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jkristia
Engine Wiper
Premium Member
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 11:25:20 AM
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wow, sitting on top of the keyboard really shows how big the building is, it is huge.
Jesper
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Country: USA
| Posts: 315 |
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Bbags
Administrator
Premium Member
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 Posted - 06/29/2008 : 11:39:07 AM
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Well with two day's left in the Challenge I see a flurry of activity taking place.
First, welcome Mark and look forward to your modeling now and in the future.
I am in the final stretch run and aside from a few small details that need to be added and some final weathering to smooth out some rough spots I should also be able to finish.
Tim and others,
I know the blue really stands out and I am going to try to tone it down.
Frederic and any others who have finished,
Please post your model in the Final Pictures thread if you haven't done so already for you have completed the basic structure.
Again the modeling on these pages is spectacular and I would like to post an early (2 days to go) THANK YOU to all those who have participated.
We will be running a new Challenge in July and some of you may be able to use the model that you have constructed or are constructing in this new Challenge.
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John Bagley
Modeling the Alaska Railroad in HO in Wildwood Georgia. |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 13050 |
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mecrr
Engine Wiper
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 1:57:59 PM
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John, this challenge has been an inspiration and what I needed to finally get off the pot. The three small models I completed got me started and gave me the confidence to begin Henry's Tavern (a.k.a., Saulenas' by Bar Mills).
Unfortunately, the garden, the smoke here in Northern California, and life have prevented me from getting close to completion (it is painted and I am inserting the windows today). Hopefully you new challenge will be me the opportunity to complete this model which will be part of the industrial area near my roundhouse.
Again, thanx for all you did with the start and monitoring of this challenge.
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A Maine Expatriate living in the valley of Northern California - Modeling in HO.
David Stickney |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 224 |
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elwoodblues
Fireman
Premium Member
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 7:35:02 PM
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Mark, Interesting use of different building material on your building. Don't see to many buildings with brick on the first floor and clapboard on the second floor. It's looking great.
Karl, Ludlow's is coming along great, it sure is a big building.
John, the bookstore look great, contrary to what other may think, I like the blue.
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Ron Newby
General Manager
Clearwater Valley Railway Co.
http://www.cvry.ca |
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Country: Canada
| Posts: 4863 |
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AVRR-PA
Fireman
Premium Member
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 7:51:30 PM
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Hi, everyone--
Here's a wrap-up on the Queen Ann mansion I was working on.
I gave up trying to complete the main building within the two-month time allotment and instead focused on the carriage house. Pictures are below.
I won't say this is a bad kit but it is a bad choice for a first attempt at resin kit building. The parts require a lot of very careful sanding and filing - nothing fits correctly out of the box. (We're talking major fit problems - not just a little sanding here and there.)
When I started on the roof, I realized I was in for even worse problems that I'd had with the walls. The problem is compounded by the instructions, which are really, really bad.
So I told the friend who had given me the kit that I was going to have to set it aside for a while and he agreed that I should have started with something with fewer challenges.
I haven't given up on it - I'm still reserving a spot on my layout - but I may decide to scratchbuild the roof in styrene or wood and card rather than fight with the resin castings.
The kit does have good points. The detail is really beautiful in some areas.
Anyhow, here is my "completed model" such as it is. The three larger doors aren't included with the kit. The big front doors were scratchbuilt using material from Rusty Stumps plus stripwood. The rear door and hayloft doors were modified from RSSM doors. The shingles were done using Mike Chamber's method. I painted the copper flashing following Postal Karl's method.
It's been an interesting, educational experience and I wouldn't hesitate to try another resin kit.
Don
P.S. A huge thank-you to John Bagley and the other moderators for all the effort they put into this Challenge. I'm looking forward to the next one.
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Edited by - AVRR-PA on 06/29/2008 7:54:59 PM |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 4594 |
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elwoodblues
Fireman
Premium Member
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 9:32:05 PM
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Don,
Considering the problems you had building the carriage house, you wouldn't know it looking at the final pictures. Great job, you made a problem kit look great.
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Ron Newby
General Manager
Clearwater Valley Railway Co.
http://www.cvry.ca |
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Country: Canada
| Posts: 4863 |
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UKGuy
Fireman
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 10:02:14 PM
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The carriage house looks great, especially with the problems you have detailed throughout the kit construction, I personally would have filed it in the circular folder under the desk, or stuck a stamp on it, good recovery and great perceverance.
Well with 24hrs left I'm going to throw in the towel and admit failure  too much to do, too little time and the boss(me) has said no to taking the day off tomorrow for a last ditched effort at completion. I'll finish the build on the scratchbuilding forum as I have vowed to never again start a new model until the one I am working on is finished........
EDIT :- http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21962
I would like to say a BIG thankyou to John for starting and moderating this challenge throughout, IMO it was a fantastic success. Many thanks to all the participants who shared, showed and explained an unmatched quantity and quality of modelling anywhere I have been fortunate enough to see. The diversity of scale and subject was astounding as were the resulting models. Congratulations and thank you to everyone for making this an outstanding and exceptionally inspirational thread.
Take care & be safe,
Karl.A
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Edited by - UKGuy on 06/30/2008 10:26:03 PM |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 5427 |
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bitlerisvj
Crew Chief
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 10:41:49 PM
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Here are is my Icing Station as it is planted. I may add a few more signs, weathering, etc. as time goes on, but I feel like it is pretty much Complete.
Regards, Vic Bitleris
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Country: USA
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rrkreitler
Crew Chief
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 10:56:25 PM
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Well T-minus 24 hours and counting. I have been away for a couple days and so am a little behind. Due to that I will just have to say “great job everyone” to the crowd rather than pointing out individuals. This really has been a fun thread and the variety and quality of projects has been outstanding.
I will say this: John, I really like the way your shingles came out. Mine did not work that well on this project.
As for me, I have been away for a few days so I decided I had better update everyone. I am coming down the home stretch on the model itself. The diorama still has a ways to go but the model is almost finished. In fact I hope to wrap it up tomorrow. I will continue to post progress on the rest of the diorama as I go. I am going to fall back on the rules for the challenge that state you don’t need to get an entire diorama finished – just the model. I am pretty sure I will finish the main model tomorrow. I will not have all the details placed but I don’t want to do that until I get the diorama farther along anyway.
As for today, I finished up the office and got most of the canopy done. I also spent time cleaning up loose ends like painting the edges of my roofs and touching up areas that took damage while I have been working on the model. Here are a couple shots of the office. Sorry, none of the interior shots came out in focus.
There are interior details although I did not build the roof so it can be removed. The way the diorama will be displayed a loose roof is not ideal. Because the roof is attached I only did minimal work on the interior. When the diorama is finished you will not really be able to see in the office much.
I still have to put the sheet metal on the canopy roof (that will happen tomorrow) and I need to add the hoist to the main deck. I also need to add the pipe connecting the main building to the cyclone that goes on top of the sawdust shed. I don't want to add that until I fasten the sawdust shed down (that has not happened yet). I just started adding the preliminary ground cover to the rest of the diorama. I don't want to fasten the shed down until more ground cover is done.
At this point I figure I have about 84 hours into the project. Here is what it looks like right now.
Previous step in this build:
http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21438&whichpage=70
Next Step in this build:
http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21438&whichpage=77
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Edited by - rrkreitler on 06/30/2008 9:44:22 PM |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 803 |
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Marken
Fireman
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Posted - 06/29/2008 : 11:43:25 PM
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I like the blue the way it is John. You've made good progress as has everyone else.
Looking forward to what you come up with in July.
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| In memory of Mike Chambers |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 2893 |
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UKGuy
Fireman
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Posted - 06/30/2008 : 12:10:04 AM
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Dave the structures look fantastic, I hope we get to see the finished diorama in this or another thread, it is certainly going to be terrific.
oh, I just thought, I HOPE the next challenge is another "Finish a model from the 'shelf'" kind of thing... I have plenty of those ....
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Country: USA
| Posts: 5427 |
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silveradonorthern
Crew Chief
Premium Member
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Posted - 06/30/2008 : 12:35:21 AM
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Hi Everyone,
I see there is a flurry of last minute modeling going on and that is fantastic
To everyone involved
I still hope to comment on each of the finished projects before this thread slips off the first page.
Thanks Bruce,Chris Ron, Pat and Frederic and anyone else I might have missed for your kind words. Frederic I hope the criminals don't get too comfortable in my jail. The town of Cascade is now a little safer for the jail though its mostly drunks that visit it. When the jail is put into the scene I may add one grim reminder to all would be criminals. Frontier law often came at the end of a rope.
Pat to answer your question (if my notes are right) I posted progress pictures on page(s) 1,3,8,31, 46 and one later but can’t remember which one of this thread. I never went into great detail as to how I created the stonewalls for my jail. I guess I thought if someone asked I would do so. Since you’ve asked I’ll try to explain the steps. (WARNING THIS IS A BIT LONG WINDED)
I started by building three wood forms (one for each wall section) out of ¼” x ¼” basswood. Since I knew I might need to pour the wall sections more than one time I coated the wood forms with a couple of coats of polyurethane to seals the wood from expansion when it got wet. As it turned out I was right it took two tries before I got the walls poured and then out of the forms.
Next I cut three pieces of plexiglass 3/32” thick to act as ‘plugs.’ This created the recessed areas in each wall. I then glued the wood forms down to a piece of 12mil vinyl plastic tape to a sheet of glass using weldbound glue. The plexiglass plugs were also tacked in place inside each wood form with the same glue. When the glued had dried I smeared a light coat of petroleum jelly over all inside surfaces (to act as a release agent).
I used a common brand of plaster of paris from the local hardware store and mixed it up using the instructions on the package. Before I poured it into the molds I rapped the plastic bowl on the counter to dislodge as many air bubbles as possible. Once the plaster had set up a bit I peeled the vinyl away. The glue had held but I could still pull everything apart. At first I tried to remove the plaster wall sections from the wood forms after the plaster had set up but was still damp. The plastic plugs came out ok but I ended up breaking the wall sections getting them out of the forms. On the second go around I removed the plugs but let the plaster dry in the forms a few days. I then took the back side of an e-xacto and scoured around the edges between the plaster and the wood forms. With a little work I was able to get each wall out of its form. It took very little sanding to true up the walls.
As for scribing the walls I used a metal scribe sold by general tools. I laid out some pencil lines horizontally on the wall sections spaced ¼” apart. These lines helped me make sure that I didn’t start scribing down hill so to speak. I wanted the horizontal scribed lines to be generally level. For me the problem was more of a bad habit that has been with me since my school days. I tend to hold a pen, pencil or scribing tool with a death grip. After a short period of time the tip of my index finger would get very sore. I constantly had to remind myself to lighten up or suffer the consequences.
What almost brought my project to an end for completing it on time was when I started coloring the walls. I was sure I knew how to go about it. Boy was I wrong. I knew I would be using water base products, and knowing how much POP sucks the color in I chose to seal the casting with a light coat of flat white spray paint. That part is/was right. If I was using hydracal sealing the castings might not be so important.
I work around paint all day and I do know the differences between water base paints and watercolors, but the differences in using them in this case just seemed to elude me. I started off using some thinned down craft paint (raw sienna) to act as a base color. It seemed ok if a bit on the orange side. I wanted a warm tone for my stones so I thought I was in the ball park. The real trouble came when I tried to add colors On top of that. Very quickly things got way to dark. I pondered the problem and then made an eleventh hour decision. I grabbed the rattle spray can and headed outdoors. Five minutes later my stone walls were back to white.
While I was waiting for the paint to dry I went back to the magazine article that had inspired me to create the stonewalls with the foundation and corners (pillars) proud of the rest of the wall. It was an article in the Gazette written by Lane Stewart (Sept/Oct 1994 pg 81) In the article he talks about how he colors different types of stone and brick. He uses ‘watercolors’ not water base paints. Watercolors are much more transparent and allow underlying colors to show through. Water base paints even thinned way down are much more opaque.
For the walls on my jail I started with yellow ochre thinned down with windex. I put it on allowing some of the white to show through, heavy in some areas, light in others. When that dried I used raw umber again thinned with windex and again in a random fashion colored the stones. At this point Lane then uses a dark wash of oil paint around the stones. I was afraid of messing things up with the oil base paint and I didn’t know how it might react with the watercolors so I left that step off. IF I had had more time I would have done some experimenting on a sample piece of plaster but I didn’t. In the end I’m pretty happy with the results. Next time I’ll do much more experimenting ahead of time. LOL
I'm not sure I could have done things differently given the time line. I do know if I'm going to do much carving in the future I'll work out a different tool. One maybe with a wood or plastic handle and a bit larger in diameter. I think that might help me hold the scribe in my hand a bit different. I'm also going to try my hand at using more 'watercolors'.
I hope this helps. I’m sorry If it was too long winded
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| Michael |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 614 |
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LandNnut
Fireman
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Posted - 06/30/2008 : 12:52:47 AM
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The Champion procrastinator has finally done something. I have a feeling that I should not post a step by step description of my amateurish bungling so I will just show a couple of highlights.
I am really cheep so I saved these brass plate weights to use for something else and used some old lead stained glass framing that someone gave me a long time ago back when I was crashing R/C airplanes.
Every kit should have instructions.
My technique for glue control uses any old piece of polyethylene plastic the same as the CA glue bottle to hold my dots of glue to apply with the toothpick.
Glued the ice hatches on and managed to break off two of the stirrups. Oh well maybe that is an opportunity to put better stirrups on.
I managed to loose the brake wheel so I cut this Micro-Trains one and used it instead. The Micro-Trains wheel is finer scale anyway. I found I needed better glue control to glue the brake wheel on so I used the lead stuck way out on the 0.5mm mechanical pencil.
I had to fix the stirrups so I robbed some from a Micro-Trains Reefer kit. It really took some time and fiddling to get the stirrups to work and I am not really happy with the way they turned out. With my clumsy skills I ended up with some large unsightly gaps in the under frame next to the stirrups. When I screwed the body mount couplers onto the under frame the hole in the stirrup frame did not quite line up and pushed the end stirrups out of line so I had to notch out the hole in the stirrup frames.
I had some low coupler problems that I finally figured out were due to the under frame not fully seating in the body so I had to notch out the car body. Another mistake I made was to shave off part of the bolster to try to lower the train car on its wheels to get the wheels tucked up under the body so the car would ride at a more prototypical height on its trucks. This had an unforeseen consequence resulting in low coupler height so I did not repeat that mistake on the challenge car.
Here I am pushing some trucks at an angle on sandpaper to take care of the pizza cutter problem with standard Micro-Trains wheel sets. The giant flanges even clicked on that Code eighty Kato Unitrack seen above. I happened to find some trucks with low profile wheels in my stash to use on the challenge car.
The sanded wheel sets are a considerable improvement over the standard pizza cutters.
This is the stuff I have to weather with. I might have a few other things. Can anybody help me out with some tips on weathering with what I have here or is it hopeless? I am trying not to spend any new money on this project so that is why I am trying to use what I have on hand. I want to weather both train cars. Maybe I can get that done tomorrow.
Final pictures if I don't get the weathering done. Still having problems with those pesky stirrups lining up.
Maybe I did go over putting together this Reefer kit step by step. Oh well I hope this post wasn't to boring.
L&N nut
Jon
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Country: USA
| Posts: 1495 |
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hon3_rr
Fireman
Premium Member
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Posted - 06/30/2008 : 01:19:49 AM
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Great build, Jon. Same also to everyone else out there. I did not partake in the challange, but I have really enjoyed the fantastic jobs which have been displayed. I have also picked up quite a few "tips", like Jon's pencil technique for glue control. Again, great job everybody!
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--KP
Life is to short to make all of the models I want to. |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 4678 |
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acousticco
Fireman
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Posted - 06/30/2008 : 02:30:56 AM
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This is a great thread everyone!
I doubt I'll get my boxcar done before the deadline, but at least I got it started.
Congrats to everyone who finished, and congrats to everyone who got something started!
-Cody
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Country: Canada
| Posts: 1322 |
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