Piedmont Blues - O scale 2 rail exhibition layout.

[jasond]

Grrreat ... what are your favourite tools for dragging streeks down?  I know, I know ... try some and see which ones you like.  OK, I've got the wife's makeup box ready while she's out .. go!

Jason

[Alcanman]

Great work, Dan.  O Scale has such presence that weathered boxcars, if done well, look even better than they do in HO.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Alcanman

[F-UnitMad]

Great work, Dan.  O Scale has such presence that weathered boxcars, if done well, look even better than they do in HO.

You do soon realise, however, just how much more paint needs using..!!

[DanielB]

Jason,

 

I use the Gary Christensen method, which is detailed in full on The Weathering Shop forums under "The Bucket" section of the forum, or in a video series he did for Trainmasters TV.

 

Basically, for the rust streaks, I build up the initial chips, dings etc with a thin brush and some dark brown acrylic paint.

 

Once that's done, get the tiniest, tiniest amount of burnt sienna oil paint on another very thin brush, and "halo" every single one of the chips and dings with a little oil paint. Not only does it make for great looking rust, but it has a texture to it that helps add to the effect.

 

Once the oil paint is in place, I clean off the brush and then use it to "pull" the oil paint down the car sides, which creates the streaking look.

 

Gary goes so far as to use a brush trimmed down to a nub to "stab" weathering powder into the wet oil paint afterwards to add more texture, but I'll admit I ran out of time to work on the car and had to leave it whilst I went out. By the time I got back, the oil paint had dried.

 

I'll try the powder application on the next one I do.

 

Hope that helps.

[Vanrouge]

Excellent work on your NYC car Daniel, the haloing of paint chips sounds scary to me, any tips on this technique, not sure if I have that steady a hand!

 

Cheers

Nick

Edited June 9, 2017 by Vanrouge

[DanielB]

To be honest Nick, I just use a very fine brush with most of the paint removed and just dab at the chipped paint spots. It doesn't always come out brilliantly, and some of the time I end up wiping it off and trying again.

 

Just practice at it, that's all I did.

[DanielB]

After much head scratching due to some incorrect instructions in the build manual, I've managed to get my 3D printer built, set up and working. I've still got a LOT to learn about it, but after a couple of attempts at calibrating it by printing an N Scale coal car (none of those worked, and I had to take some of the printer apart and put it back together to get things working), I've managed to print out the cab from an EMD SW1500.

 

I've got the files for the rest of the locomotive, and I'm planning on trying to build a working switcher from it, as it has so far cost me pennies for the printing material. If I can successfully do so, I'll have instantly justified the expenditure on getting the 3D printer!

 

 

For the technologically inclined, I would most definitely recommend getting a 3D printer. I'm loving it already, and I've barely scratched the surface.

 

 

 

As you can see, there are currently some quite pronounced printing lines on the model, and some places will need filling in where the filament didn't extrude correctly. On top of this, the tops of the windows aren't great, as the heated material didn't cool fast enough to keep a rigid shape before it set. This is a known issue with printing in PLA on some of the cheaper printers, but there's a pretty simple fix - fit a shroud around the extruder heatsink that directs the cold air from the cooling fan down and onto the extruder nozzle, which will cool the material faster as it leaves the heated nozzle.

 

I don't think you can buy these shrouds yet, however the great thing about the 3D printing community is that they tend to just 3D print their own solutions! Someone on one of the forums for my model of printer designed and uploaded the files to 3D print your own shroud, so that's next on my list of things to print!

 

If I was excited about the possibilities of the printer BEFORE I got it, now I'm truly over the moon. Once I've got it figured out, I'm going to 3D print soooooo much stuff!

[JAMO]

This morning I took a photo in natural light to give a better idea of the colour balance.

 

 

Waow! After a few days off, I discover a very nice and realistic car!

 

Very good work of weathering Daniel!

[DanielB]

As I've been showing off the 3D printed loco cab, I thought I would show the motive power for Piedmont Blues, starting with Southern Railway #2132.

 

The only photographs I've found of the prototype locomotive are from AFTER it was repainted into Tuxedo Black. As such, I'll be using reference photos of other RS3's in the green scheme to weather this locomotive up to the wear and tear typical of the locos in the run up to the repaint program.

 

 

I am going to try and find out as much as I can to turn the model into a Southern prototype, as I'm sure there are variations from the "standard" ALCO locomotive, as is usually the case.

[DanielB]

Not a lot of progress on PB recently, as I've been arranging for the sale of West Allen Street, and planning on a 10' N scale layout I need to build for the Derby NMRA meet in October.

 

That said, through bargains from Nick, Jason and Brian - as well as whatever I found on the trade stalls - at TVNAM this last Saturday, I came away with the following for the O scale fix...

 

Trucks, wheels and couplers - LOTS OF THEM!

 

 

 

 

Tank car parts:

 

 

 

 

Hopper car parts:

 

 

 

 

A brake wheel assembly:

 

 

A free copy of O scale Trains magazine - thanks Jason!

 

 

An Atlas signal tower:

 

 

A free plug door boxcar, minus wheels and couplers - again, thanks Jason!

 

 

A Pecos River Southern double door boxcar:

 

 

An Atlas Central of Georgia boxcar:

 

 

An MTH 2-rail converted Great Northern Tank car:

 

 

And finally, an Atlas high nose GP35:

 

I now have enough spares to fit all my freight car kits and boneyard cars with trucks and couplers.

 

Lots to do!

[NickBrad]

I need to complete my OO and HO layouts before I think about the larger scale, but one day, one day.

[Tove]

Hopfully the boxcars will get some use now.....so i`m glad you like `um  Dan.

 

I don`t know if your aware Dan,but you can download back issues of O scale trains.( #1 throu #59 )

 

http://oscalemag.com/wordpress/covers-contents-1-59/

 

And for anyone that thinks you can`t build a nice small bedroom sized layout,then check out the 13 part series that run`s from the Jan/Feb 2005 issue through to 2007.

It`s very nice indeed!!.

 

Brian.

[F-UnitMad]

The Pecos River boxcar should be worth a fair bit, assuming it's brass? I hope you got a bargain, Dan!!

The Atlas GP35 is interesting; it has Alco-style trucks by the looks of it, not the usual EMD type. Must be correct to prototype.

[mikjd]

The Pecos River boxcar should be worth a fair bit, assuming it's brass? I hope you got a bargain, Dan!!

The Atlas GP35 is interesting; it has Alco-style trucks by the looks of it, not the usual EMD type. Must be correct to prototype.

 

Pecos River also made plastic boxcars, and it looks like one of them. The majority of Southern GP35's had AAR Type B trucks.

Edited June 22, 2017 by mikjd

[DanielB]

Southern GP35's had mostly Alco trucks as they were traded in with EMD.

 

There were a few with EMD trucks but they were rare.

[Zomboid]

The blankness of the short hood looks a bit wrong. Not saying it's inaccurate, but an unrelieved surface like that feels very unusual on a second generation loco. It kind of needs some doors or louvres...

[Tove]

The blankness of the short hood looks a bit wrong. Not saying it's inaccurate, but an unrelieved surface like that feels very unusual on a second generation loco. It kind of needs some doors or louvres...

The short high hood`s on Second gen EMD`s are quite plain,that is apart from the brake lever/wheel for use when stationary/shutdown.

Though i think some or all of the southern loco`s had a filler of some sort on one side or tother,plus walkway lights.

 

Brian.

[F-UnitMad]

Southern GP35's had mostly Alco trucks as they were traded in with EMD.

There were a few with EMD trucks but they were rare.

That happened on the Soo Line with their GP30s; they received trucks from traded-in Alco FAs, I believe.

 

Edit: I didn't know Pecos River did plastic cars. Wish they'd done a 'plastic' CF7 - I might've been able to afford one, then!!

Edited June 22, 2017 by F-UnitMad

[DanielB]

Oooooh, CF7!

 

Now where did I leave that 3D printer?

[DanielB]

It's been AGES since I've looked at anything O scale, but I've recently started work on an On30 micro layout to try and kick my interest back into gear, which seems to be working. As such, I've been browsing around for bits and bobs which might be useful for the micro, and by extension PB.

 

This morning I placed an order with Kitwood Hill Models for some of their kits designed for On30, but which would work just as well on a standard gauge layout.

 

I ordered their Trackside Hut, some furniture, and a quite interesting looking structure called Broach Supplies. I'm thinking of using the latter on the spur at the back left of PB, to represent a timber merchant - kitbash the underneath of the building, remove the loading dock and add lumber racks along the underneath of the office and warehouse building above. I think it should work in where I need to put it.

 

See what you think. There's a week lead time on orders due to the kit being made to order, but I can wait.

 

Edited October 1, 2017 by DanielB

[DanielB]

Quick update for this morning to say that I'm looking into the wonderful world of Dead Rail for power on Piedmont Blues.

 

As I'm already heavily invested in LiPo battery power for my other hobby - airsoft - it seems a no brainer to me.

 

£66 for a BlueRail Trains Blue Horse board that you hardwire into your loco, wire up to a reed switch connected to a LiPo battery, and it does full locomotive control AND sound, and uses a smartphone as a throttle with zero other kit requirements beyond a bluetooth speaker for the sound output?

 

Why am I still using DCC again?

 

I'll post up my progress on how my experiences with Dead Rail go.

 

In O scale, I see no reason to go for any other control system. Granted, sound is a LITTLE basic at the moment but that will change over time.

[DanielB]

Just ordered a Blue Horse and a 9pin JST cable from Coastal DCC.

 

I already have a battery at home, I just need to get myself a mini Tamiya connector out of my airsoft spares box to connect to the black and red wires on the JST cable to connect the battery to it, and that's it.

 

Wire the rest of the connector to the locomotive motor as I normally would, add lights and other accessories to the other function cable, and I'm done.

 

I just found out that the sound functions for the locomotive can play THROUGH YOUR SMARTPHONE! So the throttle plays the locomotive sound. On a small switching layout I wont need underboard speakers.

 

This system just keeps getting better!

[DanielB]

Good news! The BlueHorse arrived a couple of days ago. I'll have a go at installing it into my Weaver RS3 sometime next week, I think.

 

This last week I went to York for a day out, and found a model shop that sells Atlas O scale. It would have been rude not to buy anything, so I came away with this:

 

 

With the O scale bug nibbling away at me once more, I decided to get the NYC boxcar out of it's box and carry on with the weathering. I've done some more on the car ends, roof, and the other side of the car which - up until now - had just had the green fade wash applied. It now looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I decided to make a start on the trackwork, and - after printing out some Fast Tracks templates, I built a Number 4 turnout. It's a little messy, but it works perfectly.

 

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

'Messy' trackwork is Good.

Edited October 9, 2017 by F-UnitMad

[DanielB]

Yeah it is! I plan on PB having your "patented"(?) style of trackwork.