Continuing Saga …

Thank you! I agree Mark. I showed the pictures to one of the fellows that works at Scale Reproductions and he instantly recognized the reference and also holds Hopper as one of his favorite American artists. I guess us model guys like him due to his a) mostly realistic renderings and b) he likes to include railroad topics.

And my copy of Railroad Model Craftsman arrived today (along with my 10 complimentary author's copies) so I suspect it will be in all of your local hobby shops too. Part 1 starts on page 36 and runs for 10 pages. I'll be doing to final proof reading of Part 2 this week. I did see a few points that if I were to write that article today I would have made some corrections especially about using SketchUps layers function. Maybe, I include that in the Part 2 review.

I'll be looking for RMC for sure!!!  Congratulations again!!

I just ran across the tube cap delema while catching up. If you didn't do something yet, a rivet is all you need. A tube is nearly always capped for continuing structural integrity right to the ends, which are far more prone to collapse.

Myles,

your details are just superb. Everything you have done on this layout has been spectacular.

Awesome looking building. Great job capturing the feel for the painting. I thought the brewery couldn't be topped but you proved me wrong. Congratulations, Myles.

THANK YOU everyone for faithfully following along to another long project. Today, the Nighthawks project is officially complete. The building got a certificate of occupancy...

I finished it by doing some more adjustments to the base plate, re-lining the concrete expansion strips, and adding some weathering. I made the 2nd downspout using a 1/8" thicker walled tubing and chemically treated it. I then mounted them to the building.

Finally, I used silicone caulk to glue the building to the base plate. It's base plate is actually a separate piece from the one under the chocolate shoppe and is just kind of taped together so I can remove it if I were to sell it separately, eventually. And then I took some final beauty shots with the Canon and Zerene Stacker focus stacking software to give very deep depth of field without high powered photo lighting. Here are the finished shots with some Corel PhotoPaint work on the backdrop paper. I'm not going to wire the pole to the building until other poles are nearby to run the wires across.

While I was thinking about an article in RMC about this building project, I may have shot myself in the foot. I didn't save any of the original-sized pictures. In other projects, I keep a file of the full-size images just in case I need them for publication. Magazines like to work with big images. Instead, since I post this thread on another forum (World Affairs Board) and they have a 2 mb limit on included pictures, I shrink all my iPhone WIP shots down about 60%. I actually started writing the article yesterday when it hit me that I don't have the full-size images any longer.

So… what did I learn with this project? I learned how to:

1. make a curved window out of heated Plexiglass
2. make a home-made stair railing
3. make O'scale bar stools by having them laser cut
4. design and construct a believable Mansard roof
5. Cobble together Edward Hopper, his wife and the Other Guy from a selection of human parts, a la Dr. Frankenstein
6. make a nice looking old school TV antenna out of soldered brass
7. and take a 60 year-old Model Railroad project, modernize the methods and add a classic America masterpiece inside.

And now for something completely different.

I went to Roundhouse Trains he in Da Ville to give them a copy of the RMC mag with the article (they don't sell RMC at their store, but they should… they do have OGRR), and of course spent time looking all around at cool stuff and then I saw this: a 3 year-old, Sunset 3rd Rail, N&W Y6-b. Stunning! Perfect condition! List price in their current catalog, $1,799.00. I lifted up the tender to see the price tag, since I'm in no way able at this time to buy a nearly $2,000 model engine, and what do I see? $600.00. I inquire as to the veracity of this tag. "It can't be right, can it?"

$600.00! That is the asking price. I wasn't planning on spending my writing commission on a locomotive since there's still so much stuff I have to do on the layout and other buildings to finance. But… how the heck can I pass this up? 3rd Rail engines run like Swiss watches. My favorite engine is my H8 Allegheny and I run it all the time. The owner of the shop tested it and it runs perfectly.

My practical wife asked if I really want to get and engine with all the other stuff, and actually, when all three articles are added up, I will have enough new funds to cover this engine and the building projects. It's a late 3rd Rail product having details like a simulated rope to the bell and needles on the steam gauges in the cab.

I have a nice Winston Link poster that shows this exact engine running down the middle of a small town street at night. It would be very neat to have this engine on my railroad. I have the curves for it. Apparently, it's previous owner was running O-72 and O-60. I, on the other hand, run O-88 on the inner loop and yard track (one spot where there is O-80) and the outer loop is O-96. If the allegheny and my Q2 negotiate curves so should this one. Besides, all my switches are all Ross and either O-96, #4, 6 8 and 11.

The shop is holding the engine for me without a deposit until Thursday. So folks… you've got to talk me off the ledge here. I'm going to York in 3 weeks and would like to get stuff there too. In fact, my tickets arrived today. What would you do? All I have is big steam. I love big steam. I sold my Pennsy E6-B last year since I no longer ran it. It too was 3rd Rail.

 

First, All I can say is, another masterpiece completed!!  It really looks great!

Second, That's too bad about the photograph size.  I would submit an article anyway.  You have so many more 'learning points' than you listed which could be articles in and of themselves.  You could fill several magazine issues with just this project alone!  And we get it with an OGR Login!  Can't beat that with a stick!!

Third, Based on all you said about the 3rd Rail; how could you pass it up for $600!!!!!!!  Especially with your well deserved hobby earnings.  My two trips to York, I didn't spend that much anyway.  Of course, I was just overwhelmed at the whole affair, that I didn't need to buy a thing to make the trip worthwhile.  Besides, I want to see a video of it running on your layout!!

That reminds me; I still have the GunRunnerJohn Will of Hennings Trains LED boards and LEDs that John fixed me up with at the April York for my passenger cars, that I haven't even taken out of the bag.  That was my big purchase.  

Mark, you're always the first with the nicest comments. You never disappoint.

So… what are you wait'n for?! Put those lights in.

I really shouldn't talk. I had to throw out two full containers of epoxy products since the resin turned into a solid in the container before I even used it. I just bought some more. And I think I bought a Rusty Stump's laser cut stairway set that I was "going to use someday" and can't find it anywhere.

I am actually out of models to build at the moment. I had a my eye on some very cool plastic kits to build. I like switching back and forth from structures for the layout and good old big complicated plastic kits. But buying the loco would put off some of that. 

The next buildings in the queue would be the Victorian Bronx structure (laser cut) and I have a decent cutting estimate for it. Then there's the Under-construction Rick House for the distillery complex, and a colossal engine house. I also have plans for building both our last house and the current one we're living in which could be normal scratch-built affairs. 

I have one more model that I've had for probably 15 years. It's a cutaway section of the HMS Victory by Mamoli. It's a sweet little classic plank-on-frame model with just one mast to rig so it wouldn't take too long (famous last words) to complete. I could do that while waiting for the rest of the publication money to show up.

Actually, my hobby spending is almost in negative numbers this year since I sold some trains and funneled those funds back into my hobby budget. So I actually have spent very little of what I normally would be spending out of the household budget. That sounds like a pretty good rationalization, don't you think?

Myles,

Congratulations on your completion of this beautiful piece of work. You've got me thinking about doing the same thing. As someone with an unnecessarily large train collection, I'm not the one to talk you off the ledge about the Y6b. The RMC article is great. Looking forward to Part 2.

MELGAR

Myles,

Fantastic!!!!!

Eclectic, outre, and captivating

Trainman2001 posted:

 

Myles, You are right, and I have several projects to work on besides starting layout construction.  Actually, there is method to waiting on the passenger car lighting.  I need to buy more passengers for those cars, so I can do it all at once.  I know, do one car at a time.  

I'm glad you have some neat projects waiting in the wings too!

Great job, Myles. Congratulations. Sounds like you are taking yourself into buying that engine. 

Sounds like a no brainer to me, Pat!!  :-)

A fantastic build sir! And while $600 is not an amount I'd just throw in the air, for that piece it is not leaping off the ledge, rather skipping a step and jumping off the last one.

Nice feedback from all y'all.

Since I'm really thinking about buying that Y6-B, I decided to clean up the shop and then get one of my other 3rd Rail monsters running after a long hiatus. I bought their Pennsy S-1 6-4-4-6 colossal Art Deco contrivance while we were living in Germany, which makes it about 18 years old already. I had three problems with it. 

• I still had a rechargeable battery and need a BCR
• I couldn't stay coupled with a heavy passenger train when cresting my 2% grade
• It had nickel silver, soldered trim separated from the right side of the pilot many years ago when the pilot contacted an aluminum passenger car on the outside of a two-track curve. I had the two pieces — which were very springy — held with some twisted black iron wire.

Since this engine hadn't been on the tracks for years, I never ran it with the crossing signals in place. Very soon I found that the enormous length of the engine swung the cab to the right coming around the left front curve and it was colliding forcibly with the signal. I had to move it out almost a 1/2" to ensure it had clearance. I'm glad I hadn't finished all the landscaping around that signal...

I replaced the rechargeable with my last BCR, put it on the track to get it working and nothing. Nada! Bubkis! Took the tender back to the shop and took it apart to check all the wiring. All was in order. Put it back on the track without the shell, still nothing. Tried another engine of known performance. Nothing! Ah ha! Looked over to the the control panel to see the indicator light showing whether or not the gate interlock is closed and it was red. Then I looked down at the gate and saw the latch was not seated. Problem solved! I fixed the coupler problem with some Tamiya masking tape wrapped around the tender coupler. Easy peasy. Engine fixed and ran it for quite a while and took this video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_SzUR4-wF4

I noticed that the drivers, even on this monster heavy engine, were slipping when the full train of heavy Lionel hi-scale passenger cars (and one MTH super-dome) was fully on the 2% grade AND was on an O-96 curve coming out of the tunnel. The video clearly shows the drivers spinning faster than the train speed would indicate until the engine gets over the crest.

Now we get to the awful part.

I wanted to check the S-1's box to see if 3rd Rail included another driver axle which was fitted with traction tires to solve the spinning problem. That box was in a pile that was behind the blue cardboard backdrop that I used to shoot the distillery picture which now served as a nice vision block for my storage shelves. I was attempting to move the backdrop to the right, sliding it behind the layout on the left-most end, AND was doing this while the trains were running. I had just pulled out the S-1's box which was on the bottom of the pile, and didn't realize until it was much to late that the blue backdrop paper has separated from the cardboard backing. It was now draped over the tracks just before it enters the bridge curve and the train was highballing right into the paper! I tried in vain to pull the paper back, but the engine collided with it, derailed and promptly left the table along with the tender. Both nose-dived to the concrete right next to the ravine and ended up on the floor underneath the ravine. The next car in the train, a baggage car, ended up wedged between the back of the layout and the wall and was trapped from falling to the floor by the back L-girder.

The engine was a little banged up, but not critical, but the tender took a beating with the bulkhead that supports the drawbar, completed separated from the tender shell, and one axle freed up from the front 4-axle truck. I've success with using epoxy to put 3rd Rail structures back together after catastrophes and did the same here. In this case I used J-B Weld to hold it all together. It could be re-soldered, but that would destroy the exterior paint. J-B Weld is quite strong and should work okay. I replaced the loose axle and pressed the truck side frames closer together since they were spread from the collision which released the axle.

That leads to the nickel silver trim. Since I had to straighten the engine pilot a bit, I decided with my new-found soldering chops that I should actually re-solder those trim pieces and fix it right. I tried with my RSU, but my unit doesn't have the wattage to heat large assemblies. I then tried the Weller, turned up to 5 with the biggest tip I had, but it too did not have sufficient power. That left using a mini-torch powered by butane. That did the trick. I had used a burr to grind off the old epoxy that I had attempted to use years ago, and the old solder exposing some new brass, and then tinned the surface with new solder. Using a needle nose to hold the springy trim tight, I heated the shell from behind until the solder melted. It worked. I then clamped the now-soldered one with a hemostat so it would de-solder and did the second one. I filed off the excess and used some Tamiya filler to close those holes I drilled for that twisted wire.

After the filler dried I mixed some Tamiya dark green and black and nailed a perfect Pennsy Brunswick Green, but the alcohol-based Tamiya acrylic reacted badly with the surface and was forming clumps. I was brush painting it. So I hand brushed some Tamiya lacquer-based primer and after it dried used the same mixture. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. The front trim lip is part of a brass pilot casting is not nickel silver, it's silver paint and was a bit banged up, so I touched it up with the Molotow Chrome Pen. The engine is now waiting on the track for the tender fix to fully cure. The S-1 was one of the largest steam engines ever built, and was the epitome of Art Deco streamlining. Pennsy only built one, but it served as the proof-of-concept for the rigid frame, duplex divided drive that was exemplified by the subsequent development and fielding of the Q1, Q2 and T1. Both the Q2 and T1 never reached their ultimate development due to the conquest of diesel.

So what could have been an absolute disaster, with the wreckage of a very pretty, big brass engine, actually got me fixing that trim which needed doing for years, and it's now another engine that will get off the shelf and pull some trains. I feel much better about buying that new engine knowing that I've put an oldie, but goodie back in service. 

The other point to remember is this. Brass engines, when they have big booboos, are repairable. Die cast big engines not so much. When die cast engines break, you can't solder them, and when deformed, they will probably break when you try and straighten them.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, this is not the first time I've successfully repaired a brass engine. 12 years ago, my then 2-year-old who was in my arms, reached out and grabbed my J1-a as it went roaring by. The 11 pound engine left the tracks and did another nose dive to the concrete, stopping first to hit my lower leg. The shell was separated from the frame below the cab. The Pennsy, top-mounted headlight and supporting bracket was destroyed, and the pilot and left-side ladder were deformed. I epoxied the cab support, got a new PSC investment cast headlight and straightened all the bent things. That engine still runs and looks great. And the tender coupler bracket on this S-1 is also held on by epoxy for years.

And… I should never have been messing around getting that box out of a place where trains were running nearby… unattended. I should have known better.

My next project will be very mundane and not in the least glamorous. I'm going to partially rip up the streets and "repave" them to repair the water damage. I've already pulled off the base plate for Nighthawks and Chocolate Shoppe, so I'll remove Gravely, the Fire house, Saulenas and the Sinclair Gas Station tomorrow so I can easily access the street.

Myles, Thank you for the description of how the mishap came to take place and how you fixed it!  You did a great job!  I agree, that is a big plus for the brass engines!

I am glad your public works department is going to do some repaving!  Winter is coming, and that defective aslphalt will start crumbling once it freezes and thaws a couple times!!!

Yup! And then my railroad would start looking like the roads in Detroit or Philly...

I'm hoping to be able to peel up the old surface and use it to trace the new one. I may go back to using the strathmore paper, only this time use the 3M 99 high strength adhesive instead of the 3m 77 that let go.

Trainman2001-

Those buildings are amazing. 

I just purchased a copy of the RMC with your article at the same Giant Eagle grocery store where I first found O Gauge Railroading back in the spring of 2012.  Just glancing at the article, it looks like a winner!!  Congratulations once again!

That building looks absolutely amazing!

Thanks again. I'm impressed that a super market has RMC, but our local train store doesn't. It makes me happy that I talked about this years ago, and it actually came to pass.

Did a repair today on a very old friends MTH Premiere AC-5 SP Cab Forward. It was mistreated a bit by the grandkids. Not only are no parts apparently available, but neither are any MTH parts lists for this PS-1 version nor any of the later re-issues. The biggest problem was the eccentric crank on the front right engine set was fractured in half at the junction of the arm to the hub. The train store here or in Troy, MI where he lives were no help. I figured if I could get the crank off (both parts including the eccentric rod that is riveted to the arm) I could maybe repair it.

I got it all apart and drilled the hub with an 0.032" carbide drill and another in the severed arm. I needed to check the geometry before I dried the arm. As I suspected, it didn't come directly off, but had a crook bringing the eccentric arm connection point out and away from the hub. I compensated for this when I drilled the arm hole so when assembled the angle would be built in.

I inserted a brass pin of the same size and put it all together with J-B Weld.

I straightened all the deformed valve gear rods too. Tomorrow will tell if the repair is strong. I think it will be.

Speaking of repairs. The J-B Weld was fully cured holding the S-1's tender's bulkhead in place and it was as solid as a rock. If there's one thing wrong with this epoxy is that it takes at least a good 12 hours to get solid (and even longer). you have to patient, but you're rewarded with an amazing repair. I also found that the forward railing stanchions took a hit on the engine and they needed to be reattached. I was going to use J-B Weld for this, but tried medium CA and it worked okay. I then put it on the track and gave it a test run. Everything was back to normal. Whew!

I was running both the S-1 on the high speed loop, and the Allegheny on the inner one. The S-1 was significantly faster and they were running in opposite directions. I wanted to take a picture of the two meeting at the ravine and had to wait for a few rotations before they synchronized at the bridges.

I then started ripping up the streets. I was able to peel the Bristol Board off using a putty knife without tearing it or ruining the foam subsurface. I didn't have to remove all the buildings which made it a bit easier (so far) since I'm doing this sitting on top of the layout. I hadn't gotten to the other end yet when I took this picture.

Here's the old streets along with the Gravely Building which needs a little touch up due to roof damage from the plumbing moisture. I think I saved the "XING" stencil that I used 3 years ago when doing them originally. If I didn't, I'll make new ones since I still have the computer file that produced them.

I didn't remove all the streets. It seems the cross-streets didn't delaminate like the main street did. I had one piece of Strathmore Bristol Board left and was able to trace the longest pieces and cut them out. I need to go to Michael's and  get some more. I'm thinking about sealing both sides of the board with fixative before painting and gluing it down to make it a little less susceptible to moisture. It just an idea. And I'm using water-based acrylic paint which adds its own moisture.

 

Trainman2001 posted:

Thanks again. I'm impressed that a super market has RMC, but our local train store doesn't. It makes me happy that I talked about this years ago, and it actually came to pass.

Yes, isn't it amazing!  Also, that I found OGR at the grocery store, but not in the hobby shop!  Quite frankly, finding OGR at Giant Eagle 6 1/2 years ago totally changed my approach to the hobby!!  If it hadn't been for that, I may have never found this Forum and never come into contact with you and all the other great folks here!! 

It was worth it waiting for the two engines to meet at the bridge over the ravine!!  Looks great!  You will have the streets fixed in no time!!

I'm very happy for your vote of confidence. I made a small step by going to Michael's and getting another sheet of Strathmore Bristol 4 ply for the reaming streets I'm replacing. What I did do today was as follows. 

The corrected eccentric crank cured well and I reassembled the valve gear.

I decided to see if I could power up a PS-1 MTH engine with the tender from a 3rd Rail J1-a. Since they both used QSI control boards I made the (correct) assumption that the pinout would be the same in the connectors. The AC-5's drawbar attachment point and the J1a's drawbar are not compatible so I used a twisty tie to temporarily draw them together and do a test run. It worked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVK0dy_XY8E&t=21s

But it was thumping along terribly. It's not only completely missing a traction tire on one driver in the front-fixed engine, but the other one on the same axle was half off the rim. I went to the local train store and they had the correct MTH traction tire for this engine. 

I do not recommend changing tires on an engine like this for the faint hearted, especially if you're working on the first axle in the set. You must take the engine apart. The rear-articulated engine must be removed, then the chassis must be dropped from the boiler. Then you have to remove the cylinder assembly and finally the main and side rods.

Disassembly and tire replacement was not difficult. When I removed the old tire, part of it was adhering to the groove while other parts were half off the wheel which is what was causing most of the bumping. That being said, getting it back together was a bear!

You have to get both crossheads on their guides almost simultaneously. Then you have to get both piston rods into their respective packing glands, and before you slip in too far, you need to get the valve rods into their respective packing and then slide the cylinder casting home and align the screw holes. This took me 20 minutes (or more) and was very frustrating. I'd get one side in, but the valve gear or crosshead was binding on the other side. I'd fix that side and then the previous side would be screwed up. And so it went. I finally removed one of the main rods completely so the crosshead had more travel to manipulate it into position. And, of course, with all this manhandling, the J-B Weld joint on the fixed crank failed and it's now on the bench curing again. In use it should not fail. It was my twisting and pushing of the linkage that torqued it excessively. I know it was excessive since the connecting link was again deformed and needed straightening. I'm sure that the folks assembling these engines in Korea (or wherever) have a better way to do it. For me it was just brute force.

So… I learned how to change steamer traction tires on a complicated articulated engine. 

I also learned that any QSI powered engine shares the same connector pattern. I chose a J1a since 3rd Rail big engines also have big Pittman motors in them so the current draw would be similar. It was.

I decided to hold off on buying the Y6b for now. When I was at the train store I had the proprietor put it on the test track and run it conventionally, since I don't have TMCC. It ran okay, but you do lose some control with conventional. I was not happy with the headlight. It was very dim, even in TMCC. But the main reason is I'm going to in two weeks with my wife and didn't want to spend my money before going. Why go if you're not going to buy anything. My commission check came today from RMC for Part 1, so I have the funds to buy the engine. I'm just not so sure yet. Besides, it's not going rush off the shelves. It's a big engine and requires big curves and most fellas don't have them, so my guess is that it will be there if I decide that it really should be on my railroad.

I find that MTH digital engines run better in conventional than TMCC engines. I have 3 PS-2 engines that run and sound just fine in conventional. I only have one TMCC engine and this would be #2. I don't know if two engines are justification to buy TMCC. I've wired my entire railroad with home run wiring so if and when I decide to get DCS I just have to plug it in. I suppose I could get DCS and run TMCC through it and then I'd be ready to go. I also may convert some of my older systems to digital… maybe.

in looking at last photo you posted with drive rods and cylinders in place it appears if you take the 1 screw for brake out and remove brake assembly and then remove the first bolt where traction tire is and loosen the others you could slip the new tire on and used a small straight bladed screw driver to install the new traction tire.

like I said it appears it can be done that way? so how does it run now without the thumping?

Don't know about the thumping since I have to wait until the crank is fixed (again) until I test it again. My guess it will be smooth running.

The problem was not only the brake rigging, which I did remove, it was the side rods too and the cross head guides completely seemed to block access to the whole rim. If it was the rear driver it would have been much easier.

I got the Cab Forward back together and restored. In addition to putting the newly repaired running gear back on, I did a thorough cleaning and oiling, and repainted the chipped and damaged white running board striping. Now I just have to figure the best way to get it to Sterling Heights, MI.

I then got the last street piece cut from the new Bristol Board I purchased last week and masked all the road markings. I had used some 1/8" masking tape when I did the original streets, and found some left, but not enough to do the entire job. Also the tape was very old and was losing its grip. So I cut 6mm Tamiya masking in half and used that to finish up the job.

I mixed up a batch of Artist's tube acrylic paint to match the dark gray I used originally, since I'm not replacing all the streets. I then put on one coat with a sponge paint brush and let it dry overnight. Tomorrow I'll do a second coat, and if necessary a 3rd. Instead of painting the lines, I just let the board's natural white be the color. After the painting I'll age it with a light spray of Nato Black in areas where tire rubber would be more prevalent. I have to replace all the manhole covers and put in the sewer inlets and it will be time to put them onto the layout.

I’m glad you got the cab forward in great shape again!

I want to commend you on the Railroad Model Craftsman distillery article.  While I have no experience with the software you use, I found your description of its use and problems you solved to be interesting.  It was humorous how you described your grandson showing you a simpler way to fill in all the brick pattern.  I think you gave the average person who is so inclined the background to give it a shot on a much simpler building for a first try.  

I commend RMC for publishing your article on how a craftsman can use up to date tools and methods to build a building that may be hard to replicate using traditional materials, tools, and methods.

Thank you Mark for that thoughtful and complete review! You seemed to have drawn everything from the article that I intended and that makes me very happy. RMC is definitely on the right track for those that really want to push their skills higher. It reminds me of the old Mainline Modeler Magazine. I've kept all my MMMs for reference. While it clearly is HO oriented, they're not afraid to put an occasional O article in.

Myles, I’m glad I was able to get out of the article what you intended.  I’ll be looking for the second article when it is published.

Part 2 will be at the newsstand at the end of October. I haven't seen Part 3 yet to proof. I expect it will be coming at the beginning of November.

Put the 3rd coat of brush-painted artist acrylics on the road material. It turns out a tad darker than the connecting streets so it will look like a freshly paved street which is quite normal. I also started fixing some other delaminated areas that are not being replaced. I bought some Liquid Nails Project Adhesive to glue the Bristol to the foam substrate. I checked to make sure it didn't affect the foam. Some construction adhesives do. In the image, I just threw the streets down to see how they fit. 

They a bit glossy and they needs some weathering which I'll do with the airbrush off the layout. The water-based acrylic caused the Bristol Board to curl a bit, but I'm sure that the adhesive will hold it down. I think I'm going to tape the four road pieces together so they'll be aligned before gluing to the layout. 

There was a spot in front of the Idaho hotel that was delaminated about a scale foot. I first tried Aleen's but it didn't really hold to the foam and after I took the weight off of it, it popped up again. I then used the Liquid Nails and it held nicely. The street is no longer at the height of the porch steps.

 

I finished repairing the Gravely Building by putting in a rectangular piece that filled in a notch in the base plate and then repainted the total paving to sort of match the Nighthawks paving color. I then added one more telephone pole and replaced the fire hydrant that had broken loose. The arrow shows the new base piece.

I wanted to move the passenger train out of the way to give more access to the town area. When I powered it up, there was a short. After investigating, I noted that the tender coupler's uncoupling thumbtack on the Big Engine was dragging on the center rail. What was going on? When I lifted the tender I found that the coupler mounting bracket had broken loose…AGAIN. I had epoxied this years ago when the solder joint failed. This time I'm using J-B Weld. It's curing now and we'll be all fixed tomorrow. I also replaced the temporary masking tape coupler fix with a more permanent small cable tie to keep the couple from opening…ever. It's a good joint since it has tabs the extend into the tender's frame.

Tomorrow I'll finish up the street job and put the S-1 back in service.

Then, I'm taking another break from railroading and building another big model. This one is the Tamiya 1:32 F4U-A1 Corsair Bubble Top in 1943 US Marines color. Like I did with the Avenger, this one's going to have a bit of extra work especially in dressing up that beautiful R-2800 radial engine which Tamiya has done a nice job replicating the prototype.

 

This road repair work lets us see some of the buildings you constructed here.  I forgot about The Idaho Hotel; one of my favorites!

Have fun on the Corsair!

Mine too. I didn't put in an interior on that one. You really couldn't see it anyway, but it would have been fun. 

The J-B Weld fused the coupler bracket cured perfectly, only one problem. I installed it backwards. There is a notch on one side. I saw the notch, but it didn't register why it was there. When I tried to re-attach the coupler, I found that the round shank end bumped into the bracket and wouldn't let the screw align with their holes. So… that's what the notch was for. I needed about 3/64" more travel. A little time with the Dremel and a small sanding drum created a half-moon shaped relief that let the couple settle in where it belongs. I then ran the engine around and around and it worked perfectly. It's one of my two most repaired engines which doesn't help their resale value, but I really like them so they're not going any where.

I was then able to park the Big Engine (really… that's what PRR called the S-1) on the high line and out of the way of all this road work.

Speaking of road work. I erased all the center pencil lines and touched up any white area that has some masking leak. I then taped all four pieces together, laid them out on my big cutting table and air brushed first some Model Flex Refer Gray down the entire street to add some variety to the texture and then with some Tamiya Rubber Black but this time paying more attention to the driving lanes.

I couldn't find the sticker sheet I had made of manhole covers so I had to go to the MacBook Pro and make some more of them. I had kept the JPG file that had the images, but had to re-size them in CorelDraw and print them out again on Avery Label paper. After printing I shot them with some artists fixative spray.

I sized them to 30" after doing a quick research project on Google to find out "What size are manhole covers?" 30" is 5/8" in O'scale, so before sticking them on the road, I drew circles of that size opposite the storm drain inlet location. I used this circle as a guide to paint a gloss black circle around it and the sewer inlet openings that would simulate the tar sealant around the edges. Then I stuck down the manhole covers. 

I found my "XING" stencil I used years ago when laying the streets the first time. I put some MicroMark PVA on the back to give it some stick, put it in place and masked around it with some newspaper and rattle can sprayed it with Tamiya Matte White. I did this on both ends of the street.

With the road all taped together I put it back on the layout. It's curling pretty bad with being painted on just one side. The color matches pretty well now.

Tomorrow I have to figure out how to glue it all down. I'm not worried about the construction adhesive being able to counteract the warped paper. What I am concerned about is the sequence of gluing it all down. I will probably take the street apart since I don't trust the tape to hold those critical seams. That will make it easier to put each piece in place since I have to work it from both ends since I can't lay across the whole layout from one side. The layout is open in a little portal between the two bridges at the opposite end of the street in this image, but I have to get to it by scooting under the layout on my creeper and coming up in the opening. I start laying the road from this end since it's fit back into the space is critical and the entire street is spaced from this end. The hardest piece to glue down is the long middle one (obviously).

 

Trainman2001 posted:

Tomorrow I have to figure out how to glue it all down. I'm not worried about the construction adhesive being able to counteract the warped paper. What I am concerned about is the sequence of gluing it all down. I will probably take the street apart since I don't trust the tape to hold those critical seams. That will make it easier to put each piece in place since I have to work it from both ends...

Myles,

I hesitate to offer you, a master modeler, suggestions. My method for doing the street pieces would be to put them into their exact positions on the layout and place weights on top of each piece to hold them tightly in place. Then, remove just one piece at a time, apply glue, and fit it up next to the adjoining piece. Then proceed to adjacent piece. Am looking forward to reading your follow-on articles in RMC.

MELGAR

I take all good suggestions and that sir, is a good suggestion. I have a pile of bricks in the garage left over from when our house was built. I used them when gluing down all the track and will use them again.

I forgot to mention that my 40 year-old Badger single cylinder diaphragm air brush compressor has finally stopped working. The pressure switch or the diaphragm has failed and the unit is running continuously. I've been looking for one for at least 6 months just waiting for this little guy to finally give out. I want one with a reservoir and pressure adjustment. I've been airbrushing for 40 years at the same pressure which is ????. I have absolutely no idea. I did put a moisture trap on it years ago.

Every compressor made by every company all seem to use the same units made by the same Chinese manufacturer so I'm going to get one that's not hiding behind a name brand and marking up the prices accordingly. There's a nice twin cylinder no-oil piston compressor that is less than $120 on Amazon. The reviews are the usual mixed bag.

The street will look great.  I have a bunch of bricks left over from whe my wife’s grand parents had this house built in ‘68.  They are handy for all kinds of things.  I picked that up from my dad, his bricks are over 100 years old and still do the job.

I bought a new Pasche compressor from my LHS on Friday when the 40 year-old Badger finally stopped behaving. But I'm having a problem with the new one and put up a separate post on it.

Meanwhile, I did get a rare Sunday "work" session on this chilly, drizzly October day. I glued 2/3 of Main Street into position. I would have got it all glued, but I ran out of heavy stuff to gravity clamp it all down. I didn't want to rush the drying time since it was so critical that the edges really glue tight. The edges were warped upwards and took a bit of pressure to ensure that they were down tight. In the first second I used my mechanical heavy objects. As I moved along I used some of my bricks.

Here's the opposite view.

The Liquid Nails seems to work okay. I did have to reinforce the very forward edge of the first piece near the tracks with some thick CA. Upon closer inspection, I may have to go around and add some strategic CA to keep the edges in place.

Once all the glue is set, I'll use some filler and clean up all the junctions. The new streets are just a tad narrower than the old. I thought I was tracing them as carefully as I could, but some error crept in. Better too small than too large.

Tomorrow, I'm taking back the compressor tomorrow and then finishing up the street job.

This morning I got the last piece glued down. It wasn't set enough this afternoon to take all the weights off, so it will stay put until tomorrow. I did start spackling the big seams between the old and new streets. I masked the line work near the gap to cut down on the cleanup. That too will be dry tomorrow and will need another coat since this stuff shrinks. I thought I had some light weight spackle laying around, but it was gone so I used joint compound.

The streets are fixed and Nighthawks is in place and wired. I worked all afternoon painting the patches, putting in storm water inlets and getting the buildings that were moved re-situated.

I got a pretty good color match on the artists acrylics to do the spackle painting. I masked the white lines so they wouldn't get painted over. The new streets look just as beat up as the old ones, only they're not all delaminated and actually are flat. It's actually a better match than I expected. Those very light areas were cleaned up with a damp paper towel after I took this image.

And here's Nighthawks all lit up and where it belongs. These are iPhone photos.

I took some other shots using my depth of field software. These aren't as good as I like it, and if (or when) this becomes another article, I'll have my friend shoot some more professional looking images. These are shot with a Canon EOS with an 80 to 210mm zoom lens.

This is the last post for awhile. We're taking our annual York Show trip and then onto Philly to visit friends and family.

Looks great all in place!  Have a great trip to York and Philadelphia!!

The building looks fantastic, Myles. 

The building and lighting are fantastic Myles. Glad you got to fix up the streets.

Andy

Thanks guys! Back from the York Trip and didn't buy anything… I'm keeping my powder dry for some more laser cutting work on the next crop of buildings coming up. 

News Flash! November issue of Railroad Model Craftsman arrived at my house today with Bernheim Part 2 in it. This time, I actually got paid BEFORE the magazine arrived. Life is definitely good. I haven't received the proof copy of part  3 yet and am eagerly awaiting it. 

O'scale Trains is now also owned by White River Productions and there is a new editor. I wonder if they still have that prohibition of publishing articles where some of it has appeared on the Internet? I somehow think they don't. RMC has no problem publishing more of my work since according to the editor, "it speaks for itself", but they don't want to publish with too much frequency. I don't blame him, so… I'm wondering if O'scale Trains would be amenable to publish alternatively?

Andre Garcia just re-connected yesterday. He's been out of the country for months. I made contact with Doug Pitney of Todds Architectural Models to talk about laser cutting the Bronx Victorian, but we're having file transfer troubles. He typically doesn't charge for the cutting per ce, but instead, charges to build the structure. I only want cutting since I build my own. This sort of threw him a curve.

Welcome back!

I will have to get back to Giant Eagle and look for Bernheim II.  That is good they got you in the payroll system so to speak.  Maybe you can work something out with O Scale Trains.  I hope so.

I'm glad Andre is back.  Yes it seems he has been gone a very long time.  Interesting about Doug Pitney that you are the first to just ask for the laser cutting.  Maybe he will connect on the next pitch!  

News update: Andre is going to cut the Bronx Victorian and I will be building this one specifically with publication in mind (meaning: good focus and backdrops).

AND… I just edited Part 3 of the Bernheim article. It's another 10-pager. I wasn't expecting that. I found one error. I had inadvertently sent a picture of the fire house in the batch of distillery pictures and that picture ended up in the article with a caption about how good the windows look when they're fully installed. So I went down to the layout and took a series of high f-stop shots to get reasonable depth of field and sent them last night. The editor needed the proof back before today. The new pictures worked and part 3 is going to press as I write this. As I noted before, I made a lot more in writing about this project than I would make if I sold the building. Interesting… ain't it?

I'm now writing articles about the boiler plant and Nighthawks. With O'scale Trains now owned by White River (same as RMC), they may have forgone their prohibition about publishing articles that have appeared (in one form or another) on the Internet. RMC doesn't seem to mind.

Congratulations on another collaboration with Andre!  I’ll look forward to seeing the Victorian come together.  I’m glad you are getting published.  I think you have a lot to share with any model builder.  You show what can be done with state of the art tools, but also show many traditional tools and materials and their use.  Another thing is you show ways to solve problems that come up.  There will always be mistakes that need fixed, unforeseen issues that come up, and you have something to teach any modeler.  

You know, I’ve seen the phrase “continuing saga” for many years, and just for fun, I opened this thread, and low and behold, what a wonderful tale, of many great structures, and old streets, and a corner building where one could eat, drink, and be merry....So cool, the folks are having a Grand Ole time, just enjoying their food and drinks.  In fact, myself being from Louisville Ky, reminds me of Main Street, down Louisville.....I think the Roundhouse Hobby Store is off Brownsboro Road....Wow, small world, as I used to work at 110 East Main st., Belknap Hardware And Manufacturing Co.....Wow...Myles, Congratulations on a job Well Done...Keep on with your Continuing Saga, it’s cool....Happy Railroading..

Thank you my loyal readers!!!

Roundhouse is not only there, but is now about four times bigger than it used to be. There was a small self-publishing company that backed up to their space that moved and Kevin (the new owner) rented it and expanded the store hugely. It's now a first class fully-stocked train store.

Where do you live now?

Andre Garcia is cutting the Bronx Victorian as I write this, so I expect the parts to arrive next week. I will, however want to continue building the Corsair because it's a great model and Tamiya kits are a pleasure to build. 3rd Rail sent some shoulder screws to try and put the lead truck back onto my S-1. Unfortunately, none of them worked… thread size too big. The actual screw is 2.5mm. I decided to fix it myself. I bought some Allen 2.5mm cap screws at the LHS today, and then machined a bushing that would serve as the screw's shoulder thereby letting the truck bracket slide back and forth while the screw was tight. It's 0.130" d X 0.145" deep with a 0.100" hole (#39 drill). It works and I gave the engine a good test run, so hopefully nothing else terrible happens to this star-crossed engine.

When I start the Bronx building you all know that I will post all the details. I'm also writing an article about building the Nighthawks Cafe that I may give to a different magazine. We'll see.

That's a good fix for the S1!  I'll be looking forward to seeing the Bronx Victorian come together!  Hopefully we will see some other articles published!!

Parts will be here on Monday, but I won't start working until the Corsair is finished. Meanwhile, I've got about 3/4 of the Nighthawks article written.

Speaking of the Corsair and just for fun, thought I'd share some images of WIP. The Tamiya model is a masterpiece and deserves a lot of care and attention in its construction.

Unfortunately, you see almost none of this beauty when the fuselage is joined. Notice how tight the seams are; no filer needed. The kit is an engineering masterpiece.

Ignition wiring is 0.021" brass wire from a mesh on the top of a bottle of Montepulciano D'Abruzzi Tuscan Italian wine. Finicky work getting the wires into that fragile plastic ignition ring. The engine is the legendary P&W R-2800 18 cylinder radial that powered the Corsair, Hellcat, Bearcat, and Thunderbolt along with the twin engine Tigercat and Martin B-26. It was a hell of an engine.

Engine is so nice that it almost seems a shame to bury it in the airplane. The kit includes clear cowling parts if you wish to show it off, and I can also build it with panels in an open position.

A reader of the RMC article contacted me with a request to be coached on using SketchUp to draw this building which he was to build an N-gauge version for his layout. He lives in Alaska.

It is the railroad station in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It's on Google Earth and I was able to get some more pictures of it on Street View. The trouble is that it's a very complicated little building and would be an impossible first SketchUp project. So I offered and he accepted that I would simply draw it for him and make an n-Gauge 3-view drawing for him. It took about four days to draw. This pic is as-drawn in SketchUp. The plot plan was taken from SU views and imported in CorelDraw and scaled to n-Gauge.

This is rendering done in the Podium plug-in on SU.

I also uploaded the SU model on the SketchUp 3D Warehouse. I don't intend on building this, but if anyone's interested, I can provide drawings in other scales. I already have a nice train station.

Here's the station as it appears on Google Earth,

Have fun!

 

 

I only see the last two photographs, but I know from seeing it in person and in photographs the Gettysburg station is a very interesting building!  The drawing I can see is excellent!  Having scratchbuilt in N scale years ago, It would be interesting to see how much detail he can include in N scale.

I'm back from visiting my son and family over Thanksgiving in State College, PA. He's building a new home and we got to see it just a few weeks before completion. It's an amazing project and we're very proud of him.

Here's those missing pictures. We'll see if my luck is any better this time. This was the n-Scale plan I created from the SketchUp model.

This was an actual image taken as a screen shot from Google Earth Street View.

Now onto some more current news. I'm eagerly awaiting Bernheim Part 3 in RMC. I expect it some day this week. And the Bronx Victorian parts arrived today from Andre Garcia at River Leaf Models. I did a quick check on it and found a couple of errors I made, none are show-stoppers. The large side wall without windows is about an inch too long. Apparently when I shortened the building's length, I forgot to do it to this one wall. I also think the floors are not right. But both of these require CUTTING SOME MATERIAL OFF, which I am very, very good at. So all the parts are here and as soon as the Corsair is done I'm getting to work on the next interesting project.

Here's some of the small parts showing the chimney layers. The checkerboard pieces are the tile trim that goes under the front store windows. I'm not sure what interior this building will get. Perhaps and art gallery. I have an appliance store slated for the other corner building I've got. There are more windows than I need since I didn't reduce the count when I deleted the 3rd Floor.

Here's the wall with the 3D printed parts placed for the photo. Notice the Flemish Bond brick design.

Meanwhile, the Corsair is a terrific build and I'm going nuts on things like the hydraulic lines for the landing gear stuff. I painted the bottom today and will have to pick out details like the black rubber flexible hydraulic lines, etc. The Tamiya detail in 1:32 is just plain awesome.

Oh… an my AFib came back. Annoying but not fatal. I'm on anti-coagulants so no threat of stroke. Have an appointment on Monday.

Welcome back!  You sure have a lot going on!  The parts for The Victorian building look great!

Thanks Mark! Incidentally, I recently re-edited my first post in this Saga to reflect what's been going on for the past 5.5 years, if anyone is so inclined to read it… again.

Love the corsair. Just dont forget to paint the builder plate on the main housing for the engine...

P51, Thanks for the reminder. The kit includes a small PE plate and a decal for just that purpose. I have to remember to put it on.

Trainman2001 posted:

Thanks Mark! Incidentally, I recently re-edited my first post in this Saga to reflect what's been going on for the past 5.5 years, if anyone is so inclined to read it… again.

Trainman2001:   So I noticed your message to Mark about re-editing the 1st post... 

I don't usually go back 50 pages and start reading a thread, but I am glad I did.   I am still in 2013, but it's great reading.   Love what you did with the GloorCraft Coaling tower,  I also built my own coal chutes out of Styrene, but never got back to install the chain hoists to operate them... I may be emailing you for a few close up photos, and pointers on the coaling tower chain hoist details, as well as the adjacent sandhouse .   

Great Job on this whole thread, I have stopped in from time to time, but never went back to the beginning.    Thanks,   Chris a

I went back to read what you rewrote in the first page.  That is a good introduction for someone new to your Saga.  I remember doing what Chris is doing after finding your Saga years ago.  I think I got in on the action back in the layout design and build phase.  It has been a great ride!!

Thanks guys. I sometimes go back and read it since you lose just how much freaking work goes into creating something like this. If you haven't done so, Chris, you might want to look at the real beginning on the Track Planning and Layout Design forum where I start with an empty room, paint the walls, put Tyvek on the ceiling and get the platform built with track and power so I could run a train. The Scenery Forum starts at that point with the ballasting.

It starts here:

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...-vs-old-build-thread

It began February, 2012. THAT'S ALMOST 7 YEARS! And I'm not done yet. I have a couple of years to go. That could scare a lot of prospective railroad builders away from the hobby. If you want "instant pudding" don't try and build a 39 foot railroad. If you're going to start a 10-year project, you better start now since if you're my age, the odds start stacking up against you that you will a) be healthy enough to do the bending and twisting necessary to wire it all up, or b) that you live long enough to see it's completion.

Where we used to live, the retired superintendent of schools was a craftsman who built live steam model locomotives. They too take years to complete and he admonished me to start as soon as I could since many widows sell off half-finished engines started by their dead husbands. 

But hey… enough gloom and doom. I'm still able to get underneath and wire stuff up.

 

I went back to the link of the Old Build Thread.  Looks like I made my first comment on 3-17-13.  There is no way of knowing how long I was following before commenting.  I joined the Forum on 6-21-12, so I found you pretty early on.  The part I remember best is when you were working on the rolling swing-out access and Clem gave you ideas on how he did his.  That is a great example of the value of this Forum from a technical point of view.  The other best value is all the friendships we make; and many time we will never meet face to face in this life.

Thanks Mark! It's very true that I receive as much as I give. Each major project has benefitted from input from the gang. Of all of them, the substation wouldn't even have been built at all like it did without lots of constructive input, even to getting the article published at all.

I follow a forum called RC Scalebuilders.com. It captures work from the best scale model flying RC aircraft in the world. It's truly international. I've been following Barry Dallwig's A1-H Skyraider for years. He's been building this masterpiece for over 11 years. It could be the most accurate flying model of this plane in 1:6 scale in the world. It even includes a remotely opening canopy. My point is, these places on the Internet gives us the opportunity to share with people we would have never even known existed let alone met. Like how I do it, many of the builders publish complete details of all aspects of the build, warts and all. It's where I learned how to do it. Barry, before he retired, was a fire-fighting helicopter pilot in California. He's glad he's retired. He's very instructive and shares all the wonderful techniques he uses. Good role model!

Myles, That is a great tribute to following Barry as a role model.  Sometimes the ugly is the most instructional.  How you recover from a mistake in modeling or design is huge!  The best of modelers will make mistakes or think of better ways of doing it while building or right after.  The ‘If I had it to do over again, I would.....”. Great role model indeed!

While waiting for some final stuff to dry on the Corsair I started working on the Bronx Bldg. I have to say, I did one really, really good thing, and one idiotic screw up. Par for the course.

First, let me describe the really good thing. 

The front right corner of the building needs to be a miter joint. And it's a miter of 1/4" MDF so it's a pretty thick piece to put an accurate 45° angle on it. I was looking longingly at a 4" belt/disk sander combo on sale at Harbor Freight, but never could pull the trigger. Then I was thinking about turning my portable belt sander upside down in my woodworking vice, but the table where the vise is mounted has and overhang that makes it a bit unstable and I would have to put some temporary legs to keep it from toppling forward.

Regardless, I needed a fixture to ensure a good angle. I made a fixture from scrap wood where I cut the angles on the Chop Saw and they were dead on. Incidentally, those side pieces are leftover L-girders that were originally constructed in the early 1990s when my son and I were attempting to build an n-Scale layout just before he was off to college. They were then incorporated into the railroad when I returned from Germany and before moving to Louisville. And here they are again doing something useful.

I needed to extend the to-be-mitered edge just the right amount. At first I set the fixture on a piece of MDF that same size and pushed the workpiece down until it touched the table surface, but when I tightened the clamp bolt, it lifted the fixture slightly and put the piece out a bit too far.

So instead, I marked the miter on the edges and aligned the marks with the fixture base and carefully clamped the block.

And instead of attempting to use the power sander where the fixture would be hanging out over the edge, I glued a piece of sandpaper to my ultra flat granite surface plate and just sanded it by hand.

And boy! Did it work. Took a little elbow grease, but created a dead-even miter right to the very edge.

Now to the screw up (which I did recover from). I had checked the parts as soon as I got them last week and realized right away that the blank, big right wall was too long. When I reduced the building's length, I must have forgotten this piece or… maybe I reduced it by the wrong amount. Either way, it's my problem. The laser is dumb and just cuts what I drew, and clearly, I drew it wrongly. So I put the big wall next to the long window wall which is opposite and marked it for stock removal. And then I cut off the excess. These two walls are the same overall length to the tip of the mitered edge.

No big deal… right? Well…It was. That's because when I put all the pieces together temporarily, I find that I CUT THE WRONG FRICKING EDGE!!!! I cut the amount off the bottom! And now the wall was too long in length and way too short in height. It's almost a square wall, but not really AND there is a specific cut on the top front edge that sets up the angle for the Mansard roof., which I had not paid any attention. DOH!

So I had to get our my board stretcher. Man! It's sure easier to cut stuff off than to put stuff back!

I cut a piece of ply that was almost the same thickness. I don't have a circular saw, and to rip thin pieces on a chop saw is a great way to rip parts of your anatomy. So I cut the piece first on the scroll saw and then, using an edge sanding fixture that I built a long time ago to prepare balsa skins on the bomber, I sanded a true gluing edge.

I clamped the piece to some steel rules to have the outside flush, and then glued it with Aleen's followed by thin CA. Any gaps remaining will be filled and sanded and the patch will be invisible. Whew!

The new height is again correct. Then I put the entire building together with clamps and angle blocks and got ready to mark off the actual amount to remove from the big wall. This image shows the actual overhang that needs removing.

So once again, my impatience is my downfall. Maybe not impatience. It just didn't register that I had the wall rotated 90 degrees when I was measuring for the excess. By using a miter at the front corner gives me perfect brick alignment and I don't need a cap strip to high the 1/4" MDF end grain. On the opposite front corner, the front wall overlaps the big side wall and that corner will get filled and made to look like a seamless joint. The back wall goes between the long front and big side wall and it too doesn't involve any brick work. The building's back and side are painted white and I'm assuming to be a cement layer. I've got some exposed brick on the back wall to add interest.

This image shows how the walls fit together.

BTW: Here's the Corsair one day from completion. I have to finish the prop, add the antenna wire, and put on the very delicate pitot tube. It was a wonderful model and Tamiya's engineering is stunning. If something doesn't fit perfectly, you've done something wrong. In addition to the engine wiring, I added hydraulic lines in the wing fold and landing gear well areas. The paint is Life Color acrylic, gloss coated for decal application, and then air brushed Tamiya clear flat. The finish came out very nice.

The color scheme is early 1943 when the plane wasn't being used on carriers since it had some landing difficulties (which were later corrected). It bounced too much and the pilots had a poor view forward due to the long nose. (Fuel tank is in front of the pilot). To rectify the visibility problem they raised the tail wheel 7 inches and raised the pilot's seat. Tamiya included the taller tail wheel for a different (later) version of this plane.

It's funny, but the F-35C also had similar teething troubles with bouncing on carrier landings and the hook not grabbing the line. Those problems, too, were fixed.

I don't weather my modeling excessively. I just added staining from exhaust and guns, plus some dirt around the landing gear. Corsairs were almost entirely spot welded so there's not much panel detail to add.

One more day of work on it and I'll be on Bronx full-time. There's roof filigree that is in the mail to me. Andre cut it over the weekend. Between the architectural details and the roof decor, this building's going to be very special.

 

I was reading this before I joined I think. Finding it again was pretty great. Even when I took breaks, or don't have much to say (imagine that, lol) I lurk and read. Regardless of the color, the Corsair will always remind me of one of my favorite tv shows; about Pappy Boyington & the Black Sheep Squadron. Nice job

It is one of my favorite aircraft of all time and I too, liked that show. I saw Robert Conrad in a lounge at some airport or another back in the late 80s.

Here's the plane which I completed this afternoon. If you're really interested, here's all the build pics in PhotoImage website, which BTW: is the easiest to use and fastest of all the photo sharing sites I've tried.

https://postimg.cc/gallery/1azqi0zrk/

Now back to the Bronx building. I made all the size changes that I've found (so far). Besides the big wall being too long, the 2nd floor was too long and too wide. I hadn't taken into consideration any of the 1/4" wall thicknesses. I then cut it too narrow by one wall thickness (don't have a clue how I blew that one), so I took a piece of my nice German tempered hard board and cut a correct one. BTW; that piece of German stock was used for the fascia boards that I had constructed when the layout was first built in Germany, but didn't get installed until the RR was back in the USA. I don't throw away any wood until it is absolutely unusable. Almost every scrap finds additional use.

I filled the board stretcher section of the big wall, sanded it once and gave it a second coat. I'll finish this up next week.

After getting everything sized, I used a surface gauge and scribed the 2nd floor location on all four sides and glued on some stops that will hold this floor. I made sure I didn't put them into the corners incase I want to add some corner reinforcements.

Here's the "new" 2nd floor that I had to cut after I over-cut the laser cut one.

To sand square edges, I mentioned yesterday that I have a tool that I made up to sand perfectly square edges on balsa wood that is butt-glued to make wing skins for large scale RC planes. Here it is. Eventually, you have to replace the sandpaper which is done by removing the clamp screws holding down the sanding fence. It's a 1 X 3 milled trim board screwed to a 1 X 6 base board. The sand paper is wrapped around the 1 X 3's edge and then it screwed down clamping the paper to a square edge. Depending on the grit you choose decides on how fast the stock is removed. I'm using a pretty fine paper. I need this tool since I'm making long cuts with a scroll saw. I keep thinking about getting a small circular saw just to facilitate doing more structure work.

I have to decide on what base color I'm going to use for the brick work. I don't want it to look exactly the same as the distillery or Nighthawks, but I have to decide soon since I want to do the brick work before I glue the building together.

And… the "wrought iron" enhancement came from Andre today. They look terrific and will further add to the elegance of this structure. It's cut from laser board which gives great definition and is tough. Much tougher than wood at this gauge. I think I'm going to epoxy some fine brass rods to the tall details every so often to provide pins to affix this to the roof. I should have drawn long tabs on some of them so they could have been laser cut.

I've sort of had a flash of introspection today. I realized that I really am an industrial designer and not an architect or engineer. I think of the finished product and draw it. And I draw it well. But… I don't define how it's all going to fit together. This detail is a perfect example of that. I drew the detail, but left off the means to hold it to the building. Same goes for the how the front window assembly is going to go onto the building. I have all the frames drawn and laser cut, but didn't provide a way to hold them to each other or the building. I'll have to do field mods to accomplish that. I originally went to Michigan State in 1963 to be an Industrial Designer, not an engineer or architect. So I guess I'm being true to myself. I wish I did more planning on the engineering side. It would save me some serious anxiety. I'm not even sure how I want the roof to fit. Should it go down inside the walls or sit on top of them. If it sits on top, it raises the height bit and may confuse how the cornice details are going to install. Get the picture??? When an industrial designer designs a car body, he/she really isn't so concerned about how it is to be made. There may be a feeling about it, but it's not detailed. That's up to the design engineers and then the manufacturing/production engineers to actually build it. That's me!

 

If any of you watch CBS Sunday Morning, the segment on the Bronx Documentation Center and the two photo journalists killed in action, is the very building upon which my compressed version is based. There was a brief image of the building before restoration in the early 90s, and then all the rest were interior shots of the exhibition they're holding for the two men. Quite a coincidence wouldn't you say... 

Myles, I'm enjoying the build of the Bronx building. I think this will be a beautiful building when finished. The Corsair turned out really nice. I read the book Baa Baa Black Sheep about Pappy Boyington. I found it a very interesting read. I also enjoyed the TV series. 

Myles, The Corsair looks great!

Once again, your transparency and self analysis really help those of us who haven't tried building anything remotely as complex as these building models you are drawing for Andre to cut for you!  How you recover from a mistake or oversight are the most teachable moments.  Board Stretcher!  I love the term!!!

Hi Myles, all signed up on this forum to follow along. Not thrilled about joining another forum. Hope they get the problems ironed out on WAB. 

I know how you feel, but WAB was just getting no worth the effort. It saves me 15 to 30 minutes a day since I don't have to resize the images. When I post on Fine Scale Modeling's site, I have to upload all the pics onto PostImage and then cut and paste the web address of the picture. And it's a pain in the butt, but I can then take the entire thread, pics and all, and cut and paste into WW2aircrafts website, so it's not an extra burden, and I don't have to resize the images into PostImage. I like WW2aircraft since it's a very international group and there's some great European and Australian modelers on it. WAB was the outlier requiring this 2mb and 5 images per post limit. The limit here is 100mb. That's more like it. So… with all that being said, I'm glad you're here to follow along!

Visit to LHS took some of my "work" time today, but I did do some stuff. I moved the Corsair to a lovely showcase at the hobby shop. Scale Reproductions has a lot of very fine models on display from some exceptional builders and I am pleased to among them. I bought some supplies including Tamiya Red Oxide Primer for the brick color. It's a lacquer and goes on easy and dries very fast.

For those of you looking for the December issue of Railroad Model Craftsman which contains the final episode of the Bernheim series, they had a mixup with their printer. Instead of receiving my copy of RMC, I got the December issue of Railfan. And my LHS didn't get their's either. I talked to them today and it's all worked out.

I also printed out some specific details from the SketchUp design for the cornices and corbel arrangements and the storefront. Which brings me to today's challenges. I don't know where my head was when I drew up the front and right hand walls and then had them cut. Everything about the store front window openings were wrong! The right side opening was way to low and the lower lip was too low also. The intermediate pieces that make up the lower sill were correct but there weren't enough of them. The main window opening on the front wall was too high.

So I had to cut here and pack out there which took most of the 2 hours that I was working. 

I did spray the red oxide, probably prematurely, since I then had to start gluing and hacking to change the shapes of those openings and the paint got a little banged up. I'll go back and do it again after the front two walls are joined. I built up the low places using various thicknesses of ply and basswood strips so the front and side wall sill and openings were exactly the same. I also finished filling the extended edge on the big back side wall. The repair will be totally invisible.

In this image, the walls are matched on their top sides and are in an upside down position. I'm not worried about the missing bricks on the lower portion since this is covered by the simulated etched tile facing. All the rest of these fixes will be hid by layers of paneling and cornices.

I also had to modify and add pieces to the lower sill pieces that will be affixed to the base board.

I just went back and actually spent some time moving all the pieces around in CorelDraw to see why I blew the measurements so bad. There are more corrections coming based on that analysis. The doors and windows added together from left to right seem to extend out past the building's envelop. I will need to correct that. I may end up scratch building one or more of the front windows to get it all correct. If I need to I can remove a little stock from that brick edge of the left side, but I'd rather not.

For some reason, I thought that the lower sill on the right side wall needed to extend out past the building's corner. Now that I went back and looked more closely at the SketchUp drawing I find that this isn't correct either and I will trim it back to match the building corner above it.

So what happened? I neglected to build the model in CorelDraw. I did this with Nighthawks, which was not laser cut, but neglected to do so with this building. If I had done so by moving the pieces into contact with each other, I would have immediately seen that it wasn't adding up. Eventually, I will figure out how to do this BEFORE I spend $$$ getting it laser cut. Again, the laser is stupid and only does explicitly what I tell it to do.

Here's one of the detail images sitting on my workbench.

Work will continue tomorrow getting it all correct.

I stared at the corsair build picks till I fell asleep the other night

That's "slightly" ( ) more detailed than my last version, lol.

and a very nice job too. I

I'm so glad it was so relaxing for you! 

We had lunch out with our daughter today so I didn't get to "work" until 3:00. I am still adjusting the lengths and widths of these _Y%@_ walls and floors. I am nonplused that I got so many of them wrong. I don't know what I was thinking. The big wall was still too long. All the floors and ceilings were wrong. Luckily they were long, not short. Nothing appears to have been short. But the changes were made and I was able to get the walls glued together.

I went back to SketchUp and spent more time working on the store front especially paying attention to how the windows will be fit together and learning more about the cornices. 

I glued the miter walls and the big walls as two separate items, and then after they were set, joined them together.

I have a picture frame clamp that I used for one edge, and the corner clamps for the other end when possible. The big walls are one story higher than the brick walls so the corner clamps can't be used for that joint. I also employed some machinists angle blocks and big Quickie Clamps to squeeze it all together.

This picture shows the clamping and the Quickie clamps. I too care to get the edges to coincide and when I pulled it from the clamps I added filler to that edge. I want that edge to disappear. You can see the completely filled lower edge that was finish sanded yesterday.

The miter corner was held with a corner clamp on top and an angle block and small Quickie clamps.

All these joints have a bit of thin CA run down them to add to the strength and provide additional holding while the Titebond II glue sets up. It lets me unclamp sooner.

I put the four walls together again using various clamping schemes, and this is drying overnight. I think I would have had less tumult with the building in its original size. It was when I cut it down that I started losing control of the fits.

The difficulty with laser cutting bricks into MDF is the fragility at the extremes of the miter. You can see that some bricks have broken away. It's just a thin layer. I'm going to attempt to fill the gaps and re-scribe the mortar lines after the fix is made.

 

TRAINMAN2001, the building, held together with those clamps is going to be Beautiful. It certainly takes a lot of time and patience to build individual structures for your layout.  Your title, Continuing Saga, is so appropriate. Keep the articles coming, add a few pictures of your layout as I am sure it’s very nice. Happy Railroading. 

Thank you for that fine comment!

Building came out of the clamps within about 2mm of perfectly square. The first floor plate fits a bit tight at the front, but works. I'm going to have to modify the big front windows. Based on my test fitting of the two front doors, the center window is about 1/8" wide. I may end up scratch-building a new window. I made a new little right hand front piece since the lower wall on right side was still protruding out past the building line. I cut it back (with a miter to complicate things a bit) made a new piece that mates with the miter and bends 90° back towards the doorway. The floor plate extends past the door to form a small step so the return piece needed to be 1 floor-plate-thickness shorter than the front wall.

I attempted to fill the broken brick work at the mitered corner and when dry, used a micro razor saw to re-scribe the mortar lines. I then shot it again with the Tamiya Red Oxide Primer.

I sanded and filled all the flush joints formed between the left side and back walls. I then filled these with Squadron and then Tamiya solvent-based model fillers. When dried I sanded them flush. Those joints will be very hard to see.

The slant portion of the blank walls has a step that should line up with the tops of the bricked walls. In the front left corner, the step was a bit high so I took a diamond file and leveled it. The one at the back right corner was a little bit low so I filled it with UV-cured (Bondic) resin and filed it level also.

It's easiest to do the mortar application when the walls are as bare as possible, so it was time to do it NOW. I use drywall joint compound and have described this in several buildings before on this thread, but each time I do it I refine my process. I just smear a little pile on various parts of the wall, section at a time, and squeegee it off with, in this case, I piece of light ply that has a nice straight edge. I then go back and use a single-edged razor blade to scrape off the rest of the excess.

I force dry it with the hot air gun and then take a damp paper towel to wipe off the film that remains behind. I will probably do this again tomorrow after it dries some more. Instead of using an alcohol or other wash on the bricks, this time I'm going to seal it will matte lacquer. I don't want this building's brick aged too much. I want it to look like it was recently restored.

I started the mortaring with the little bit of exposed bricks that I had etched into the back wall. I wanted to test using the ply and razor combo to scrape it clean. I'm going to paint the blank walls an antique white.

I then did the big side wall and finally the front wall. I do need to retouch the broken bricks that didn't get fully repaired.

I couldn't help but put that eyebrow over the window to again see how cool it looks. All that patch lumber over the window area gets completely covered up with some complex trim. These two pics show that pesky little extension that sticks out of the lower corner of the right side wall. It was that piece that needed to be cut back. Again, I'm not sure why I thought that had to protrude past the building line.

I wish I had the patience or steady hands to paint the inward facing bricks a dark purple color to make them stand out. I've seen this brick pattern when they use contrasting colors. It would be a pain-staking job and I should have done it before mortaring.

Here's a detail shot of what that cornice work is going to look like.

 

 

The Corsair is amazing!!!  

I'm watching the Bronx Victorian with awe, too.  

George

It is shaping back up nicely!  Yes, I know what you mean about the color of the inward facing bricks on lots of buildings.  It would look great, but wow would that be tedious!  I like the eyebrow as well.  Really neat!!

Thanks for the nice comments about the Corsair and the BB (Bronx Building). With the Corsair safely in the display case at the hobby shop, I won't be able to break it by picking it up all the time to look at it.

Short session today. I touched up the brick corners and, while they're fixed, they could be better. I put a coat of fixative to stabilize the paint and mortar in case I want to add additional weathering. Incidentally, looking more closely at the prototype, the brick work has a lot of variability. Almost anything goes. I then brush painted Apple Barrel antique white craft acrylics on the two non-brick sides. The corner seams are effectively invisible. The antique white gives a good stucco feel.

The building lacks a back door. I think I may cut one in the back corner of the big blank wall which will be the place where the dumpster or trash containers will go.

I also have a hankering to design some 0'Scale kitchen appliances of the 1950s variety to have 3D printed by Rusty Stumps and populate the appliance store which I bought as a prebuilt building when Frank Miller broke up his railroad 10 years ago. I already have the flashing Zenith TV sign from Miller Engineering that I bought years ago at York.

Spent the session today fiddling with floors and the mansard pieces. Everything needed adjusting, but in the end I think I've got it where I want it. I forgot to have the upper roof cut so I made it out of 1/8" Masonite after I fit the front and side Mansard pieces to figure where the intersection points would be. My cut got a bit undersized, but it will not show and I'll be able to correct it moving one.

For the attic floor I needed some ledges to support it. I drew a line around the back two walls with the digital calipers and then moved that line down the thickness of the attic floor and scribed another line. It was this second line that the ledges were aligned with. I use Aleen's and then follow up with thin CA since it was difficult to clamp. I always have to check myself that I'm accounting for material thicknesses when putting stuff together. If you want the top edge aligned with something, you'd better put your glue line below that one material thickness. It's easy to forget.

The attic floor was laser cut and needed some slight mods including changing the position of the opening for the tower. Again I had to ADD wood where it was missing. I'm getting good at this…too good! This piece now fits like a glove.

At first I thought the front Mansard was butting up to the left side and mounted a bracket to support it, one ply thickness behind the end. After fitting it, I realized that the Mansard sits in front of the slant roof edge and goes to the extreme left edge. So I popped that bracket off and found I no longer needed it since there's sufficient glue surface on the wall edge. Notice the angle I sanded onto the lower lugs that support the bottom Mansard edge. I set the belt sander table to the mansard angle and sanded the square stock so it gives good glue surface.

The side Mansard is a flimsy piece so I need lugs on the attic floor and lugs on the top edge to support the top roof. When it's glued together it will be very sound.

To support the top roof again I needed ledges on the back two walls and lugs on the tops of the Mansard walls.

The top roof fits okay, but there are gaps on the front and side. The building is slightly out of square. It only shows up when I'm trying to fit a square piece into it. I had to adjust and adjusted too far. If this fit was critical, I'd make a new piece, but it's all going to be covered with "tar paper" so if I use some scrap to fill any gaps, it will all be okay.

All of these parts are just sitting there since nothing can be glued in up top until interior details are addressed. I'm thinking of making the first floor an art gallery like the prototype is and I'm designing the partitions for the insides. I want to fit all that and the lighting before gluing anything together. I can make it so the first floor pushes up from the bottom, but the ceiling lighting needs to be done. Hmmmm…. I could make the base and the first floor ceiling push up from the bottom. It would remove the need for floor ledges. I would have to break them out or have the first floor ceiling 1/8" lower. In that way, I can finish up all the wall work on the upper floors. I want to put on the fish scale shingles BEFORE the walls are glue in since it would much easier doing that while they're flat.

As I've said before: With scratch-building a unique structure, there's no fancy instruction book. You're writing it as you go. I have to keep doing things in my mind to figure out what goes before what.

 

I like the way the building is turning out, Myles. 👍

"As I've said before: With scratch-building a unique structure, there's no fancy instruction book. You're writing it as you go. I have to keep doing things in my mind to figure out what goes before what."

So true.  You can't think of everything until you encounter it!  However, experience has given you the knowledge to hold back gluing until everything is in.  Just with the parts sitting there, we get a good feel for the bulk of the finished building!  Looks great!

Myles, I would like to digress a moment to the Bernheim Distillery articles.  I just finished the third article.  I missed the second, so I will have to look for a back issue.  Excellent work as I expected!

I would like to make a couple comments.  First, I appreciate what you wrote on page 35, "I quickly developed enormous respect for the kit makers out there...Anytime a part didn't fit, it was not the cutters fault; it was the designer's."  How true!  Perhaps we have gotten to the point of taking laser cut kits for granted to some extent.

Second, the last sentence on page 43, "Combining good modeling skills with the ability to design buildings makes for some great modeling fun!"  I think you did all RMC readers a great service showing how the design software tools can make for some great modeling.  Yet old tried and true tools, materials, and methods still come into use on this kind of modeling!

Congratulations of getting the articles published!!  Thank you!

Amazing stuff!

Peter

Your work is Fantastic. Your patience and attention to detail is great. Keep the pictures coming. Merry Christmas....

Mark, believe it or not, I still haven't received either my subscription copy or the author's copies, so other than the original PDF sent to me back in the beginning of November, I haven't seen Part 3 in print. I did get paid, so I can't complain too much. Their printer accidentally sent the wrong magazines to the wrong subscribers. I got an unsolicited copy of Railfan, which is also a White River Productions mag. And I thank you for your thoughtful review. You get an "A" on you book report.

And thanks to all the other fellas that have commented recently. It definitely keeps me going.

My persistence (not patience) was in full display today when I made a new roof that would fit better. Of course I measured the length from the wrong point and this second attempt was about 3/8's too short. I added a chunk of Masonite with a  bit of lateral reinforcement with some thin ply and then cut it to the RIGHT length. I still needed a little added filler strip on the rear right corner so the side Mansard made full contact with the roof without any distortion. The roof forms a critical part of the support for both Mansard pieces.

And I finally figured out where the front Mansard roof piece actually goes. It took me three tries to get this right! The way I was previously going to glue it on put the front double-windowed gable way off center. It just wasn't right. I needed to move it right one wall thickness and then remove that same amount from its right end. I needed to add a filler piece on the left so that roof would lie flush all the way to the extremes. The arrow shows the added repair piece. Also, the oval windows now sort of line up with the windows below. I don't know why I had the hole cut in the sub-roof. It serves no purpose and I probably should fill it.

I explored the idea of loading the base and first floors from the bottom, but it really won't work for various reasons, so I to started constructing the interior since it has to go in before all the upper floors. It's going to be an art gallery and I'm probably going to plaster the walls with an eclectic mix of Edward Hopper paintings and PRR railroad art by Grif Teller. It's my gallery and I can put whatever art in it that I want.

I designed the partitions on SketchUp just to get an idea about fit. I made the aisle ways 5 scale feet wide. Each area will be illuminated. I made the partition height just a skoosh lower than the ceiling so they wouldn't interfere.

The let hand partition separates the stairway from the rest of the building. I'm making the left door access the 2nd floor. Unlike Nighthawks, this building does have enough room for inside stairs. I haven't provided any provision to get to the attic yet. I may or may not… depends on how I feel. If they're left as dark spaces, stairs are redundant. The front low wall is just sitting there for test. I still deciding whether or not to actually build a stair. I don't think I'm going to illuminate the 2nd floor.

All the partitions are held together with thin and medium CA. I used the corner clamps to hold the pieces for gluing, trying to be careful not to glue the clamp to the work piece. I had a left over Tichy door which I inserted in a cutout on that end piece. This is a door to a rest room and access to the back door of the building which I'm going to add at the rear corner of the big blank wall. The big partition is glued down, but the others are not…yet. I want to paint them, add flooring, and put the pictures on the wall before gluing them down. I am NOT going to use that checkered floor that I used in Nighthawks. I had just realized that the same checkered pattern is in Nighthawks, Saulenas, and the Chocolate Shoppe. It's also the floor in the boiler plant. This building should have Parquet. I have some that I used in the Victorian Train Station.

I traced these walls on the ceiling so I could lay down the circuit pattern for the LED lighting. I then put the copper in place and cut the circuit gaps where the LEDs will be soldered. I'll do this tomorrow. The arrows show the circuit cuts. I wanted to limit the LEDs to 4 since I'm using a 12VDC source with a CL2N LED driver. Each LED drops 3 volts. The strip without the light is facing the big windows.

Some other news: I wanted to get some small 1:48 major home appliances 3D printed by Rusty Stumps. I want to use them to populate an appliance store for the one building that I bought complete. I already have the neon Miller Engineering Zenith sign. I downloaded an array of appliances from the SketchUp 3D warehouse and sized them to 1:48 and sent them to Walt Gillespie. Well… the drawings were not done well and needed a lot of fixing before they could be printed. Walt uses a laser resin system which produces very fine high res output. After we got all the drawing fixed, he let me know what it was going to cost. A fortune! It was going to cost a fortune! The resin is $175 a liter and O'scale appliances are actually bigger than you think when you printing 30 of them. I ended up killing the deal and he's going to see if a friend can do them on a filament printer. I may check with Shapeways also. Then there's plan C: making them out of styrene by hand. I previously had downloaded and sized a bunch of Google-searched images that I could use as facings for handmade blocks and I might still do that.

Next: I'm putting the finishing touches on an article about Nighthawks. Like Bernheim, Nighthawks presented some new techniques and learnings so it could be a nice article.

 

I designed the painting for the art gallery. Then found out that our Canon Pixma MX870 Inkjet Printer no longer feels like printing yellow. So the images were basically unusable. I changed cartridges (although yellow was half full) and it was still not printing. Did a deep cleaning and no yellow. I'm left with two choices: pull the print head and attempt to clean it, or buy a new inkjet. Anyone have any good recommendations for a modestly priced, good-print-quality machine that can scan and fax (although I don't use either function very often)?

So… this meant that unless I find another approach to doing the interior, I'm hung up. I re-assessed putting the base and 2nd floor in from the bottom, and found that it would work. This frees me up to work on the entire top areas, windows, etc., and put the interior in bottom-up when I'm ready to do so. I removed the 2nd floor ledges since the 2nd floor will now be glued directly on top of the first floor walls.

I then got to work on the ceiling lighting. The steps to work with the surface mount LEDs are:

1. Test each individually using a power source with the appropriate current limiting resistor on either the positive or negative lead. (the LED calculator shows the limiter on the negative side). You need to do this test since these tiny 3.3mm X 2.7mm packages are easy to kill and you need to know if the circuit doesn't work, that you did something on assembly and not that you had a bum LED in the first place.
2. Tin the two opposing sides of each gap you cut in the copper foil. You can be a little generous here, but not too generous. 
3. Mark which direction is + and -. Place the LED across the gap sitting on the solder with the narrow + side facing  the + end of the circuit and gently hold it there with the tip of a tweezers.
4. While holding the LED in position, heat the foil adjacent to the LED and as soon as the tinning melts and the LED settles into it on that side, pull off the iron. Don't wait around! The LED will be destroyed with too much heat.
5. Still providing some light pressure on the LED, heat the other side foil and do the same thing once the puddle melts.
6. Using your test leads, put the + on one side of the LED foil and the - on the other and see if it lights. If it does, move on to the next LED.
7. If it doesn't you killed it when soldering. De-solder it and get another one.

At the start of the circuit I soldered the CL2N3 LED driver chip. The first one worked for a bit and then stopped, so I got another one. This worked okay so I did wired in the power leads. I brought them up to the ceiling, through two holes, and then back down into the holes. You're looking at the ceiling upside down. 

This is the first driver I installed. Didn't like how I did it, so when I replaced it I didn't bring it through the holes, but did all the soldering on the ceiling's face. This part of the ceiling will be out of sight in the back of the windowless side of the building.

I assembled the walls and ceiling to see what the light level is. My first test had 4 LEDS in the array since I wasn't sure about driving 5 with a 12 VDC source.

I didn't like that shadow cast by the mid-room partition so I cut one more gap and installed a 5th LED. It drove fine with the 12 Volts and eliminated the shadow.

Then the lights went out. When I tested each LED they all seemed to work, but not collectively. Then I noticed that LED #1 was intermittent. The solder joint underneath was not very good and it needed retouching. Then when I retested my lights were distinctly dimmer verging on yellow. What happened? I thought that maybe 12v was really NOT enough.

I went into my electrics box and found two 19 volt computer power supplies, one Apple and one HP. I cut off their ends and prepared them to drive my circuit. Remember: The CL2N3 driver doesn't care what the voltage is between 5 and 90, it just puts out 20ma to drive LEDs. The Apple power supply produced no voltage. I wonder if it's regulated in someway that it doesn't produce power unless the load is a computer battery. Any ideas?

The HP supply produced a steady 19.5 volts so I hooked it to the circuit which lit momentarily and then died. Again, I checked each LED and suspected that something happened to the driver so I replaced it. I also killed an LED when I accidentally connected my direct voltage lead to it and not the one protected with the 470 ohm resistor. So I replaced that one too.

I didn't want to use that heavy unit again so I went back to the 12v unit and guess what? All the lights were bright. I suspect that the poor solder joint was limiting the voltage in the circuit before.

Here's an upshot showing the lights all lit.

With the lighting working, I shot the walls with a coat of Tamiya Gray primer, masked the LEDs and sprayed that surface also, and then hand brushed three coats of antique white on the ceiling. It's now done and will wait for the rest of the interior to be finished including putting artwork on the walls and something on the floors. I might make the floors bare concrete with is used in lots of restored buildings like this one. There's a bit of electrical tape protecting the Driver and I put a small cable tie underneath as a strain relief. I also tie a know in the cable where it exits the floor to act as an additional strain relief.

Depending on when I get the new printer will determine when the interior is finished. So I'll be working up top for a while. At the end of the week we're heading back East for the Holidays. And on Thursday, I have a stress test and echo cardiogram to get a better idea why this Afib is being so stubborn.

 

Got a new printer today. It's an HP Envy Photo Printer 7858. Costco had this $180 printer for $80. Couldn't resist. I bought a two-pack of the additional printer cartridges. Unlike Canon, where the print jets are part of the machine and you replace an ink reservoir, HP's nozzles are integral with the ink reservoir so you get new jets each time you replace the cartridge. That should solve the clogged jet problem that trashed my Canon printer. The cartridges are move expensive due to this added technology. Also, the color inks are all in the same cartridge, so when one color runs out, you've got to replace the entire cartridge. I looked at the Epson with its oversized ink reservoirs that you fill from a bottle of ink, but the printer, even though you save a fortune on ink cartridges, was 3X more expensive than comparable HPs. Furthermore; I really could imagine making one heck of a mess refilling with those bottles. I read a lot of reviews and some folks said it wasn't as convenient as Epson made it seem. The new printer has a fax and copier. The fax is a non-starter since we know longer have a land line to which to connect it. It was a snap to get installed and immediately found both of our laptops and I was printing with it in 10 minutes.

And I printed the artwork in full color. My first set of images was too big. The paintings came out to almost 6 scale feet wide in some cases. I could only get three on the biggest wall, and on the partition walls, one or none. You'll notice that I painted the walls a sort of yellow green pastel shade and mixed up some concrete color for the floor. The floor is no where near as dark as it's showing in the picture.

I air brushed the walls and brush painted the floor since I didn't feel like masking and the concrete didn't need to be as smooth as the floors.

With the smaller art work, I think the wall looks more like a modest art gallery. I think I'll add a baseboard to clean up the wall/floor interface. I also prepared some graphics that I think I turn into decals to apply to the walls and store front. That wall is 11 scale feet high So the pictures are about eye level to an O'scale person.

Tomorrow is cardiac care day with my echo cardiogram and stress test to see about the Afib. Depending on how all that goes, I may or may not get into the shop. If I don't, that will be all the work until after New Years, since we're leaving on a holiday trip on Friday. And if I don't post, everyone have a safe, healthy and merry Christmas and New Years.

 

 

The art gallery came out nice.  Here is wishing you well tomorrow with the tests and a safe and happy holiday trip!!!!

Looks great as always, and I hope the tests goes well.  The stress test was my least favorite of them all, and I was running quite a bit when I had mine.  Hopefully they can get some solutions after the tests for the Afib.  My end result was an ablation, and its worked well for the last two years for me.  If you ever need to compare afib notes, get a hold of me.  

I had a couple stress tests.  All okay.  One was when they were trying to force me to mimic something that has been happening the last few years where I get instantly very tired, after a 2o minute rest, I can go back to pushing the lawnmower for an hour.  He really had me going way longer than the first.  Wow!!  Never was able to mimic it.

Myles, I like the look of the gallery. Good luck on your tests and have a great Holliday and a healthy and happy New Year.

Thanks for the kind thoughts. The tests this morning went okay as far as I can tell. Instead of the treadmill, the nurse changed plans and did it chemically. My AFib pulse was randomly varying from 80 to 120 BPM, and she felt that it was not wise since they wouldn't be able to control the end point on the mill. The chemical method is just plain weird. It makes you feel very loopy, but it only lasts 4 minutes and then they shoot you with the antidote. I still feel out of sorts. I hope tomorrow I will feel normal. We're not leaving for Philly until Saturday. I asked if they found anything really bad what happens? They told if they saw something really bad, they take you upstairs and schedule and intervention. Since I was not taken upstairs I am assuming that nothing acute was found. But I won't hear the results for 4-5 days and that doesn't include the holidays. Patience...

When I got back, I finally ate and then rested a bit… and then I GOT TO WORK!

The interior of the gallery is as finished as it's going to get. I will still add some museum goers before I button it up. I created a decal for the graphics, and used a new product (for me) Testor's Decal Coating Spray. It was easier to use than the hand-brushed MicroScale Liquid Decal Film. I made two different sizes of graphics so I had a choice to use for the building.

The Woodbourne labels will be used in the front windows or on the exterior trim.

I sprayed part of the wall where the decal would go with some gloss clear to prepare the surface for the decal. I, of course, decided to touch it to see if it was dry. AND IT WASN'T, and I put a big ugly fingerprint on it. When I force dried it completely, I sanded the blemish, resprayed the yellow, force dried it again, and re-sprayed the clear. This time I was more judicious in the amount of coating I sprayed. 

It was time to cut out all the artwork, coated the back with a thin coating of Pressure Sensitive Adhesive and mounted them on the wall. I had previously marked the 4 scale feet from the floor as a reference line. 

After mounting the pictures, I placed the decal, and when dry, brush-coated it and the adjacent area with Tamiya Flat Clear to kill the shine and blend the decal in a bit. This picture was BEFORE the flat clear was applied.

I added some baseboard on the back wall and trimmed around the door. I held the trim with PSA and reinforced with CA. For the small pieces I used thick CA. I then glued the partition walls in place with some old Henkel polyurethane cement. I then plopped the ceiling on for this next series. Next session (tomorrow?) I will add the folks and then glue on the ceiling.

I'll put it in the building tomorrow and take some pictures through the windows which will give a more realistic view.

I had thought we were getting on the road tomorrow. I was mistaken. We're leaving on Saturday, so tomorrow is another possible building day.

Wow, I’m glad they didn’t take you right upstairs.  Yes I see it would make you feel odd.  I’m glad you have another day to get feeling normal before the trip.

Now I understand the gallery wall arrangement.  It looks great!  I can’t recall ever seeing anyone model something like that before.  

Thanks Mark! I think you hit the nail on the head. I just finished writing up the article on Nighthawks. It's about the same length as Bernheim was. I haven't submitted it yet and RMC has already told me that, while, they'll print whatever I write, it won't be consecutive… got to give others a chance to get in line  But, what you're saying is what I'm feeling. Each project to be worthy of dissemination to others needs to be unique. It has to offer something that's not readily done by the modeling public. There are many, many articles on building sheds using clapboard siding, so to stand out, it has to be different. So… I've set the bar pretty high for myself. Bernheim dealt with design for laser cutting. Nighthawks has interpreting a work of art into a 3D model, dealing with conical turrets, curving a plexiglass window, etc. Bronx Building again, deals with more on laser cutting design, capturing details about an existing building using Google Earth, making a passable art gallery using images and frames downloaded from the Internet, plus more on working with complex Mansard 2nd Empire designs. So… what's next? I have two interesting ones in the wings.

1) Rick House (bourbon aging warehouse) under construction to go across the street from the distillery. Rick Houses with their skins on are just plain boring — a box with a peaked roof and lots of small windows — but under construction it's a labyrinth of different sizes and lengths of wooden beams. I have some good sources to create a realistic, albeit compressed version of one of the most elemental processes in the bourbon business. This would also give my great Grove heavy lift hydraulic crane something useful to do.

2) The 40" engine house. Again, engine houses are not unique, but building one with a scale replica of a 100 ton gantry crane inside might up the ante a bit. I really need to get cracking on this anyway since it's one of the barest places on the entire layout. It's been waiting for a long time for this structure. Also, I have the resources to do it with my publishing money. I'm limited with service decks inside due to the tight 3.5 C-to-C track spacing resulting from laddering Ross #4 switches.

Making long inspection pits is difficult with 3 rail track. I've seen using tensioned copper wire to make a barely visible conductor. My design includes the buttresses to support the gantry and it's associated girders.

 

So there you have it. First things first. Finish Bronx!

Those do look like a couple of neat projects, where you can show off the two very different types of cranes!

They have to wait for two projects: I will finish the Bronx building and then I may be building another 1:32 aircraft (a Trumpeter F-105 Thunderchief) on commission. I kind of like do a structure then a complex plastic kit and then another structure and so on. It reduces any tendency for boredom.

I got the gallery populated today. I had a set of already painted Woodland Scenics folks that looked like gallery people and then I painted two more characters that were from a Preiser set. They're a tad weird and definitely European, but the man and child also made passable gallery goers. It took me well over an hour to paint them.

Should have taken the time to paint the white edges of the photos. Thought about it, but didn't do it. When they're inclosed in the building, the viewing angles are very restricted so you won't see much anyway. It's just giving the impression of an art gallery that I'm looking for.

I decided that instead of gluing the main floor into place and making removal impossible, I drilled and used some small brass screws (German) that hold it at four corners. I used thin CA to harden the screw holes and threads since MDF is notoriously bad at holding screws. I'll probably paint them brick color so they'll be less obvious.

I started assembly of the front supports for the windows by gluing them to the base plate only. I figure that I can't completely join the windows, base and main building together or I wouldn't be able to ever remove the interior. I can only make it removable (thus the screws) if I manage to keep them segregated. This will take more attention on my part, something of which I am often not so good at.

At this point I felt it was safe to actually glue the ceiling to the gallery walls, but not the building itself. So the entire gallery is removable as one piece. I used a heavy angle block as a gravity clamp while the Aleen's dried.

I removed the interior, hardened the screw holes, painted the remaining walls in the gallery the light green mixture, and then added a baseboard on the front wall that was 1 base-plate-distance off the bottom. I left the interior out of the building for the time being as I start working on the 1st and 2nd floor windows which are easier to install when you have unfettered access.

I sprayed the window frames while in the frets first with Tamiya gray primer rattle can and then with Tamiya flat white from the air brush.

Speaking of air brushes. Several months ago, I sprung for some inexpensive Chinese air brushes from a brand called Point Zero. The were very inexpensive, $33 for two brushes: a bottom feed double-acting brush with a glass bottle and siphon cap, and a double-acting top feed detail brush. While they seemed to be well made with all the parts that a Badger or Pasche would have, they weren't worth the money I paid for them!

The siphon feed brush sputtered and never sprayed properly. Both brushes use O-rings for seals in the various parts, and these rings ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ACETONE! In order to do a deep cleaning with acrylics, which no matter how hard you try will build up inside in low pressure areas, you start with iso alcohol, but inevitably, you end up with acetone which dissolves the dried acrylic. And then it dissolves the O-rings and turns the air brush into junk. Meanwhile, I have a Badger 150 that I bought in 1973, that was rebuilt for free several years ago (Lifetime Guarantee), and works like a charm. Badger has one teflon ring that seals the needle that's impervious to any solvent. So I went to the LHS and bought a Badger 200 single-action, top feed detail gun that's made in the USA. You get what you pay for!

There's lots of extra windows since I I didn't change this fret too much when I compressed the building so I have some extras.

So… that's the last post of 2018. I'll see y'all back here in 2019 for more exciting building fun. When I get back I'll be building windows, and then crafting all those wonderful architectural details and cornices. I'm looking forward to that part.

BTW: still haven't received my December RMC with Part 3 of my article and didn't receive December's author's copies either. Annoying! They had a real screwup with their printing contractor and it doesn't seem to be corrected yet.

Everyone have a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!