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Model Railroading > On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994)Date: 05/24/20 07:54 On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: JUTower Good morning! Happy Memorial Day weekend!
I have been meaning to share some "workbench progress" photos from the last couple of months of "lockdown". First, #1 and #2, are a Smokey Mountain Modelworks woodchip gondola kit. This was an awesome kit to build - I've never built a "craftsman" kit before, but I have kitbashed and detailed a number of locomotives over the years. From that perspective, it was a "kitbash in a box" - took some modeling skills to build it but all of the research and detail parts work is done for you. I really enjoyed it. The car came together really well. The weathering in #2 looks overdone thanks to the flash on my iPhone, it looks more appropriate in person under layout lighting. (The layout is only a staging level right now, so not so interesting for photographs). #3 is an Intermountain PC covered hopper, factory painted PC, and oversprayed with Mig Ammo "Chipping Effects". I airbrushed a few coats of that on, then sprayed oxide red acrylic over that. Let the acrylic dry but not too many days, and wet the acrylic and then scrape or scratch it to expose the PC green. I found that I had the best luck with a Dremel tool with a plastic wire brush attachment, at slow RPM. In hindsight, I should have airbrushed a white/light-tan fade coat over the PC green so that it isn't so pronounced. It wouldn't make sense to see factory-fresh PC green showing up through aged CR oxide red. Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/20 07:58 by JUTower. Date: 05/24/20 08:04 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: JUTower #4 Progress on the PC/CR car. I drybrushed more oxide red to tone down the PC green, added decals, and then weathered the decals as well. This car is waiting on me to get around to final weathering (light fade and some rust) and then it will be done.
#5 I'd ordered this ScaleTrains CSX SD40-2 only to find that by 1994, it had the yellow ends and yellow stripe treatment. The factory unit was in the early CSX grey and blue scheme, so I added the yellow and decals to that. ScaleTrains uses the same font on all of the numberboards so I took the opportunity to apply the older EMD style font as well. #6 I have several Atlas C40-8W's in Conrail schemes, including an LMS lease unit that I'd weathered and detailed a few years ago. Mike Zollitch pointed out to me that these actually had a more modern radiator section, and shared (via FB) photos of how he modified his Atlas unit to use the Kato C44-9W rads. Here is a comparison of the regular Dash 8 rads with the Dash 9 that I applied to my LMS unit. If you're curious the Kato part is 966000 and can be had for $2.99. The mod was pretty easy. Date: 05/24/20 08:08 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: JUTower #7 Here is the final result with the new radiator weathered in to match the Atlas paint. I used Conrail Scalecoat II in a spray can (despite having an airbrush, for large projects/frequent colors I prefer the convenience of a rattle can. (My model railroading is usually in 15-45 minute increments and I don't have time for a lot of prep or cleanup.)
#8 Inspired by a YouTube video on "Weather Dipping" I thought that I could acheive a similar result by using alcohol-based weathering washes in small spritz bottles. I have been using diluted India Ink this way for years. I have a bottle of rusty brown and medium gray weathering wash that I added, along with a spritz bottle of straight alcohol (that I can spray if I over-do it somewhere). This older Accurail model was a good test case... #9 I decided that the results were good enough that I would use this method to "batch weather" my unweathered intermodal cars, with the goal of having a "good enough" first pass of weathering for layout service, and I can come back around and do more detailed weathering later. One downside of this method is you can end up with obvious "water blob" marks that don't always look right. I will come back with an alcohol-dipped cotton swap and wipe those areas out. You'll see the spritz bottles on the right in this photo. Date: 05/24/20 08:15 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: JUTower #10 close-up photo of the weathering result. It dries out much smoother in variation compared to when you first spray it on.
#11 Bowser recently released ballast cars based on their covered hopper model, with 3D-printed ballast hoppers and roof ends. A nice little kit, I threw them together on a Saturday afternoon and painted them throughout the week. Circus City Decals sells a perfect set of Conrail decals for these, and I've decided one will be yellow. I plan to weather these with a combination of techniques including heavy rust streaking (artists oils). I'll share those results whenever I get to that point. #12 Wrapping things up with a photo of the D&H 266 coming into CP-95. My layout will be a 3-level layout with a good mainline run in a fairly compact space. The staging level is complete with signals and dispatcher control in place (JMRI/CATS) and I'm waiting on some helix parts before I can begin construction up to the upper level. So in the meantime I continue on rolling stock. Next major project has been waiting a long time; I have most of the parts put together for a Conrail C36-7 and C30-7A and will probably do them in parallel. I figure with my luck with the B36-7, someone will announce these locomotives this year also! (For the B36, I had kitbashed two, and 2/3 thru that project, Rapido announced them. I bought 3 more!) I used to fret over such things but I enjoyed building the B36-7 and they look as good as the Rapido units. Rapido saved me from building 3 more! Thanks for looking! -Alex Date: 05/24/20 08:49 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: ts1457 Impressive work! you are doing some some pretty cool stuff (this is coming from someone who mainly is interested in older stuff).
Thank you for sharing Date: 05/24/20 09:21 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: Jimmies Lots of effort here. I appreciate the process descriptions too. Thanks for posting.
Jim Date: 05/24/20 17:28 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: DundasMP23 The Conrail hopper with the PC coming through looks great. Well done. I look forward to seeing the ballast hoppers.
Rob Smith Hamilton, ON Date: 05/24/20 21:08 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: atsf121 Great looking stuff, that hopper is amazing!
Posted from iPhone Date: 05/25/20 07:22 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: ghemr All of your projects are appealing with the CR covered hopper being the most unique. Great work!
Date: 05/26/20 07:13 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: tunnel88 Inspiring work!
Going a bit off topic I have a question for you - what is the radius of the curve shown in the photo with the TOFC flats? I'm in layout planning state and finding that 89' flats require even bigger curves than I expected to look good after doing mockups and I'm curious what others are doing. -Benjamin Date: 05/26/20 07:46 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: JUTower Thanks Benjamin! As this whole level of the layout will be staging, I am more tolerant of a tight radius curve. I was surprised to see how much overhang you get with 89 foot cars even at 26 inch curves.
In the photo, that curve will be coming off of a helix so it is a bit of a bear. 28" at its tightest, with a 30-32 easement. For visible mainline runs IMHO 28 is too tight. Even 30-32 looks funny compared to prototype track. But I only have so much basement, so some of these are the compromises that come with the hobby. Best, -Alex Date: 05/26/20 09:03 Re: On the workbench... (Conrail HO 1994) Author: RGDave Solid progress across the board here, my friend! Excellent work!
~RGDave https://onondagacutoff.blogspot.com/ |