On30 didn't feel right to me...

There's some 55n3 doings here.

Rusty

Yeah, that was the site that got me going. Some cool ideas, but no real community forum.

A suggestion, use Tamiya putty instead of squadron.    I have found that squardron tends to shrink over time and crack.    Also, I found it easier to feather the tamiya to a finer merge with the surrounding surface.

Thanks. I will switch to that if I can find it. 

Don't look now; this thread is being followed 

No bearing on what you are doing really, but ...

Nice site to look at; I wouldn't want to read there. 

  To say there was nothing but 30"g in America is nonsense unless you exclude logging and mines. I could take you to remains in Northern Mi woods.

I'm glad you got inspired, but I couldnt even keep reading. 

Yeah. I found that site interesting but limited. The way it is laid out is a bit old school 1991 AOL web design. And the attitude comes off as my way is the best way.

I do a lot of things, I try a lot of things. Done G scale (gave it all to a friends little boy) , still have my 3 rail tinplate train, my AF S scale things, have my HO scale things, got my N scale things stashed away. I am just exploring something different is all.

In a perfect world, I'd have 4 small layouts to run all my trains on. Come to think of it, I'd need a table for my 60's lego train too.  

I realize my title for this thread could be mistaken as the same kind of "my way is the best way", but it really is meant as: did not feel right to me. Not saying everyone should decide I am some kind of scale-centric messiah.

As I said, I posted here because it is an off scale. The site has an associated organization, but they want 10 pounds to join.

Now off to file some of those window pieces so they match  up better. 

No, you didn't come off that way at all. Especially with that signature line

I liked what I saw as well. It was strictly the site's text that had my eyes rolling.

I look forward to seeing this come to completetion.  I love bashes and scratch builds, scale to tinplate.  I have some personal running issues with other scales, but that's unrelated to what others do. I have lightly dabbled in HO and N and G. N is too small, G was too big, HO gives me "Tyco nightmares"... but has improved 300% since tyco days.  I have two of each, though the G is just battery op.

Treating the boy to a train negates almost anything you do wrong for the rest of your life anyhow  

I call it think as you go modeling. I was thinking it needed some cab shades and a exhaust stack.

 

 

As a side note. the Denver Public Library digital collection means you never have to be bored. 

check out this image:http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330coll21/id/9854/rec/26

Use the yellow bar to zoom in and then try to count the people.

Oh, and there are not one, not two, but three trains in this image! 

Interesting, and followed the links.   I have been using Kato HO Unitrack with selected Bachmann On30 locos and cars.   So I guess I have been doing 55n3 without realizing it had its own category (but without switching out truck or wheelsets  - leaving the oversized flanges)?  Glad to know!

I went and bought strip wood and paint so I can continue with a variety of not quite prototype Narrow Gauge. 

The Special Forces Gondola has had all it's extraneous details carved off, so that it can get a sheet of thin lumber and look like a solid wood gondola. I found this thin veneer at the Art Supply store. It will become the wood sruface on the plastic tyco model and hide everything plastic. 

Ok, so I decided the loco was far enough along to get some paint. I can always go back and drill holes and add details if I want, but for now I want to move onto other models.

Now is when I get stupid. I do all my spraying out doors and I don't own an aribrush; it's all rattle cans from the hardware store for me.

So there I am carefully spraying light passes and I decided to move some mullein weeds that were next to my spraying area.

Exhibit - A

(take note of all the mullein seeds embedded in my freshly painted loco cab roof and other places.) 

I feel like I deserve some special kind of moron award for this little adventure.

Anyway, moving along with the creation of a new fleet of weed covered trains.  

Just extra rivets.

(Not like I'm counting or anything...)

As I ponder what is next on the loco, I decided to begin covering the Tyco HO Gondola. The photo doesn't really show the individual boards, It will need weathering for that. 

 

 

I need to add some vertical braces to give it the proper look. So far the model project is costing very little as I am not bothering with any pre-cast detail parts. 

Well, the Loco rebuild is nearly done, but I am missing a warm day to do some more painting. I don't plan to go crazy on details, as I just want to get something up and running and maybe build a small oval layout to play around with.

I should say that this Loco rebuild cost so little. Certainly less than a commercial loco. And, for those of you who do On30, there is no reason not to make one of these Cheap-o Diesel rebuilds yourself. I didn't even use a scale rule on the model to determine how tall the cab should be. I just fudged it to the dimensions that appealed most to my Idea of a what a small critter should look like.

Anyway, as I explore crap building, yeah it's not quite a scratch build, it's so far off prototype I don't even venture to call it Scratch building. Job numero uno right now is that I need a train!

I had been messing around with a Tyco gondola to make a sort of narrow gauge-ish car for my loco to pull around. So I built it and it didn't look right. A bit of thinking and I realized a real Gondola is a flat car with wood walls. So I took off the lowest piece of wood and slipped a chunk of wood with the grain facing out onto the side of the car. Now it looks like there is a flat car deck on the gondola. Of course this is just fakery, there is no deck.

To the experts out there, this kind of crap building is no big feat, but I am having so much fun actually making things. My last planned layout was a modern HO european layout, that was more about shopping for things than actually modeling. 

I use a lot of things that happen to be at hand. The fake deck peices are just upside down Ho siding. Some of the spacers between the plastic car and the plank are coffee stirring sticks. 

Really, none of what I am making is any different from On30 aside from the fact that I will be using slightly shorter figures, and running curves that are 15" in radius to save space.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.  

Messing around with the Gondola ends.

I kept the horn hooks, but cut off the excess to make them into sorta knuckle couplers.

All this really needs is some vertical side braces and will pass for a narrow gauge gondola in whatever scale. On30, 35N2, or 55n3. 

There really was no designing involved, it's just covering up what looks like a TYCO HO scale gondola. I even left the rivets visible on the inside; perhaps this is a steel plate lined wood car? 

Still playng around with the low detail, but play-able 55n3 models.

Added some braces on the gondola. It looks much better. Mind you this is all seat of your pants, so I sort of eyeballed the locations. 

 

 

 

The low profile hides the modern HO trucks too. 

For many years I loved very close to the original caboose hobbies. I could walk there whenever I needed something for my layout.

 

Of course things have changed. This is part of why I am just building low budget Narrow Gauge from old TYco trains.

After looking at my car a bit, I realized that you see how thin the veneer is on the car ends. SO I decided to put more braces there to hide that. The whole model has been like that. Look at what is there. Use what works. Hide what doesn't. Hope it looks like a real train car.

This is when things got weird, and I broke my ow rule about super detailing this practice model. 

As you can see the Super Detailing is just a break wheel, and it has teeth, and yes it came from an old broken watch! 

Could this pass for a On30 model on your own layout? It was a super cheap build.

Now to find the half dried out bottle of cheap Testors paint in a box somewhere and finish this sucker!

I like "what's on hand" builds and seldom measure anything myself. The gear is pretty cool. A file could rid you of the teeth; or maybe some thick paint would help fill them. (Id etch primer it first. Ive never had good luck painting brass; it always flakes on me without etch.)