Appalachian Southern

This morning,  I completed a scratch build of Sinclair Station from the original build article at N Scale Limited. This was my first scratch build attempt and the final results are quite pleasing. I hope to do more scratch building in the future and improve my skills even more. In order to provide some insight, here are the final steps that were followed to complete the build.

Clear laser printer decal paper was used to print the Sinclair Station decal on an HP Color Laser Jet. After printing several copies of the decal on one sheet of clear laser decal paper,  a small brush was used to coat the decals with MicroScale Liquid Decal Film. Once the first coat was dry, a liberal second coat was applied. Once the second coat dries, the decal can be cut and immersed in water in preparation for application to the model.

Just prior to placing the decal on the structure, I brushed MicroScale Micro Sol onto the painted surface of the structure. I slid the decal into place on the structure, positioning it with your finger as needed. Once the decal is in the proper position, a small brush was used once again to apply Micro Sol over the top of the decal, being careful not to displace or move it. Once the Micro Sol dries in about ten minutes, you can move on to the final steps of weathering the sign / decal and the model in general.

The weathering techniques consisted of the india ink / alchohol solution procedure detailed on N Scale Limited, and several applications of Bar Mills weathering chalk.

Building this structure was enjoyable and rewarding.  I appreciate the work Chris Brimley did to detail its construction.  Without his excellent article, I would have never discovered the joy of scratch building my own structure. It has opened a whole new area of interest in my model railroading activities. Thank you.

How about something for free? If you would like one of the decals I had left over from my printing, please send me your mailing address and I will drop one in the mail for you.

Sinclair Station

Sinclair Station

Sinclair Station

Sinclair Station

Today I spent several hours taking a physical inventory of all of the rolling stock I have for the Appalachian Southern. It was a long boring process to write it all down and then to key it all into a spreadsheet, but it was certainly worth the effort. It gets difficult at times to remember what I have purchased in the past, so the spreadsheet will be very handy when preparing a new order or searching EBay for missing road numbers. It is quite simple to add new purchases as they arrive.

After my data was safe and secure in a Google Docs spreadsheet, I imported the data and created a new page detailing the motive power and rolling stock. You can find the link at the top right of each page entitled ‘rolling stock‘. The neat thing about this page is that you can click on the headings to sort the listings. Pretty cool for a couple of hours work. Have a great Tuesday.

Here is what I have done so far with my  first scratch building effort. I don’t have any weathering done yet, just a little painting. I realized today that I needed decal printing stock, so I ordered that. I also need to pick up some India Ink so I can do some weathering. With a little touch up painting here and there, I think the results are great for my first attempt. I actually built the building twice to improve on some mistakes I made earlier with the first version.  The original build article, with instructions, can be found here at N Scale Limited.

Sinclair Station Version 2

Sinclair Station Version 2

Sinclair Station Version 2

Sinclair Station Version 2

Here are a couple of pictures of my first scratch building project. It is exciting to see it come together from a few small pieces of styrene.   I actually just put the roof on and now I have to get ready to do some initial painting on the trim and construct the front doors.  The original article on this project appeared here at N Scale Limited, as built by Chris Brimley.

Scratch Building Sinclair Station

Scratch Building Sinclair Station

Looking Good!

Here is a photo of how the finished project should appear. Below is a photo of the finished version of Chris Brimley’s original build.

Sinclair Station as Built By Chris Brimley of N Scale Limited

Today I am working on scratch building my very first structure. Thanks to Chris Brimley at N Scale Limited for the encouragement to start. His article, Scratch Building Sinclair Station, is the guide I am using for this project. It is a welcome reprieve from laying track for the past week.

In the article, Chris is kind enough to provide a shopping list of all the Evergreen styrene products you will need along with a few other miscellaneous parts to complete the build. I ended up ordering the styrene and windows from Chuck at Feather River and the metal siding directly from the manufacturer. All the materials arrived in short order, and here I am building away.

Chris also supplied scale AutoCad drawings in JPEG format on his website for the structure. My calculator is getting a workout doing the n scale factor conversion.  The elevation drawings help remove the guesswork when selecting the appropriate styrene sizes. The door assemblies on the front of the structure will provide the biggest challenge for this project and will take the longest amount of time to complete.

I am looking forward to getting to the point where I can being applying some paint. I am going to try to do all the painting with my airbrush, including the weathering.  The vented paint booth I installed about a month needs its first workout. It will be nice not to have over spray settling all over everything in the room.

I don’t really have any pictures to show at this point as the final assembly has not commenced. Right now all the parts are just flat pieces of styrene with window openings.

Being that is Friday, I thought I would start my own version of the weekend roll-by. Not that I have a whole lot rolling yet, but here goes. This will just give me an opportunity to play around and take some fun pictures.

Misc Photos

Misc Photos

Valium is completely overrated… I was looking forward to the calming effects it was supposed to have. It is funny how Benadryl can knock me on my butt, but Valium does nothing….  With a sore mouth,  I spent the morning gluing track and inserting filler cross ties at my track joints. The scene is improving every day. Unless my plans change for some reason, tomorrow will be tortoise switch machines and DCC installation day.

Filler Cross Ties Improve the Looks of Things

Today is not a good day. This afternoon, I have to go have  endodontic therapy performed on my rear upper tooth.  I  have never really had any dental problems to speak of except for this one tooth. It has always been a problem. First a crown and now this. The pinnacle of dental fear for me and most others according the the wiki page.  I don’t get scared about too much, but this has me frazzled.   It would have likely been better off  had I not looked at the wiki page and viewed all of the detailed pictures of the procedure.  I have a Valium waiting for me at 2:00pm and the procedure is at 3:00pm.  One of the guys from the office is going to be driving me there and back so that my fellow drivers will be safe.  My wife is working today and tomorrow which means she won’t be home until Friday night. Hence, I am left to fend for myself and no one is going to be here to listen to me complain. I guess I will have to have my own pity party.

My Mom just called to check on me. She said that they were headed out of town to Savannah, GA. They are going to attend a reunion for my Dad and all of his buddies from Vietnam. They get together every two years. Oh well, I am on my own for this one.

So, until I recover from this, here are a couple of shots from the layout. This end of the staging yard is almost done now. On to the far end.

Turnouts Complete in Staging

Alternate Angle

With a little time to work on the layout this morning, I made all the progress that I could, but I am still short two right hand turnouts. I will need to start building these now to make further progress. My experience with liquid nails is growing now and I can apply it a little more accurately and still hold the track securely.  I did a few checks with the long RC autoracks and they clear each other fine on the adjacent curves of the staging yard. It won’t be long and I will be able to wire up a few Tortoises and get the Digitrax system installed and functional. I can’t wait to run some trains in this ‘huge for me’ staging yard.

Staging Yard Progress Lower Level

Staging Yard Lower Level Alternate View

Happy Mother’s Day everyone. I hope you were able to spend some time with your mother. My mother just arrived so I am finishing up here for our dinner tonight.  Here is a progress photo from today. I am pleased with the progress.

Working on the Yard with #7 Turnouts