyed it trying to remove it, so it stayed. The tan colored area in front of the large concrete building is the new but unfinished driveway. All the new structures along the back are part of one industry,  that makes specialty paper but ships in the pulp in boxcars from elsewhere.

 Above we have the newest part of the industry: the pulp warehouse.

 Two boxcars are spotted for unloading pulp behind the chemical storage tanks. At this point the concrete walls to catch a chemical spill have yet to be installed. The brick structure behind the green warehouse was made with a King Mill Enterprises Image. I laminated two images together and added the roof downspouts and roof overhang for added detail.

 The brick maintenance building also houses the pumps for the tanks. The large opening in the building in the background is to the boxcar loading dock. The finished product (paper) needs to be protected from the elements. The dock can accommodate (2) 50' boxcars.

Not much to Downtown Nashboro. The Station platform is to the right, the local grocery and hardware store. Not shown is the Volunteer Fire Dept on the far right.

There is lots of detail that has been added since I took these images and delivered the finished module. When I get a chance I'll take some photos and add them here for a final look.