Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Cedar Creek Overflows

Well, not quite a flood but a fulfillment.  Courtesy of an order that reached its fulfillment today, I now have all the structures I need to create the "out on the plains" western town of Cedar Creek - one of the three towns that will eventually populate my gaming world for the Old West.  Most of the buildings, but not all, are from Stone Mountain Miniatures and will make for a nice town.  Twenty structures including the railroad station and water tank for the thirsty locomotives will allow a pretty good place for peaceable activities.  And perhaps a few less tame activities.

Still to come is the finishing up of the needed buildings for the desert southwest town of Alkali Flats.  And the much larger - and almost entirely scratch built - town of Anachronism, a county seat and so much more.  If fully realized, there will be well more than one hundred structures in Anachronism.  I have a good start on it and just need the time to work on it.

Such is the great challenge, having time.  Enough for now.  Time for bed.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Iron Horse Stables

Now that we are half way through spring, I think it is high time I get back to my winter project!  Of course, I did have a couple of good reasons for delay.  I ran a French and Indian War game at local a convention and had to finish painting over 100 figures.  I also textured the bases for about 800 figures.  And I put foliage on 120 deciduous trees.  That was for the game.

Oh, and I built a 4' by 12' dedicated gaming table that will have two 2' extensions that can take it up to 16' long, one on a hinge and one that will be able to be set at different levels for seaports and the like.  For those who prefer 28 mm scale, 4' in 15 mm comes close to the equivalent of 7', not quite but close (6.8 - and those who check the math I used 16.5 since I have a mix of 15 mm and 18 mm.).

 The winter project, of course, was to work on my Old West trains.  Well this weekend I assembled 15 of the 54 pieces - the iron horses:  9 locomotives and 6 tenders, 3 of the locos have their own tenders integral to the whole.

Below are two shots showing all of the pieces right after getting primed.  If you look close you'll see I was working at a pretty fast pace and will need to go back and do a bit of repair work.  But, and this matters, these are game pieces, not contest pieces - so good enough is, well, good enough.  There are some things I will fix, though.



These three are Peter Pig's basic locomotive and tender. (but modified as in an earlier post here)
Here is a close shot of one of them.
And an overhead shot of one.
All three.
Here are three Glencoe locomotives with Peter Pig tenders (I ordered them special from Peter Pig to provide tenders since these Glencoe models don't include tenders).  The front two are 4-4-0 locomotives like the Peter Pig items above, so I have five of these but in two different 'styles.'  The one on the farthest right is a 2-6-2 wheel arrangement.  (The Whyte system if you know your trains but don't know the system)

A close of the 4-4-0.
And of the 2-6-2.
 From above - and you can see a fix is needed on this one.
All three from overhead.


 And now the three tank locomotives, all Glencoe models.
 The Porter, or 0-4-2.  Not sure if these are appropriate to Old West but there aren't many options in 15 mm so I'll put these to good use, have two of them.
And this is the CP Huntingdon, a 4-2-4.  Not sure that is historically accurate but might be.
 An overhead of the 4-2-4,
 And a Porter with some distortion in the image - or maybe the model.  Did I say I was working fast?
 While I have 9 iron horse, this shot just shows one each of the five different versions of engines in my "stable".
The observant will have noticed the hill profiles behind the locomotives - those are a project in process inspired by an item on the Major General page but mine are in plywood.  And the shot below gives an end on view of the gaming table, tried to class up the 'public' end to keep the wife happy, storage under for terrain and a few other items.
One last shot showing those hill profiles again and behind them another hill making project in a rethinking phase, probably keep but make a couple of inches shorter.  Will see.
I guess I need to build the passenger station now!  Next up are the 11 passenger cars, the 8 box cars, and then the three unmodified flat cars.  And then all those other flat car projects.  Wondering what to do with one flat car - some will be stock cars, some will be water tank cars, and some will be gondolas. Undecided on that last one.  And the cabeese are not to be forgotten.