Desert Dodge Do-Over, Part 5: Uplifting Christmas Thoughts

Test assembly after lifting. Nothing is glued together.

At the end of the last instalment I thought I'd move on to smoothing out the seams in the pickup box. I did a little putty work, but then thought, why avoid the next big job, just get on with it.

So I did.

The 'prototype' from Car Model magazine, Sept '72. To me the stance is hyperactive.

Lift it that is.

But not too much.

Even when I was 12 I thought the body sat too high above the wheels, so when I raised it I figured I wouldn't raise it as much as the one in the magazine.

Ok, so let's get going.

The box stock chassis before shortening

There are two steps:

1. Shorten the chassis because I shortened the pickup box.

2. Lift the chassis because we're goin' Baja!

First thing: cut out the gas tank. The 'prototype's' gas tank is in the pickup box.

MPC kits were my brand back in the '70s when I was obsessed with building plastic model car kits. I liked their subjects and the pieces always seemed to be clean, sharply moulded, and unwarped, all of which made for a good assembly experience. Revell kits, at least the ones I bought, were a crap-shoot. It was always 50:50 odds a kit's body would be horribly warped, or the parts would be blobby, or some other insult had been inflicted on the parts that would require superhuman modelling skills I didn't possess to properly fix the thing. It was heartbreaking as I didn't just like Revell's  subjects, I loved them, but they didn't always reciprocate. I built plenty of AMT too - I just saw a re-release of an old flame which likely will show up here next year - but there was something about their kits that never got a strong reaction out of me save for a rare few. 

There were a couple of Christmases where I received MPC kits as presents and was very happy. Christmas was the only time I had a stash! I might receive 2 or 3 kits and there it was: a 2 or 3 kit stash! Normally I would buy and build immediately. I never suffered from the embarrassment of excess kit build up in the basement region :-)

After much measuring and marking and soul searching,
the saw is drawn,
the cuts are made.
Shortness is obtained.

 
So, this Dodge is an MPC and a re-pop of more-or-less the kit I built in '72, less a few custom parts for the Baja Brute version. It's showing its age. There's considerable flash to clean up, and the chassis in the pickup box area is a little warped. These aren't big things and are easily corrected, but it's clear time has passed on these moulds. 

Reuniting the severed parts with soothing styrene glue and an impromptu jig

Shortening the chassis and lifting the body is not overly complicated stuff, but the old CM article is very misleading as it leaves these steps out and concentrates on what I'd call detailing. That is interesting stuff, but hardly the meat and potatoes of this build. Maybe the article was just filler to boost the page count to their minimum, or maybe the magazine was too long and they cut the mundane part of the project, or maybe they ran the article to promote a new kit, or something else? We'll never know.

Reunited and it looks so good: A bond to build a dream on.

On the way to this point in the build I was thinking about how a real vehicle of this sort would be constructed to accommodate a shorter box and lift. I knew mine wasn't quite right. I started to fret about it as a modern modeller would who is browbeaten by the unyielding scrutiny of digital cameras and the internet. But, I had done all this cutting and gluing and having fun and didn't care anymore. Worrying about reality was spoiling the fun of building.

I decided just to proceed based on what looked interesting to me. I'd add greeblies and details and paint as I felt necessary get the look I'm after. I'd check for real life practices if that became a concern, but I wasn't going to let that dominate the project. 

It was a breakthrough of sorts.

Reconstruction begins: A piece of 0.040" thick styrene is rough cut to fill the gas tank hole.

And that I realized was the hidden message from 1972.

Back then I got pleasure from these projects when I tried hard to make them as 'realistic' as possible. Getting pleasure in that manner isn't what I'm after these days. There's so much prototype information readily available today it makes kit assembly seem merely like the final stages in an industrial process to assemble the kit in accordance with all that information. Well, at least it seems that way for me. These days I want them to look as interesting to me as possible. What 'interesting' means is going to vary from one project to the next. 

0.250" tall styrene blocks were added between springs and chassis.
Prototypical? Nah.

As far as this Desert Dodge is concerned it was interesting just to slip into a flow state of mind and work on lifting the chassis without prototypical worries.

Interesting? Yeah!

Given the fun I'm having modifying this pickup I'm thinking of doing the long delayed custom RDC project.

Athern HO scale RDC body shells

In 2024 when I was working on my Le Grand Défi entry I bought two Athern RDC body shells online. I thought I'd create shorter RDCs in Kitbashed-X style for use on a micro-layout I had in mind. Although I built the RDC-X, I got squeamish about cutting up 'good' shells and postponed indefinitely. I shouldn't have.

It doesn't hurt to check things twice, it works for Santa Claus.

Hopefully Kitbashed-X style will see a resurgence in 2026.

What's next for the Desert Dodge Do-Over? Your guess is as good as mine. Stay tuned!

A 'simple' colourization of a photo of E. L. Moore's Elizabeth Valley Railroad

Gemini's colourization of an EVRR photo after 4 or 5 prompts

I'm more and more intrigued with the idea of colourizing E. L. Moore's photos of his layouts and dioramas, especially his Elizabeth Valley Railroad. I wanted to do a little test, and decided to ask Gemini to colourize a fairly generic photo of the EVRR. The black-and-white photo below is the one I used:

I'm not going to show the various intermediate steps, but after receiving the initial colourization I asked Gemini to match the colours of the Red Eye Saloon, the Elizabeth Valley station, and the Rocky Ridge depot with the colours they actually were - Gemini had made some guesses.

What it did surprised me: as well as changing the colour on the Elizabeth Valley station and the Rocky Ridge depot Gemini also changed a few details on those buildings. If you look closely you'll see for yourself.

The lesson for me is I'm going to have to create a procedure to retain structural  details across prompts for colour changes. This is something I wasn't expecting, and it makes the colourization exercise somewhat more challenging.

An enhancement of the track plan for E. L. Moore's Elizabeth Valley Railroad

An enhancement created by Gemini of the photograph of the postcard track plan

Longtime readers may remember that from fall 2016 to spring 2017 there was a big hunt on here to figure out the track plan of E. L. Moore's Elizabeth Valley Railroad. It came to a conclusion when a generous reader sent me a photograph of one of the postcards Mr. Moore mailed to readers who wrote him asking about the EVRR track plan. He had a stack of postcards printed with the track plan on them. That's a photograph of one of the postcards shown below that the reader sent me.

A photograph of E. L. Moore's postcard track plan of his EVRR

Well, it's actually an enhancement of the image that was forwarded to me. I cleaned it up a bit to get a little better contrast. The labels aren't very clear, but the overall track plan is and ended much speculation. 

As I've been asking Gemini to do photo enhancements recently I wondered if it could clean up the track plan and read the labels on it. The lead photo to this post is what Gemini produced.

The track plan drawing is quite decent, but the labels are either dead wrong or gobbedygook. I know, and you know too, they're wrong because they don't correspond to what's at the various locations as seen in photographs of the layout.

However, I was intrigued that it put some writing that is supposed to be E. L. Moore's handwritten signature and the year 1948 in the bottom right corner. I don't see that in the original at all, and we've seen enough of Mr. Moore's signature to know the one in Gemini's image is fake; however, it was the year 1948 the caught my attention. From what we know it's conceivable he came up with the track plan in 1948, but I think he drew the postcard plan in the mid to late '50s to deal with requests. 

I started to wonder about Gemini's ability to decipher written text so I asked it to read E. L. Moore's handwritten note that appears on the back of the postcard. Here's the high resolution image I entered into Gemini for deciphering (so you can test your skills against its!):

Here's what it came up with:

This is my reading:

Here you are tho you may need a magnifying glass. Radius, elevation, wiring connections, sections all marked, if you can find em. 

Good luck, 

signed E L Moore

I think sections is more correct than signs because sections - meaning how the track has been divided into electrical blocks, or 'sections' in model railroading parlance - is more meaningful to model railroaders who are going to build this track plan. 

Regarding sections, I should review the markings in Gemini's plan that would indicate sections to a model railroader and see how they compare to my guesses about how the track was electrically divided into sections, or blocks.

I guess one lesson here is if a person can sort of read some blurry text it's likely that Gemini can also take a stab at it, but if a person just can't read it, it's unlikely Gemini can either. And, and this is a big and, without other knowledge brought to bear on Gemini's output, one must take that output with a considerably big grain of salt.

An E. L. Moore Christmas Photo

A Gemini colourization of this .....

If you were to say I'm becoming obsessed with colourizing old E. L. Moore photographs I'd have to agree. The old photo below has a Christmas vibe to it so I thought now was a good time to ask Gemini to colourize it.

.... E. L. Moore black-and-white photograph.

To me these colourizations, even though they are speculative, bring his work back to life. His old layouts and dioramas seem new and vital, not relics of the past. Attempting to make 'accurate' colourizations will be an interesting project for the new year.

Snow on E. L. Moore's EKRR

Gemini's colourization after a couple of prompts

It's been snowing like crazy here and it got me thinking I should try asking Gemini to colourize one of E. L. Moore's snow scenes. I thought the photo below Mr. Moore shot of his giant snowplow model was a suitable candidate.

The lead-in colour photo wasn't the first image Gemini produced. This one was:

Gemini's first attempt at colourizing the photo

I didn't ask it to colour the loco green and the plow red. I thought the green was an interesting choice given it was E. L. Moore's favourite colour. This was likely just a coincidence, but it was an interesting one. I had to ask Gemini in a second prompt for black.

Snow must be a rare occurrence for those fellows digging out the train given how lightly dressed they are.

Desert Dodge Do-Over, Part 4: A Big Mistake

The shortened pickup box before filling and sanding the joint into shape.

At the end of the last instalment I was off to the hobby shop to buy a new razor saw blade to replace my old, dull one.

With blade installed I then began to merrily cut out 1 inch from the box's wheel wells to the back wall as called for in the article. I was enthralled by the ease at which the new blade cut through the plastic.

1" wide masking tape was used to mark where to cut

Well, I was until I realized what I had done.

It was obvious I had cut way too much out of the box when I compared my model to the photo in the magazine. I think the magazine's instruction should have said to cut out 'one half' inch, not 'one' inch, regardless I should have studied the magazine's photos a lot more before I started.

Ooo, that's a nasty gash on the joint. Hopefully with some filler it'll buff out :-)

Back in '72 this type of blunder would have thrown me into a funk, or tantrum, or maybe even an existential crisis :-) But not now, no. Ok, I wasn't so happy about what I had done, but I look upon this as a serendipitous customizing opportunity, not the end of the world. This project is now more than just a walk down memory lane, but something like tripping on a stone in that lane that puts me on a new and interesting path.

Next I'm going to work on smoothing out the joint in the walls of the new box. I think the article writer might have skipped this part as there's a big Plymouth Duster decal over the joint on his model. Sneaky guy.

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In recognition of '72 being long gone, I'll leave you with Moe Berg and The Pursuit of Happiness:

Colourized old-time water tank scene on E. L. Moore's EKRR

Colourized photo created by Gemini

A reader's comment on the last colourized E. L. Moore photo I posted got me thinking about colourizing more photos. I thought the water tank scene on the EKRR might make an interesting colour photo and I think I was right.

E. L. Moore's photo of his old-time water tank diorama

These exercises in colourization have got me thinking. It should be possible to take the information we have in colour photos of Mr. Moore's models, along with paint colour specifications he gave in his articles and knowledge of railroad colour conventions and create speculative colour images with AI tools of what his layouts may have looked like. I emphasize 'speculative' because we may never know what his layout actually looked like in colour, but we maybe able to develop an approximation. I might undertake this project next year.

Such an exercise might also be useful in discovering previously overlooked details in his photos. When I saw this post's colour photo the little building on the left jumped out at me, likely because of the red / green contrast. There's a sign on that building, but I couldn't read it so I asked Gemini to have a go. It proposed 'M of W', but its reasoning seemed all guess work to me. We had a further discussion about the sign, but it went off on a tangent about railroad signs and naming conventions. Frankly, it couldn't read the sign and didn't want to admit it. Regardless, colour makes image details more readily apparent that weren't so in the original. There might be discoveries to be made.

Finally, you may want to compare Gemini's colour water-tank to the model of built by David Fugere that I posted about last year. It just emphasizes that Gemini's interpretation is just that, one interpretation among many.

Just in time for Christmas

The Mt. Lowe layout emerges from the workshop for a Christmas appearance. Here's what it looked like around this time last year.

Desert Dodge Do-Over, Part 3: Relics

Leftovers from the '72 project.

I was going to modify the pickup box after I had done removing the cab's roof, but during that bit of plastic surgery I found my so-called razor saw was so dull it couldn't cut through warm butter on a hot day. 

The article says an inch needs to be removed from the box in front of the wheel well.

Well, the blade is quite old now and I need to buy a new, sharp one because cutting an inch out of the box from between the wheel well and the box's wall is something of a precision job. This is a task the article doesn't show the reader how to do, but just assumes one knows how.

So, instead I had a look through my bag of parts leftover from my '72 build to assess what I had on hand. Not much survived, but I'll make use of what I've got.

I got curious and went looking on eBay for either old Baja-Brute kits or parts. I didn't find any kits, but I did find a few sellers offering miscellaneous parts for eye watering prices. I'll take a pass on them and go with what I have.

The other thing I did was check scalemates for the MPC Baja-Brute. The timeline shown there confirms the lineage from the Brute to the base kit I'm using for this project. Here's a snippet:

To check further I test fit the tailgate from the old model into the box from the new one:

A perfect fit! I'm not going the repaint the tailgate, just leave it as is, maybe colour the Dodge logo with some chrome paint so it stands out. So, the paint job on this model will be a bit of a hodgepodge, but I want to preserve this relic as-is as a reminder. The other relics will be fixed up and repainted, but not this one.

Today, I gotta go buy a saw!

Colour brings life to the Spumoni Country Estate

Image colourized by Gemini's Nano Banana Pro

When I logged into Gemini recently it kept informing me it was now using Nano Banana Pro for image processing. I decided to try it and asked it to colourize the E. L. Moore photo shown below of the Spumoni Country Estate that made an appearance in the July 1955 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.

An E. L. Moore original photo of the Spumoni's Country Estate

Needless to say maybe, but I'm quite impressed by Gemini's image. If Mr. Moore's layout was even close in colour to that image the layout must have been more captivating than I've previously imagined.

Your Brain Changes When You Make Things - Here's the Research

I'll tell you straight away that this video isn't directly about model railroading or model making of any kind, but it's indeed all about model making :-) If you're a scratchbuilder, kit assembler, model customizer, or any sort of model maker you should watch this video. And if you're not? You especially should watch it.

One last thing. Even though my last name is of English origin I have Scottish DNA in me, which maybe is the reason I particularly appreciate her low-key, no-nonsense commentary later in the video.