cooley_boy

Hi Ron, I appreciate your feed back. We are aware of the issues regarding our site as at present there is a lot of back ground work going on to relaunch it which ties in with another announcement being made this weekend. This feedback needs to get back to Richard so feel free to email him at sales@dccconcepts or talk to him about it at Ali Pali this weekend as he writes all the manuals in his own style. We are wanting to change this. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi, It depends on which Alpha product. The Alpha Power if you are referring to that is being released at AP. Most of our other Alpha items can use a power supply other than our own as long as it is within the required power rating for that item. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi All, Browsing through the various threads and can see that there is some confusion here. The overall essence of the Alpha Range as a whole is to reduce the wiring requirements and soldering needs of the layout as a whole as, lets be honest, this is were most faults occur on a layout. The Alpha Box is in effect a universal booster with one of its intentions of allowing smaller DCC systems such as the Hornby Elite, Bachmann ezy Command, and other similar systems to be converted into a 5amp system without having to get a whole new system. The Alpha box is also fitted with a Circuit Breaker and On/Off button to turn track power off without having to turn the whole system off. The Alpha Box can also act as a Booster for a Accessory bus taking amperage off the main DCC system or as and additional booster to any layout and interface for the Alpha main unit for controlling DCC Accessory items on the layout. The Main Alpha unit is a Digital encoder that takes any manual switch action and converts it into a DCC command which is sent via the DCC system (or Alpha Box) down the DCC track bus to the relevant accessory decoders on the layout. This means that you can have a conventional switch panel with all the wiring contained in the panel and not having wires traversing all over the layout like a spiders web because they just connect into the terminals on the Main Alpha Unit. This in turn will connect into the cab bus of the NCE and Roco systems and the Alpha Box. This saves wiring hassle and make fault finding simpler and more time to run trains. The Alpha Switch packs follow on with the wiring saving theme where the switches have LEDs built into them so when pressed it lights up and its wired twin turns off. The switches connect via a plug harness into a central PCB where no soldering is required. On the other side of the PCB are outputs to feed out to the relevant Accessory decoders (switch-D version) or Stall motors (switch-A version) or you can feed it it directly into the Alpha Main unit. Granted this range is quite extensive and a bit bewildering and with note to the current manual this will soon be replaced with a updated version which will help stream line things. The Alpha Central is inspired by the Marklin Central of old and is in effect a pre-finished control panel which contains the components of the Alpha Main and switch units which can connect directly into the cab bus of the NCE or Roco systems and the Alpha Box. There will be another major addition to the Alpha range coming soon at the Alexandra Palace show this coming weekend along with Several other Major Pieces of News which will be of great interest to you all I am sure. Feel free to ask more questions as I am not sure if I covered everything here. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

http://www.dccconcepts.com/lamps-lighting-signals/loco-lamps-etc/6-x-4mm-scale-working-loco-lamps-lms-br-white They are rather good!! Rand

Gaugemaster stock it

rrpicturearchives.net I use this site all the time for basing my car load and weathering for loco as well.

I saw this load and it looked like a simple thing to recreate. The load is made using 0.2mm Thick Styrene sheet cut into strips 26mm wide and cut to varying lengths depending on the prototype. These are then sprayed a gun metal grey and then using a nice reddy brown paint the rusting is made. The trick is to put the paint on the brush then wipe it all off. Then lightly go over the 'steel' and this will prevent over painting them. The wooden supports are made from scale cut basswood timber made by Midwest Products. They are cut to a width of 30mm and painted with a mid brown and wiped with a cloth and then painted with a beige then wiped again to give a nice aged look. The straps are black electrical tape cut into thin strips with a very sharp knife and steel ruler. These are laid over the load after and glued to the under side of the car / wagon.

Its been awhile since I have done any dry brushing as part of the weathering on my wagons. The skill is know what colors will work best, in what sequence they should go and experimentation is also key I find. I have a few timber topped flat cars and so using the dry brushing method seemed the best as I have more control over where the paint goes than when using an airbrush. I started with using a dark brown and then followed with a series of lighter browns made mixing a very pale grey not white. This is because timber is more grey then any other color and timber will weather a very pale beige grey color unless like here on the flat cars where the timber is exposed to oils and rust from the loads they carry they will absorb those colors too. Having done a general cover I went through and high-lighted several timbers in a beige white that is applied using a very small brush and thinned with white spirits. Depending on the look I'm after the thicker the paint will make some timber look newer than others. Having a good mix makes it look like the car's timber is repaired often which there are in real life. Next job is to finish the weathering with the air brush.

Grey maybe but not Rusty brown if new of of the factory.They only get rusted if sitting around for awhile.

Had some spare lengths of rail and time and so I did this....

One of the many loads seen on American rails pipes are easier to model than it may seem but as with all things it just needs a bit of time. I have made one form in the photo but I am about to make some other variants. If any one is interested I will take photos as I make them for those who would like to recreate it. Just let me know. Also practiced making some rusting spots... I over did it a bit when spraying a got a bit to much White Spirits in on spot but I managed to create this nice water stain. Have I discovered something new or is it just me. I will have to investigate further I think.....

That would be great if you wouldn't mind looking at my drawings. Send me a quick email at randcooley@gmail.com an I can sent you the STL files.

So as promised here is my work so far on scratch building my KFA units from Heljan cargowaggons. I have made all the uprights for one car and modified the top of the cargowaggon getting rid of the timber layer and replacing it with a smooth sheet of 0.5mm styrene that has been sprayed rusty brown to simulate the steel plate surface that seems to have replaced the timber judging by photo research. I have made one Bulkhead end but will be looking into seeing if I can get part of them 3D printed to save time and help with consistency. Rand