It’s time for RPM Chicagoland 2019 to kick off in just a few hours. I’m looking forward to three days of fantastic clinics and talking with friends, new and old.
My clinic handout for this year, along with the handout for my wife’s clinic on Poultry cars, are both in the clinic handouts section of this site. You’re welcome to take a look.
We hope to see folks here, and hope too that everyone attending has a great time.
-Jeremy
Inching closer to finished with the NP boxcar build, I sat down last weekend with some new (to me) products from a couple of different weathering product producers, and some old standby products as well to get a start on not only the NP car but also a P&LE 36′ car I’ve been working on at the same time.
First up, I wanted to try some weathering pencils by AK. These are a dry / wet product that can be used to add all sorts of effects. I have three sets that I ordered after seeing a video on YouTube about them, and I wanted to see how they work. While the dry application is really similar to applying Prisma artists pencils, these AK products blend in a little better from my experience when a soft brush is used after applying them dry. Where they really were fantastic, though, was when applied wet. The process is essentially to dip the pencil in water and then apply it to the area you want the color to go. You can add streaks or pools or lines as you see from my photos here. Once the color is applied, you let it sit a minute or two, then come back with a wet brush and move it around. That is followed by a cotton swab used to remove the color, which then leaves just the amount you’re looking for. It takes a little practice, the being water based, they clean off if you make a mistake. Additionally, using more than one color in an area and blending with a brush and with the swab will produce a really nice effect.
I used the pencils mostly for dirt and dust, but with some of the darker shades of red and brown I changed a couple of boards one the car sides to look like the paint was starting to fail, and around the door hardwire I added rust and grime. I’ll come back with some other products and enhance this look shortly, but the base effect was fantastic. I’ll be using these much more often.
Following the pencils, I airbrushed some dirt and grime lightly onto the under sides and along the sills of the cars using some Ammo “Kursk Soil”. The general grime on these parts stands out nicely. I’ll come back again and add some additional rust and a few other grit colors to finish out the look.
Finally, I turned to the trucks for these two cars. I decided to try using some Mig “Oil Brushers” for the wheels. These were great. The paint is in the container, and so is an applicator. It didn’t take me long to use some rust, and some “Starship Bay Grunge” on the wheel faces to get the base look.
These are just the first layers. I still have a few things to do to enhance things and build up some grime in places, but that will come this weekend. The plan is that by the 19th/20th I’ll be doing final assembly on these cars.
-Jeremy
Goals are good things to have. I find that list-making and goal setting spurs me on to accomplish tasks in a realistic timeframe, and I feel that accomplishment which then spurs me onward toward the next item on the list, toward the next goal.
I’m now looking at the projects I have started, or would like to start, and thinking about how to order them properly. In the days when I used to build HO models, I’d build 5 or 6 models all at once. That’s likely not to happen anymore. The fact is, the larger equipment is simply space-hungry.
I have set for myself a goal that I think is reasonable when it comes to kits and cars. I’m planning to work on one freight car at a time. Shocking to think about, when many of us have started kits and set them aside and started others. Seriously, though, one kit car at a time. I believe it is possible to build one car in 4-6 weeks at the rate I work. Not super fast, but yet too, enjoyable.
Here is the list of kit cars that I am planning to build, and the order in which I plan to build them. Please note, there are more cars in the stash than are listed here. I only picked the next 12 because that is roughly a year’s worth of work. Once this list is completed, I’ll prioritize the next set of 12 to build.
I initially started cars 1, 2, and 3 from the list. That has proven to be OK, but I am looking forward to wrapping them up and getting the number of in-progress cars down to 1 at a time. That isn’t to say that if I get to a spot with a project where I’m waiting on supplies of data or photos that there won’t be a chance that a 2nd project is moving forward.
If I’m building just one kit at a time, or one car at a time, it’s likely that I’m going to need other projects to occupy modeling time and interest while things dry or while I wait for parts. To that end, I’ve also organized some non-car projects. A number of structures are going to be needed for the layout and getting those built will fall into the project list. I plan to only work on one structure at a time, which will make the structures available as a second ongoing project group. Based on my plans for the layout, I need to build:
There is also a huge need on this railroad for motive power and home-road cars. None of the YV cabooses, rock cars, box cars, flat cars, stock cars, MOW cars, passenger cars, or log cars are commercially available at the moment, and few have ever been in O scale. My guess right now is that I’m going to need/want 2 locomotives, 2 cabooses, 6 rock cars, 2 flat cars, 1 stock car, 1 box car, an unknown number of MOW cars, 2 passenger cars, and 6 log cars. That’s 20-ish cars and 2 locomotives that need to be scratch built. This group, then comprises the third project group that will be available.
I have selected the two locomotives that I want to build. Yosemite Valley 4-4-0 American #23 and Yosemite Valley 2-6-0 Mogul #25 are my targets. Should a third locomotive ever become a want, I would target YV27 or YV29. Two locomotives, though, should keep this railroad busy at least for right now with plans for only two towns in the offing. The rest of the equipment is fairly straight forward. YV observation car 330 is definitely in the plans as one of the passenger cars.
Along with these three groups, there will be layout work to complete. That gives me four more or less separate spheres of projects to tackle. Group 1: Kit Cars. Group 2: Structures. Group 3: Scratch Builds. Group 4: Layout. They can all run concurrently, but the key is going to be one item from each group at a time.
This is what I’m thinking will work for me right now. We’ll see how it all comes together. I used to do this kind of planning in January as a goals for the year kind of look ahead. It may be coming on to August, but this year the scale change and getting that all under control and plans made for moving forward means I and doing this and you are seeing it here at the end of July.
I’m ready to hit the workbench this week and finish-up the NP boxcar build so it can go to paint. The plan is to finish that by the end of August. Books are coming in the mail on how to scratch build locomotives. I’m excited about that. We’ll be looking at Merced Ice & Cold Storage shortly as well, and some big plans for layout construction are also on the horizon.
Lots to do, now that I’m organized, it’s time to get it going.
-Jeremy
My good friend, Eric, has posted a new “Virtual RPM” with models on display from several modelers. You can access the photos and descriptions on his blog here: http://designbuildop.hansmanns.org/2019/03/03/virtual-rpm-3/
Both my wife and I contributed some of our most recent work to the effort. We hope you enjoy, and I hope too that if you don’t already follow Eric’s blog, that you’ll dive in and explore the amazing resource that he has compiled there.
-Jeremy
My clinic for RPM Chicagoland is now done and in the “can” as they say. This year I will be presenting a revised version of the clinic I first gave in 2016 on modeling with low vision.
This year I’ll be discussing the newly revised workshop that we’ve built, some changes in equipment that I use on a regular basis, and more tips for operating and making your layout comfortable for those with low vision to enjoy.
If you haven’t signed up yet, and will be in the Chicago area October 18, 19, 20, please come out to hear me, and other speakers. You can find registration information at rpmconference.com.
-JD
Welcome to trainmodeler.com, and my blog about prototype railroad modeling. Please excuse the “dust” as I get set up. More to come soon!
-JD