Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
The roof is propped on top of the walls. I am beginning the short side walls now. As you can see, I’ve made a piece of track for the car to be displayed on. I decided to go with painting Studio Lascaux “anthracite” since subway tracks are generally very dark in appearance. I also decided to not add ballast as the subway tracks in NYC rarely have ballast. The track is 12 inches long, thus it extends a little beyond the photo on each side. The track is made of a bottom piece of 1/8″ thick balsa wood, which has a 1/8″ thick piece of cork laminated onto it. There is a second piece of cork underneath the track ties. The track ties are walnut. And the track is size code 70. The subway has small track, so code 70 seemed appropriate.
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
I got the seats finished and glued into place. I also glued the long side walls into place. They warped a little, but I have a plan for solving that problem. So, next I will make the short end walls. I will make the same way as the long side walls despite the difficulties with the glue not sticking to the styrene very well. I may try some other glues to remedy that - though it’s not a crisis - the mullions stayed put during the handling necessary to glue the walls into position.
I also mixed a new batch of “traction red” paint - the color that I used on the exterior siding. I had run out. Now I’ve probably got enough that I will have leftover paint.
Below is a picture of the car with the roof sitting balanced on top of the long side walls, just to get an idea of how the car will look when finished.
Saturday, November 10th, 2007
My apologies for the week break. I’m back to work once again.
Today I worked on making the window mullions for the exterior of the long sides for the gate car. I have a few more pieces still remaining. These are made using the basswood Midwest scale lumber and painting them to match the rest of the wood exterior. I am gluing the wood pieces directly to the clear styrene that is the windows using wood carpenter’s glue. This is probably not the best glue, but it works as long as no tension is applied to the glue joint. You can see in the photo that one mullion has been knocked loose and is lying at an angle waiting to be re-glued.
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
I added the remaining seats. They still need the back cushions and then they will be painted. They also have end trim pieces. They all came out a little different on the shaping of the seat cushion - sort of as if they had been in real use (and abuse) by real NYC’ers! I think the seats give the car a little sense of scale. They appear to fit nicely.
This Saturday is the sub-regional NMRA train show. I will be taking the gravel car and the cement silo car for judging. I will also be giving a clinic. So I have been busy getting paperwork done for the cars, and finishing prepping for my lecture. I’ve almost got everything ready, just a few more items to do. I’m excited to be giving a clinic, but at the same time, it’s a little stressful. I will be talking about my painting techniques.