Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Weathering/reweathering...  Here's a shot of the befores (as discussed, I'd hit the intakes and exhausts last night):

   

Goals are different here, I want to redingify the PC unit with a prototypical goal of this: CR 2205 Rutherford, PA 11-12-1983 | Conrail Photo Archive, and the Reading unit will be weathered and THEN patched with CR decals to mimic this: CR 2181 Tallmadge, OH 09-12-77 | Conrail Photo Archive.  The Reading unit's paint is way to bright, so in the first phase I will fade the paint with (maybe) multiple coats of Tamiya base mixed with rubbing alcohol with handbrushing between coats to remove excess chalkiness.  I'm pretty happy with the base color of the PC unit, but I just need to adjust the rust placement, so my first order of business there is to give the whole unit a gray wash (arcrylic white and black mix with rubbing alcohol and applied from top to bottom with an unstiff paintbrush.  Here's each unit after a coat drying on each (no removal of base yet on the Reading unit):

   

As I scrutinized the prototype photos (Charlie's photos were really helpful as well), I noticed that Bachmann had a yellow stripe below the deck on the sides (rather than green) and the vertical portions of the handrail stanchions were green.  That took mulitple handpainted coats to get right.

I hit the Reading unit with a wash of gray first - it emphasizes each panel and crease in the shell and mutes the yellow even more. 

Next came rust wash, but applied in keeping with the prototype.  Here's the end result.  I still have to patch the Reading unit, but that'll wait until later this week.  The final touch will be some small application of PanPastels after the patching, but I'm happy with the aging process to date. 

       

[ngauger]

Nice work!!

[TMo]

Thanks, Mikey!  Added a little bit more wash to the Reading unit and now I'm moving to patching over the Reading logos and road numbers.  Based on the prototype the green paint used for the patches was a darker green.  Patching pulled some paint off of the cab, so I've been cycling between yellow and green patching.  I'll have to do some readjustment after everything's dry again.  I'm going to try to add the new road numbers sometime this weekend.

   

[TMo]

Decals have been applied on the front, rear and left side.  I'll wait for things to dry and firm up before laying it over to complete the other side.  Still have to get the road numbers changed on the front and rear.

       

[TMo]

Well, here they are in all of their weather-stained glory.  Another pristine locomotive in my collection no longer looks like it came right off the factory floor.

   

[TMo]

My problematic GP39-2 is now back on the tracks.  Not without considerable hair pulling and expenditure of discretionary spending.  Ditched the Athearn Genesis motherboard and the 21-pin decoder for a DH126D Digitrax decoder and did a full motor replacement.  Put her back together and finished with an application of burnt umber, black and gray PanPastels on the lower portions and put her at the head end of my D&H consist.  She now pulls her own weight and then some.

   

[LiveSteamer]

Beautiful. Great to hear you got her back and earning her keep.

[tompm]

Glad to see you were able to get the loco back where it belongs. Nice job on the weathering.

[TMo]

Thanks, fellas. I still need to weather the rest of my D&H stuff - a task for sometime this winter.

[TMo]

After all of the Christmas shopping got done and some family crises were dealt with, it's back into the Acme...

I've never scratchbuilt an interior, so I'm doing this blind.  Figured I'd get the easier stuff done - we're going for floors and interior walls first.  Went into a Paint program and printed a patterned floor.  Two sheets joined together made it all the way through the interior space.  I'm going to build all of the interior off of the floor and then when I'm ready to assemble, I should just be able to slide it in and glue it the exterior structure.

   

The side walls will just attached the outside walls, but the back section of the store will have a false wall that will house the meat cutting room and the bakery.  The left side wall will be frozen food cabinets, and the right will be produce bins.  I'll be heading to the grocery store with my camera in a little bit to take some pictures of loaded shelves, frozen food cabinets, produce bins, meat bins, swinging doors, meat windows, checkout stands, etc.  I've got a vague plan to turn the photos into printed cardstock that I can fold up into shelving units and bins.  I hope the people in the grocery store don't look at me like I'm a wierdo....

[TMo]

Well, I stopped by the local grocery store to shop for some items for Texas Caviar, a salsa I always make to celebrate the holidays with the people in my division.  Got out of the truck and discovered I hadn't put the camera in my truck.  No pix, maybe later tonight.

In the meantime, I figured I might be able to pull some pictures off of the internet for the flat backgrounds for the rear wall - got a bakery and a meat section shot and joined them together on the back wall using Paint, and did a little bit of draft printing to size everything appropriately.  

   

Printed out all three walls on cardstock, cut, folded and glued.

   

Test fit the interior to the exterior shell...

   

The next stuff is going to be tougher - shelves, bins, cabinets, checkstands, pillars....  Eventually this will also get a ceiling and a roof.

[LiveSteamer]

Looking amazing as always.

[jim currie]

now you need some isles with goods on them.
Jim

[TMo]

Coming soon, Jim! I do need to figure out shopping carts. The wire-style ones that would have been around in the 70's would be hard to mimic.

[bdw9535]

Todd,

Enjoying your work on the ACME store.  Have you looked at http://miniprints.com for the shopping carts?  Look under Objects for the carts.

Bruce