Minitrains products have re-invigorated the HOn30 market. This month, their highly anticipated Forney 0-4-4 loco was released, and I couldn't resist pulling the trigger on this gorgeous little loco.
She runs as smoothly as the other Minitrains stock, and has a lot of character to her "look." Something will have to be done about that ugly red wire, though. It passes through the chassis to power the directional lighting; there is a small headlight behind the tender, a necessity on a Forney expected to run for a good half of its working life in reverse.
My power pack died, so I'm relying on a 9v battery to test the loco; this allows me one speed: lightning! Here's a short video flyby of the Forney with rocket-boosters engaged.
I continued with my track painting project the last couple nights.
After I gave the base "tan" coat a full 24 hours to cure, it was time to paint the rails. This required masking; because of the width of the tape, I had to do one rail at a time.
File under: Pain in the a**.
My plan was to use Floquil "roof brown" for the rails. Hey, I happened to have an aerosol can of it on hand! Lucky me! Let's just spray bomb the masked off rails! It will work perfectly and I won't have to clean up the airbrush!
Nope.
While the rails painted fine with the "spray bomb," there was a TON of bleed-under through the tape. Plus, the overspray got everywhere.
Yuck.
Some areas turned out OK, but in general I discovered that this project was going to require some touch-ups.
So, I decided to transition to the airbrush for the other rail. Masking first; I ran out of blue tape halfway through, which ended up being a good thing. Another learning moment: the white masking tape creates a cleaner line and is a bit easier to work with.
I'm still messing with the right formula for spraying Polly S through the airbrush. I suppose it won't be an issue once I run out of the paint, since they're not making it anymore...in any case, I laid down a coat with the airbrush and was rewarded with a much cleaner result.
Lesson 2: use the %&^($@ airbrush, dummy.
So, because of the overspray, I went in with a small flat brush and did touchups along the ties and spikes. This was the tedium I was trying to avoid in the first place, but the result worked out OK:
Touchups...looks much better!
So, from here, it was time for a liberal application of Grimy Black weathering powder to tone down the colors and blend everything together. Not much science to this part; grab a crappy brush and start slopping it on!
Pretty happy with the result; will look much better when ballasted. I might go back and do some selective application of some earth tones and rust.
I celebrated my finished track with a cold beer and some trains.
The sisters stage a meet.
The new addition even had a chance to pull the "varnish" for a bit.
I'm still deciding what direction to go with this new loco as far as detailing and kit-bashing. Add it to the project list...my 4-4-0 is still waiting in the wings impatiently as well.
That's all for now! Hopefully will have a few more work sessions this week to start getting basic ground cover and ballast in. I discovered a new ballasting method that I'm eager to try out and share.
Hello folks! Summer continues to be busy, but I had some time to mull over some design decisions as well as get into the garage tonight for a short work session.
The weather is cooling down a bit, so after the sun started to set I took advantage of the breezy dusk to spend some time in the garage. I really enjoy work sessions with the garage door open when the weather is mild and brisk like today was.
I've been enjoying my new airbrush, so I thought I'd finally get around to painting my track. As described in another post, my plan all along has been to use the method described in Joey Ricard's track painting video:
The basic idea is that you apply a base "tooth" coat of flat black, followed by light suede craft paint for the ties, and a rust-colored solution of powders and alcohol to the rails; then, everything is "dumbed down" in color gradient using a wash of black-grey powders. In my test trials, I've had good success with this method, but there are a few drawbacks for my application:
1. Craft Paints- the amount of time it takes to hand paint the ties is prohibitive, even on a small layout like mine. Also, in HO scale, the thickness of the craft paint obscures the finer woodgrain detail on the ties.
2. Rust Powders- in my tests, the pastel/alcohol solution never stuck to the base coat on the rail web.
I decided to break out the airbrush to help solve the above problems. I could lay a much finer coat of paint that way, in a much shorter amount of time.
First, a base coat of grimy black went on.
Then, I laid in the "suede" color on the ties; this is Polly Scale "earth."
I'm actually more pleased with this effect. There is a subtle counter-shading effect resulting from the black undercoat, as well as some variation in the tie shading that I think will help the final product once the weathering wash is laid in.
After taking some time away from the layout, I've had some time to reconsider some design decisions. Here are two sections that have been bothering me, scenically:
Visually, the terrain doesn't make sense; why would the MVRR inexplicably build curves through two deep cuts?. It looks cartoonish and fake. It spoils an otherwise gently rolling landscape. Furthermore, I'm bothered by the fact that the track in the back will be visible; it again spoils the depth of the scene.
I realized the problem is the basic fact that I am dealing with only 16" of depth in the scene. If I really want to create an illusion of depth, I have to completely hide the back of the layout with a backdrop.
Hence, this idea:
I had originally avoided using a mid-layout backdrop because the exit/entry points where the track must duck through are usually hard to hide. However, I think the tradeoff is worth it in this case.
Perhaps a backdrop of the photo-realistic kind would be most appropriate. I'd love to give Trackside Scenery's products a test in this regard.
The hardest part is going to be reverse engineering a way to mount the backdrop in place. Still brainstorming that particular idea.
So, with my idea solidified, I ripped out the offending topography.
That's it for now! I always appreciate feedback and suggestions, if you care to leave any in the comments.
Between my busy performance schedule and the kids' summer vacation time, I've not had much time for work around the 'ol train space. I had some time today, so I decided to try out my new double-action airbrush I got on eBay for $15.00.
#2 was in need of a more detailed weathering job, so I went at her as follows:
1. Light fade coat of Grimy Black
2. Ash and steam scaling with Light Concrete
3. Undercarriage dusting with Earth
4. Highlight Drybrushing/streaking with a mix of Earth and Concrete
I'm fairly happy with how everything came out, though the weathering is a bit on the heavy side.
The coaches got a light undercarriage hazing with the earth mixture as well; I might do a bit of drybrushing also, since I enjoy the effect.
In recent weeks, I've been working on finishing my flatcar kits from Marsh Creek Models:
The oxide red mixture was actually the first thing I airbrushed with my new brush. Still need to add some touchups and paint the brake staff/hanger a different color. Well, of course, and add the trucks and wheelsets.
Regarding the airbrush; I'm very pleased with the action of the brush, and it lays color beautifully. Really quite a steal, as this is my first double-action gravity feed. I'm spraying straight Polly S acrylic, diluted with several drops of 70% iso alcohol and mixed in the cup. I set the brush around 15 psi for the fade coats during weathering, and at about 20-25 for laying heavier coats. In general, I can spray at lower psi than with my Paasche single-action.
Two tools, found on Amazon, have proven invaluable to my airbrushing process: my airbrush cleaning pot and a bottle of airbrush cleaning solvent. Really makes the process of cleaning the brush and switching colors a snap.
In other news: I found another one of these and couldn't resist snapping her up.
I haven't decided if I'll use another Toma Model Works body kit (like #2), or if I'll keep and detail/repaint the stock body.
I've been taking most of my railroading time to really dial in the land contours of the layout. As I've mentioned ad-nauseum, shaping the terrain has never been my strong suit, so I'm taking my time and evaluating/adjusting as I go. The pace has been very much snail-like, but I want to be happy with the final result.
Here is a general overview of things as they stand now, with some buildings mocked up in place.
The biggest rise in terrain is to the west end of the layout. Here I had originally planned for the cafe and hotel to be adjacent to each other on dual levels, but in execution there really wasn't enough room for the terrain to rise naturally and still have space for the buildings. You can spy the beginnings of the road cutting up the hill; it will eventually pass in front of the cafe and cross over the tracks across the cut in the north-west corner.
I really like using lightweight spackle to contour the levels together; sets up quick, and sands easily.
The East end of the layout will be primarily flat, with the exception of a small rise and cut toward the north-east corner to break up the visual of the tight curve. Here, a yet-to-be named industry will be served by the spur, and the hotel (and perhaps one or two more related outbuildings) will help visually distract from the track at the rear of the layout. Of course, it's also the spot for our depot.
Once I get the final contours in, I'm looking forward to "banishing the pink" forever with a coat of earth-toned paint.
I haven't been blogging much in the past week or so, but I have been attacking several projects on the layout in a haphazard, random fashion. Here's a bit of what has been going on.
4-4-0 Shapeways Conversion
After some time waiting for various parts to arrive in the mail, I started in on my HOn30 conversion of the Model Power N-Scale 4-4-0. This is to be my very first HOn30 kitbash "opus," especially since it will involve DCC and SOUND, and I'm spending a lot of time trying to get all the details of this loco perfect. Step one is to analyze and dry-fit the components, and make decisions on how I'd like the finished product to go together.
As you can see in the photos, I've been experimenting with different stacks and pilots. Both the brass diamond stack and the brass cowcatcher are a bit oversized, and this led me to try my very first stab at creating new parts of a more appropriate size in 3D. I'm currently awaiting test prints from Shapeways.
I also decided this loco would be sound equipped; perhaps it's because I'm a musician, but having sound-equipped locos has been high on my list for a long time. Sound is a huge part of the "visceral" experience of railroading. Having worked for most of my modeling life in N scale, and now in similarly-sized HOn30, the prospect of jamming in sound decoders in limited spaces has been daunting, but I've decided to tackle it head on with this loco. I test installed a Digitrax 16-bit sound decoder to test out functionality and the overall effect.
I have since revived a new, improved speaker that should beef up the sound quotient. More on that later.
Land, Ho!
I've also started building up the landforms on my little layout. I guess I've been putting this off because, as I've mentioned in the past, I tend to have a not-so-great eye for sculpting natural looking landforms. That said, I'm applying the techniques I used on my test module and things are going OK so far.
Using horizontally stacked cross-sections of hill contours seems to help a lot; it also reduces the amount of tedious, messy sanding and scraping I need to do to arrive at the final land contours I desire.
I'm trying to stay productive, while at the same time really optimize my time to work on the projects that strike me as most interesting at the moment. I think the next big layout milestone will be when I can finally not have a giant pink wasteland surrounding my right-of-way...
Yesterday, I had a strange moment that happens occasionally: I had the urge to build a turnout.
I've handlaid many turnouts, all of them up to this point in N scale. One of the big reasons I got into HOn30 is the fact that most of my tracklaying tools can translate seamlessly from N.
I have a secret passion for handlaid track. Track is a model, and should be treated with the same attention to detail and integrity that we give to models of rolling stock and structures. More relevant to my interests is the quest to create "perfect" trackwork; let me explain.
In an idea model world, the rolling stock would glide along the rails and through complicated turnouts and crossovers with the same smooth implication of weight we see in the prototype. Nothing bugs me more than seeing my model rolling stock bouncing through frogs or wobbling over their truck bolsters like bobble head dolls. While there are several aspects to attacking this problem (more on that in another post), step one is trackwork that is constructed with very specific attention to clearances, consistency, and accuracy.
Here are a few tools that really help me in that particular quest:
I've written about it in other places, but this very simple jig helps me fabricate the perfect frog angle. It's just a piece of MDF, with a washer/wignut combo to hold the rails in perfect angle while they are soldered into a single unit. An accurate frog, constructed in this manner, is the heart of a smooth-running turnout.
Here's my other secret weapon: my Mini-Tool-Ginder from Harbor Freight. Best $20 I ever spent. It makes the work of filing point rails, frog angles, and point pockets go from minutes to seconds.
Generally, I knock down my basic rail dimensions with it, then adjust as needed with hand files and wet-dry sandpaper.
While this is the first turnout I've built in a while, I believe I got pretty close to perfect with the dimensions of the frog and wing rails. I'm also being a stickler about cleaning up/filing solder blobs, and I will be filling the gaps in the PCB ties to render them invisible. Little details like this really contribute to a polished, clean-looking finished product.
Another reason for building this turnout is to dry-run an idea that I've been wanting to try out for a while: a hinged throwbar.
I sanded the copper clading off of a PCB tie, then drilled two holes in it. I formed L-shaped "pins" from copper wire, then soldered them to the foot of the point rails. Since there is no cladding on the throwbar, the pins don't solder to it; rather, they "float" in the mounting holes.
Sorry, blurry pic:
Currently, it's not really working the way I want it to; the pins are slipping out and not actuating the points. Getting close, though; I think I need to tighten up the mounting holes.
While I don't have a specific use for this turnout at the moment, doing fabrication and engineering exercises like this is helping me narrow down my techniques for building better trackwork in the future. It's my plan to fabricate several to have on hand for a future HOn30 switching layout that is rumbling around in the back of my brain...
