Projects Installed, Temporarily

Managed to break away from Nurse duties long enough to take the three projects up to the layout to see how they might work.

My goodness it's hard to see the desk and chair in the woodyard shed.  I'm still trying to figure out whose idea this was.  You can see the desk just inside the window, and barely make out the "shadow" of the chair through the window "glass".

 If you look through the window on the fuel oil side, the bottom of the chair and part of the chair's legs can be seen.

A little imagination helps.  I guess I'll have to be pointing out these details since it will be doubtful that anyone would notice, otherwise!

The Nash Ambassador looks right at home lined up with other vehicles beside the Cotton Factory.  I doubt that you'd find a pink Cadillac among the cars parked at the mill, but I ran out of vehicles.  Guess that means a new shopping list for the next visit to New Brookland model railroad shop in Cayce.  That's all assuming that a parking lot will be installed for the workers at the mill.

And, the well-weathered Southern Railway boxcar looks pretty good behind the Switcher, which might need a little weathering, itself.  Parking lot and Switcher are for another day. . . or two.

Whose Idea Was This?!

Somebody thought it would be nice to add some detail to the interior of the Woodyard Shed by constructing  a desk and chair from a laser cut kit.  That seemed desirable having installed "glazing" on the shed for the woodyard so the interior was visible:

But "somebody" didn't realize how small some of the parts of the desk were going to be.  The initial steps were not too difficult give or take keeping up with the minute drawer handles after they were cut out of the board:

Used Super Glue for most of the construction and that seemed to work pretty well.  Notice the drawer faces were separate parts:

Did anyone mention that the drawer pulls were minute -- as in, extremely small?  Ended up with Elmer's white glue for drawer faces and pulls to give a little "wiggle room" in set time.

Anyway, finished product should look pretty good IF it will fit through the door of the woodyard shed.

Here a little burnt sierra oil paint has been used to give some "grain" to the wooden desk.

The Black Nash

As a kid, I remember riding in our 1950 Nash Ambassador from northwest LA (near Shreveport) to the coast of SC (near Georgetown).  It was a BIG black car with front seats that would fold down.  My mother would ride for miles on end in the middle of the front seat supported by a small part of the left half of the front seat while the three kids played on what ended up being literally a level mattress in the rest of the car.  Behind the driver's seat was a cooler with a little padding to match the back seat cushion.  Often the travel was at night to avoid traffic and the summer heat -- no AC for sure.

So, it was only appropriate for a 1956 scene to include a BIG black Nash Ambassador:

This kit has been in my possession for a while, like the Southern Railway boxcar, so while nursing for the wife continues, I pulled it out and put it together.

Tough to get a good paint job with a brush, but from a distance the finish looks OK.  Two comments worth mentioning:

First, just because the box plainly says, "Peel & Stick White Walls" doesn't mean that the modeler will use them.  Just after a somewhat sloppy job of flat white painting on the tires, the little sheet of peel and stick white walls in the kit was examined to see what it was.  Doh!

Second, the kit came with a small piece of Lexan  to be cut to fit and glued into the car interior for window glass.  That's easier said than done. . . .  So, just the windshield and rear window are Lexan.  The contours of the openings do not lend to flat sheets of plastic.  But, the instructions also mentioned using Micro Scale Krystal Klear.  None of that handy, but a bottle of Micro Master Clear Parts Cement & Window Maker was.  Instructions suggested collecting cement on the end of a paint brush and rolling around window opening, withdrawing slowly.  A paint brush handle was not going to fit in the vent window, so a round toothpick, pointed at only one end, was substituted -- used the blunt end.  It worked amazingly well!  The "windows" are not perfectly flat, but at least give the impression of glass.  Not very well evident in photos, but the windows without Lexan all have cement windows except for the front door windows which are "rolled down".

Now to decide where this Ambassador goes on the layout.

Weathering. . . Weathering

Well, The Wife has had her second bunion surgery so I've been relegated to Nurse and been told to stick close for three days.  That gave me the opportunity to address a couple of projects that have been sitting around for a while.

The Granddaughters gave me a 40' AAR Double Door Southern Railway boxcar some time back that needed a small amount of assembly:

Oops, this is not MY model, but an advertisement picture to give a "before" shot.

I have yet to really try significant "weathering" but thought this would be a good "clean slate" to try on.  Looking for something along these lines:

I had seen something about dry brushing the white lettering to give a chalking effect.  Used Testor's flat white and a stiff brush about 3/8" wide.  Maybe got a bit carried away.  One suggestion was to not start the chalking ABOVE the lettering, which made lots of sense.

Also used some Testor's flat black with dry brush, followed by some grey and darker brown chalk to brush on with a make-up sponge before the paint was really dry.  Tried to layer it on a bit thick at the bottom, near the trucks, and on each end.  The C&O boxcar shows some of this. . . .

Here's a shot from almost done, but some of roof is still "virgin".

Next step was to spray a bit of matte finish to protect the chalk.  So, without couplers (will use Kadee, not what was in the kit), here's the finished product.  The car has a 1952 build date, so it's obviously seen some pretty heavy duty up to September, 1956 era of the layout!!!

Looks pretty much like the C&O proto give or take the streaky white paint.  Maybe next time we'll shoot for something more like the Norfolk Southern whitening.