More rambling

New title picture

 Circles

 Green T

 Yeah, my shorts match the loco, but I can't sit here like this all day.

 Hi Mom

 Getting ready for rush hour

 Late night at Archie's

 Last car from the Bookery

 Leavin' town

 Blue Jays

This is what happens when you leave guests unattended at a Silver Spike party

Along the boardwalk

HO scale Bluesmobile

The only model building project I worked on in December was this re-decoration of Busch's HO-scale '70s Dodge Monaco into Jake and Elwood's Blues-mobile. It was easy and could be worked on a few minutes at a time. It isn't an exact replica, but it seems to capture the spirit of the original.

The car is easy to pry apart. Not shown in the above photo is the clear plastic insert for the windows, and a sprue of side-mirrors that is packed with the car. The chromed parts were soaked in SuperClean to strip them back to the unfinished plastic. The body was washed in soap and water before painting.

The car was brush painted with thin flat black and white acrylics using photos found on the internet for reference.  Grills, bumpers and trim were painted with a loose mixture of flat aluminum and black paint. Before re-assembling the parts after painting, everything was washed with loose mixes of gray, brown and black to dirty things up. I was lucky and found a pair of small star decals in my stash for the doors. Also, some thin strips of styrene were cut and fitted to the front bumper to represent push bars.

Rambling back into the New Year

It's hard to believe 2012 is over, but here it is, 2013. Today the train board goes back to the basement. While it was in the living room a lot of streetcars and trains were run. Over the entire month of December the fleet probably saw more operation than at any other time since it was assembled. I certainly learned a lot in amongst the fun and frivolity, and hopefully I'll post about it this month.

I also got an appreciation for layout lighting, or the lack thereof in my case. It was glaringly apparent that I need interior lighting in the buildings, signs, and any other key lighting to tell the layout's story. What little there was, both in the scenery and the rolling stock, was striking in the right conditions. I hope to learn more about LEDs and lights and such things in this new year.

 And the buildings need some details to help bring them to life. 

 Darkness settles on the city

 "Dudes, check out this bad boy!"

SUV: Streetcar Utility Vehicle

Year end wrap-up

This’ll be the last post of the year. Looking back, I’m rather surprised at this year’s projects and posts. I start each year with big plans to do certain things hobby-wise, but as the months roll on, many of those get abandoned and replaced by new ones that I hadn’t thought of earlier and seem more interesting than my previous plans. Same thing again this year. I have lots of ideas for new projects, but how things will roll-out is anyone’s guess :-)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

 Purple haze

 Night at the Bookery

 Stella's stop

 Long walk

 Waiting at the library

 if (FORTRAN) then Stop

 "Just chill"

1 am at Grille's

"Baby it's you"

Sounds good from the parking lot

Next year I'm gettin' a power-mower

Overtime

Sunny day

Day at the beach

Midday freight train

Planning for next year

Reassembled layout

I rather like the above view of the layout after all the buildings and scenery have been re-installed. This view emphasizes that the layout is completely flat - that was done on purpose to maximize the possibilities for installing buildings.
Below is a video of a test run of the Bachmann Birney. It runs quite well since it went through the cleaning and adjustment earlier in the year.

I was fiddling with lighting and saw these interesting shadows. I had to snap a picture. I'm not completely happy with the final image, but it seems to suggest other pictures that could be taken.