Continuing Saga …

Thanks John! Just to put an exclamation point on your comment, I am concurrently writing the publication article about the Woodbourne Gallery project. I've submitted an article on Nighthawks, but didn't send the images yet. RMC is going through an editorial change and I'm hoping that this won't affect my position in the publication queue. 

Meanwhile, I got a quote to do the five appliances in 3D for $25 and gave the go-ahead. The shapes are hollowed out to reduce the amount of 3D resin needed. Walt's machine are high res laser/resin systems and the photo-active resin is very expensive. To reduce the material use, I made the shapes hollow.

The hollowness makes it more difficult to make a silicone mold and resin casting which is my intent to create more than five appliances in the store. So, even though it will use more casting resin, I think I'm going to block off the hollow so it will be a solid again. Incidentally, an O'scale appliance is about 3/4" square (or higher in the case of the refrigerator) so it will use some resin. I have resin and if I don't consume it, it kicks on its own. This goes for both the 2-part silicone and the 2-part resin. I've thrown out more than I've used. I woke up today thinking of how to mold these objects. You can tell I live a pretty stress-free life if all I have to think about when I awaken in the morning is how I'm going to populate my imaginary appliance store with imaginary appliances.

I'm drawing a 3D version of the building to see how it will look when illuminated. I multiplied the number of appliances to a number that looks respectable. Like the Gallery, this will be front and center on the layout and the interior will be very visible, so some extra care in its design is probably a useful activity.

Even though I'll have copies of the same appliance, I will differentiate them by color. Besides that Harvest Gold and Avocado, there was one other color in the early 70s. Does anyone remember what it was?

Myles, the other appliance color that you are looking for might be a brown in the chocolate family with a nice gloss finish.  My kitchen has just such a classic piece (gas stove).  In fact, I'm trying to find touchup enamel for it.  

TRRR

I think it was the brown…but it didn't come out until later in the 70s. According to my just completed Google search, Harvest Gold and Avocado were the biggies. We had a Harvest Gold kitchen which I had to prove to my wife by looking up digitized photos of said kitchen on my laptop. I spent many hours years ago digitizing most of our picture albums and putting them out to the family so flood, tornado or fire wouldn't destroy things that were irreplaceable.

Wife says it was metallic copper.

I don’t have a clue.

Ha ha!  Digitizing photographs is something I want to do also.  As far as the kitchen goes, we have always had white.  

  The avacados are long gone, but I still have two harvest gold ice trays.

  I'm betting they easily outlast the four white trays from the late 80s & mid 90s, which are cracking. 

  Plus two aluminum trays from the Norge in the basement which has out lived 6 other newer fridges, and still runs silently.  You have to feel it to tell if it is cycling or at rest. 

  The 70s dark redish fridge went back in days because a decent wallpaper match couldn't be found as the first (roosters) was discontinued. 

Mark Boyce posted:

Ha ha!  Digitizing photographs is something I want to do also.  As far as the kitchen goes, we have always had white.  

Now your talking about time consuming.  I chased rail-fan excursions out of Birmingham for almost thirty years and have roughly thirty thousand medium format 2.25" X 2.75" images of trains. Many locos were rebuilt at the Norris Yards steam shop here, 1218, 611 and 4501 just to name a few. I bought a Nikon medium format film scanner twelve or so years back. To do it right takes about an hour per scan though you don't have to sit there the whole time.  You can cut some time by doing low rez scans on all but your best images still your in for a lot of time in front of the computer. 35mm goes a lot faster and if mounted in slide mounts there are bulk loaders which allow you to load about 50 images at one time.  BTW; if you want your prints to look like what you saw on the screen along with the scanner buy yourself a factory calibrated monitor such as an  ASUS PA248Q.  Thats cheaper than buying the setup for balancing color on a common monitor. Forget flat bed scanners they just don't come close to the quality a good Nikon scanner produces. Gonna list mine on eBay soon.                  j

Awesome!

Peter

JohnActon posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

Ha ha!  Digitizing photographs is something I want to do also.  As far as the kitchen goes, we have always had white.  

Now your talking about time consuming.  I chased rail-fan excursions out of Birmingham for almost thirty years and have roughly thirty thousand medium format 2.25" X 2.75" images of trains. Many locos were rebuilt at the Norris Yards steam shop here, 1218, 611 and 4501 just to name a few. I bought a Nikon medium format film scanner twelve or so years back. To do it right takes about an hour per scan though you don't have to sit there the whole time.  You can cut some time by doing low rez scans on all but your best images still your in for a lot of time in front of the computer. 35mm goes a lot faster and if mounted in slide mounts there are bulk loaders which allow you to load about 50 images at one time.  BTW; if you want your prints to look like what you saw on the screen along with the scanner buy yourself a factory calibrated monitor such as an  ASUS PA248Q.  Thats cheaper than buying the setup for balancing color on a common monitor. Forget flat bed scanners they just don't come close to the quality a good Nikon scanner produces. Gonna list mine on eBay soon.                  j

What I am going to do is go through my photographs and color slides and pay my younger son-in-law to do them.  It is one of his many skills.  For me, it is the time sorting through everything before turning them over to him.

You've just got to start doing the copying. Time is very fleeting and you're going to turn around and it's gone. Pictures are fragile. Not only do you have to digitize them, but then you have to spread them around so nothing can happen to destroy them all. My mom's apartment flooded in 1999. It destroyed almost everything. Luckily, while the photo albums disintegrated, the pictures themselves floated and my sister was able to retrieve them all. She was able to press and dry them so they mostly were recovered. These pictures went back to the early 1900s. When we returned from Germany, I immediately took the time to digitize them and give them out to the family.

Yesterday, I got the five appliances from Walt Gillespie at Rusty Stumps. They came out really well and I've figured how I'm going to resin mold them. I gave Walt approval to put these in his 3D printed parts catalog. With Walt's hi-res laser/resin system, the layer lines are very fine and will be removed with very light sanding. Resin casting is so precise that any marks in the master will be replicated in the copies.

On another front. Rail Scale Models has cut my Engine House. I expect it to be delivered in a couple of days. I won't be starting it until the Thunderchief is finished, but it will be built.

Trainman2001 posted:

 

Even though I'll have copies of the same appliance, I will differentiate them by color. Besides that Harvest Gold and Avocado, there was one other color in the early 70s. Does anyone remember what it was?

I grew up in New Jersey in a suburb. House was built in 1967 and the kitchen appliances (stove and wall oven) were a dark brown color. They were still in place and in use when my family moved in 1991. I also recall a dark brown refrigerator as well - that became a second fridge in the basement after it was replaced with a new white one. So dark brown should be late 1960's and later.

I just input '1960's kitchen appliance colors' for a Google Images search and there are some dark brown appliances in the search results. I believe it was called 'Coppertone' and was popular into the 1980's. Here's a link about appliance colors from one of the images I found:

Appliance colors tell kitchen history

Yep - dark brown is indeed Coppertone - see this link:

That colour is called coppertone

Hope this helps you out on appliance colors!

Saw you had to relocate the Sinclair station. Too late now but I would have angled the station's back to be "parallel" to the track's curve to better fit the odd shaped lot. Know most gas stations were 'squared on a corner' but seen a few that were angled.

My house was built in 1962, and when i bought it in 1986 from the original owner it had a dark copper colored built-in dishwasher (RCA Whirlpool) and an electric range with over and under ovens of the same color.

Worked at a bottled gas place in the 60's. I remember Caloric ranges also coming in pink.

I think I'll go with white, avocado and harvest gold. That copper might be a hard color to capture.

Meanwhile, all the Engine House parts arrived today. Stephen Milley did a great job cutting and packing all the stuff. It was a heavy box. So I stuck some of the big parts together to see how it all fit on the layout. They look just like they're supposed to. 

And of course I only put two tabs on parts to key the machine shop walls into the main building AND I PUT THE BLEEPING TABS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE WALL, as you can see in this image below. They're sticking out so you can't miss them. It really bums me out that I get tabs so wrong. DOH!

It's a big house to house big engines. The door spacing came out right at least. That was an important measurement to get right. I can work around the tabs if I don't get the parts re-cut. This picture shows how little space there is between the tracks for work platforms. There is space on the outside tracks (although not a ton there either.

I have to get a piece of Plastruct I-beam to support the gantry, and some 3/4" square stock to the I-beam supports. I was originally going to put the 3/4" buttresses under each wall buttress and that would mean I'd need 6, 36" lengths of square stock, but then I reconsidered and realized that they could be every 3rd buttress position and I would be able to get the 5-pack of wood as they come from Lowe's.

Here's where it's going. This shot is very similar to one of the fake renderings I did when I was planning it. All of a sudden it looks like an engine servicing area. It's going to be a pain removing the ballasting and hydrocal to open up the track area where the engine house will go. I'll make good use of the shop vac.

I anyone wants on of these monsters on your layout, Rail Scale has the drawings so another could be made easily. The benefits of laser cutting...

I will also need to design in earnest that 100 ton gantry crane. I will scratchbuilt it out of styrene in the style of Al Graziano. 

Slowly, but surely, this layout is coming together. It will probably be an 8 year project before I'll declare it "Finished". But then… is a model railroad ever really finished…?

As George Peppard used to say on "A-Team", "It's great to see a plan come together!"

As I noted in my last post. Actual construction will commence later when I've made more progress on the Thunderchief. I'm finishing up one of the more complicated parts of that model; the cockpit with lots of photo-etched components in it. After that construction will move along quickly. While I'm building that I'll be casting some appliances.

Another article looks like it's been approved by RMC. I had contact with the new editor and he wants to go with the Woodbourne Gallery. I uploaded all the images tonight. I'll keep y'all posted about its future publication date.

While all this is going on, I'm finally writing my book about the experience, leanings, and observations I accumulated in 50 years of developing people and working to create high performing organizations. It's title will be "Turning on the Lights". I'll keep y'all posted about that. Who says retirement is boring.

This all sounds exciting Myles. Looking forward to the article, and new build.

Andy

The engine house will look great there!  I'll look forward to your building it when the time comes!

I will be following that engine house .... Great Western RR used one...and l need a long one, too, although l will make no attempt to model the GW's.  Will need to measure locos....missed a chance to measure scale one not made yet in three rail. 

I'm really looking forward to this build, Myles. If it turns out anywhere as detailed and accurate as your other projects, it will be fantastic.

I'm tired just from reading the last couple of pages. Great work on the Bronx house Miles. Your layout is going to be a beauty when you call it done (yea..I know). Looking forward to more progress on your builds.