Saturday, October 28, 2017

Progress, if modest, is still progress

Managed to get eight more pieces of rolling stock moving forward today - all five remaining passenger pieces and the three modified cabooses.  Tomorrow will see the two part epoxy put to use to glue the wheel sets to the bases of the resin bodies and, once dry, out comes the gray primer.

And most of the earlier gray primer-ed pieces are no longer gray.  The passenger equipment is in a two tone scheme with a third color for the undercarriage, a creme color above a palish brown.  The box cars are all painted a dark reddish brown.  And the three flat cars are a third brown color with the undercarriage matching all the others with the same color as the box cars.  And all of the locomotives and tenders are now a nice flat black.   Only the drover's caboose remains in its primer gray coat.  I figure to paint all four cabooses at the same time in the same scheme.

Doubt I'll get to the tank cars, gondolas, or stock cars tomorrow but maybe progress before the end of the year.  November is problematic because of a miniatures convention and a model railroad show and, of course, the big holiday here in the states.

Sorry, no time for photos yet but there will be photos at some point.

With the new roof done, only a couple of doors left on the bathroom remodels to go and the changing weather, I'm hoping to make some real progress over winter.

Will be painting the five new pieces of passenger in the same base two tone scheme.  The real Big Project is getting the stock cars in shape, lots of pieces to glue onto the cores to get a suitably appropriate look.

Two challenges I've dealt with in painting using Montana brand rattle cans - the colors come out more glossy on some than I'd like and a little bit too 'powdery' on others.  If you've never used Montana rattle cans here are a couple of Critical pointers: shake the heck out of the can, way more than you think is necessary, and then some more.  And NEVER spray your object first, always spray something else first because the first 'squirts' will not be as loaded with pigment.  And always keep in mind this brand of paint as a very high percentage of pigment compared to other spray can paints.  The big advantage is the range of colors you can get versus the hardware/auto store brands - far too few flats (despite my result with the too glossy chestnut color).  Montana gives more flats in a LOT more colors.

Enough for now.