Vintage Birney

I took a lot of photos of the layout when it was upstairs for the Christmas holidays. Some of them I've posted here, others, like this one, were merely tests of ideas - some had no backgrounds, others didn't work out as planned. I've been fiddling with those photos from time-to-time. This is one that didn't work out too well, but when I applied the 'vintage' colouring feature to it in iPhoto, I rather liked the result even though it doesn't have a proper background. I'm looking forward to the summer when I can move the layout outside for a few days to take photos in natural sunlight. Until then I make do with trying to stage what I can in the low winter sun that comes through the windows.

Bachmann Birney Blues

Early last December I bought one of Bachmann’s Birney trolleys, and it got its first run at the 2011 Christmas Rusty Spike party. It was a bit of a disappointment because it didn’t run well, and considering what it cost, I was expecting at least the basic function of running around the track without constantly stopping to work just fine. I had cleaned the track, and my other locos were running ok, so the signs pointed to the Birney.

[These are the wheels after I had done an initial stripping in December and run the Birney for many loops on the layout. I was a little too enthusiastic with the gear oil, so they got a bit gloppy and picked up gunk during the course of operating. So, this is what the wheels looked like prior to another round of cleaning last weekend.]

Yeap, the store where I bought it did run it up and down its test track, but I should have paid more attention that it had to be given a little nudge to get it going.

Long story short, it was only picking up power from one pair of wheels, and it looked like all the wheels had been completely coated with paint in the factory: fronts, which is ok; backs, where the pickups touch the wheels to draw power; and treads, the wheel surfaces that contact the rails. Basically, not much power was getting to the motor because paint was insulating the flow. After the Rusty Spike event I lightly sanded the wheel backs and treads, and oiled the gears a bit. This fixed things somewhat. I also found that the instructions recommended - on a back page - running the model for several loops at moderate speed to break it in, which I did. Frankly, although it was much better, it still seemed to run rather erratically compared to my other locos.

[The Birney also had a couple of minor aesthetic issues. One was the cords to the overhead pickups. You can see there is untrimmed thread which looks a little unsightly. Also, the opening picture shows the thread to be so stiff that it twists in such away to not obey the laws of gravity. Actually I should replace both the stock threads with something that droops properly - that's for next time, this go round I just trimmed off the excess at each end.]

Erratically enough that I didn’t feel it warranted - even after what I feel was unusual maintenance work on a brand-new loco - lifting my C grade on it. You know, I’ve had lots of good experiences with Bachmann locos. The two CN diesels, that I still own, that were given to me as presents 40 years ago, still run fairly well, and my current 70 ton and 45 ton HO Bachmann diesels run very well (I rank those two as solid Bs, not because they have any problems, but simply because they are solid performers and have an average level of detail, no flaws per se, simply that they don’t have something special to push them to an A grade). I was rather disappointed. For comparison, the Con-Car PCC TTC streetcar I bought last spring is an A. Clean and precise detail, combined with excellent operational performance. Debra listened a lot to my whining about its cost, but at least it’s an excellent product.

[As well, those slat panels running along the lower half of the windows were warped on both ends, and they wouldn't snap into the corresponding window holes. I carefully used small dabs of glue to flatten them out and hold them in place.]

I finally decided to remove the Birney’s wheels again, soak them in SuperClean over night to try and strip more paint from them, and sand them a little more, because I was still bothered that it didn’t run properly. I also fiddled with the power pickups a little to make sure they all contacted the wheel backs. All this seemed to have done the trick. After re-assembling the power truck, and applying a dab of oil to the gears, the Birney ran smoothly and picked up power from both wheel sets. Now I’d give it a B.

Stella’s Used Record Store & Starlight Yoga Studio: Demolition and Renovation

[I temporarily tilted up the ‘glass’ walls for this shot to see how things looked. One wall was a little too tall and had to be cut down to size.]

I started assembling the Design Preservation corner building kit several years ago, but lost interest midway during construction and went on to other projects. It’s sat in a forlorn, semi-finished state in various locations in the workshop ever since. I eventually realized the problem I had was with the second story. I didn’t like it. It seemed too old, but the ground floor was quite interesting. I’ve been thinking for a long time about cutting the second floor off, and adding a more modern glass-and-steel upper level as a replacement to create a hybrid old and slightly newer building. I finally decided to give it a try. These days I’ve got a lot of ideas for various projects kicking around in my mind – good thing they’re not wearing cowboy boots! – and I figured that if I took my usual plodding approach to building one project after another in serial fashion, I’d barely see any of them realized. So, I thought I’d just make a start on any project that was interesting whenever the mood struck me, and I’d work on any project on the bench that seemed fun to do. This might be wasteful because something(s) is (are) likely never to get finished, but maybe that’s better than never starting them at all and wondering how they might have turned out. Anyway, I thought I’d collect up some pictures of progress I’ve made on this one over the last few weeks.

[After: The second story was cut off using both a disk cutter in my dremel and a razor saw. After it was free, I leveled the top of the first floor walls with the dremel drum sander and sanding sticks.]

[The upper story walls cut from 1/16 inch clear acrylic sheet. This is tough stuff to cut. Basically, you need to score it with a special knife made for the job, and then snap it along the score. Easy to write, harder to do well and safely. I usually break or mangle the piece I’m trying to cut, but I vowed not to do that this time. The mistake I made in the past was to try and hold the piece steady with one hand and use the other to score it. Bad idea on both the accuracy and safety fronts. This time I clamped the piece onto my WorkMate with an aluminum straight edge running along the line to be scored. This makes scoring a deep, uniform line easy, and you can keep your other hand free and clear without running the risk of getting a nasty gash in the process.]

[Once the piece is scored, you can snap it by laying the scored section over a piece of ABS pipe and then smartly pushing down on either side of the line. Presto! A clean break! After I got the hang of the whole process, I was able to easily separate the pieces and get a clean edge at the break simply by snapping the piece with my hands.]

I think one great thing about a streetcar layout is that it allows for many sorts of buildings and locales since the route should service all kinds of places people might go to: homes, libraries, businesses, restaurants, factories, schools, stores, hotels, clubs, parks, ski hills, beaches and so on and so on. For the model builder I think it offers lots of opportunity to try building all sorts of stuff; both replicas and new things. With Stella’s, the first floor will be the used record store, and there will be 2 glass and steel floors above that one: one for the yoga studio, the other’s use is still to be determined.

[The inside surface of the first floor walls have many small indentations – I guess they are from the molding process. I filled them in so I’d get a clean surface to work with.]

[This is where Stella's might finally reside.]

That’s it for now. Here’s a little of the Bill Evans’ Trio to finish off the evening:

29 after the 29th

The winter has been a drag – I’m glad there’s only a few weeks left. This may sound funny, but although there’s 2 or 3 feet of snow covering the yards around here, it hasn’t been a particularly hard winter as winters go. But, I do feel like I’m in a mental funk. Cabin fever maybe. Last January I tried my hand at posting 30 times in 30 days over the course of the month to see if I could do it. The posts themselves varied in quality, but I did accomplish that modest goal. Looking back, one thing it did do was help give me a little boost for taking on creative tasks, so I thought I’d give it a try again. Since the 29th of February only occurs once every four years, so this seemed like an auspicious day to start. Hopefully I’ll post every day, or maybe every two or three, in March. Last year I did my posting marathon in this blog, this time I may split it between 30Squares and retroDynamics as I’ve been thinking about a number of projects that are better suited to that blog. I eagerly await any mental kick-starting I can get to happen 

I thought I’d start with John Ahern’s book, Miniature Building Construction, since it’s been sitting on my coffee table in front of the tv for a long time! Last spring I bought a copy after I’d read about Mr. Ahern’s Madder Valley model railroad in an article written by Chris Leigh in the December 2010 issue of Model Rail. He built it in the 1940s, and what made it unique was that it was one of the first, and best, examples of what became known as ‘scenic model railroads’. That is, a model railroad that has extensive, well-made, realistic scenery and trains, and mimics to some extent actual railroad operation – which is our de facto norm today. The article mentioned that Mr. Ahern was a pioneer in the design and construction of model buildings – he was the John Allen of England, or maybe John Allen was the John Ahern of the U.S  The article also stated that Mr. Ahern had written a book on the subject; that being the case, I knew I had to look for a copy. Luckily, through the magic of the internet, I found one.

The book’s front matter indicates it was first reprinted in 1950, and that my version is a 1956 reprint. Stickers and stamps inside my particular copy suggest that it was acquired by the Kansas City public library for its circulating collection in 1958, and was surplussed in 1991. I bought it via Alibris, and it’s still in very good condition.

It’s quite a interesting look at how to build 4mm or 7mm scale (HO scale is 3.5mm) model buildings with 1940s technology: primarily card and wood – essentially an elaboration on the techniques presented in my grandmother’s teacher’s manual training guide I wrote about a while ago. The old photos in the book, and the colour ones of the still operational (!) Madder Valley in the Model Rail article, attest to the fact that the results are anything but crude. Certainly today’s manufactured craftsman kits are far superior detail-wise, but the skill and charm of Mr. Ahern’s builds still come through even here in the 21th century – well, maybe that’s just my own bias coming through because I admire scratch built projects made from simple raw materials. Hopefully sometime this year I’ll be able to try my hand at one of his builds, or at least try his methods on a new build.

Russian train in watercolour

I stumbled across this 45 rpm record while looking for some old Christmas LPs at my father's house. I like the cover art: a rather striking watercolour painting of a stream train high above a bright winter scene populated with cross-country skiers. I think he bought this record one summer in the International Pavilion at the CNE in the late 60s or early 70s. From the pristine condition of the record, I don't think it had ever been played. I gave it a spin, but the music wasn't to my taste.

Big block rock

Sometimes when I take pictures for a post, ideas for other pictures come to mind based on those I’ve taken. They don’t all have model railroad content, but they often seem worth exploring to me just to see where they might go – they in turn could lead to something else that is even more interesting; but, maybe not immediately. These days I’m finding that I often think about what sort of photos will result from various modeling projects, and those considerations at times drive what gets built. There’s a back-and-forth between picture ideas and modeling ideas, so I’m thinking that from time to time I’ll try and post some of those derivative photos. This simple one came to mind after taking the final photo in the Moe Lass’ fireplace construction post - this rock has sat patiently on the floor of my study for years! The big rock wasn’t cut to that square, blocky shape – that’s the way I found it. It has an interesting shape, good colour and has a serious heft to it.

Moe Lass': Building the fireplace

According to Mr. Moore’s article, this building is sort of representative of a sorghum processing plant dating from the mid-1800s. A building like this might potentially survive into our end of the 21th century with fairly regular maintenance and a whole lot of extremely good luck - the building would be around 160 or 170 years old today! But, it probably wouldn’t still be used for the job it was originally built to serve.

[Basically, the fireplace is built up from several layers of 1/16 inch balsa sheet.]

I struggled for awhile with this one’s story of how it could still be around, and what it might be used for these days. In the end, its massive fireplace was the key: barbecue. With a strategic site on the Lost Ocean Line it could easily be imagined to serve mouth-watering ribs, brisket, chops, chicken, duck, or whatever, to an appreciative clientele from both the industries in the east, the city in the west, and the tourist attracting beach in the centre. The primal call of barbecue is one that can’t be ignored! The aroma wafting through the countryside would no doubt be the only advertisement required. It’ll probably need its own streetcar stop to handle the customer traffic 

[The outside face of the fireplace has two semi-circular openings at ground level for creating the fire. The barbecue operation will need someone to sit back here to keep the fire going.]

I built the overall shape of the fireplace fairly close to Mr. Moore’s instructions, but I did modify the interior hearth to allow for barbecuing, so I didn’t incorporate a place for the sorghum vats. These would have been removed and lost to history during the ongoing refitting of the building over its long life.

[The hearth is so high off the floor because there is a 3-foot tall platform that covers half the floor. So, there'll be an elevated cooking area and lower area for customers.]

Mr. Moore describes a technique for weathering the Northeastern brick walls with tempera paints. Instead of following his suggestions, I decided to age things a bit using pastels since I wasn’t sure if the water-based tempera applied to the paper and balsa laminated walls would warp them a lot. The overall effect of the dry pastels is subtle, but it does tone down the shininess of the brick paper a bit.

[Those super family-sized cans of baked beans on the shelves are made from styrene tubing cut to size and filled with putty.]

I also rubbed down the edges of the brick paper with a soft lead pencil to get rid of the white edge. It sort of gives the building the look of something that’s been drawn with a pencil and then filled in with colour, but that’s ok with me. Some more general weathering is probably on the horizon for this building, but I’m going to ease into it.

El Camino Municipal Swimming Pool – 3 easy pieces

I finally had some time to work on the pool. After being left to dry for about a week or so after painting, I went ahead and added some chrome to the body and an initial row of concrete blocks - a Micro Mark brick paper - to the bottom. The 'Pool' sign was drafted out on my computer and printed on a piece of photo paper. A dab of rubber cement was used to bond it to the sign board. Now with the basic pieces in place I'm moving on to detailing.

El Camino Municipal Swimming Pool – Basic painting

The temperature popped up to around 0 a few days ago, so I used the opportunity to do some quick spray painting outside on a few projects I have on the go. Zero Celsius is far from ideal spray painting conditions – most spray can instructions say not to paint below around 10 degrees or so – but I got some satisfactory results, so in the end things worked out.

Basically, what I did was get everything ready to go in the basement, then went outside for just a few minutes to spray the paint, I then left the painted piece to outgas a bit in the garage, where is wasn’t quite as cold as outside, and then finally brought the piece back inside for proper drying. I don’t know if this would work on pieces that need smooth painted surfaces like automobile bodies due to the different temperatures of the air, paint, spray can, the piece being painted and so on, but for the buildings I’m working on, it was ok.

[Those holes in the pickup box are for future LEDs to light-up the water. I'll add some clear plastic inserts behind them to keep the 'water' from leaking out.]

I first base coated the body with a uniform application of a deep, ultramarine blue. Once dry, I then dusted it with a spray of turquoise. The turquoise is applied until the overall colour of the piece shifts from deep blue to turquoise, but allowing the deep blue base to still be seen as mingling in from below. It takes a little practice to get the mix just right, but holding the can of turquoise a few inches farther from the piece than you normally would helps. When that was dry, the roof was sprayed white – again just enough to shift the overall appearance to white without obliterating the blues below. Well, that was the plan; I wasn’t so lucky on this step and accidentally completely coated the roof in white paint with a single pass of the spray, so when it was dry, I went back and dusted it again with turquoise to restore the look I was after. I was rather happy with the end result of all this spraying and I’m thinking of buying another one of these kits and building the car straight from the box, but spray painting it in this style.

Once I’ve added a few details to the body, I think it’ll be ready to be attached to its base for final assembly.

Moe Lass': Applying brick paper

[The walls have been temporarily tilted up to see how things look before aging and adding the fireplace.]

I covered the balsa walls with MicroMark brick paper – specifically with their ‘aged brick’ product. I’m not a paid shill for that company, but I am rather partial to their line of brick papers. The detailing and colour are quite good, and I like the adhesive backing.

Looking at the photos in Mr. Moore’s article it looks like the Northeastern brick material he used only has the brick pattern on one side, and the other, the interior side in this project, is simply an un-patterned wood. I decided to brick both sides since that seemed more appropriate for this sort of backwoods building.

I think the most important tip to working with brick paper I can give is to always have a sharp blade in your knife when making cuts. At the slightest sign of tearing, or drag on the blade, change it for a sharp new one. This does use up blades – I think I used maybe 5 or 6 all told for balsa and brick paper cutting so far – but it’s probably the single most important technique to helping get the cleanest and most accurate build at this stage. You don’t necessary need to discard those slightly dulled blades, just set them aside for other tasks like working with styrene.

One other tip I should note is that I use a thin application of thick super glue on the balsa edges when I’m applying 1/16 inch strips of brick paper to cover them. I’ve found that the brick paper’s adhesive sometimes isn’t enough to hold these thin strips in place on the often uneven and rough balsa end-cuts. When covering large, flat expanses of wall, the paper’s own adhesive backing is sufficient and doesn’t need anything extra to hold it in place.